TCDB trade roundup: four trades and three PIFs!

It's New Year's Eve Eve and this will probably be my final post of 2022 unless I'm feeling especially celebratory tomorrow for events related to the gridiron and not the end of the year. I'm sending off this year in collecting with the latest batch of cards that hit my mailbox thanks to TCDB. That amounts to four trades plus three PIFs (pay it forwards), the latter of which were perfectly timed with the season of giving.

Here's how those transactions went:

Deal #1 was my first with Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life, though it was through his TCDB ID of borosny that we were able to connect for this swap. He matched me for nearly 20 cards on my wantlist--man, does using that site ever make trading easier!--and I came up with more than 42 cards for him off his baseball set wants on his site. Those came from '95 and '96 Score plus '96 Donruss and Leaf. Here's what I got in return:

As I often do when it comes to trades there I picked out a wide variety of items to hit my many collections. You'll see '84 Tigers like Bergman and Brookens again in this post. Three more Grandersons add nicely to my quest for "too many." Ex-closer Mike Henneman pops up twice in this deal (see the next scan). AJax is another ex-Tiger I've come to appreciate in the years since he's been gone. Matheny and Hal Morris are two of the four Michigan alumni to be found here, and that Morris minors card is pretty cool.

HOFer Jack joins the Morris and '84 Tigers parties with an early 90s duo. Former Wolverine Leon Roberts indeed managed Detroit's AAA squad, the Toledo Mud Hens, at one point. The Maddux/Ward/Cora trio completed or nearly finished their three respective sets--'94 Ultra Series II, '95 Donruss Series I, and '96 Donruss. And lastly we have a fun trio of late 80s Topps Stickers Super Star Backs. Barry's from the '89 set while Tram and Lou are rightfully seen together out of the previous year's product.

Bo was awesome to work with and I look forward to making more deals with him, plus I'll continue to follow his excellent blog.

Next up is a smaller deal with bravefan1, my third with him since I joined the community. Naturally I gave up a few Braves cards, including a couple low-end autos, and in addition to a solid relic I'll be including in a belated Christmas package, I nabbed these three for myself:

These three are right up my alley! First up is a 2004 Absolute Memorabilia base of Tigers HOFer George Kell. It offers a beautiful, shiny rainbow foil design and is numbered (/1349) so it's right in my wheelhouse. Mad Dog's 2000 UD Faces of the Game Insert isn't quite from the 90s but it's close enough, and this is another one of those chase sets I fondly remember from back when it was actually fun and affordable to open boxes. Finally, I managed to sneak in a 2022 Topps Gallery RC of #1 overall pick Spencer Torkelson, who hopefully got his sophomore slump out of the way with his tough freshman campaign. That's my first RC of his, and I look forward to seeing how he bounces back in '23 on what will mostly otherwise be a pretty uninteresting tanking squad.

Next, I made more headway on a couple set chases plus scored a nice PC pair in a deal with Mat9975. In return for a quartet of 1996 baseball base and a pair of '06 Bowman football RCs, I got these:

How sweet is that Barry Larkin '94 SP Holoview FX card? Upper Deck had already shown some hints of what they could do with holograms in previous years, but they really upped their game on this insert, that's for sure! The Long Ball Leaders card of PC guy Dean Palmer produced the same year by Donruss also looks very cool. I'm so grateful we didn't have to suffer through a Topps monopoly and instead got the greatest decade in card creativity in the 90s.

The two set wants I grabbed are from the same year, oddly enough. Larry Walker's Finest card puts another small dent in that one, and I'm down to just 17 that I need. And between the Kieschnick and the Maddux from above, my second set of '94 Ultra Series II that I was building after my Facebook collection purchase should now be done. Once I verify that I'll be happy to make it available for trade!

The last of my trades before we get to the PIFs came from pdmkam. He made a proposal aiming for 13 of my '95 Donruss baseball dupes, and after a quick counter from me, we had a deal. Here are the nine cards I ended up with:

I told you you'd see more '84 Tigers! There could have been even more in this transaction but I swapped a few of them out for a couple of the newer items you see above. The late Bergman appears on '82 and '84 Donruss cards when he had yet to be flipped to Detroit. Brookens joins him in the latter set that came out the same year the Tigers last won the Series, as does the Big Wheel, Lance Parrish, who also gets his '83 card from that manufacturer added to the pile. HOFer Ted Simmons joins the 80s party with his '81 Topps appearance.

As for the "newer" cards I referenced, those came in the form of Mr. Tiger's '84 Topps Archives reprint of his '54 RC, plus my latest Rich Hill add, his '22 Topps Update base. It took Topps until Update to include Hill despite the fact that he re-joined the Sox before 2021 even concluded, but that's Topps for you. How long will I need to wait for my first card of Dick Mountain with the Pirates?

I mentioned that I ended up with nine cards and this fun oddball of the Bird from Upper Deck's 1993 All-Time Heroes product was the last. UD did a great job picking images for the main panel and the left side, I must say. According to TCDB I just need Ty Cobb's solo appearance (#32) and one he shares with Honus Wagner (#145) to finish up the team set!

All of these deals went off without a hitch and marked the end of a great year on the site, which I'll briefly recap in a minute. But first, here's a quick look at the three PIFs that came my way in December:

#1 was from Bo who I guess appreciated the fact that I threw in a few extra Yankees when I sent his envelope. Back my way came this six pack:

Gwynn, Maddux, Ripken, and a (former) Tiger PC guy too? Yes please! All of these were on my wantlist and it was fun looking though them when the PWE showed up. The two food issues bookending everything are great, and I've always been a fan of the Triple Play and Score products representing Gwynn as well. Thanks again, Bo!

Next, Colorado native Jim, a.k.a. budler, went on his own Secret Santa spree, as evidenced by the many thank yous he received in the "Pay it forward" thread. I happened to be one of his lucky targets and enjoyed seeing these two:

There's that trademark Gwynn hairstyle from the late 80s! Once again, both of these were needs, and I appreciate Jim's Christmastime generosity.

Finally, while trying to PIF another member, one of my site buddies was able to get their address from Joe, a.k.a. ymmat, so to show my appreciation I sent Joe a bit of baseball set help from my dupes. Not long after he returned the favor with these:

Yeah, it was a Holly Padre Christmas in this three-pack of PIFs, and I'm absolutely fine with that! It was great adding so many new Gwynn cards to my collection, enough to get me over the 800 mark, as it turns out. Once again all of these were new to me as they came straight from my wantlist, including the oddball playing cards and Gold Topps Micro. My favorite by far, though, is the '97 Topps Hobby Masters insert. 1997 was the first year of what I consider modern Topps' best five-year run in terms of base design plus inserts after years of being very blah. That's a fantastic looking chase card of Mr. Padre and I'm happy to add it to his collection with everything else you see above.

Based on how much I talked about the site this year and all the trade recaps I did, you'd probably assume I had a great year on TCDB, and you'd be correct! Between 2019 and last year I'd completed only 18 total transactions there. Things got a bit better for me this year when I put more effort in:

Yep, I finished up 76 formal deals to go with a nice number of PIFs back and forth. I even managed to shed a net 10 cards, not including those that didn't get captured in the count due to PIFs or unofficial trades. Now that I'm approaching 100 completed transactions I'm looking forward to boosting that number even more in 2023!

Thank you again to all the members I traded with this year who made TCDB a site I'm happy to spend lots of time on. I'll be back better than ever in January.