12/4/2021 card show report: "Sweet" Christmas!

To say that Saturday, December 4 was an exciting day for me earlier this month would be an understatement. A week prior Michigan overcame years of futility to punch Ohio State in the mouth and beat them handily, earning them their first trip to the conference title game. The Wolverines ended my Saturday on a high note by demolishing Iowa 42-3 in a game filled with highlight reel plays and left the fans delirious with joy over their upcoming playoff appearance. Yep, it was a pretty good day.

And the start of it was just as awesome for me too. I headed east to Taylor as I do monthly for my usual card show, though I went that day instead of my usual Friday excursion for a special reason. The show had hosted the occasional interesting autograph guest in the past, but nobody in my experience elicited as much excitement as that day's signer: Lou Whitaker.

I couldn't tell you the last time he signed around here, and I'm not even sure the last time I paid for an in-person autograph--maybe Red Berenson at the old Gibraltar Trade Center years ago? So this was a Big Deal, and for once I had no problem ponying up $50 for the experience, which ended up being very positive!

For as many people as there were in front of me the line never felt interminable, and after maybe 30-45 minutes I was in front of Sweet Lou himself with a large framed poster I'd grabbed probably more than 20 years ago at the Ann Arbor Art Fair. I'd always planned on having him sign it someday if I could get to a signing so that's exactly what I brought with me. He asked me where I'd like him to sign and I told him it was up to him. He ended up placing a huge, super legible signature right around his butt, and I'm very happy with the result:

Here it is hanging in my office/card room on a wall along with another Tigers signature (albeit one I bought second-hand), that of Bill Freehan.

Long story short, getting to meet Whitaker and get his signature was a big moment for me and one that I'll remember forever, so it was easily worth the $50 and my time. It'll be even more enjoyable once the committee voters get their heads out of their asses and elect him to the Hall.

So while I was there I paid my usual visit to my favorite seller, though a somewhat shorter one thanks to standing in line for the autograph. He actually noted that I was one of the very few people he noticed that came for the signing and stuck around to look at cards as well, which is kind of sad since I want to see this show continue for obvious reasons.

Anyway, I made pretty good use of my time by snagging 15 quarter cards that were 5/$1, 15 dollar cards, 18 that were $2 each, and even six that were $5 apiece. He called the total $80 and then I was heading home with lots of stuff that ended up in Christmas Card packages (some of which remain to be seen!) and a few things for myself too:

The available trade bait portion is just two cards because I was able to target almost everything to the packages I was going to send out. The pair includes an '08 Sweet Spot auto /150 of former Rangers P Scott Feldman plus an "S" letter manupatch/auto of Oklahoma WR Jalen Saunders out of '14 Upper Deck. (By the way, I'm rooting heavily against the Sooners in favor of Kerry's Ducks tonight, so go Oregon!) These are the kinds of cards I like to grab from the $2 boxes from time to time to beef up my FS/FT stuff on TCDB, but as always they're available here as well, so please shout if you're interested in either.

And the "for me" pile is relatively small too but still really, really good. First, I doubled my collection of former UM SS/Rockies draftee (2020 5th round) Jack Blomgren in scoring an autograph of his out of 2020 Elite Extra Edition for just $2. He's the 30th different player in my Michigan Baseball PC and I'd love to see him replicate some of the success that another sort-of recent Michigan guy, Jake Cronenworth, has had in the game.

Next I added to my collection of former blog namesake Curtis Granderson's hits with a 2016 A&G jersey. He may be shown there with the Mets but will forever be a Tigers favorite in my book. I now count 14 hits of him: nine relics, a manurelic, two autos, and auto/relic, and a plate. You can never have too many, I say!

Getting back to the Michigan stuff the most expensive card I picked up for myself was in the $5 box: a 2020 Bowman Chrome Blue Refractor auto (# /150) of another Rockies draftee (2019, #77 overall), pitcher Karl Kauffmann. It's only my fifth card of his so I knew it would be a need and didn't mind ponying up $5 instead of waiting to find it slightly cheaper elsewhere. The color kind of sold me on it too. I actually have more hits (three autos and a plate) than base cards (one) of the potential future Rockie.

We happen to be alternating between hit types and teams though not by design--as usual I'm going alphabetically. Ian Kinsler closes out the baseball group with a 2010 UD Game Jersey. I know these are among the lowest end of hits these days but I think I only paid $1 and as I always say when I mention him, I enjoyed his time in Detroit, not the least because he produced well and was part of the deal to get rid of Prince Fielder's dead weight. This is my third relic of his and all show him with his original team, the Rangers, but maybe I'll land a Tigers card at some point.

And then for the 2021 Big Ten Champion Wolverines we begin appropriately with a Michigan uni card, a 2021 SAGE Premier Draft of WR Nico Collins, a guy who had the shitty luck of being drafted by the Texans. At least he finally caught his first NFL TD the other day in a rare win against the Chargers. Speaking of California teams, transfer RB Justin Fargas played his entire career for Oakland, and I was glad to find a 2008 Select Young Stars insert (# /999) of his in the quarter box. And our final player today, like Collins, is active in the league, though out for the year with an Achilles tear. Brandon Graham has recorded 59.0 sacks and 19 forced fumbles over parts of 12 seasons with the Eagles and I'm always happy to show this defensive standout some hobby love when I can, like his 2021 Donruss Red Press Proof parallel above.

So to recap, that day I

• Met Lou Whitaker and got his autograph
• Picked up some great cards while at the show
• Enjoyed Michigan trouncing Iowa and winning the Big Ten conference title game

I think Luke Cage would have to agree that was a great Saturday a few weeks before a sweet Christmas!

With this stuff covered I believe my next few posts will be recapping trades but you never know. Either way they're going to drag into 2022 but I'd rather take my time instead of stressing myself writing up posts. I'm always glad to give people who send me stuff the effort they deserve as thanks, so I promise I'll start getting to those soon!

2021 eBay purchases: Rich and Charlie's awesome Christmas

Yep, still lots to post, but today I'm going with the fewest cards instead of posting nothing! The two you see below should be my final eBay pickups of the year.

I had a good last couple months on the site, largely picking up some better stuff for Doug's Christmas package, and I also scored two pretty big cards for myself in November. Here they are:

Behind door #1 is Rich Hill's 2008 Bowman Chrome Yellow Plate. I'd go so far as to refer to it as "maize" in recognition of his Wolverines career, though of course the border's more of a highlighter  hue than the classic UM color. My latest Hill 1/1 (I believe I'm at around 30 when including my unidentified 2008 Triple Threads White Whales) set me back around $15 in early November thanks to a late bidding war, but I refused to be denied considering my spending was so responsible this year. It'll make a nice addition to the '08 Bowman/Chrome rainbow I've already put together:

I already had one plate to include in the bunch, the Bowman Cyan (not exactly a Michigan blue either!) you see at the very end, and now I can add a Chrome plate to that as well. As usual the Chrome plate's image is reversed due to that set's printing process so you get a rare look at old Dick Mountain as a righty!

I'm closing in on 150 hits of the southpaw who's making yet another return to Boston, and I hope to maintain my self-assigned rep as Hill's #1 collector with more scores like this in 2022!

As usual if I'm starting off with a plate or other 1/1 I have something even bigger to show off and that's true here! I occasionally search eBay for Charlie Gehringer autographs to add to my collection after having had lots of success doing so in the past, and often I try to find those made by Upper Deck brands because they feature nice designs. Cut autographs necessarily have less room for design elements like photos, but I still opt for those when I can.

In this case I happily made an exception, and even went away from the UD brands to go with a Topps Co-Signers card from way back in 2006. The fact that it paired up the Mechanical Man with my first autograph of fellow Tigers star Harvey Kuenn was enough argument for me! The roughly $50 total cost, very reasonable in my opinion, was also a factor.

Though their careers didn't overlap--Charlie was in Detroit between 1924-42 while Harvey spent his first eight MLB seasons in Motown from 1952-59) they're both well-known Tigers from before the 60s. Kuenn was the '53 AL ROY and went to All-Star Games in eight straight seasons (two each in '59 and '60, the latter in his first season with the Giants) and played his best ball here, though the team failed to make it to the postseason during his Tigers tenure.

Other than lacking images of both players this is an excellent cut design. Both players' cut pieces--a Kuenn check and the usual Gehringer HOF plaque postcard--fit well in the windows set up for them and the signatures aren't cut off like you often see these days. The biggest flaw here, and no surprise from Topps, is that Harvey's last name is spelled "Kuehn" on both the front and back for some reason. QA's never been Topps' strong suit, though, so I'll give them points for getting this mostly right.

And anyway I'm thrilled to add not just my first signature of Kuenn, but also my 10th of one of Michigan's (state and school!) and Detroit's all-time greats, Charlie Gehringer. I think it's worth another look at all of them here:

That may be it for my eBay spending in 2021 but I still have lots to show you: three blogger trades, one TCDB deal, the results of the show earlier this month, and then possibly a show this weekend as well! Until then, stay warm and dry and enjoy the holiday season!

The "OMG what did I get myself into?" lot part 3: all set

While I hadn't planned on finishing up covering my enormous Facebook Marketplace collection purchase stuff before everything else, I figured I might as well go ahead since my next most recent post, technically part 2 in this series, went over the trade bait I had available since I wanted to include what I could in Christmas Cards shipments. So here we are!

Most of what I have left to cover is the complete and partial sets I pieced together from the multiple unsorted boxes of commons and inserts. And I'm not kidding when I say "unsorted" because most of those monster boxes had sets mixed in them like they got hit by a tornado. That's why it took me so long to sort everything out, such as an almost full 5000-card monster box of '96 Score!

Anyway to remind you, the haul looked like this:

I did hold onto a few non-card items I'll show off later, but first I'll give y'all a look at the sets:

1994 Finest: well here's a great way to start! As I think I've mentioned once or twice here, one of the boxes was filled up quite nicely with base and inserts from 1994-97 Finest, putting me in a good position to chase some of them when that would have been unlikely otherwise. The set that reminds me of Fruit Stripe Gum has 440 cards to chase and I ended up at a healthy 388 when combining the ones in the box with what was already in my collection. (Wantlist link)

1994 Ultra Series 2: this one really takes me back to when I was around 10 or 11, and I especially remember the Award Winners insert. The base was quite cool too and portended some good things that I think came to fruition in the '97 version, one of my favorites. The collection pretty much only included Series 2 so we'll see if I ever try to track down the first, but it wouldn't be the only set in my collection that's halfway done! At least I only need three cards to sew this one up. (Wantlist link)

1995 Donruss Series 1: another partial set and there's a couple more to get to as well. I kind of like how Donruss changed things up a bit back in their heyday like this version with the home plate inset photos and foil. As you'll sometimes see the two series here weren't split down the middle but instead the one I'm working on is 330 cards and the other is 220. With what I had already in my collections I came up a reasonable 10 cards short so this one shouldn't be bad to finish. (Wantlist link)

1995 Finest: didn't think I'd have much chance of owning this one for quite a while either! There weren't as many of these in the box as those from the other years of Finest but I still ended up with a lot of the first version that came with protectors. On a related note, you might remember from my first post about this collection pickup that I grabbed all the dupes I found of my PC guys so I'd have peeled versions of them as well. I'm just shy of 75% of this set at 246/330 when including my existing PC cards. (Wantlist link)

1995 Leaf Series 1: another half set, this one includes probably one of the more divisive designs in the hobby, but I've always liked it so getting to chase it is fun for me. The 400-card complete set was split in half and the first series includes some of my PC guys and favorite Tigers to collect like Dean Palmer, Cecil Fielder, Kirk Gibson, Greg Maddux, Cal Ripken Jr., and Lou Whitaker. I fell just one card short of the series, needing Dante Bichette's card #135. (Wantlist link)

1995 Score Series 1: I'm not the biggest fan of the infield dirt-colored backgrounds Score went with in '95 but this is still kind of a fun set otherwise. This is (sort of) the last of the partial sets, at least in the sense that it's the last one I only ended up with one series of. Once again this one comes in at 330 cards while #2 was 275. There's plenty of stars to see here plus a few prospects, season highlights, and, interestingly enough, dual team checklists. At some point in the new year I'll try to track down the 22 cards I need to finish this one and then maybe eventually figure out if I want the second series as well. (Wantlist link)

1996 Donruss: this one didn't take too long to grow on me and I was glad to see it among the boxes I was sorting through. The full bleed photos are quite nice though I understand the criticism of the placement of the team name/logo box. Like others here this one was issued in two series but both of them were plenty present in what I pulled so I'll be able to work on completing the whole thing, which is nice. And that shouldn't take long since I just need five of the 550 base cards! (Wantlist link)

1996 Finest (Common/Bronze only): man is this one exciting! I think '96 and '97 are my two favorite versions of Finest from the 90s and the box stuffed with the brand had plenty of the former--enough to put together two more complete Series 2 sets and two more of those that both needed fewer than 10. Oh, and in my case I'm shooting for the whole shebang, at least when it comes to the bronze base cards (also called Common on the backs). Though I came away with a surprising number of the silver and gold cards I'm more than happy to stick to the 110 cards from each series that could be found most often. That means I'm just chasing #21 (Eddie Murray), #101 (Tim Wakefield), and possibly a decently expensive Derek Jeter (#92) to close out the set with Series 1. That I'm this close to it is awesome, and plus I added more peeled cards to my collection! (Wantlist link (includes rarer cards of PC guys))

1996 Flair (Silver base w/ gold foil and Gold base w/ silver foil): I'm handling these together since they were apparently produced in the same quantities, though I tend to consider the cards with silver backgrounds and gold foil logos/names the "true" base. There was one monster box almost full of these and at first I thought there were five complete sets but instead they were mixed between the two versions. That led to an enormous TCDB project to get both variants correctly on the checklists (many thanks to those that did the bulk of the work, though I helped!) and now I'm chasing each 400-card variation. Considering how high-end it was at the time it's pretty cool that I seem to be a total of 25 cards shy of owning both silver and gold sets! (Wantlist link)

1996 Leaf: this is a fun, colorful and foil-y set with some cool photos so I was happy to end up with all 220 cards with enough dupes to put together a second set minus just one card (Jason Isringhausen's #26). It's got a good mix of Tigers and PC guys I collect while not being huge so it's right up my alley in a 90s kind of way!

1996 Score: and the final set today is a textbook entry from Score back when they still produced baseball sets. The 1996 version weighs in at 517 cards and I had absolutely zero problem pulling a whole set from the mess that was the boxes after stuffing a monster box full of commons. In fact, I ended up with three complete sets, a fourth missing just one card, and three more Series 1 sets, plus lots of extras! I still like the relatively simple look, decent subsets, and cool photos like Hal Morris' card above, so it was great to land one more full set here.

And now here's a quick look at what else I kept, generally for future TCDB trade bait and other deals:

Inserts part 1: 1994-97 Finest. This will be true of all three groups of inserts I show here but considering how many I kept for my PCs and included in Christmas card packages, it's absolutely bonkers to me that I have this many cards left, and some really nice ones too! I'm hoping I can turn some of the Refractors and Silver/Gold cards into similar ones of the players I collect.

Inserts part 2: 1996 and '97 Donruss. There's still a nice pile of Press Proofs (Gold and Silver) from both years giving you an idea of just how many there were (again). There's also a handful of examples from four other '97 chase cards, with Power Alley and Rocket Launchers being numbered. I still remember opening '97 Donruss boxes, especially the Rookie Update (essentially series 2) version fondly.

Inserts part 3: the last of them, from '96 Bowman and Score. That includes a few Bowman's Best previews and their parallels (though most got traded), ROY Candidates, and a Mantle reprint. Score includes Gold Stars, Future Franchise, Diamond Aces, and Artist's Proofs. I also mentioned the bevy of Dugout Collection parallels I had left in the last post listing stuff for trade, and those will also make their way to my TCDB trade bait at some point soon.

This plaque of Junior Griffey was one of three in the lot and one of two of this exact player, though the others ended up in Christmas packages. I already had something similar but since there were two up for grabs I kept the one that was more useful to me as it also included a card I didn't own, a fun 90s insert!

And finally, I kept a pretty large number of souvenir cups from a family that obviously loved them some Tigers and Wolverines. I'm more likely to store these than display them but couldn't convince myself to get rid of them, other than the duplicates, some of which I redistributed.

Well, that's pretty much everything I wanted to show off! As a reminder, I still have a good amount of stuff available from the last post that I'm willing to make deals for until I get sick of seeing it and list it on TCDB or dump it on Facebook/elsewhere.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (I sure did!) and look forward to showing off the December trade packages and other pickups I keep promising.

11/6/21 card show report: a couple very good signs

Two constants of my last few show recaps were my disappointment in a lack of dime boxes to pick through and the fact that I didn't come home with as much fun stuff as I was able to earlier in the year. I'm happy to say both of those situations changed this past Saturday when I headed east to Taylor for a couple hours. That's right: I said Saturday, the same day as a Michigan Football game. But I was able to get over there because Michigan didn't face off with Indiana until 7:30. So I was able to enjoy the show and kill time before the game. Efficiency at its finest!

Anyway, I was exciting to find that the dime boxes were back! I want to say I went through something like six to eight of those super long three row boxes, and after plenty of time spent ignoring recent baseball and basketball garbage, I came up with 80 cards.

Next up I waded through the dollar boxes for the types of hits I love for myself and trade packages, and I grabbed 17 of them, figuring I'd be paying $25 and then getting out of there with a few interesting pieces but nothing great.

Then I took a look at the dude's showcases, which very occasionally have something I'm interested in. For instance, in the past I snagged what I think was a nice deal on a Dylan Larkin manuletter auto. I quickly found two big singles I hoped I could take home with me, and luck continued to be on my side as that's exactly what I did!

More on those at the end, but first up we've got the few trade bait cards I didn't pick up for anyone in particular:

These were all a buck along with others I picked up for some trade packages, and many had languished in the guy's $2 box for months. I thought I'd diversify a little with a basketball pair, plus Quentin's a numbered auto and face mask cards are cool (and that Burleson is numbered 213/350) on the back.

And now for my own pickups, mostly of the dime variety:

On a day where a lot of the talk is centered on MLB's award finalists, let's look at some dime box baseball! Avila was a fun Tigers catcher and a 2019 Chrome Refractor was an easy buy for a dime, even if he's pictured with Arizona. Cobb pops up in pretty much any modern set that includes retired players and legends, and 2018 Diamond Kings was no exception. Griffey continues his march toward 1000 cards with base from 2006 Upper Deck Artifacts and 2013 Panini USA Champions. Mr. Padre also gets a pair, from 1992 Score Procter & Gamble all the way up to 2021 Ginter. That brand popped up a couple more times for HOF shortstops in the form of Larkin and Ripken from the previous two years. And I'll happily pay ten cents for a new Sparky card such as his 1981 Topps team checklist.

An unlicensed trio closes out the baseball portion. Cal's second appearance is courtesy of the weird fun/plain combo done by '21 Donruss. I still like to collect the occasional Scherzer card, and a Detroit appearance such as 2014 Donruss Elite is a bonus. And I even added to my Verlander collection, of which I have too many, with his 2020 Donruss Optic base.

The basketball portion is comparatively tiny but it's still a good sign that I found any for myself at all. The THJ and Duncan Robinson you see above are Blue parallels from 20-21 Panini Select and they look quite nice in hand, better than they scan, and much lighter too.

On the football side we start with two dimes. Transfer TE and New England draftee Asiasi is a 2020 Panini Phoenix parallel and I believe I correctly IDed it as "Fire Burst" but could easily be proven wrong. And I even added a new RC to my collection of Butts--Jake Butts, that is. His 2017 Select first-year is #11 of 14 I'm chasing.

And then the last two cards you see of New Orleans C Cesar Ruiz were from the dollar box. Should I have paid a buck each for 2020 Donruss Optic Purple Shock and Green Velocity parallels of his rookie? Maybe not, but they're Michigan uni cards and I wasn't originally spending much anyway, plus they doubled the size of his PC.

So now chronologically we're at the point where I was looking intently at the baseball showcase when something caught my eye. Could it be?...

Yes indeed, a Jake Cronenworth autograph! It may be from Gypsy Queen instead of a brand I actually like, but it's a nice first signature (or hit of any kind) of one of my favorite young players and the best Michigan Baseball alum to come along recently. The should-have-been 2020 NL Rookie of the Year enjoyed a nice encore in his first full season, making the All-Star team thanks to 21 HR and ultimately a 4.8 bWAR for a talented young Padres team that underachieved in the end. He was a key part of the Slam Diego thing and also hit for the cycle back in July. I look forward to adding more of his hits to a PC I was working on before he was cool.

When I asked the guy how much he wanted for it, he responded "...for you...$20." I'd taken a quick look at eBay and they seemed to be going for more like $30. While that cost still felt like an overpay to me, my desire to own a Cronenworth auto plus wanting to keep the guy in business won out and I added it to my purchase. Then another card caught my eye:

I've made no secret that Cal's one of my favorite all-time players, both in terms of the game and player collections. His 1032 cards dwarf all comers if you needed any proof. I also love me some 90s but if you didn't know that you haven't read anything on this here blog, so welcome.

Anyway, Fleer's collaboration with Sports Illustrated produced some outstanding products in the late 90s, and one of the results was an insert set that reprinted some of the formerly respected publication's most iconic covers, including signed versions. Cal graced the cover on July 29, 1991, when he was more than halfway to his goal of besting Lou Gehrig's iron man streak while, as the front says, "...enjoying the best season if his illustrious career." Ball don't lie, and neither do the numbers: the AL MVP (for the second time) went off for a career bests of 11.5 bWAR, 34 bombs, 114 RBI, .940 OPS, 368 total bases, and, oh yeah, six steals!

So yeah, it's a beautiful card of a great SI cover, plus it includes an autograph of one of the greatest players I've been privileged to watch. And his signature is obviously one of the best out there as well. Oh, and it's numbered (by hand)? Yeah, gotta have it. How much? "Hmmm...for you...$40." Yep, sold! What's funny is these two late additions ran my total up to $84 and I literally had four each of $20s and $1 bills in my wallet. "Ah, you're fine," he said, clearly realizing I'll be back next month as a regular customer, which is worth more than making me put back one of the cheapo dollar hits.

So a warm welcome to my third card with a Ripken signature and first that doesn't include a relic or manufactured piece. It was great to pair with an up-and-coming infielder's first 'graph in my collection and an outstanding way to end the show on a high note before I returned home to watch Michigan handle Indiana.

While I'm looking forward to next month and the final show of the year (which may involve me getting a highly sought-after in-person signature), I've still got plenty to show off over here, including my latest eBay score plus more of the Facebook lot. Until then, may all of your shows be as fruitful as this one was for me!

The "OMG what did I get myself into?" lot part 1: I love the 90s

Well I guess it's about damn time I got around to this. "What?" you ask, "Posting for the first time in a couple weeks?" Yeah, that too, I guess. But I'm talking about finally digging into that "OMG what did I get myself into?" lot I picked up on Facebook Marketplace. As a reminder, it looked something like this before and during loading it in my car:

I know I mentioned a number of times that I was putting lots of effort into sorting through everything, and while I'm technically not quite done, I'd say I'm finally in a good place to show off generally what I'm keeping, making available, and dumping.

I may go into a bit more detail as these posts go on about what I found, but basically in terms of what filled those monster boxes in my trunk, it was baseball base and inserts from the late 80s to the mid-to-late 90s. And better yet it skewed much more toward the latter than junk wax crap that I have more than enough of. There was a LOT of cards stored completely randomly for some reason so it took lots of time to arrange them by set, but that ended up proving to be a rewarding enterprise as you'll see in a future post or two.

However, today I'm starting with the easiest items to cover: the base and insert singles I'm keeping for myself, mostly from 1995-97 sets I decided not to collect since there weren't enough in the boxes to justify trying to complete them. I was pleased to hit a number of my favorite PCs from 90s Tigers to the Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken quartet to a few Michigan guys. The base portion is pretty solid but I think some of you will be pretty blown away by the inserts I added (which only scratch the surface of what I came away with!).

So please enjoy this bunch of cards I'm adding to my collection from the hobby's best non-vintage decade:

Like I said, lots of former Tigers! Big Daddy and Pudge are from the super busy '95 Fleer, a set I probably wouldn't have put together even if there were enough cards in the boxes to justify it. From '95 Score we have well-known '90s Tiger Fryman, '80s dude and the "Big Wheel" Lance Parrish on his second-to-last team, and Mr. Padre on a typically fun Score subset. Repping that year's Stadium Club are Pudge again plus one of the franchise's best closers in Henneman. And finishing up the year is a trio (continued in the next scan) of Cecil, Junior Griffey, and yet another Pudge. The stacks of Stadium Club and Ultra definitely weren't near enough for a set chase but I'll spoil the fact that I did end up with a complete set of Score Series I, just not the second series that included the trio above.

Most of what you see here is made up of '96 Bowman, a set I hadn't really prioritized. I found a pretty nice chunk of the vets portion of the set in those boxes but there were a lot of prospects missing, and I'm not really interested in the set anyway. Ripken and Maddux make their first appearances in this scan while Pudge, Gwynn, Fielder, and Fryman can be seen once again. One other newcomer is SS Carlos Guillen on one of his RCs. He appears with the Astros but of course was swapped to Seattle in the Randy Johnson deal, then flipped a few years later to Detroit where he was a fun and effective contributor for around eight seasons. And don't be too surprised to see Pudge once more out of '96 Fleer, a set I have a lot of singles from because I love the design. The stack of those from the boxes is one of the smaller ones but maybe someday I'll own all of it.

The last of the vertical base (sort of, you'll see...) are from '96 Select and Upper Deck. That the former are oriented that way is funny since only the checklists were made that way that year; As you'll see below, the rest of the base set is horizontal! It was pretty common for the decade's biggest stars to grace end-of-the-set checklists and that's what we have here in Griffey and Maddux. Big Daddy is the lone representative from another set I have a lot of but would love to own, 1996 Upper Deck. Moving on to the horizontals, corner guys Fryman and Fielder were the two I pulled from a somewhat small bunch of '95 Stadium Club. And Fryman pops up one more time thanks to the credit card-inspired '95 Studio product.

See what I mean about 1996 Select? Relative to the size of the set the pile of cards wasn't bad but once again wasn't enough for me to want to work on it, so here's eight more base cards I pulled for myself. Griffey, Maddux, and Ripken (twice!) get even more additions to their PCs while Pudge and Fielder, who started us off, represent the Tigers once more.

As I looked through the various boxes, most of which were filled with randomly assorted run-of-the-mill 90s products, I was floored to find one stuffed with Finest cards from 1994-97! While I'll have more to say about those in one or more future posts in this series, you'll get to see lots here, with even more exciting items in the next section. Here you're looking at cards from the 1995-97 versions, all of which have one thing in common: protective peels. What's great is that between this purchase and what I already had in my collection, I was able to set aside this group of 29 cards so I would have both unpeeled and peeled copies.

It took a bit for me to get the peels started on each--I mean, they have been in place for around 25 years! It's great having copies in both states since you get the "original" aspect with one and the better looking "freed" version with the other. I thought I'd include the pile of peels in the shot for fun.

And that leaves us with two more scans, which may be the best part of the series already in just the first post. A couple of the boxes had some groups of inserts bundled together, with others found randomly throughout the bunch, and I came away with a few very nice stacks of cards that serve as a great reminder of why I have a tag called "90s inserts rule" here. Just feast your eyes on these:

Sure, the '96 Bowman Foils of Gwynn, Fielder, Fryman, and Tony Clark (his first appearance today!), all of which came out of a pretty large stack of that parallel, aren't much to write home about, but obviously the big draw here is one of the OG must-have parallels: Refractors! Shiny, colorful, and originally much harder to find than the watered down versions of today, the ones you see above are from 1994 and '95, with the former being the second you could find without peels on them. I was more than happy to add a Fielder to my collection from '94, but the PC duo of shortstops Tram and Larkin had me over the moon! What beautiful looking cards. The '95s aren't exactly chopped liver either, and again I was glad to pair a former Tiger in Fryman with another PC I'm having fun building in Froot Loops himself, Mickey Tettleton.

The fun continued with more '96s and some '97s to boot. Though it's technically part of the base set I included Cal's '96 Finest silver card here because those were tougher pulls. '96 Score and its inserts were very, very well represented in these boxes (again, more to come) and I dug out two chase cards of today's star in Pudge: a Dugout Collection Artist's Proof (from the Series 2 set) and a Gold Stars card, whose name I associate more with Leaf.

And lastly we have one of my all-time favorite products in '97 Donruss, which is right up there with the 2001 version for me. I came away with quite a few from some of the inserts you see above and I'm happy to say lots will be available for trade, but more importantly for me I scored six outstanding cards from that product where pretty much every chase card was a winner. Barry's from the numbered Armed and Dangerous set (#0836/5000) and therefore knocks a card off of his wantlist. Maddux is the second PC guy I've found from the color appropriate Dominators set (Larkin is the other). I've been chasing the Cal Ripken Jr. "The Only Way I Know" insert since I bought his book of the same name, and card #9 above (#4439/5000) is my fourth of the 10 I need to acquire, including the one exclusive to the book. Griffey is the front man on possibly my favorite of the available inserts, the double-sided Franchise Features, with Andruw Jones joining him on the other side of this one numbered 1963/3000 (and slightly damaged from having to peel it apart from another, unfortunately). And lastly we have examples of both the Silver (limited to 2000 copies) and die-cut Gold (just 500) Press Proofs: Fryman and Griffey, respectively.

So holy crap, what a great bunch of cards on their own, and that doesn't include the complete and near-finished sets, potential trade bait, and other items that were part of this purchase which, as a reminder, set me back just $30! I look forward to sharing more with you once I can summon the energy to find a way to present and summarize it in a way that makes sense, and that includes letting everyone know what I'll be making available for trades/giveaways.

Before then, expect a show recap if I make it out to my usual monthly haunt tomorrow, plus my latest eBay pickup.