2024 trade package #20: Baseball Card Breakdown

Christmas is just a few days away but tonight I'll be showing off cards I received from someone born the day before the big holiday. Longtime friend Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown sent me some cool stuff back in September and it's about time I posted it:

Scan #1 includes two things I associate Gavin with more than pretty much anyone else. First is one of his trademark customs. His creativity has resulted in him using many different methods to create them, and one of them is sun bleaching. While I think he debuted that technique with the eye-blindingly yellow 1991 Fleer set, you can see he also gave it a try with 1988 Topps, and I was treated to Tram's All-Star subset appearance in that product.

Here's a look at the back which also includes a cool custom feature:

I really like the stamp Gavin uses as a calling card, and that he also signs his initials. What a treat these are! One of these days I really will try to show off the various customs he's (and maybe others) sent me in the long time that I've known him.

A dogged pursuit of a number of Topps' extremely cool Retired/Fan Favorites base and autograph sets is another thing I associate with Gavin. His accumulation of some of the tougher cards, especially from Archives Reserve and Retired Chrome Refractors really is impressive. If you don't believe me for some strange reason, head over to his blog and check them out.

As for me, I was super happy to receive the five-spot of '03 Topps Retired base you see above. The product used that year's flagship design but went with white instead of blue borders, and somehow that made them look even classier in combination with their great vintage photos. Gavin gifted me Sparky, '84 Tigers Evans and Gibby, phenomenon Fidrych, and HOFer Kell, which gave me six from that set (to go with the Tram I already had). I just updated my wantlist and appear to need Kaline, Gwynn, Ripken, and former Phillie/Tiger Jim Bunning. Again, I can't overstate how much I like the looks of these, made back in the days when Topps actually cared about design.

That's not all he sent, though, as I have one more scan of goodies. A Rainbow Foil of John's favorite guy (and new Cubs P) Matt Boyd leads off. That's followed by a Ginter X base of one of my personal faves, former blog namesake Curtis Granderson. Do I have too many? The answer is still no, but I'm proud to be in the lead on TCDb, at least for now.

Another former Tigers P on a Topps parallel is up next with ex-RP Shane Greene out of 2018 Update's Gold insert, which is naturally numbered to that year. Then we jump to another classy design in the form of Topps' Heritage Minors (2011), and a surprise autograph of former prospect Francisco Martinez, an IF/OF that played a couple stints in Detroit's system but never reached the Majors. His rather interesting signature graces a card numbered /861 on the back.

Former ROY Michael Fulmer is the final pitcher in today's post, and maybe from the scale of his card compared to the others you can tell it's from Topps Mini's 2019 version. He didn't pitch in the Majors this year but rumors exist that the Red Sox may try to shift him back to the rotation, and regardless, I hope he gets to enjoy a healthy season.

And the last card is one that brings to mind base-stealing king Rickey Henderson, who sadly passed away yesterday. Nobody's ever going to do it better than him, but back in 1997 the Tigers had an OF by the name of Brian Hunter, and he led the Majors in steals with 74, which is exactly what Rickey averaged per 162 games in his 25-year career. In '98 Topps's Stadium Club brand included a parallel called One of a Kind that was limited to 150 copies, not quite living up to the name, but they looked cool. Hunter's card appropriately shows him zooming in the direction of the next base on a beautiful foil parallel I'm now proud to have in my collection.

Gavin, thanks so much for these cards from about three months ago, and happy early birthday! There's a chance you'll get a small envelope from me this week in time to celebrate because I'd never leave a Christmas Eve baby/collecting friend out of my Christmas cards!

As for gifts that have hit my mailbox, I currently have one envelope left from September to cover, then two each from November and December, as long as no others decide to appear before the end of the month. Stay tuned for the September cards next!

2023 trade package #16: Baseball Card Breakdown

I may not post very often these days, but I do still keep up appearances, and having been around the card blogging scene for coming up on 13 years, I've traded with a lot of great people. One huge benefit of that longevity is great relationships with many of those trade partners who are still around. As much as I've been enjoying making deals on TCDb, there's nothing like the mutual trust I've built with some of my favorites over the past decade-plus.

One such person, who's deservedly well known and liked in this sphere is Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown. It looks like he hit the 10-year mark back in June, and a bit more than a year after he started up BCB we made our first trade (fittingly for this post, I received a Topps Retired Signature autograph!). This evening's post makes 12 deals I'll have reported on on this here blog, so needless to say, the history's there to make me feel plenty comfortable to keep working with him.

Well, I'd been checking out his trade bait page (seriously, give it a look!) now and then, and a couple  of his better items caught my eye. I reached out to him on Twitter to find out what he wanted for them. As it turns out, he showed off what he picked out in his June post celebrating 10 years of Baseball Card Breakdown. Long story short, he sent me links to a couple of his most wanted ("wishful thinking") items on COMC: a '57 Topps of Gil Hodges and '72 Topps Steve Garvey. The prices for those were so reasonable that I was happy to throw in a '78 Topps Trammell/Molitor RC I also snagged there. I was only too happy to do that knowing that Gavin made a very fair offer, he wouldn't flake on me, and would get my end of the deal to me safely, which he certainly did:

I should clarify that I only asked for the first two cards, which we'll discuss in a minute, but first, big thanks to Gavin for generously including Bill Freehan's 2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Gold Refractor. Not only is it a beautiful looking card of one of my favorite underrated collections, but it's limited to just 25 copies! Or should be, at least--these were supposed to be numbered /25 on the back but both the copy Gavin sent me and the image on TCDb lack said stamp, making me think it's an issue across the entire run of this parallel. Anyway, as throw-ins go, this one was great!

Now on to the biggest items:

Both of tonight's new autographs hail from one of Gavin's favorite products: Topps' Retired Signature Edition. As you can see above, they came in taped one-touches, but that didn't stop me from removing them to get better scans. As these images show, that set featured retired fan favorites (and not just HOFers) on chrome-style cards using that year's flagship design, but with white replacing the blue borders and other design elements. I'm a fan of vintage photos on newer designs so I think these came out great.

First up is my third signature of a guy I'll forever associate with the '84 Tigers, '88 World Series history be damned (we had him first...and last!). Gavin had two such cards of Kirk Gibson and I opted for this one, where the end of his autograph kind of keeps running to the edge of the card. It features a great pair of photos of a young Gibby, and he had a pretty interesting way of signing his name back then, so it's a winning combo, not unlike his pair of game 5 homers in the 1984 Fall Classic.

And of course we get full career stats on the back, plus a hologram for authenticity purposes.

I'm very excited to add this one to his collection, especially since of the two other autographs I have of him, only one is still in good shape--Gibby's card from the following year's product, which I naturally acquired from Gavin; the other is a 2001 Topps Archives rookie reprint auto of his that came to me faded and has only gotten worse as time has gone on. I'll replace it at some point, but I still count it for now.

So the Gibson alone would be exciting enough, but the next card made the deal even sweeter, and definitely earned Gavin his side of the trade:

HOF corner infielder George Kell appeared in at least parts of seven seasons with the Tigers, his longest tenure with any franchise, and those 800+ games were played pretty much during his prime. Though you'll sometimes see him pictured with Boston or Baltimore (and rarely, Philly and the White Sox), I'll always consider him a Tiger based on the above, plus his run as a very enjoyable play-by-play guy with fellow star Al Kaline.

What you see here is my first on-card signature of Kell, replacing the 2010 Panini Century cut auto I've had of him for a while as his best card. The Arkansas native would have been about 81 when this was signed and he obviously did an excellent job with a very legible autograph. He obviously took his time which, at his age and considering the the number of cards he had to sign is admirable. And as with Gibson's card above, naturally I love the photos of George in his younger days.

Here's the back of his card as well, highlighting some especially good years in Motown, especially 1949, when the AL batting champ led both leagues; 1950, when he paced both circuits in hits and doubles; and 1951, when his numbers in both of those stats were enough to lead his own league.

I took a quick look at my collection and these two join cards I already owned of fellow Tigers Darrell Evans and Lance Parrish, plus Michigan guy Jim Abbott, out of the very cool 2003 product. In all, I count 13 cards in my collection that came out of the set's 2003-05 run, with Alan Trammell, Bill Freehan x2), Denny McLain, and Earl Weaver joining everyone mentioned above, plus secondary signatures for Evans, Abbott, and Gibby.

Many thanks once again to Gavin for having such nice trade bait available and making a more-than-fair deal that got a few nice cards in his hands for the stunning pair above, plus the generously included Freehan insert. I'll be glad to continue trading with him as long as we both keep at it and I know I can do so with confidence thanks to trades like this one.

Coming up next, I may take a quick break from blogger trades to catch up on the piles of TCDb trades, two shows' worth of cards, and an eBay pickup, just to mix things up a bit. We'll see. Anyway, I've got lots more cards to cover so if you like show & tell posts--and I hope you do since that's about 99% of what I do these days--you're in for lots more to look at!

9-19-14 card show report: Tigers that are vintage, retired, and fan favorites

Before my Saturday trip to Milwaukee to meet my brand new niece I headed to the monthly show at Gibraltar in Taylor to spend a little bit of my monthly budget.  Although I was taking into account that the place will be closing up shop soon, I found out that many of the sellers will be moving on to a nearby location to keep the monthly show alive.

A large part of what I found can be seen over at TMM tonight, but I did nab a few things to show off here as well:

Steve Boros 1963 Topps

Boros is one of my Michigan Baseball PC guys who also fits into my Tigers PC.  This vintage score was a nice deal for me as I hadn't acquired this '63 from elsewhere yet.  I happily paid $4 for it and will enjoy it as my oldest Boros until I get the rest posted.

Lance Parrish 2003 Topps Retired Signature auto

Parrish was an excellent offensive catcher for some of the better Tigers teams of the 80s including, of course, the '84 champs, and I'd been after a signature of him for a while.  As part of the $30 I gave to the first seller I worked with I landed this excellent '03 Retire Signature auto, the one of his I wanted the most but couldn't find cheaply enough online.  As is typical of this set I love the period-specific photograph plus the on-card auto, which is even better in this case since Lance's 'graph looks so good.

Mickey Tettleton 2014 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Autographs Silver auto (#18/25)

Along with the Boros and a few trade bait pickups I landed this Tettleton from the other seller I worked with.  It was $4 by itself which I was more than happy to pay since I haven't seen it for less than double that on COMC or elsewhere.  Imagine my surprise, then, when I got home and flipped it over only to see the serial-numbering indicating it's actually the Silver parallel!  Jackpot for me, apparently.  I don't mind that Mick's featured here with the Orioles instead of the Tigers since he got such a card with Detroit last year.  I'm still including him with the rest of my Tigers hits as he'll always be a Motown fan favorite for me.

Don't forget to take a gander over at TMM this evening, then some of you can expect some fun trade packages before long!