2021 trade package #19: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

While I'm continuing to sort the stuff from the boxes I teased in my last post, I'm finally giving myself a break today to make sure I give Doug from Sports Cards From the Dollar Store his due for another generously packed trade envelope stuffed with goodies that I'm excited to share.

Let's start off with some cards of my favorite baseball team, which has turned things around quite a bit in the season's second half (a.k.a. since DFAing Nomar Mazara, just sayin'). My favorite Canadian helped me getting into this decade with a bunch of Tigers out of flagship, Gallery, Stadium Club, and more, and there's some very good current names here (and one from the distant past in Cobb, of course). The Cabrera cards are nice as he zeroes in on 500 HR and eventually 3000 hits as well, but I'm more interested in the pair of Mizes, including a Refractory Bowman's Best insert, as he's done quite well this year after his 2020 cup of coffee went worse than expected.

Rogers was teaming up with the versatile Eric Haase to give the team a surprising boost at C this year before his injury, so maybe someone from the Verlander deal will turn out to be useful after all! Skubal's had some struggles but I'm glad to see him continue to get experience as I can still see him as a useful rotation arm in the future. Jones' card has a typically awesome Stadium Club photo. And JV gets an honorary place with the Tigers here even though his Diamond Kings base there shows him with the Astros.

I believe National Hockey Card Day was around the time I got the envelope that included these legendary Wings, so that was a nice fit as Doug's country celebrated one of its favorite sports. The Pacific and UD cards here look great and are a nice palate cleanser after mostly staring at Topps stuff above. All four of these guys were a blast to watch during the Hockeytown heyday of the mid-90s through the aughts. While I love the Wings uni cards, the numbered Team Canada of Yzerman is awesome too. While we Detroiters wait for the results of the Yzerplan, I highly suggest that y'all head over to Doug's posts on his ultra high-end 2015 Team Canada Master Collection break. Beware: there's some absolutely sick nasty patch and signature cards in that series!

Those guys weren't the only Wings in the package, though. I can't say I wasn't happy to see the Applicator gone after the 2019-20 season--the fewer MSU players on the team, the better! Fischer is a bigtime throwback to the teams starring the guys above. UD's '20-'21 base cards look nice as usual, and I believe all three guys seen here will be back, including another Spartan in Hirose. Svechnikov looks diminutive on an OPC mini but maybe the former first-rounder will have success with another team.

And the big prize here is a sweet jersey/auto of former Slovak prospect Tomas Jurco. The card, which includes a very nice two-color swatch with stitching, would have been found in one of Doug's all-time favorite products, 2013-14 Panini Rookie Anthology. While Jurco is another former prospect that didn't work out for the team--he's since bounced to Chicago, Edmonton, and Vegas--this is a great looking Red Wings hit that I'll be happy to keep!

Moving on to the Michigan stuff, we open things with basketball, and a very appropriate card: a Michigan uniformed Classic issue of current coach Juwan Howard. His Fab Five teammate Chris Webber is next on a Topps base. And lastly we have hit #2 of the package: an autograph of recent Wolverine D.J. Wilson (my first hit of his of any kind) out of 2017-18 Panini Chronicles. This one is the Red version (which you could tell if the foil scanned a bit better) and is numbered /149. Wilson was a three-year Wolverine who went to the Bucks as a 2017 first-rounder, then found himself traded to Houston this past March. Will he become one of the next Michigan Basketball alumni to get paid big time? We'll see!

College football season is approaching fast, much to my excitement, and Doug sent plenty of great stuff to remind me of that fact. Brady and Woodson bookend the top row with some 2021 Score inserts including the base and Purple versions of the Collegiate Champions set. Naturally I love that one since it shows each player before and after they became pros. Yeah, I know Tom played just six games (and 20 pass attempts) between 1996 and '97 as Griese was the starter for the '97 Rose Bowl winners, but he was still part of the team.

Speaking of star QBs, we get player-to-coach #2 with Jim Harbaugh's '91 Fleer base. I wonder if the staff changes he made over the offseason will finally get his team moving in the right direction.

I was a bit surprised to see a Bills card in this package but O'Donnell ('71 Topps RC) was indeed a Wolverine. I can't stop laughing at the cartoon of the lineman next to the team name! A 2021 Score RC of first-round DL Kwity Paye was also a very nice surprise, and I'm glad my first first-year of the future Colts star is a college uni card from that set.

And then we have some very nice hits. The aforementioned Griese gets a new relic added to his collection (24 hits), a 2002 Upper Deck Fourth Quarter Fabrics jersey with a cutout in the shape of a "4". Griese came up with two big fourth quarter plays during the undefeated '97 season: a 2 yard TD pass to TE Jerame Tuman with 2:55 left to defeat Iowa at home, and then a 23 yard score to the same target early in the last period of the Rose Bowl that would keep Michigan on top when Washington State ran out of time.

WR Devin Funchess (who recently put his foot in his mouth big time, but at least did a decent job of apologizing) is the subject of one of the best looking cards of the entire envelope: a 2015 Topps Strata autograph. It's a thick acetate-type card and I can't get enough of those, plus it's a new autograph (and a numbered one at that!) so I'm very excited to add it to his 18 other hits I already had.

Finally, a second signature is part of the bunch in the form of a 2019 Certified auto of RB Karan Higdon. It's the Mirror Teal version and therefore numbered /50. Man, I remember when the Mirror inserts were easy to tell apart! Anyway, I'm not sure if Karan is still hanging around the league after Houston took a chance on him as an UDFA, but he had a pretty nice four seasons in Ann Arbor. This shiny auto is his debut in my football collection, though I have another one to show off soon!

At least we've made it to the hockey content, and as usual there's a lot! Just as you saw with the Wings above there's a good number of '20-'21 UD base here, and a few other recent brands as well, which is much appreciated since I don't really buy much hockey stuff myself. Cammalleri's the winner here with three new cards, keeping him in third place overall in my collection at 78. And the first of two Copps is a '20-'21 OPC Retro Black that's numbered /100 on the back. You'll see one more of those in each of the next couple scans!

I got to see most of the guys in this group play at least one game in Ann Arbor, and hopefully I'll get back to Yost this year to see more future NHLers, such as yet another Hughes brother. The erstwhile Quinn is another subject of that numbered OPC parallel, and I'm happy to see his collection continue to grow, especially thanks to Doug. Larkin, of course, is still my favorite of the bunch as a WolverWing!

The last of the "regular" hockey stuff includes two beautiful Troubas: UD Ice and a Canvas insert, the latter of which continues to be an excellent mainstay for the brand. Turco continues his reign of dominance over the collection at 126 items--the only player currently over 100. And Werenski is the last of the three OPC cards /100, finishing up a very talented trio.

And if for some reason all of that didn't have you thinking that Doug's generosity knows no bounds, how about this trio? The pride of Flower Mound, (clap clap clap clap "DEEP IN THE HEART OF") Texas, Chris Brown stars on an absolutely nasty patch with the relic window cut out to spell his name. Numbered /25, it hails from another of Doug's high-end favorites, National Treasures (also 2013-14). That give him a lucky 13 hits, many of which came from Canada. By the way, he's listed as a member of the Capitals here but I would think that patch came from a jersey when he was with his original team, the Coyotes.

Hit #2 is just my second (also an autograph) of Jets C Andrew Copp, who's slowly increased his production in his six full NHL seasons. This one came out of UD's 2019-20 Overtime product and is from the Gold Foil Autographs set. On my other Copp auto, also a stickergraph, he spaced his name out a little bit more, but that's not uncommon given they were made a few years apart.

And finally, we'll end this evening's post with "Max Patch", or in this case, "max relics", of Max Pacioretty. The dual jersey card you see above, numbered /145, is from Upper Deck's 2020-21 Artifacts Materials Gold set, and it looks like I got a pair of Vegas sweater pieces to represent my eighth hit of the former UM star.

Did I say this was another great envelope or what? Not that my Canadian counterpart has ever sent a dud. I'm slowly accumulating some items for a return in the near future, hopefully one that will live up to the greatness he sends every time! If you want the chance to deal with a trade partner this consistently good, get yourself over to his blog and see what you can do about his wantlist.