2023 trade packages #19 and 20: It's Like Having My Own Card Shop and Cardboard Collections

It's been a busy few weeks for me card-wise. I think I mentioned the garage sale I hit up not too long ago, plus there was my usual monthly show. I scored another fun small collection via Facebook a couple Fridays ago, then headed out to the western part of the state this past weekend to meet up with Jeff and his cousin Sluggo along with John (more on that in a future post) for another show. Oh, and between all of that I also made a few more TCDb and blogger trades and eBay buys. I've got cards that need to be posted coming out of my ears!

So let's try to start catching up a little by covering a couple more blogger trades this evening. First up is Daniel of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop. Waaay back in July he sent me a nice envelope of mostly Tigers that I really appreciated:

What better parallel could there be for Tigers cards but orange? Pretty much everything here is a parallel in some way, shape, or form, which is pretty cool, even if there's only one current (and soon-to-be-former!) Tiger. The low numbering on Garcia's Refractor is very impressive but my favorite card here has to be Mr. Tiger's Stadium Club Chrome Refractor. It doesn't show up in the scan but it looks beautiful in hand. Maddux was the lone non-Tiger today but I always appreciate getting new stuff of him.

Most of what's left here is also of the parallel or insert variety. Mazara's stint was short (thankfully) but the younger Meadows is an intriguing prospect, though it's hard to say if he'll get to appear in a game with his brother, who hopefully gets some help with his various issues. Verlander's always been a lights out kind of pitcher and I'm thankful I got to see him in person a number of times with the Tigers. And lastly there was a surprise autograph of former prospect Ronnie Bourquin. Detroit took him in the 2nd round of the '06 draft out of Ohio State (no wonder he never amounted to anything!) and he never rose above the AA level before spending a few years in indy ball. He at least had a nice signature as seen on the Bowman Sterling card above, though.

Daniel, thank you again for an excellent envelope of my Motown baseballers (plus Maddux!), I appreciate it, even if it took way longer than it should have to show these off.

Not too long after the cards above hit my mailbox I got a nice little PWE from Colbey, the man whose wheels are fly like the honeys, and who blogs oat Cardboard Collections. For the second time this year he sent me some fodder for my Michigan Football PC:

Yeah, I guess if Colbey's gonna be familiar with any Michigan alumni it would be one who played for his favorite NFL team. On the back of his business card I included above he expressed hope that I needed this 1997 Fleer Goudey mini of Buckeye-killer RB Tim Biakabutuka, who played 50 games for Colbey's Panthers. Good news: I did indeed need it! That's not bad since I'm getting pretty close to 250 cards of Touchdown Tim.

And here's the back for completeness because it's the least I can do when I only have to scan one card!

Thanks to you as well for thinking of my and my favorite team to collect, Colbey! I may be hitting you back at least once before it's time to send Christmas cards.

Readers, please stay tuned for more as I try to dig out of this pile of stuff to post that I keep allowing to grow. I'll likely prioritize blogger trades for a bit more until I'm caught up on them.

2023 eBay purchases: three Tigers and a Wolverine

I haven't felt like blogging much lately but I still have a lot to show off, so I decided I'd compromise and kind of half-ass it. Here's a quartet of cards I bought in May, July, and August:

First up is my second autograph of rising Tigers star Riley Greene. I previously received a nice minors auto of Greene from everyone's favorite Dollar Store customer, but I decided I wanted one of him in a Tigers uni, ideally before he really blew up. Mission completed with this 2020 Bowman's Best auto that mimics the design of the Franchise Favorites insert 20 years prior. The signature is on-card, the card itself is numbered /200, and it's got that trademark Refractor shine, so I was really happy with this purchase, which set me back a reasonable $35 delivered way back in May. Riley's since gone on a tear but may be out for the remainder of the year after hurting his elbow on an amazing diving catch.

Next, I got a bit antsy about picking up a nice Detroit uni signature of a potential future star, Colt Keith. Keith was Detroit's final pick (round 5) of the drastically reduced 2020 draft that featured Spencer Torkelson joining the team at #1 overall. A HS 3B, he's since torn it up in the minors, and it would be fantastic to see him join the small group of homegrown bats the team has recently developed and hasn't yet traded for peanuts (cough cough Isaac Paredes cough).

I'm not generally the prospecting type but considering some of the hype he's been getting this season, I decided not to wait until a potential 2024 promotion to land his signature. That came in the form of the '21 Topps Pro Debut auto you see above. Back in July that cost me a bit more than $31 shipped and the seller was nice enough to include a Bowman Draft base with it.

Here are the backs for those interested.

A few days later a bunch of auctions being run by one seller (who offered a nice combined shipping rate) were ending, and I snagged an excellent group of cards targeted for trades, one of which hasn't been sent off just yet (soon!). My lone keeper was this 2011 GQ Mini Framed Cyan plate of one of my favorite former Tigers, Austin Jackson. As always, GQ is not a product I remotely care about but framed cards generally get my approval, and that this is a plate (my first of the OF) is a big plus. I believe each auction I won finished at the starting bid of $4.50 or $5, and the total shipping was about the same, so in the end I really only paid around $6 for this, a definite steal!

My most recent win came in mid-August when I spied this 2016 Bowman Chrome Draft yellow plate of former UM pitcher Brett Adcock for about $8.50. A three-year Wolverine, he was taken by Houston in the 4th round in 2016, though it appears he was away from affiliated ball in 2020, spent 2021-22 in indy ball, and hasn't pitched this year.

Still, he's been part of my collection for a while, and Jeff's as well, which I'm aware of because I first found out about Brett's cards via an MSO post. Also, Jeff covered his recent birthday, August 28th. This is my 12th card of his and first "hit" of any kind. Aside from five minors issues in 2016-19, he's got 26 2016 Bowman/Chrome Draft cards to chase, and those that I'm lacking are numbered /150, /25 (x2), /5 (x2), and /1 (x9). That means I'm about one card away from having a hard time getting anything new of his.

Now that I can put these away I think I'll get back to some trade recaps before reporting on this past Friday's show.

TCDb roundup: 15 trades and a purchase

Here's something I've been wanting to get to for a while! I crossed the 100-transaction threshold on TCDb earlier this year and now I'll be showing off some of those deals that led to that very milestone. It looks like I've completed (or at least received my end of) 24 trades and one purchase going back to February of this year. I covered some of those with my summary of cards I received from Dan (vrooomed) (who, by the way, just sent me another PWE), and I have more from some of my closest buds on the site, but tonight I'm recapping 16 transactions that have been sitting on my desk for way too long.

There's LOTS of cards and 16 deals is a lot to cover so I'll likely be fairly sparse in my wording this evening. Instead, enjoy the fruits of my trading labor in image form:

Arkansas Traveler

One of my most recent deals, I landed a few other cards here heading for trade packages. Granderson, Jackson, and Morris are all numbered. Larkin is a Black Foil parallel. And the Sosas go toward set builds for '95 Finest and what I believe would be a third set of Series 2 Bronze cards from '96.

The top three here are all numbered and LeSueur is an uncirculated Refractor. Breaston reaches 35 hits with a sweet auto. And I added my first Gallon letterman card.

bsoman:

A few fun PC adds and more from the '07 Ultra Iron Man set! Looks like I'm at 20/50 on those.

CardFlipper1974:

This was a big one, something like 38 cards for 33, and I got some real gems including some of my first '23 Donruss cards. Love that Career Stat Line of Kaline (399 HR) and the Griffeys look outstanding.

Tram's '23 Donruss looks excellent too, and I may have to see what else to throw on my wantlist from the product. Fryman's '95 Topps-looking card is actually a pre-production issue. Bagwell was more help towards an extra '96 Finest II Bronze set. And the Post Ripken looks like this on the flipside:

Pretty sure dude's about to be tagged out!

Some nice horizontals. I don't get to add many new Henson cards these days.

And some cool football items to finish this one out, with a hint of vintage thrown in along with some college uni shots.

CrazieJoe:

I knocked off five of my '94 Finest wants here and added a trio of other cards from the era, two of which were also Finest! 12 cards stand between me and a complete set of the second year of Finest.

deadhead11:

This member wanted an auto I grabbed at a recent-ish show for like $2 and offered me some 90s gold in return. Recognize this?

Topps Screen Plays!

Each item is actually listed separately on TCDb so I decided to show them off here. The tin counts as one, the disc (with writeup and display instructions) is another, and the last piece is the card itself, which had a protective wrap on it that I peeled off. (Also you can see that the tin had some staining from the foam-type substance and I tried to clean it off with mixed results. Not the end of the world as the card itself is fine.)

Speaking of the card, here's what it looks like in motion.

The other part of the trade was the first of the five-card '97 Collector's Choice Ken Griffey Jr. Clearly Dominant set. These items combined were an offer I couldn't refuse.

Dmbramer:

In return for a few 2008 Topps Brett Favre inserts (what else would a Pack fan want?) I got this quintet. Cronenworth is an All-Star Game stamped version, Graham's #d /2010, Terrell is a RC, and Woodson is from a Super Bowl XLV team set.

doublee919:

In a two-for-two swap I scored a pair of Ripkens from 1996 Topps Laser and '98 Leaf. The latter is a State Representatives insert and is numbered /5000.

They just don't make 'em like they used to, to the detriment of the hobby, but at least I can still chase the ones I don't have.

Dthiry:

This one just arrived literally today. Another Packers fan who needed some Favres, he sent me a couple police-issue Woodsons and a variety of RC/rookie-year Wolverines. Hooray for my first Ronnie Bell, from the always enjoyable Score (2023 version)!

DyeHardFan:

Ian decided to sell some cards to raise some relief funs for Ukraine, which he actually delivered himself. Since it was a good cause and he had some interesting stuff, I threw down $100 for the above and a LOT more stuff that went to several collecting buddies, 144 cards in all. My keepers are above, and I've been excited to show off the Gibby and Hammerin' Hank cards for a while. They were among the biggest ticket items in the deal but there was plenty of fun stuff for myself and others. Welcome to the Tigers hit collection, Hank!

GoldenEagles555:

A trio of new Gwynns? Always nice. Some football adds including a Michigan uni item? That's a plus. And I'm feeling like a big 90s winner thanks to the '94 Pinnacle Trophy Collection of AC. Beautiful! That I got these for some unwanted Ginter, GQ, and flagship cards (blech) was the cherry on top.

heattreat:

Edgar's another name checked off on my '95 Finest list (down to 36 cards). I'm almost at 100 Cronenworths thanks to these. The oddball Grieve ("Grive"?) disc is cool but

SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP WHAT IS THAT ON THE BACK?!?!?!

MViP:

A trio of cards was enough to land me three vintage football pieces plus three more Reds cards made by Kirk's favorite nemesis KAAAAAAAHN'S!

I scanned these backs for some reason but it was so long ago I couldn't tell you why. Maybe it was the comics at the bottom.

Nashino:

It took some back and forth to get that sweet '96 Biakabutuka insert included in this deal but the haggling was 100% worth it. Check out its kick-acetate-ness:

90s inserts rule! (I had to clear out a couple other tags today to make that fit since it belongs.)

And even more Wolverines. What a great lot of 15 cards.

NetScans:

I shipped out some unwanted Yankees and in return I got a pair of my favorite HOF SS and a legendary manager! The '94 Score Ripken cards are from a Burger King promotion, the Skybox Cal is from another of his own inserts, and the Pacific card is a portrait variation. And a couple Larkins get me a bit closer to 1000 (just a bit over 50 to go!).

OfficerZero:

In return for a dupe of a Biakabutuka auto I got an insert of Touchdown Timmy along with an auto of Devin Funchess and a fellow round 2-selected Big Ten WR Devin, Smith of OSU and the Jets. The latter is my sixth auto and 22nd overall hit of the former UM TE/WR, and it's numbered to just 25 copies too!

Vernontenney:

Hold up a minute--an all Yankees trade that I was happy with? In this extremely rare case, yes. Rivera was yet another need for an extra '96 Finest II Bronze set (down to just two cards left). And I will never, ever, ever have too many Grandersons! For crying out loud, I only have 263 right now! By the way, the horizontal card up top and the final one in the scan are both from team sets, not flagship Topps.

Well, that was a lot to accumulate, scan, and write up! I'll be spending some time putting everything away while continuing to chip away at the backlog on my desk. More coming soon! In the meantime, thank you to all these great TCDb members for some great trades.

2023 trade package #18: Night Owl

 

Greg who runs Night Owl Cards needs no introduction so I'll just lead off by saying I made a deal with him recently and now I'm here to show off my end of the deal. I became aware that he was slowly working on the 1988 Pacific Legends set and I happened to have a good chunk of dupes left from my box break, so I sent him something like 19 of his needs plus a couple other Dodgers. Because I know Greg's on TCDb I thought I'd make it fun and easy for both of us by sending him a trade proposal so the cards would automatically go into his collection, and then I picked out a few cards I hoped to get in return if he thought it would be fair. He did!

So here's what I ended up with:

I know some folks find those 1990 Swell cards too low-end for their tastes, but I enjoy them plenty, especially since they include appearances of some guys that don't have enough, like the Bird (who, by the way, was in '88 Pacific Legends too!). It's not like Fidrych collectors are spoiled for choice, and anyway the colorful look here is pleasing to my eye at least, so I was happy to add it.

Seeing Maddux on a team other than the Cubs and Braves is always a bit jarring, so his stints with the Dodgers and Padres captured on cardboard still throw me off sometimes. But I'll happily take anything I can get of one of my favorite player collections, especially a Topps Gold parallel numbered /2007.

Considering the relatively low quality of most of what I sent to Greg I wouldn't have blamed him if he didn't want to include the '75 Topps Denny McLain base you see there that pairs him up with '68 rival Bob Gibson. But he's a generous guy so he did just that and now I have another fun piece in my McLain collection, now 25 cards strong.

Here's where I'll probably lose a lot of you as I'm sure many who read this blog don't collect football or at least not Wolverines specifically. But these additions are just as fun for me as the baseball ones.

First up is my first (and probably only for a while) card of former UM RB Ty Isaac. Isaac was a highly recruited back from nearby Illinois who opted for USC over Michigan in 2013, then transferred to Ann Arbor a season later and had to sit out a year under the old rules. He put up some decent numbers for the Wolverines in 2015-2017, if not stats that would correspond to his recruiting ranking, then went undrafted and played briefly for the fly-by-night Alliance of American Football league, as captured on the card you see above from Topps. The product includes 10 total cards (including three autographs) for me to chase and I'd love to add more if I can.

And then we head back into Greg's wheelhouse: vintage. Randy Logan was a safety for some very good Michigan teams at the beginning of the 70s, then was drafted by Philly in 1973's third round. He spent 11 years suiting up for the Eagles and compiled 23 interceptions. What you see above is his 1979 Topps base, which marks just my fourth card of his, and the oldest besides his '76 Topps RC.

From the same set I also snagged my fifth card of College Football HOF RB Rob Lytle. The late Lytle was a Wolverine from 1973-76, selected by Denver in 1977's second round, and put up 14 total TDs over 87 NFL games in his seven seasons. He has just 12 cards to his name on TCDb and I now have four from his playing days (including his '78 Topps RC) to go with an autograph.

Here are the backs for those that enjoy them:

Greg, thanks once again for another fun deal! I'm always glad when we can swap cards despite the large differences in our collecting philosophies.

More trade recaps and other stuff to come!

8/4/23 card show report: dozens of dimes

A couple Fridays ago I headed back to Taylor for my favorite monthly show and as usual I wasn't sure what to expect. Sometimes the guy whose tables I spend about 98% of my time at has lots of great dime stuff and on other occasions the $1 and $2 stuff ends up being more worth my effort.

This time the more expensive boxes were a bit crowded so I joined a few guys on the other end by the dime boxes. There were tons to look through and as usual I passed on the stacks of more recent base from all sports plus most of the basketball. But I started having luck finding card after card for myself or others and quickly amassed a healthy stack.

Eventually the other end freed up and I picked up some fun stuff there, then headed back to the dimes to finish up my day, until I found one last big item in his "as-priced" box that I didn't want to pass up.

Here's what I believe the breakdown was this time:

• 190 dime cards = $19
• 8 "dime" cards in toploaders @ 8/$1 = $1
• 6 $1 cards = $6
• 8 $2 cards = $16
• 1 card priced at $20 minus a $7 overall discount = $13

That's a total of $55, right in my usual range; this year I've spent as low as $40, as much as $85, and an average of about $66, so this was a pretty average day for me, though the variety made it very interesting.

And now here's what you came to see: the stuff I'm showing off today (trade bait and personal stuff).

First up is trade bait, starting with baseball. As usual, please comment/email/propose something on TCDb if you see anything you like.

The Bonds insert was a solid dime box find. The Abreu manu/auto was $2 and is numbered /99. The large Jones jersey was #d /299 but has been traded already on TCDb.

(Mostly) numbered football 1/2: lots more fun finds in the dime box! Anderson and Filani are /999. Evans is just a cool die-cut. Forte is /199. Hardman is /460. Jackson is /250. Lundy is /699. McGary is /199. Milloy is /400.

Numbered football 2/2: Rice is /249. Rogers, Switzer, and Thomas are /299. Willis is /1000. And Gates is /1250.

And now my keepers:

Baseball 1/3: just about everything here was a dime, though I think the Braves insert may have been a buck, I forget. Griffey, Gwynn, and Maddux? Check. New Cronenworth? Check. The Cash was a fun find, and I happily snapped up a BInge Bowman Chrome RC too.

Baseball 2/3: it was obviously a great day for dime box Ripkens (and check for him as well)! I think this seller tends to put cards in those boxes when they don't sell for $0.50 or a quarter and this time I benefitted from that nicely. The newest stuff is mostly boring as usual but I'm happy with the '83 reprint and Gallery card, and the '94 Donruss parallel was a fun throwback.

Baseball 3/3: lots to like here! The front of Posey's Team Pinnacle insert is Dufex and I grabbed it for the guy on the back:

Meanwhile, Skubal joined Mize is current rotation guys in the dime boxes. A Verlander base plus a parallel rep the guy whose name's on the blog. Gwynn and Ripken come back from encores. Pudge gets another very cool multiplayer insert add, this time from the 90s. Piazza and Daulton were both very good company, plus 90s inserts rule!

And then we have the card that was marked as $20. I thought it would be very cool to have a card with such a nice looking patch plus autograph of one of the better recent Tigers catchers in Jake Rogers, a.k.a. the only guy left from the Verlander deal (much less J.D. Martinez and Justin Wilson/Alex Avila). $20 felt like too much but I decided that if he came down closer to $10 I'd go for it. As I mentioned above, he knocked $7 off my total of $62 including everything else to make it $55 and I felt like that was fair. So there's my first hit of the guy keeping the team afloat behind the plate!

Football 1/2: and now we're down to the final 11 cards, which of course I had to split up into two scans because 11 > 9. I was thrilled to find more Michigan RC help for Collins and Ojabo, both of which I think could be in for big seasons this year (Collins with a potentially functional QB, Ojabo if he's 100% healthy). As usual Panini reused the same Ojabo photo in at least two products, but that's nothing new. Finding these in the dime box was great news as far as I'm concerned.

Football 2/2: parallels and a hit. I found the Rookies & Stars parallels of Paye, (transfer guy) St-Just, and Thomas among a stack of them in the dimes, and they were eventually joined by a Blue (what other color could be better?) Donruss Press Proof of DPJ.

And last up for today is my 94th hit of former stud WR Braylon Edwards. I can't remember if I paid $1 or $2 for this numbered 2007 UD Artifacts jersey, which is the usual plain white swatch, but I'm always up for a new item for the collection so I was happy to snag it.

Another nice show day in the books! And with that I need to get back to logging, scanning, and posting so much more stuff that came in, including a simply incredible trade package (among several other really good ones), eBay stuff, and a quick recap of a garage sale I hit up yesterday that ended up being fruitful.

I hope everyone enjoys the last bit of their weekends and is looking to the return of college football in a few weeks as much as I am!