2023 COMC purchases: check out my last post for 2023

That's right, this post will finally wrap up 2023 for me. At least it only took a third of 2024 to get there!

I'm going to take a quick run through the cards I picked up for myself so I can get ready to finally get started with 2024 stuff. Here's what I scored this time around the Black Friday weekend:

90s inserts rule! Three numbered Gwynns? Don't mind if I do! The first is "limited" to 3000 copies and you'll see the back in a bit. The other two had just 5000 copies made of each. As a reminder, that seems pretty high these days, but these were still pretty rare back then, way before today's era of "absolutely garbage boring insert or one of 200 parallels."

Tigers PCs Dean-o and Phillips each get a tougher parallel for their collections, and I splurged a little for the UD Amazing Greats Ripken, a definite top 10 insert for me since I pulled my first one way back then.

One insert I went all-in on was '97 Pinnacle Inside's Dueling Dugouts. You've seen at least one of these here, but basically the double-sided cards feature two players with a wheel you can spin that will show those players' stats in a given year. These four of some of my favorite player collection guys leave me short just Griffey's card (shared with Andruw Jones) in terms of what I want to collect.

And here's a few backs for you. Gwynn's paired up with the solid Brian Jordan. The other three are guys I really don't care for: Jeter (Ripken), Clemens (Maddux), and A-Rod (Ripken). One-time Pirates prospect Jose Guillen was on the flip side of Gwynn's "Great X-Pectations" insert, and the back of Cal's Amazing Greats (a fun pun of a title to go along with an elite design) is also worth a look.

They don't make 'em like they used to but there's still so much 90s greatness to chase that I may never have to worry about the absolute nosedive inserts took after the 2000s.

And now it's time for the (mostly) hits! I don't count manurelics as I consider those inserts for the purposes of my collection, but they're still fun to pick up on the cheap. My second Blomgren auto is another Michigan uni special and it's die-cut too. Brewer joins the hits collection with his first auto. I now have five signatures of Criswell after picking up a cheapie Heritage Minors auto. How could I pass up a large Granderson swatch? Framed Ginter cards still look miles better than the regular ones, and the signed cards are even better, so I scored my fifth sig of pitcher Tommy Henry. Kauffmann also gets his fifth auto on a great looking Elite Extra card. Larkin's manurelic is a reminder that he was a nine-time Silver Slugger as a SS, and that bat relic is pretty cool too.

No, I'm not going all-in on Rogers as Detroit's catcher of the future, but including the last card in the previous scan, I found three signatures of his that I really liked: Diamond Kings with a couple of swatches plus the top-notch Stadium Club design and the Chrome version. Stewart is also a newbie to the Michigan PC, a rare Michigan State-to-Michigan (grad) transfer drafted by the Angels in the 9th round in 2022

One of my two basketball pickups, which unfortunately didn't scan well, is my first autograph of "Sauce Castillo" himself, Nik Stauskas. While I owned 10 hits including a crazy five plates of the ex-Wolverine, I hadn't scored a signature until now.

And now it's time to talk about football stuff I picked up before the team beat Alabama and Washington to become National Champions. Anthony transferred to Oklahoma for the 2023 season but spent 2021 and '22 in Ann Arbor, highlighted by a six-catch, 155/2 TD performance against his hometown Spartans in the suspect '21 loss. The Darboh is my 49th hit, all but 15 of which are signed, but I wasn't passing up a cheap one! Eubanks was a fun TE who bounced around the NFL the past few years after going undrafted. Kinnel played DB from 2015-18 and appears to be out of the league now. LB Cam McGrone played in 2019 and '20 for Michigan and was drafted by the Pats, though so far he's only appeared in NFL games with the Colts.

Cade was the guy that somewhat rescued Michigan during that weird/hapless 2020 season, bringing the team back from the brink of a terrible loss to Rutgers. He transferred to Iowa and said some stupid stuff, and there are rumors he gave successor at QB JJ McCarthy the could shoulder while they were teammates, but he was a key part of the 2021 Big Ten champs who defeated Ohio State, so I'm happy to have him in my collection. Nordin was a huge big-legged kicking prospect and Jim Harbaugh famously slept over at his house during his recruitment. He could be as inconsistent as any other kicker, booming some and missing easy ones, and he kind of had a Rickey Vaughn vibe. I thought the multi-piece Toomer jersey looked badass even if I don't really have any love for the Giants these days. And I finally scored a certified auto of Vaughn, the RB/FB who bravely spoke out about the sexual assault he and many of his teammates suffered at the hands of team doctor Robert Anderson. I continue to commend his courage in coming forward despite his trauma to make people aware of this monster's horrible acts and how the athletic department did nothing.

Last up in this scan is a lone hockey player joining the collection, center Cooper Marody. A native of nearby Brighton, the three year Michigan icer was drafted by the Flyers in 2015 and got a couple very small cups of coffee with Edmonton, though he's mostly toiled in the AHL since leaving school.

And last up we have the horizontals. Like I said, if they're cheap enough, I'll pick up the occasional manurelic like the Larkin above. Mo Taylor is the other new basketball auto I added this time and it's from back when those cards could look really cool (no surprise it's from Bowman's Best). I don't know if two counts as this kind of volume, but I scored more bunches of Funchess in the form of a jersey auto and sick five-piece relic card. Those put him at the 25-card mark, so, not bad! My third hit of Buckeye-destroyer Hassan Haskins is a cool patch (or prime jersey) auto. And last up, I believe the last card I added before shipping everything was one of the best looking Jake Longs in his (currently) 97-card collection of hits: a true patch/auto.

And with these I'll call it a year on 2023. As always I had a blast trading with so many people, getting out to shows, buying elsewhere where I could, and sharing stuff for those of you who are nice enough to follow me here.

I'll also take a brief moment to celebrate a big milestone I hit at some point last year even with some reshuffling of categories: 2500 Michigan sports hits! My official count appears to stand at 2570 and includes

• 38 baseball subjects
• 32 from basketball
• 248 representing football
• 61 hockey folks
• 4 from other sports

You might be able to tell from how I described my haul above that I put more effort into guys I'm missing in my hits collection with a special focus on trying to get at least one certified autograph of as many as I can. Once again, thank you to all who've contributed to this chase, one I'll be happy to continue for however long I keep collecting, which I expect to be a long time!

I'll try to be back soon to get started on 2024, for which I believe I already have something like four blogger trades received (and a bunch from TCDb too), a few shows, one eBay purchase, and two cool Facebook Marketplace buys. Thanks to those who've stuck around while I've dragged my feet on posting, and I hope to be back with more soon to keep everyone interested.

12/1/23 card show report: December dimes and more

I'll probably do the other half of my TCDb trade recap next time, but to break things up a bit I'm finally covering what I brought home from December's monthly show.

I headed to Taylor on the first of December last year and threw down $80 for some nice stuff, though it's been long enough that I can't remember the breakdown. So just assume it was the usual combination of dimes, $1/$2/$5, and everything in-between!

First up as always is the trade bait:

Belt /250; Grieve /1995; Loney /520; Manny /150; Blackmon /499; Burleson /600

Carricker /2249; Cole /2000; Cotchery /2007; Curtis /999; Cutler /999; Delhomme /250; Farmer /1999; Henderson /500; Holiday /599

Johnson/ 175; Leftwich /750; Okoye /999; Pumphrey /175; Salaam is a promo; Shenault /399; Williams /2010

Claim 'em in the comments or make me an offer on TCDb!

And now for my keepers:

I was surprised to find this complete and still shrink-wrapped 1989 Donruss the Rookies set in the $5 or 5/$20 box and I immediately grabbed it. Not only does the set contain quality players (though not true RCs) like Sheffield, Deion Sanders, Edgar Martinez, and Randy Johnson, plus guys in my PC like Jim Abbott and Gary Wayne, but there's also a reasonably big deal rookie year guy:

Junior! You're probably much more likely to be paying in the neighborhood of $10 for just this Griffey than getting the whole set (albeit minus the box and Spahn puzzle) for just $4. So I was pretty happy about this one.

The mix of dimes & more starts with a couple nice Tony Clarks. The ex-Tiger and current MLBPA prez stars on a couple mid/late 90s issues. The Stadium Club Onyx Extreme of Griffey may have been another $5 box card, but then, this isn't just the "regular" version of that insert--it's an even cooler die-cut parallel that I don't think I'd ever seen before. Looks like I paid around a half or even third of the going rate for this, and earned this post my coveted "90s inserts rule" tag.

That makes a couple nice Griffey cards, and Gwynn and Maddux are next with some dime box gems, mostly of the Pacific variety, though Mad Dog also gets a cool UD Fun Pack card as well, plus a '99 Bowman International parallel.

And a couple more of the HOF P while we're at it, from 2005 UD and 2012 Prizm. Just one Cal this time but he completes the big four PC quartet with a standard 2017 Ginter base. Scherzer's non-die-cut die-cut looked pretty cool as did the actually-die-cut Verlander, both of which offer a Refractor finish, and I met my recommended daily dose of two many Verlanders with a Gallery Printer Proof from 2022.

Meanwhile, the basketball group was relatively tiny with a couple shiny dimes of THJ and LeVert, but I did manage to snag myself hit #10 of college star Trey Burke: a 2013-14 Totally Certified jersey card (probably from the $2 box?).

And we'll finish with football. Nico is a shiny/laser-y Xtra Points parallel of his '22 Prestige base. 2022 rookies Haskins and Ojabo are seen on first-years from that season's Donruss Optic, and the Ravens defender gets a Select RC to boot. Lewan adds a Leaf card that's fun for the Michigan uniform aspect and not much else. Colts edge Paye adds another RC to his total as well out of '21 Mosaic. And lastly, I added yet another Braylon to his stack in the form of a 2011 Prestige Prestigious Pros Red horizontal card, one that looks more suited to Christmastime thanks to its colors.

I was pretty happy with how this show went, especially with the way it helped me bulk up some of the Christmas packages I sent out a couple weeks after.

And if any of you enjoy show recaps, you'll be quite happy when I start covering my 2024 stuff because I've already got three shows' worth of content, including a much-hyped blogger/TCDb meetup in Kalamazoo!

But before then I believe I'm left with one TCDb trade recap and my COMC loot for the big finish.

2023 eBay purchases: rockin' around the Christmas Tariks

With 2023 blogger trades all wrapped up I'm moving on to my eBay purchases from the last four months of the year.

We'll start back in early September when I happily spent a bit more than $12.50 delivered for my second plate of Denard Robinson. This particular Shoelace 1/1 is his magenta plate used to make his 2013 Absolute RC, specifically the "base" version and not the variation where he's carrying the ball in his other hand. You all know I love me some Denard, and I hope he's one of the holdovers on new Michigan coach Sherrone Moore's staff.

A bit less than two weeks later I was quite happy to win this Trey Burke plate for a little under $10 shipped. The 2016-17 Contenders Draft magenta plate you see above is my third 1/1 of the former college star, but it's my first of him pictured as a Wolverine instead of with the Jazz so it's my new favorite. This one puts Burke one away from joining the double-digit hit club in basketball as the fifth member, though a couple others are also getting close.

At the end of the month I was thinking about how well Tigers P Tarik Skubal had pitched after returning for the season's second half. He started off a bit slowly but ripped off four straight wins in the final month to end the year at 7-3 with a solid 2.80 ERA. I decided I wanted a nice card of his and landed on this 2021 Absolute Rookie Leather Signatures Tan auto for about $13. Maybe I'll get something with actual team logos on it in the future, but I'm a sucker for fun gimmicks like this and was more interested in jumping on something before he possibly develops into a higher-end starter. And even if he doesn't, I've got a pretty cool card of one of the team's solid core of starters.

Next, early in October I found a bunch of stuff for myself and others all from one seller and took advantage of low auction prices and combined shipping. The three cards you see above are the ones I grabbed for myself. First up is a Pudge jersey that I thought was worth a flier at $1.50. He'd joined the Yankees in '08 so UD listed him with them, but he's pictured as a Tiger and I'm betting the swatch is from a Detroit jersey, not that it matters too much to me since I collect his non-Tigers cards too. That appears to be relic #10 and hit #11 of the HOF catcher.

To that I added a pair of Leaf-branded cards of former UM WR Tarik Black, our second Tarik of the evening! Black was a top-200, 4* recruit coming in to Ann Arbor in 2017 but he'd compile just 50 catches for two scores in 18 games over three seasons before transferring to Texas, where he put up similar numbers in the shortened 2020 COVID season. I was very happy to add a couple Wolverines uniform autographs of him to my collection (as subject #240) even though they're from the wish.com iteration of Leaf, which is part of the "way too many parallels with ridiculous names" problem. That said, I have enjoyed the State Pride design over the years.

I included the backs to show that the top card is numbered just 4/4 while the other is #19/20. As best as I could tell, these are from 2021 Leaf Metal Draft Flashback Base Autographs Mojo (even though the provided checklist SNs don't match) and 2021 Leaf Metal Draft Flashback State Pride Autographs Wave Blue. For just $4 and $3, respectively, I was satisfied with what I got.

The next time I spent money on eBay on something for myself it was the first day of December and I was able to score this 2012 Bowman yellow plate of Michigan WR Steve Breaston for a cool $8 even. That year's design has always been an outlier when it comes to Bowman but not in a bad way in my opinion. Then again, it's fairly familiar to me as I already had purchased the magenta plate of the same card! Breaston is therefore one of a number of PCs for which I have multiple 1/1s.

That distinction is true of former Reds prospect Ryan LaMarre as well. The 16th hit in his collection is also the 5th 1/1, which is quite a ratio if you ask me. And this design is also well known to me because the black plate you see above from 2010 Bowman Draft is the third one I now claim ownership of from the set! I've checked off the black, magenta, and yellow versions and just need the cyan, making this one of five plate sets where I have three of the four (others are Chad Henne 2014 Prestige; Clayton Richard 2011 Topps; J.J. Putz 2012 Topps Mini; and Rich Hill 2006 Topps). That was worth a bit under $12.50 shipped as far as I was concerned!

Finally, with Christmas just five days away and having barely crossed the $1800 mark in spending for the year, I decided to treat myself to an upgrade. My copy of Kirk Gibson's 2001 Topps Archives rookie reprint auto was one of my favorite cards in my entire collection, but it was somewhat faded when I bought it, and leaving it and some others out where too much sunlight got to them didn't do it any favors:

That's a recent pic I took of what's essentially an auto-less Gibby and a very faded 1999 SP Signature auto of Griffey (that I pulled myself and regret ruining this much all the time!). So I was very much on the hunt for a much better copy despite the cost of Kirk's signature going up quite a bit.

And you know what? For the nice, bold blue signature you see above on my new copy, I didn't think twice about plunking down $53. It's great having such a nice version of that piece in his collection and I'd do it again if I had to. But I probably won't because I'm not letting that sucker get any regular sunlight!

And those nine cards are how I finished up 2023 when it comes to personal eBay pickups. I still have lots more to show off from the end of last year but I'm at least making some headway, and I'll be back soon with more!

11/3/23 show report: showvember

While I don't feel like putting the effort into a trade post this evening I did feel motivated enough to cover my pickups from this month's show.

I can't remember the exact breakdown but I spent $40 at my favorite seller's tablet, split up into dimes, $0.50ers, $1s, and $2s, then another $20 at the table of the vintage guy that's there about 80% of the time. Most of the higher value stuff is headed for trade packages which is generally my goal, so this was another successful show for me.

But as usual I also have some trade bait and personal keepers.

First up, the cards that are/were available for trades:

I made more of an effort to get some baseball bait since I know lots of folks that follow me aren't as interested in other sports like football. The top three cards are all samples which seemed like the kind of thing that can be hard-to-find. Then there's a nice bunch of numbered stuff: Finley is /999 (hey, Pacific!); the Johnsons are /1199 and 500; Morales is /2013; the Wandy cards are /399 and 500.

I included the backs of the three promos as the two Portraits cards are slightly different.

Butler's a '92 Diamond King that I couldn't pass up along with some other amazing cards from my favorite decade that absolutely scream "90s inserts rule!" Bernie's from the amazing Pacific Paramount Fielder's Choice insert, this from '99. The acetate/die-cut Walker is SN5000 and from one of my favorite Donruss Studio inserts. Belle and Williams hail from a '96 Select chase set called Claim to Fame, and they aren't individually numbered but do claim to be "1 of 2100 produced" on the back. And the other Williams is from Pinnacle's Summit Hitters Inc. insert, and that's also numbered, to 4000 copies.

As of this post everything above is still available!

The football bait is once again largely numbered stuff mixed in with a few cool looking items and one hit this time. Numbering for those who care: Battle /350; Cunningham /299; Jammer /400; Johnson /500; Jue /1499; Keller /250; Meachem already traded; Piscitelli /200; Smith already traded.

Mostly numbered again but there's two that aren't because they looked cool enough on their own. The third card in this scan is a '97 Pacific team checklist for the Falcons with a couple see-through windows. Number four is a Score Future Franchise that pairs up Dez White and Cade McNown (I know, I know--it was 2000, nobody knew better!). Numbered cards: Tuiasosopo /1250; Wells /500; Williams /899; Foster /2002; Gates /999; Greene /500; Minnis /999. And yes, it's nice to see so much Pacific in here while I continue reading Mike Cramer's book!

Finishing off the football, I threw in the back of the White/McNown since it fit. The numbered cards are Mitchell /4000; Robinson /350; Robinson /4000; Young /750. And lastly, the Brown/Clayton/White triple jersey was something like $2 (and is numbered /100) so it seemed like a good trade bait pickup.

As for my keepers, mostly from the dime box:

I think everything here was a dime except for the Gibby/Harwell and Ripken. Granderson's Heritage issue is an SP but I don't have to care since I only had to pay a dime. It was nice finding a few other PCs at that price as well. Meanwhile, the Gibson/Harwell 2004 Fleer Greats Announcing Greats insert was a buck or two and isn't even numbered, but it was too cool to leave behind! And Cal's '96 Finest Refractor was one of the $3 or 8/$20 cards I snagged from the guy that mostly deals in vintage, and the $2.50 cost was totally fine with me as it's a beaut.

I don't know why I had so much luck finding new cards of '23 Series champ Max Scherzer in the dime boxes but I had no reason to put them back. This little stack features some solid designs like Phoenix and Optic, Stadium Club and Chrome. It doesn't matter to me that all of them have him pictured with the team he helped win his first ring, the Nats, because he's one of those ex-Tigers I continue to collect, if not put much money into.

The basketball and football fit into one scan and I believe all of these were dimes except for one. My last post featured a nice number of LeVert cards and I found two of my own here of the shiny variety out of Panini products. While the Refractor-like Prizm card is quite nice, the Orange Donruss parallel with its rays of light is the winner in my book.

Flipping over to the gridiron and a team I'm rooting for to finish out Jim Harbaugh's suspension with two wins and no distractions, we actually start with a current player. Corum and the other RBs haven't shown the explosive play-making ability they brought last year but he continues to live in the end zone, already equaling last year's 18 TDs on the ground despite almost 100 fewer carries. I happily chipped in a buck for the Bowman U card you see above, plus I snagged one for Jeff while I was at it because he'd do the same for me.

The other three are dime inserts I was more than happy to dig out of the boxes. Ex-WR Darboh can be seen on a Prizm parallel of his Optic rookie, and there's that "Rated Rookie" logo I love so much. QB Elvis Grbac was the back half of another Score Future Franchise insert like the one you saw above, and RB Sylvester Morris was the "future" guy up front. He'd play 15 games for KC in 2000 as a first-rounder and then completely disappear from the league. One guy who's still around and causing havoc for NFL offenses is Kwity Paye, seen here on an Orange parallel of his '21 Panini Playbook RC (with just the area you see up top changed to orange). He's got 4.5 sacks for Indy this year putting him on pace to beat his career high of 6.0 from last season. He's also equaled his career best two fumble recoveries from his rookie season with lots of time left to pad that number.

I'll get back to trade posts shortly but hope you all enjoyed yet another look at my monthly trip to Taylor which was a good time as always for me.

10/6/23 card show report: cheap boxtober

I'm encouraged by the fact that I was able to get that Facebook Marketplace purchase post up last night so I'm back this evening to see if I can zip my way through another one. Because I'd like to give folks at least a couple days to look over that one and pick out potential trade bait, tonight I'm going to do the same with my show pickups from last Friday.

I continued my standard practice of taking the first Friday of the show off from work despite Michigan not playing until Saturday evening, largely because I feel like I might miss out on some good stuff if I wait a day. So early Friday afternoon I headed out to Taylor and spent around two or two and a half hours digging through lots of boxes. It was certainly worth the effort with the deals available that day. Dime cards were 100/$7 (and even better deals were there if you bought larger quantities but I'd had enough by then) and the next level up was quarter-ish cards at five/$1.

Here's a quick spending breakdown before I get to the scans:

• 100 @ $0.10 each = $10
• 125 @ 5/$1 = $25
• 10 @ 2/$1 = $5
• 7 @ 2$ = $14
• 5 @ 5/$20 = $20

That's $74 and he asked for $70.

Before I left I hit up the vintage guy I check out once in a while and grabbed eight of his $3 cards that go eight for $20. That means I left having spent $90 on some 255 cards--not bad!

Here we go with some trade bait. Please make your requests via comment/email/TCDb offer as always.

UD Finite rookies /1299; Moments & Milestones /150.

More M&Ms /150.

The rest of the /150 M&Ms, plus a Black parallel /25. The Studio Stars inserts aren't SNed but look awesome.

Bonds /10,000; Brown /2000; Ensberg /2006; Giles /150; King /3499; Reynolds /500. 
Ayanbadejo /1000; Denson, Huard, and King /2999; Graham /399; Hali /999; Mason /2009; McNown /2500; Moore /2010.

Moreau /2000; Redman /2500; Stith /1500; Westbrook is a Promo; Williams /500.

Pettis, Schaub, and Shiancoe /999; Stith /1500; Williams /999.

And now we get to my keepers:

These six items are among the eight I snagged from the vintage guy for $20. I'm very short on Bunning Tigers cards (and Yankee Killer Lary as well), Cash is always a winner, and the quartet of '74 Topps Stamps was too cool to pass up, especially since it added a new Freehan to my collection.

The dimes and $0.20 cards were as good to my collection as they were to the piles of trade bait I'm building. A numbered Bondo, a new Grandy, another Griffey for the set from which his card hails, Mr. Padre, the Professor, a sweet acetate Manning, and three of the four new Cals I added that day.

A numbered Pudge for under a buck? Yes, please! Not only did I hit all four of Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken, but I also got both blog namesakes too in Grandy and JV. Cecil looks cool in UD holo form. Ripken and Ozzie were All-Star stalwarts. And my first relic of Skubal, who put on an ace-like performance to end the 2023 campaign, is a 2021 jersey from A&G for just $2!

I didn't skip the other sports either, coming up with a sweet acetate Iggy plus a $2 signature of former star Trey Burke. That was such a nice deal I added a second one to send Jeff's way (since that's exactly what he would have done for me). It's just my second autograph of his among seven hits so I thought it was a particularly good score.

As for football, I came up with a couple more of those Donruss Premium Press Proofs, and I'll have to see how close I am to a team set at this point, but it was cool that they were RC parallels of Haskins and Ojabo. Law is a 2000s Ultra Gold Medallion, Funchess represents yet another sweet acetate insert, and we finish up with a final parallel, an Elite Pink, to add to Ojabo's growing collection.

I don't know how often my favorite seller will have those dime and $0.20 boxes but I've really been enjoying the time I've spent digging through them for gems so I hope to see them at upcoming shows.

Anyway, as usual, I hope you enjoyed a recap of my show experience, and I'll remind y'all one more time to please feel free to stake claims to some of the trade bait above!

As for me, besides packing up some envelopes soon, I think I may go back to the blogger trades I need to cover, then sprinkle in some eBay pickups and more TCDb transactions.

2023 Facebook purchases: in the market for some lots!

I'm just gonna go ahead and warn you right now that this post will be image-heavy, but that's because I'll be showing off both some keepers and stuff available to all of you reading this here post. Just be aware!

So, I think you all know that I've had some pretty reasonable luck buying cards and card-related items via Facebook Marketplace. Well tonight I'm back with two more success stories, one small and one much larger.

First, back in mid-August, I headed maybe 30 minutes north of Ann Arbor to check out a garage sale that had been advertised on Marketplace, because the helpful pictures included a number of interesting card items. While the recent blasters on hand were naturally overpriced, I picked up a bunch of things that weren't. The total they gave me for the items below was $37:

A box of 2018 Heritage base and a misc. 2021/2022 box that was mostly Topps brands with a bit of Panini mixed in. $10 and $5.

A couple of these sets of Lions McDonald's/Fleer GameDay sheets. I got one each for John and Paul at $5 per.

A couple Griffey Starting Lineups (still unopened!) that I didn't already have, for another $5 each.

Two sets of '94 Post still sealed ($2 each), one of which went to Paul, and six packs of early 90s Conlon for $0.50 each.

I was quite happy with that haul, and if you want to see some highlights of the boxed/packed stuff, here you go:

Some of the best pulls from the Conlon packs. What a beautiful, if simple, product, filled with HOFers, stars, forgotten players, and more than a century of baseball history!

Some stacks from the misc. '21/'22 box. I pulled a lot out for trade packages (and a few for myself) but may list some on TCDb soon.

The 2018 Heritage box was definitely worth the price since I'm sure I'll be able to trade a bunch, plus I was able to flip some SPs that were left in there already.

My keepers, 1 of 2. All former Tigers (except one, for now...), mostly on other teams, but that's cool.

My keepers, 2 of 2. More ex-Tigers from recent-ish Topps brands.

Overall I was quite happy with that score, especially since it yielded a nice amount of trade bait for some of my favorite folks.

Less than a month later I found a guy selling a mixed lot in my hometown of Livonia for the very reasonable price of $50. I didn't see the point in haggling when the pictures made it look pretty interesting. By the time I got over there he'd continued to add stuff to the pile, and he let me know that he'd purchased a larger collection and was dumping some of it he didn't need/want/feel like dealing with. In that case I'd say we both got a great deal.

There was a LOT to go through, and these images will give you a small taste of what things looked like before I really started sorting through it all:

This big-ass tub was filled with boxes and albums. The set boxes fooled me as a couple were factory set boxes from early 90s UD, but they had more interesting stuff inside, as it turned out.

There was a ton of really oddball stuff mixed in, such as these vending machine capsule helmets, oversized stuff, and even a few packs, most of which I opened.

The monster box was a blast to dig through and I came up with some great stuff for myself, pending trade packages, and more. Oh, and back to oddball, there were a couple EA games as well.

My favorite album contained a bunch of these 1980 Topps Superstar photos, many of which have already been earmarked for packages, though there's still some that can be claimed below.

The unopened stuff was mostly mid-80s Donruss All-Star oversized cards, but there was also this bunch of Fun Food Pins, which were mostly Cal plus Willie McGee.

Now I'll give you a quick look at what I kept and then a very brief summary of what's up for grabs.

Regular-ish baseball, 1 of 3. Those Detroit News cards are pretty cool when I can find them.

Baseball 2 of 3. Lots of Scherzer adds between the lots today!

Baseball 3 of 3: the Cecil was a fun find, and I also decided to hang on to the Smith for my collection of star and HOF baseball RCs.

Simba and Chester are the two Topps photos I kept.

The Cal up top is actually a 5x7 box-topper and not from the slightly smaller boxed set made of the Ripken Collection insert. The pin and Topps Big items are new to me as well.

Hell yeah, new Studio portraits of Mr. Padre and the Professor!

Not much individual stuff from the other sports but these were all pretty cool. I believe the Webber Pog-like item was popped out of a card that included another one. The Collins and Hoard are oversized Pacific cards, and there are a LOT more available below.

Some near and complete sets from baseball and football, including:

• 1990 Swell Baseball Greats (currently missing 10/135)
• 1991 Swell Baseball Greats (missing 22/150)
• 1991 Score Rookie/Traded complete set of 110
• 1994 Pinnacle Series II (missing 12/270)
• 1991 Topps Toys "R" Us Rookies unopened box set of 33
• 1992 Pinnacle Rookies unopened box set of 30
• 1993 Pinnacle Joe DiMaggio unopened box set of 30
• 1991 Classic (football) unopened sealed (in two parts) set of 50
• 1994 UD Miller Lite/Tombstone Super Bowl Showdown complete set of 5
• 1990-91 Pro Set Super Bowl XXV Silver Anniversary Commemorative opened box set of 160 (note: I still have an unopened one of these available from the big Facebook collection I bought a few years ago)

Ok, now that I've got all that covered, here are things that are available to those of you who made it this far. As usual, please go ahead and claim things in the comments. Nothing's up on TCDb yet but will be soon. If I know you I'll probably just go ahead and send you what you pick out, otherwise I'll respond to try to work out a trade. And of course, I've already pulled a lot of stuff for soon-to-be sent trade packages, so if you don't see much of anything you want here, rest assured a lot of you already have nice stacks going!

Best of the baseball stuff by far. Witt (Sr., of course) looks to be IP/TTM.

More nice baseball singles.

Some numbered, parallels, and more.

Mostly numbered parallels.

Parallels that aren't numbered. Carmona's Refractor has some surface damage that's pretty clear.

Lots of stacks of commons, some fairly recent. The biggest is from '95 Collector's Choice SE and I already pulled a bunch for my team collector buddies, but if you've got wants please let me know!

'96 UD Ripken Collection oversized box set (minus the box, plus some rough edges/corners).

More oversized stuff. Can't say I'd seen the A-Rod flip book before.

This doesn't appear to be a team set of D-Backs Pinnacle Snapshots but there's a nice bunch.

Big and not quite as large.

Available Topps photos.

Big stack of Donruss puzzle cards (heavy on Willie Stargell), no complete sets, plus some various stickers (mostly Fleer) and UD holograms.

Donruss Action All-Stars.

This Cleveland Indians bear thing is next to some of those aforementioned football helmets, and that'll transition us into the football stuff:

Again, a mix of oversized and slightly less oversized. The Master Photos are quite cool in my opinion.

More oversized stuff of the Pacific and UD variety.

Hockey begins with this very cool binder. I'm giving Chris (the Collector) first right of refusal on it because that Hartford logo makes me think of him immediately, but he may turn it down.

A couple more oversized pieces

'91-'92 Seventh Inning Sketch OHL and WHL near sets. OHL's missing 64/382 (plus 7 of the 16 Teams insert), WHL's missing 11/359.

A couple hockey complete sets. On the left, 1991 Ultimate Draft, a 90-card set (with some dinged corners). On the right, 1991 Arena Draft Picks, a complete in box 33-card set, though the cards definitely got bricked and are a bit worse for wear after I pulled them apart.

And last up is the misc. category:

Pins, coins, the two EA games, and two unopened packs of Olympics cards.

Again, there was so much more, from the less exciting stuff from the monster box that will likely head to my TCDb trade list, and some very cool stuff I pulled for many of you already, much of which was of the oddball/oversized variety. Still, I'd be happy to see more of the above go to good homes, so please throw out some requests if you're so inclined.

As for me, I continue to try to organize things in boxes for "to list on TCDb" and "to dump back to Facebook Marketplace because this is junk and taking up space!" And you know I'm still keeping my eye on the site for good deals like these.