TCDB trade roundup: five by five

On this lovely Ann Arbor evening I've got five more swaps to show those of you interested in that kind of thing. These were all smaller than the last ones I did so I was glad to up the total to five in order to get more stacks put away.

First up tonight is my fellow Michigander Johnsogr who lives in Frankenmuth, a German town known for the world's largest Christmas store, Bronner's. I was able to put a nice dent in his 1995 Stadium Club baseball wantlist, chipped in some 2015 Topps Updates, and as a surprise I gave him around 150 1996 Topps dupes I had sitting around as well (mostly from, you guessed it, that Facebook collection I bought). I was happy to get the following in return:

Gold Grandy! That one's numbered /2009. Junior Griffey is from the 1992 Triple Play Gallery of Stars insert that was just another name for Diamond Kings. Grimes is another new UM Baseball guy making his way into my PC thanks to minors cards, necessary since the '89 draft pick of Oakland was out of baseball by 1994. Larkin looks cool whether he's at the plate (1999 Bowman International) or in the field ('95 Stadium Club Super Team Division Winners). My Henneman collection is over 101 cards thanks to items like the '95 Flair above. And while Tigers cards are preferred, I'll take Morris in any uniform, including the Jays ('93 Select).

One of the main reasons I wanted to trade with John is that he had 10 cards to knock off my '94 Finest wantlist, the biggest of which was Cal in the #2 spot up there.

Manny's a relatively big name too, to be fair. 31 more cards (not including what I haven't posted yet) would let me close the book on the second version of Finest.

He also had a few football items for me to sweeten the pot. Jenkins is a college uni card by virtue of being made by Classic, and I was quite excited to add a 2003 Topps Chrome RC of TE Bennie Joppru since it had been so difficult for me to find one for a reasonable price. You might be a bit surprised to see me post a pair of Lions cards since I have almost nothing to do with that tire fire of a franchise, but these two 2006 Topps Total trios include two Wolverines that suited up for the loveable losers, OT Jeff Backus and DE James Hall.

It's always great trading with people in Michigan and John was obviously great to work with since I was happy to pay it forward with that big stack of '96 Topps base. His 700+ trades with perfect feedback mirror my experience so go check him out!

Next up is Las Vegas native hershey (a.k.a. Brian) who was mainly interested in some '96 Bowman and Flair cards from my set-fillers to go toward some of his PCs, plus a trio of Eddie Murrays. In return I got some baseball PC stuff of my own, a couple vintage-ish football items, and more baseball set help:

Abbott is a 2005 Topps Rookie Cup Reprint, though not of his RC since Rookie Cup is the obvious theme here. You'll see another from this set in the next scan. Bergman, Hernandez (including Sportflics!) and Lemon are nice additions to the PCs I'm working on of the '84 Tigers. And that '98 Ultra Artistic Talents insert was probably the item I was most pleased to add in this deal.

Next, both of Cal's cards here are from 1993: a Leaf Heading for the Hall insert plus a Denny's Grand Slam Hologram produced by UD. Sabo, like Abbott above, is a reprint, and his Rookie Cup card was found in '89 Topps, a year after he was named NL ROY. That puzzle card is the last one I needed out of the 23 for Ty Cobb's puzzle inserted into '83 Donruss packs. Henson (who I just watched beat OSU in 2000 on Youtube) is seen on a 2003 Fleer Double Header mini insert called "Let's Play Too!"

And then there's a cool pair of '81 Topps cards of former Wolverines Randy Logan and Jim Smith. I only have five and three cards of them, respectively, but they have a total of just 31 cards between them so that's not too surprising!

And here's the set help I was able to get from hershey. I can't recall if either or both of the '94 Ultra cards will go to the set I'm building or the second one I'm putting together to trade. The back of the '95 Score checklist you see with Toronto on the front has the Cardinals on the back so it's an all birds checklist! And I appear to be just one card short of my chase for '96 Donruss thanks to this quartet headed by Bonds, plus possibly more in the piles I have yet to scan. As a reminder all three of these sets are projects that started from that Facebook collection I purchased.

Everything went well with this deal and while I haven't traded again with Brian yet I'll do so again with confidence thanks to my experience here and his perfect feedback with more than 800 deals under his belt.

Next we'll go from one prolific trader to one who's ever busier. bravefan1 (Scott) sent me a second offer not long after we completed our first deal (covered here) and this one proved to be a nice little PWE trade for both sides. I sent him a quartet of Braves, including a nice Andruw Jones insert, and got the following back (plus a Matt Boyd insert for John):

Last time I loaded up on Cronenworth and Mize and this time the story was mostly three other Tigers. Those classy looking Cobbs hail from 2021 Diamond Kings (Art of Hitting insert) and Topps Gallery. The DK card looks great as always and the Gallery possible uses an image that I haven't seen a thousand times, so those are great. Mr. Tiger looks a bit out of place on Panini's modern 2021 Mosaic design but he's 100% welcome here all the same. Maddux (2021 Stadium Club) was able to wear a shirt like that three times in his career, all with the Braves: 1995, when they won it all, and '96 and '99, both losses to the Yankees. And Skubal's been a bright spot in Detroit's rotation (today's not-as-great performance aside), not that I knew that would be the case back in February when I landed 2021 Diamond Kings and Topps Gallery RCs of the young star.

I haven't traded with Scott a third time just yet but I wouldn't be surprised to get another offer from him soon as he continues to get closer to 1500 comments, all positive, in his TCDB transactions career!

This evening's penultimate trade comes from an older but familiar name: hiflew, a.k.a. Johnny, a.k.a. the dude that writes (wrote?) the blog Cards From the Quarry. I hadn't actually traded with him for more than 10 years for whatever reason so this was a nice surprise, and possibly one for him as well since I was able to recognize his username but he might not have put mine together. So that was a fun blast from the past!

In return for a quartet of '96 Flair Rockies, a numbered Todd Helton insert, and memorabilia cards of Jason Jennings and Troy Tulowitzki, I ended up with four baseball items, two football cards, and four baseball Nolans, the latter of which I happily sent to Paul (including a Nolan Ryan #d /35). Here are the keepers for me:

Jeimer's got some work to do to get back to the kind of value he posted the last two seasons (2.0 and 3.8 bWAR) and I'm hoping he can heat up with the weather. His Topps Gold parallel here is from 2021 Topps. Former Tiger Austin Jackson is next, and even though he's pictured with the hated White Sox I was glad to land his 2016 Topps Update Gold parallel since I'll always associate him with the Tigers. Former Wolverine Barry Larkin's 2021 Donruss card above is appropriately decked out in Holo Blue, as befitting of his alma mater. Maddux can be seen once again tonight, this time on a 2021 Topps '86 Topps insert, making me pine for the days when Topps wasn't shoving the '87 design down our throats. And lastly, former Wolverines Jake Butt and Taco Charlton appear in college unis with hilariously airbrushed helmets on their 2017 Leaf Draft Gold parallels. I think the funniest part is that their helmets are different colors here.

Big thanks to Johnny for kicking off a new deal after more than a decade, and if I can pile up more Rockies he'd like I'll happily work with him again as he nears 300 completed trades!

With all of those covered so far I get to end this post with the easiest deal to cover so far: a one-for-one trade with brooks1856. All he was asking from me was a '96 Flair Ozzie Smith (silver background, gold foil letters, to be specific) as he'd tried to land it a couple other times and ended up with the wrong version. I don't recall what he originally offered me but after looking over his trade bait I quickly countered and asked for this:

Slurpee coin! Lou Whitaker is joined by the Wizard and Buddy Bell on this 1986 7-Eleven Southeast Region coin that I'm now proud to have in my collection. The theme is Gold Glovers and Sweet Lou was just coming off winning his third straight when this was made; Bell won six in a row from '79-'84 and Smith, of course, was the gold standard in the NL at his position from 1980-92. Good company for sure!

Though I own all 30 of the 2000 7-Eleven set I'm woefully short on older gems like this one so I was thrilled to add it in a deal, especially one that cost me just one card in return.

Here it is in its full motion glory:

Oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh. Don't be surprised if I re-use this animated GIF on the day the Tigers retire his jersey!

As with everyone else mentioned tonight, this member was an excellent trader and I couldn't have been happier with how well everything went, so it's possible more deals are in our future.

Well that knocked a nice chunk of cards off my desk, and I'm thinking I'll continue this series the next time I post unless something else shows up sooner, including my first eBay pickup in a while.