2026 Facebook Marketplace purchases: half-year haul

It took a bit but in June I was finally able to grab a couple random card lots on Facebook Marketplace, one of my favorite things to do for the combination of entertainment value and potential for my collection plus trade bait. Although I technically made my first Facebook purchase back in March, these two buys were the first miscellaneous lots I was able to secure in 2026.

First, on Saturday, the 27th, I headed to a city not too far from my mom's house, and I spent $50 on a trio of not-quite-full 5000-card monster boxes. This was a fun one since the sports, years, and brands varied wildly. I'd say the majority was baseball, followed by football, with other stuff like basketball, hockey, and non-sports lagging behind. Although a decent chunk of stuff in the boxes was junk wax (and/or junk quality), I was very pleased with the amount of 90s and 2000s stacks.

Some of those have made it to my TCDb inventory or will do so soon, and others have been included in trade packages. And then of course there are my keepers, which you'll get to see right here:

Former Tiger (and MLBPA prez) Tony Clark was one of the most well represented players in the group with enough cards to fill out more than one scan. This one gives you a good idea of the makeup of a number of the bigger stacks. The Pinnacle Inside and Topps inserts look excellent and will make nice additions to his PC.

Clark, Fielder, and Fryman certainly weren't surprises in these boxes given the era, but the Heritage parallel of All-Star C Dillon Dingler definitely shocked me, though obviously in a good way!

Guillen was one of those random astute pickups the Tigers made in the 2000s to get back to respectability, and his 2004-2008 seasons in Detroit made him a guy I'm still happy to collect. While I didn't land any new Tigers cards, I did end up with six of him with his original club, the Mariners, including a few Pacific items. 

You saw a random Griffey insert above, and Gwynn, Larkin, and Maddux all appear in this one at least once, which made my 90s collector heart happy. Meanwhile, Magglio is another guy the Tigers picked up who helped them win more than they had in a long time, then retired as a fan favorite. Once again, anything I found of him was with his original team, the White Sox, which is totally fine. And that includes more Pacific goodness!

A random Parrish as a Pirate? Why not? He can join the club with Gibby and his two appearances with Pittsburgh ('92 Pinnacle and Stadium Club). Ripken completes the big four (or five, if you include Larkin) group with another nice Pacific pairing. And then we have a solid run of Pudge, who's seen his total in my collection climb quite a bit recently.

That includes a Pinnacle Inside Stand-Up Guys insert that he shares with former teammates Rusty Greer, Will Clark, and Juan Gonzalez. And no, I don't currently have the second card in the pair. Speaking of Juan Gone, Former Tigers P Justin Thompson, who was dealt to Texas in the ill-fated trade for that malcontent whiner, also got a nice little bump to his collection. I was very happy to see a pair of Score Showcase parallels of him, even if he isn't one of my top Tigers to collect.

Here's a bit of miscellany before I get to the horizontally oriented cards. Jim Abbott (plus Griffey, in one case) pops up in Comic Ball form, Gibby's big Series HR led to a Big Topps card, and Big Daddy gets the odd-est-ball card, a disc from 1994 Innovative Confections.

Last up from baseball, everybody here already made an appearance earlier, but this scan does give us a look at a few products we hadn't already seen.

Last up from this purchase is a football trio. WRs Chris Calloway and Nico Collins appear courtesy of Stadium Club and Panini Illusions, and QB/coach Jim Harbaugh is one of three Colts on a Collector's Choice team card.

As always this was a blast to flip through and I'm still working through what I want to keep for trade bait vs. dumping back into a lot I'll ultimately sell on the same site to free up some space.

Next, as in the very next day, a Sunday, I meet a woman at a nearby store to pick up a mostly recent football lot for which she was asking just $20. I can always use newer trade bait from that sport plus there's lots of newer Wolverines to collect, and the sample images looked promising. If anything, the real deal exceeded my expectations, including a couple relics, WAY more inserts than I figured, and some solid RCs too.

Though my keepers pile was fairly small, it was quite nice, plus the aforementioned stuff has already proved useful in my TCDb trading. Those keepers were the following:

Scan one of two includes a new Blake Corum base from Topps Chrome followed by some colorful parallels (and two RCs) of stud Browns DT Mason Graham.

Meanwhile, the second group is only slightly more diverse, comprising three players instead of two. Graham's college partner-in-mayhem, DT Kenneth Grant, joins Corum from Topps Chrome, and his trio includes a RC and two parallels, one of which is the very cool Football Leather Refractor. Young Bears (or whatever they'll be called when they're in Indiana) star TE Colston Loveland adds another RC to his pile, this one out of Mosaic. And RB Kalel Mullings also gets a colorful '25 parallel pair thanks to Donruss Optic and the same Football Refractor as Grant.

Like I said, I was happy to get back to nabbing a couple of these lots because they're so much fun when I can find them. And I'm happy to say that I was able to pick up more cards through FBM the following month, though that recap will have to wait a bit until I catch up on a couple other things.

Until then, may the weather remain as hot as the Tigers as we get tantalizingly close to college football season!