2022 trade package #9: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

When today's post is in the books I'll be able to say I'm finally caught up with blogger trade packages, at least temporarily! And given the sender, Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store, is one of my most prolific trade partners, it's no surprise that this one is a doozy. All four major sports, sweet inserts, autos and relics, and more! Let's get down to it:

The baseball and non-Michigan hockey portions were small but of high quality. Miggy's 2021 Stadium Club card, a nice reminder that Detroit opens up the season in just a couple days, is an image variation from 2021, a horizontal issue of him sliding into a base as opposed to a vertical shot of him standing safely on base holding his helmet. I hope he reaches 3000 hits early in the season to get the pressure off himself early!

Moving to the ice we have two Wings, whose season is bad enough that the less we talk about it the better. Besides a very nice OPC base of supremely talented Swede Zetterberg I was surprised to find a lovely signature from his countryman, defenseman Gustav Lindstrom, out of 20-21 UD Allure. Doug's sent me other cards from this product and they all 100% live up to the name! The young D-man played a bit the past couple years with the Wings before becoming a regular this season and we'll see what his future is for a team that can't seem to win a damn thing right now. Beautiful card, though!

Representing the UM basketball team, which did well to make it to the Sweet 16 after an inconsistent season, we'll start things off with some great looking cards of one of the longest tenured NBA Wolverines in Crawford, who finally retired this year, and current head coach Juwan Howard, bookending a new base of THJ. Crawford appeared in at least one game (which happened only in his final season, 2019-20) every season starting in 2000-01 and suited up for nine teams. And that Howard insert in the bottom row's center spot looks great, right out of the 90s!

Continuing on the court there's one more Howard to enjoy along with some 90s love for vets like Tarpley, Vaught, and Webber. But the recent Hoops trio is definitely where it's at thanks to a nice base of 3-point wiz Duncan Robinson and RCs of Isaiah Livers and Franz Wagner. Livers was fun to watch as a four-year Wolverine who became a key contributor over his last two seasons, and then the local guy (Kalamazoo) was taken by the Pistons, which was very cool. Wagner followed the trail his brother Mo blazed from Germany to Ann Arbor for two seasons and then was a first-round pick for Orlando last year, teaming up with his bro and another Michigan alum in Ignas Brazdeikis.

After two more cards of recent HOFer Webber, we start to get into the real goods with some hits out of basketball and football. Old man Jamal Crawford represents the former with a pair of 2016-17 Panini-branded relics. On the left is a Select Swatches relic from Select and to the right is a Catalysts jersey from Spectra. Both cards are from his 2012-16 run with the Clippers and each includes a bold red swatch. The Spectra card is also numbered on the back to 149. Jamal now has nine hits in his collection, good for fourth place among basketballers as he attempts to join the double-digit club.

The gridiron card count was small but definitely no worse for it with two high quality pieces! First up is a 2018 National Treasures jersey of new Patriots defensive weapon Jabrill Peppers. He was of course taken by Cleveland in the first round of the 2017 draft and is now free of the tire fire organizations there and in New York with the Giants. His brown jersey relic is numbered to 99 on the front and it marks hit #3 for him. Fellow versatile "weapon" and new member of Michigan's recruiting staff Denard Robinson gets an even cooler card to add to his tally, a 2013 Triple Threads Ruby parallel numbered to just 15 that includes three Jags swatches--one of which has three colors and some stitching--plus an autograph, making it one of the best cards in the envelope. It sure is sweet and I'm very happy to have it as hit #53 of the newly employed Robinson.

Now we head to the ice as Michigan Hockey prepares for its record 26th Frozen Four appearance tomorrow evening against Denver in Boston. The Wolverines still have the most national titles with nine but Denver and North Dakota loom nearby with eight each, and UM hasn't won it all since 1998. This team with a plethora of first-round NHL picks has me hoping for a new banner hanging in the rafters of Yost this winter.

Anyway, on to the cards. Cammalleri, Connor (among the league leaders in goals this year), Wings captain Larkin, and Pacioretty are all well known names while Hagelin and both Hunwicks (unrelated, as always) are guys I got to see play live in Ann Arbor. While the Larkins look great and I do love adding to his collection, I was the most excited for the Mirror Emerald parallel of Shawn Hunwick's 2012-13 Certified RC. It looks terrific and includes that same shot of him playing for Columbus in his Michigan gear that I've seen a million times, but even better, it's numbered 4/5, making it the rarest card in his collection that isn't a plate. It was a huge surprise and I'm thrilled to knock another one off his wantlist!

Fellow Blue Jacket Zach Werenski, who's put up some good numbers with the team this year as a defenseman, sews up the base and inserts with a nice pair--those OPC Platinum cards sure are sharp, aren't they?

And lastly we'll look at a quartet of big hits. We're going alphabetically here but the first one is about as good as it gets: a Yellow Printing Plate of former Duck Andrew Ebbett that was inserted in super high-end product 2008-09 Upper Deck the Cup. The plate was used to produce the former Wolverine's SP Game Used base card that year, and I love what Upper Deck did back then in kind of framing the plates they inserted, making them look even cooler. What a great addition!

Card #2 stars the previously seen Pacioretty, a guy I got to see play a bit in his one year in Ann Arbor before jumping to Montreal. He's put up over 300 goals in parts of 14 seasons and is a key piece on the Golden Knights when he's healthy. What you see above is a jersey relic from 2020-21 SP Game Used celebrating his appearance in 2020's NHL All-Star Skills competition. It's hit #9 for his collection and one of the newest ones I own of him.

Single-year Wolverine defenseman Jacob Trouba is the subject of the last two cards tonight. #1 is a draft banner jumbo relic from the year he was drafted by the Jets #9 overall, 2012. The card would have been pulled from 2019-20 SP Game Used and I believe it's my second banner-related relic from the sport, which is not something you see every day so I think it's pretty cool! Joining that is my eighth card that includes his signature, hailing from 2019-20 Upper Deck Chronology's Franchise History Autos. It's a very classy looking card of a guy whose current count of 10 goals has equaled his career high established in 2013-14, his rookie season. This outstanding pair puts him up to an excellent 17 hits, good for a fourth place tie with Shawn Hunwick among the 59 subjects in my hockey PC. These are a great way to close out another banger of a mailer from Doug!

Given the abundance of goodies you can see above, many of which are of such high quality that I'm happy I've worked as hard as I have recently to hit him back, I'm happy that I've finally done a show and tell post to share them with those of you that follow me. After a few more items arrive I'll be sending my first salvo of 2022 to Doug and look forward to his reaction. In the meantime I may just be able to start getting caught up on my TCDB trades. But before then, in honor of my favorite Canadian (or just in general?) trade partner...

And there you have it!