2025 trade package #25: Cards on Cards

I know people say this every year, but man did 2025 go by fast. We're just a few days away from Christmas! And on that note, I took a bit of a break from blogging to get Christmas cards sent out to more than 20 very deserving people. It looks like most should arrive before the holiday while a few might take a couple more days. To those of you that made my nice list (not really, just the folks I found cards for), enjoy your gifts!

One of those folks is longtime buddy of the blog Kerry from Cards on Cards, who was nice enough to send me some cards last month. The Oregon fan got an early present yesterday when his Ducks advanced to the next round of the NCAA football playoff, and I'll be joining him in rooting for them, plus Indiana, in the coming weeks.

But for now let's look back a month when I received this from Kerry:

A box? Interesting! What could cause the need for this kind of shipping instead of the usual mailer? We'll see in a bit, but first we'll start with cards:

We'll start with (mostly) some Tigers. I believe I've mentioned '24 2nd round P Owen Hall before here, and he's seen on a 2025 Panini Crusade base card that somewhat calls back to the old Donruss insert that was popular when it was a shiny chase card. Jobe might still be a Star of MLB if and when he gets healthy. Donruss managed to find a photo of Leyland not smoking, so that's nice. Maddux is the lone non-Tiger here and I'm happy to add to one of my big four PCs thanks to cards from 2000 UD Victory and '25 Donruss, the former of which includes fellow HOFer Chipper Jones.

Next, the Wily Peralta looks like the kind of card I'd tend to throw in my commons boxes, but if you flip it over (as seen below) you'll find it's the variation that includes advanced stats and is numbered /300. Nice! '24 first-round SS Bryce Rainer, taken in the same draft as Hall above, and considered a top-100 prospect, also appears on a '25 Panini Crusade card, but in his case it's the parallel creatively named "Crusade" which has a rainbow effect much more in line with the legendary insert. Two-time reigning Cy Young-winner Skubal evokes past franchise aces on a '24 Topps Archives base. And Tork brings to mind another holiday, Independence Day, with a Red/White/Blue Prizm from the '22 Panini Product.

Hey, remember when I recently showed off my loot from Angus and he included Mark Fidrych's '77 league leader card from O-Pee Chee? Kerry sent me the Topps version so now I have both! The diminutive Parrish item is a '91 Panini sticker that I needed of the '84 champs' catcher. I included the back of the Peralta '22 Advance Stat parallel to show off the numbering and statistical variations.

And last up for baseball there's a '24 Panini Prospect Edition Green auto of Tigers farmhand Bennett Lee. The Tulane/Wake Forest C was chosen by Detroit in 2023's 6th round and we'll see if he gets a chance to move up past high-A West Michigan next year to see how he stacks up against other prospects at the position. I'm still deciding what I think of the Prospect Edition (formerly Elite Extra Edition) design since it's such a big difference from past looks, but I do appreciate that it has its own thing going on. And it's cool to have an early signature of a Detroit prospect like Lee.

It may be nearing Christmas now but back when Kerry sent this box it was closer to Halloween, making the group of Haunted Hoops cards very season-appropriate. Bufkin, Goldin, and Poole all made the cut, plus another player in the next scan. That's actually my first card of the Russian-born Goldin, a F who played a season at Texas Tech and three with Florida Atlantic before transferring to Michigan for a productive fifth year. He now plays for Miami.

Speaking of firsts, SF/SG Mike McGee also makes his collection debut thanks to Kerry. His is not a name I knew very well, but I've been making an effort to suss out Michigan alumni for whom I lack cards, and the Lakers '81 first-rounder was one of those. His 1990-91 Skybox base you see above is actually his final card listed on TCDb, but I may chase others. Thankfully, having him on my wantlist worked out because of Kerry's keen eye!

Last up for the hoopers is star Franz Wagner, whose haul is fairly similar to Jordan Poole's above him as he has cards from Donruss Optic, Haunted Hoops, and the latest version of Topps. Those two actually sit a spot apart in my basketball PC top 10 with Franz at 8 and Poole just four cards behind him.

Last up for the card portion is a nice little bunch of football. Transfer (to Iowa) TE Erick All is out for the Bengals' season with an ACL tear, but here we see him on RCs from Absolute (Retail) and Donruss Optic. WR Nico Collins continues the spooky theme with my first '25 card of his: Score-A-Treat. Transfer (to USC) RB Justin Fargas makes one of his occasional cameos thanks to 2004 Topps Chrome, marking my 38th card of Huggy Bear Jr. And while fans have to wait until Monday Night Football to watch the Colts, my favorite current player of theirs, Kwity Paye, looks ready to cause some chaos on defense on a '21 Wild Card Alumination base that proved very difficult to scan thanks to its silver foilyness, but that's cool because it's got a great (and not airbrushed!) college photo.

So all that's left is the item that necessitated to box, and what a surprise it was:

A commemorative Cal Ripken Jr. baseball! And one that comes with its own ball cube making it easy to display! One panel features a printed image of the Iron Man while one of the sweet spots includes a facsimile signature and inscription marking his 2131th consecutive game played to surpass Lou Gehrig's streak. 

Meanwhile, another panel lists out a number of his accolades. The lack of mention of his final streak total of 2,632 and HOF election make me think that this was produced before 1998 but I could be wrong. There's nothing on the COA (and why does a ball with a facsimile signature need a COA?) that I could find to indicate when it was made, but then again I don't really care because it's simply a very cool item of one of my absolute favorite players and I really, really like it. And more than that I appreciate Kerry going to the expense of shipping it with everything else you saw here tonight.

Kerry, thanks for everything, I really enjoyed this box! Good luck to your Ducks against Texas Tech at the Orange Bowl, enjoy the envelope I sent your way, and have a Merry Christmas!

I plan on finishing up the final two November trade packages before the holiday this week and then we'll see how it goes catching up on everything else (including potential December card packages) after that. I hope everyone's staying warm and gearing up for a comfortable, stress-free holiday season!