7/31/26 card show report: Whatever

The past few weeks have been a bit "whatever" sports-wise, what with Michigan Football struggling with its transition to a new coaching staff that was supposed to help; the Tigers' season going out with a whimper and the Red Wings starting with one, proving once again that the Illitch family needs to sell both teams; and the NFL is in full swing but it's hard for me to find any team actually likeable, so I just root for individual former Michigan players.

That "blah" kind of feeling has sort of carried over to my blogging, even though they're not really related. I just don't get the itch to post very often, though don't worry, I don't intend to leave anytime soon because I still really appreciate the trading aspect blogging brings, and I have plenty to show off.

And more importantly, that stuff hasn't dulled my interest in the hobby at all. As a matter of fact, on the last day of July, for what would technically be August's show, I headed east to Taylor and tied my high for show spending for the year at $170.

A large chunk of that money was spent on higher-dollar cards, including a few for myself, but then again, "whatever," right? I haven't been spending like crazy this year (or even the past few years) so a splurge every now and then is fine, especially if I enjoy what I'm bringing home. The results of that thinking are below:

To start with, my 381st Rich Hill card may look somewhat plain, but it's actually the Vintage Stock version of his 2018 flagship base, and is therefore numbered /99. I'm glad to add anything new of his, but a numbered card is even better!

Speaking of pitchers I love to collect, one of my absolute favorites this time was the 2001 Stadium Club Capture the Action Game View of Maddux that you see above. It's not quite a 90s insert as it was made in 2001, but the creativity it brings is certainly in the spirit of the golden era of chase cards. Stadium Club offered some gorgeous insert designs in addition to the perennially awesome base looks, and the addition of the embedded slide is a winner. This is also numbered to just 100 copies. Would you rather have something like this or a slightly different colored variant of the usual Fanatics junk? That's what I thought!

A couple cheap Pudge inserts (which actually demonstrate Topps' most recent lack of design) give way to my first relic of young Tigers IF Colt Keith. It's from 2024 Select and the crazy pattern you see is called a Flash Prizm. No, I can't keep track of all of those either. Colt hasn't turned into the star people hoped he would after promising years in 2024 and '25, but he's still just 25, is versatile, and is locked up on a reasonable contract, so he's got time to become a long-term guy.

Another former Tigers IF, George Kell, made the trip home from this show along with the Maddux above, and I think one or two other cards. His 2002 SP Legendary Cuts bat relic caught my eye and I know I didn't pay as much for it as I thought. The addition of the olde English "D" on the bat chip was a nice touch! That appears to be my first relic of Kell, which surprised me.

Last up from baseball is a relatively understated but pretty solid Cal Ripken Jr. relic. As I march closer to 1500 of his cards, my most significant recent addition to his PC is this 2000 Skybox E-X Genuine Coverage jersey, which is a lovely orange Orioles swatch. There's not a whole lot going on with the design but sometimes that's a good thing. That's relic #10 of the Iron Man in my top player collection.

The football content goes just as hard, if not harder, if you can believe it. The Select base of former Vikings QB McCarthy was from the cheap boxes, but the rest certainly weren't! I'd seen two or three of the big cards in this scan in this seller's "as priced" boxes for quite a while (I'm talking more than a year at least!) and finally said to myself, "whatever," and asked for his best price on them along with the rest of the stuff I picked out. I was satisfied with what he asked and now I own them.

First up is my 78th card of Amara Darboh, and hit #52 (yep, I sure like that ratio!). Hailing from 2017 Rookies & Stars, it's a Longevity Signatures Green auto, and since the serial numbering is right up front you can see why I was especially interested in this one. At just five copies it's my lowest numbered Darboh aside from a printing plate, not to mention the 37th that includes his signature.

Keeping up the WR theme--he was a "TE" briefly in name only at Michigan--is Devin Funchess on a variation of his 2015 Panini Contenders auto/RC. This is the "facing forward" version while a "facing right" front image also exists. This one wasn't nearly as pricey as the others here but was still a fun addition as it joins 36 other cards in my bunches of Funchess.

The last WR in the group is possession guy Jason Avant, a sure-handed receiver for Michigan and then the Eagles. The card you see of him above is from 2006 Leaf Limited, way back when the Leaf name still meant something other than "Endless garbage 1/1s and stupid Trump shit." The bright foil you see is due to the card being a Gold Spotlight parallel of his RC, and it comes with both Avant's signature and a nice two-colored jersey swatch. Though you wouldn't know this by the front, it's almost as rare as the Darboh above, limited to just 10 copies. Just another gorgeous piece of one of my best looking football PCs, now sitting at 67 cards strong.

Last and kind of least, since it pales in comparison to the others--but is still much appreciated--is my third relic of ex-Minnesota QB J.J. McCarthy. The national champ shares a 2004 Donruss Rookie Holiday Dual Sweater insert with former teammate Dallas Turner. As always, these are kind of gimmicky, but also no worse than "event worn" cards, and at least the multiple colors make them more interesting. I'm hoping JJ gets more of a chance with the Giants (or someone else) than he did with the Vikings, who cut bait on him pretty early, at a time when it's become clear a number of young QBs need years to develop. But that's fine since I have no love for the Vikes anyway. "Whatever" again, right?

And that's another successful show in the books. I've got two more to recap and will get to them whenever I feel like it along with the other stuff that's hit my collection since then. Until I do, I hope many of you are doing better than "whatever" when it comes to the teams you root for. Unless you like the Yankees, in which case I'm not sorry!

2026 eBay purchases: rare cards and a coin

Well at least I didn't let the entire remainder of April pass before I posted again! It's been a lazy month for me hobby-wise and as usual I wasn't dying to put the effort into posting, but now I have some motivation to catch up thanks to a couple trade packages that arrived this month.

It was an interesting one for Michigan fans: the highs of the basketball Wolverines winning just their second national title followed by the even more favored hockey team falling once again in the semis of the Frozen Four to the hated Denver Pioneers, who've lapped Michigan in hockey titles, much to my chagrin.

But I can hardly complain about the results, along with football spring practice in the books that has me looking forward to the fall (but not until I've enjoyed some warm weather for more than a few days at a time, please!).

So apropos of almost nothing, here's a look at my four eBay pickups from the first third of 2026:

My first eBay purchase of any type this year, way back in February, was my second 1/1 of beastly Super Bowl-winning LB LaMarr Woodley. For a hair under $9 I'm now the proud owner of this 2007 SAGE HIT black plate of the 46th overall pick way back in '07. It's from the era when a brand like SAGE was allowed to use full team logos, names, and uniforms, and that makes the Michigan uni aspect a bonus.

Here's the base card for comparison:

Not bad at all. Like I said, that's 1/1 #2 to go along with a plate from 2009 Topps, and it marks hit #12 of the big hitter who piled up 58.0 total sacks, 319 tackles, and nine forced fumbles.

A few weeks later in March I scored one of my biggest cards so far of the young year. For whatever reason, my collection of WR Amara Darboh boasts some of the best looking items in my Michigan Football collection, and the rich got richer here. I was willing to go all the way up to almost $20 for this National Treasures plate/prime jersey/auto combo. Why? Once again, there's the Wolverine-ness of the thing: a Michigan uni shot, the logo on the back, and most of all, the fantastically large maize/blue/white jersey swatch. It's a thing of beauty!

Darboh's 51st hit marks his first 1/1 in the collection (surprisingly enough, given the overall quality of his PC), and one I was thrilled to add for sure.

Just a few days later I was finally able to rectify a small issue from a purchase from the February show. As I noted here, I grabbed what I thought were three 7-11 Slurpee Coin sets, but one of them--the 1986 Central Region version--was missing probably the biggest coin: Carlton/Ryan/Seaver. A bit over $6 shipped was enough to snag me two copies of this coin along with a couple dupes of another. And that's one more set knocked off the wantlist!

I was glad to catch the note at the bottom that states, "Nolan holds the all-time mark for K's, followed by Steve and Tom." That was indeed the case at the time, but the list looks a bit different some 40 years later. Ryan still stands along with a crazy 5714 over a crazier 27 seasons, but Randy Johnson (4875) and Roger Clemens (4672) topped Carlton's 4136, and Bert Blyleven (3701) snuck above Seaver's 3640. Those are your top 6, with Justin Verlander hoping to return to health to pitch enough to take over 7th place, currently held by Don Sutton. Only 20 K's separate the two!

And finally we have my most recent pickup. For a penny under $12 I scored my latest Manningham of (too) many just last week. This here is a black plate from Upper Deck's 2009 Heroes product, specifically for the Blue Retail Jerseys insert. Do I happen to own that card like I do with the base of the Woodley above? Could I claim I have "too many" Manninghams otherwise?

While I don't like the 2009 set as much as the 2008 version, which included RCs of Manningham and a bunch of his other teammates that are favorites of mine, it's still a cool looking set, and, I mean, since when am I not gonna chase a rare Mario I need?

Since I threw out numbers for the others I'll note that this is my second 1/1 of Manningham (the other is a National Treasures auto/plate that I showed off on TMM almost EIGHT years ago) and hit #103 of the namesake of my former sister blog.

As always, money well spent, I'd say!

And now I'll try to get back to work on a couple other posts before getting back to trade package action. In the meantime, bring on the warmer weather and more baseball!

2024 trade package #15: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store part 1: everything but hockey

Tonight let's take a look at part of the latest big-ass shipment from Doug over at Sports Cards From the Dollar Store, received by me in August.

That's right--I said "part of" because he literally sent me this:

I split it into hockey and non-hockey, and you'll be getting the latter tonight. In true SCFtDS form, you'll get to see a large package broken up into multiple posts!

Baseball's up first and my Tigers PCs, some old and many new, were well represented. I don't know if Baez is long for a roster spot but that Bowman's Best is pretty cool. The '72 Gator would be cool enough on its own but this one is a Canadian special: O-Pee-Chee! Miggy makes a few recent-ish appearances here plus one more in the horizontals section. Campos is only 21 and a potential OF prospect to watch. Traded Tiger Canha joins a bunch of others in this post from this year's Heritage.

Cronenworth is of course a favorite. Flaherty is surely happy to be with the NL champion Dodgers while the Tigers got two solid prospects in the deal. Gold is 24 and still in high A while Graham will be that age early next year and seems to be hovering around A+ himself. The Riley Greene playing card is a cool one of a fun player I'm definitely growing to like on the team. And Griffey was pretty good in his day as well.

Jobe is pretty much the franchise's top prospect after going 3rd overall in 2021 and he was though of highly enough to make a late-season MLB debut followed by a couple appearances in the playoffs, which had to be thrilling for a young dude. Jung is another top-100 prospect for the team and while his '24 MLB debut wasn't amazing, it was cool to see the '22 first-rounder get some ABs with the big team. Keith is locked up for a few seasons and could be a key part of a rebuilt offense. Kemp is another OPC Tiger from my Canadian buddy, this one from 1979.

Kinsler's was a bit of a favorite of mine during his Motown tenure so I love the Refractor above. Larkin is of course a longtime personal favorite and PC guy. McGonigle is an intriguing middle IF prospect that the Tigers took 37th overall in '23. Austin didn't work out but his Tigers draftee bro Parker has shown a bit of hitting ability and a flair for web gems in the outfield so we'll probably see plenty more of him next year. Melton's a '22 4th-rounder out of San Diego State, Morris is a team legend and HOFer, and Olson is looking to be an excellent acquisition whose numbers were hampered by a sorry lack of run support (and bad health luck) this season.

I have to say, it's super cool to see a guy like Magglio in products like Panini's '23 Chronicles, including the card numbered /199 above! As with other players you saw today I'm always glad to see cards of Cal in trade packages. Skubal is largely responsible for taking what looked to be another below-average Tigers squad and making it a big story, with a Cy Young-worthy campaign that led his team to a very unlikely playoff berth! Tork recovered a bit after a dismal start and we'll likely get a better idea next year if he'll be part of the club's future. Tram is another team legend appearing courtesy of '23 Panini Select. And Papa Grande and JV had fans plenty excited back when they were starring on perennial playoff teams.

The versatile Vierling is our last standard vertical issue in the baseball group. Miggy gets another Heritage MLB pair card that looks quite cool as a throwback to past Topps designs. The two guys who led the '82 Tigers on the '83 Topps card had an especially good time in '84! A stray '85 OPC half sticker of Lou Whitaker was a very fun surprise. Jung makes a couple more appearances, including one with the also previously-seen Melton. And then we have a card of a former Tiger the likes of which I wouldn't tend to keep, but there's no way I could turn down the Leather & Lumber black gold signature you see here even if it features failed prospect Christin Stewart. Come on, how cool does that look?!

Switching over to basketball, I believe that every player seen here is currently active in the NBA. Injured Hawks G Kobe Bufkin leads all comers with three new cards. THJ had a solid 14 points in Detroit's season-opening loss last night, and the card you see above is numbered /165, which is cool. LeVert's Cavs are actually scheduled to face the Pistons tomorrow. I couldn't find any stats for Washington's Poole yet this season. And then we have the Wagner bros, Franz and Mo who combined for 30 points (23 and 7, respectively) in yesterday's season opener win against the Bulls.

Basketball got a couple new hits too! Brooks is a newcomer to both my basketball hits collection and UM basketball PC in general. He played as a G for five seasons in Ann Arbor, spanning 2017-18 to 2021-22, then went undrafted, so he's prime fodder for a product like Wild Card Alumination that gets signatures of players who probably wouldn't sniff a cardboard appearance otherwise. While he becomes the 36th subject in my basketball hits PC, Wilson gets his second: a Crown Royale jersey/auto (numbered /199). The 2017 Bucks first-rounder is pictured with the team that drafted him though he's since suited up for Houston, Doug's Raptors, and the 76ers.

As we switch over to the gridiron, transfer RB Thomas Rawls is the lone base card out of 10 items (hence splitting the remaining basketball and football into two scans). WR Amara Darboh gets a nice spotlight down the right side of the scan with three beautiful looking auto/relics. #1 is a dual jersey (you might call them "prime" as they aren't far off from patches) and football combo paired up with Darboh's signature, and the Absolute beauty is the Spectrum parallel of that product's RC, limited to "just" 99 copies. Next is Panini Phoenix's Orange parallel of his jersey/auto, clocking in at 150 copies. And finally we have a Rookies & Stars Dress for Success signature and memorabilia pairing that's also numbered /99. Fun news: these additions allowed Darboh to join the 50-hit club in the football PC! He's just the 11th player to reach that milestone.

The above three hits go quite well with this super sextet. Arrington is one of the 10 other 50-hit guys in my collection and the '09 Topps Magic autographs will always be a favorite of mine. Talented defender Devin Bush II joins the collection with his first hit, a Panini Luminance jersey that makes him football collection dude #254 and the fourth with that first name. I now have 11 Butts including the shiny one numbered /99 above, and I'll leave that there for all of you to get your best comments in. Chesson was a college teammate and position mate of Darboh's and he hit the double-digit mark with his 9th card including a signature (the other's a plate) thanks to 2017 Panini Spectra (#d /199). I would assume most of you who've followed me for long enough remember the namesake of my now-retired secondary blog, Mario Manningham, on a sweet Press Pass college uni signature. By the way, he's one hit away from joining Chad Henne in the 100-hit club while Jake Long needs three and Braylon Edwards needs six. Goals!

And last up is one of the biggest surprises in this mailing. Doug's certainly been generous enough to send me plates and other 1/1s before, but I didn't expect this Yellow 2020 Leaf Draft plate of former transfer QB Shea Patterson! The two-year Wolverine went 10-3 and 9-4 in 2018 and 2019, a few seasons before things really turned around for Jim Harbaugh's program. This appears to be my 56th 1/1 in my football PC with Shea being the 34th member to appear on at least one. I really enjoyed finding this among the rest of the loot which was already very high quality.

So as you can see I was quite pleased with the baseball, basketball, and football content. As for the hockey stuff, you'll have to wait until next time, but I promise it's worth a look as that stack was bigger than that of these three sports combined! I look forward to sharing that with you so y'all can get a feeling for just how much Doug stuffed into this box.

Until then, thanks so much for another fantastic package, Doug!

3/1/24 card show report: March radness

This evening I'm finishing covering my March hobby goings-on with the only purchase I made that month, which ended up being my usual card show.

I headed over to Taylor on Friday, the first, and happily spent $100 on lots of great stuff. I don't remember most of what I got that wasn't keepers for me, but I don't just spend an amount like that on something like cards if I don't think it's worth it. So I'm sure I picked up some great package-fillers for some of you that follow me here and others I trade with.

Speaking of trade bait, you might have noticed I haven't really had any cards to show off that weren't already ticketed for trade packages in these show reports lately, and that's mainly because I haven't come across anything that seemed worth it. Instead I'm focusing most of my money and effort on stuff I know will be going to one of my regular collecting buddies. That doesn't mean I won't have more to claim again in the future, but that's a much lower priority for me because I already know what most of my usual trade partners might like.

With that out of the way, here's my keepers from the March show:

The Cal on top is from a 2001 Fleer Premium insert called Decade of Excellence. This was a huge 50-card chase set in that product with cards ranging from Ruth and Gehrig (1920s) all the way up to A-Rod/Jeter/Nomar and others in the "2000s," though obviously that decade had just begun. As you can see, Ripken is one of the players representing the 90s, and for very obvious reasons unless you were living under a rock. I like the look of this insert as I often do with Fleer cards from that era, plus it's a new Ripken, so, win-win!

Next, the biggest card I brought home this time was a 2001 SP Legendary Cuts bat relic of Wolverine/Tiger baseballer Charlie Gehringer. This was an especially exciting buy for me because of his connection to both teams, plus it's just a great example of the quality of vintage player relics that Upper Deck put out at the time. I'm also happy to add it to the other three Tigers I have from the Legendary Debut Bats set: Bill Freehan, Alan Trammell, and Lou Whitaker. '68 great Willie Horton is the last Tiger I need to finish up the team set, plus I'm chasing George Sisler for my Michigan PC.

I think the seller had this in his showcase for somewhere between $20-$30 and he gave me a discount on it with the rest of my purchase. I'm glad I didn't leave it for someone else to snag so I'd regret it! That's just my second Gehringer relic to go with 10 autographs and a plate.

The football side of things was mostly inserts with a couple other items of interest thrown in. Darboh's from 2017 Panini Classics' Red Back parallel, and while the back is the main difference, I was more interested in landing another numbered card, plus the college photo is a plus. Speaking of numbered stuff, Devin Funchess got two of those added to his PC (which sits at exactly 100, woo!): a 2015 Panini Clear Vision Blue parallel of his RC (kick acetate!) /99 and 2018 Panini Silver Knight parallel /50.

Then, Dax brings the Rated Rookie goodness from '22 Donruss as my 8th RC of the talented DB. A Michigan-uniformed Charles Woodson is the subject of a rookie year Press Pass insert from 1998 called Triple Threat. He was one of three players (Peyton Manning, Ryan Leaf) to be included in the set, and each player appears on three cards, with the one you see above being Woodson's third. I'd love to get the other two to put them together to celebrate the guy who rightly defeated the other two for the Heisman late in '97.

Last up on the insert side of things I came up with a cool pair of Pacific inserts of two guys I always lump together: David Terrell and Anthony Thomas. I have more of the latter than the former, though that's because A-Train's career lasted longer than Terrell's, leading to Thomas appearing on just about double the number of cards. So it was super cool to find both of them out of this 2001 Private Stock Titanium insert that was numbered /2000 and given out at the 2002 Hawaii Trade Conference. Yep, these two have lived it up better than I have!

And last up is one other hit that I thought would be fun to snag for something like $2 or $3: a 2020 Panini Contenders Blue Foil auto of former Michigan QB Shea Patterson. The guy who famously (allegedly) put more effort into his golf game than football practice still put up some good games for the Maize & Blue in 2018-19 so I didn't mind paying a few bucks for my third autograph of his, and first from a "real" brand (the other two are Leaf). I'd say it was worth it to get the full Michigan uniform experience even if it's a sticker-graph.

And that does it for what was a pretty low-key March for me. Don't worry, though, because there's lots more to see from April on, and I'll be back with a post that starts covering that month's cards soon!

2023 trade package #9: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

It's been more than a couple weeks since I last posted, mostly due to the usual procrastination and distractions, this time with a bit of life thrown in. That said, I haven't given up on covering the piles of cards on my desk, especially the blogger trades from some very cool people.

For the second straight year, Michigan Hockey's season ended in disappointment in the NCAA semi-finals, this time to eventual champ Quinnipiac (who's ok in my book for beating Minnesota!). All the same, it was a great year for a star-studded team that certainly lived up to the historically great program's expectations.

The person I trade with who's boosted my Wolverine Hockey collection with cards of the program's past stars more than anyone else (except, maybe--maybe--myself) is Doug over at Sports Cards From the Dollar Store, and earlier this month he treated me to more of his trademark generosity from across the border. There's lots of hockey to check out and plenty more too!

We'll open things up with Bowman Chrome and Heritage Minors of some of the Tigers' prospects. The two double-"J"s are among the team's top farm players, and Greene has shown plenty of flashes. Paredes, of course, was flipped to Tampa in another one of those ill-fated "Will Detroit ever develop and keep an infield prospect?" deals.

Among the notables here are a 2007 Topps Red Back parallel of Bondo, a Fleer All-Star insert pairing up the well known Fryman with HOFer Craig Biggio, a Matt Manning that's "OMG eBay 1/1 100/100 last one!" (which is extra cool), a sweet recent Stadium Club base of Cal, and a Heritage insert of prospect Wenceel Perez. Nice stuff!

The baseball group ends with a bang! First is a Leaf Flash autograph of former Portage Northern and UM pitcher Tommy Henry, who got nine starts last year and one so far in '23. It's gaudy--it is Leaf after all--but the mostly Michigan uniform-ness makes it a winner. Joining him is my first hit of ex-#1 overall pick Spencer Torkelson. Nobody knows what to make of him but I think he still has plenty of time to show what he's capable of, especially if the team can stop messing with the swing he had success with before they got their dirty mitts on him.

Like I said, there's lots of UM Hockey to cover but there were also a few of the local pro team as well including a fun pair of stickers.

The Michigan Football contingent all fits in one scan with room to spare. From the non-hit group I especially like the brand new Aidan Hutchinson, and I recently learned that the blue Select cards are the retail version which explains why they seem to be way more prevalent to me than the "regular" base, which I now know as the hobby set. The Nico auto, which may be a Mojo parallel or one of about a million other variations, is just as loud as the earlier Leaf auto we saw but no less appreciated--it's just my second of the stud WR, and just like the Henry it's a college card, so thumbs up! To that Doug added a nice relic of Collins' WR predecessor Amara Darboh, and the numbered hit with a large swatch is my 48th of him. It's apparently a rare instance of a Darboh I have that Jeff doesn't, though I wouldn't be shocked if he rectified that soon.

The hockey content did not remotely disappoint, and most of it this time seemed to hail from a few products like 17-18 Compendium, 21-22 OPC, and 22-23 Upper Deck. They all look quite nice but I think the latter happens to be an especially good effort by UD. Out of this group the Jets' Kyle Connor has one playoff goal thus far.

Oh that's a nice Dylan Larkin! The captain tied his career highs with 32 goals and 47 assists in '23 but did them in the same season for the first time, so his 79 points were a career best. He led the team in all of those categories and also signed an eight-year extension, so I'm happy he'll be around Hockeytown for a while longer. The Young Guns of Will Lockwood that follows is my first of  four-year Wolverine, so that was a fun find in the envelope. We'll see more of a couple of the guys in the next scan, but for now the pairing of Montoya goalie action cards was pretty nifty too!

The non-hits stuff finishes up with an awesome Turco action shot and trio of additional recent UD issues that include outstanding photography and design. How cool is that Larkin, tho?!

As for the biggest cards, two of them star former Wolverine-turned Devil-turned Golden Knight-turned Wing-turned Canadien-turned Wild: Jon Merrill. He's popped up a good amount in Doug's previous packages and got another nice boost this time with a very nice autograph and oversized jersey swatch. The pair gives him 13 hits, good for a tie with fellow buckstorecards package stalwart Chris Brown for 7th in the hockey collection. He's joined by another well-travelled vet still active in the playoffs, Tyler Motte. His 8th hit is a gorgeous UD Premier jersey/auto/RC with a beautiful three-color swatch from a jersey of the team that drafted him, the Blackhawks (he's now with the Rangers). Bonus points for the jersey number added to the signature plus serial numbering to boot.

Doug, thanks again for another killer package! I know you've already started posting some of what I sent back your way, and I hope you've had a chance to pick out some Presstine repacks for even more blog content.

As for me, I don't know how quickly I'll be back with the next envelope, but I'll work on it!

2022 COMC purchases: check out who's back!

It's 2023 but I still have some 2022 content to cover before getting to some great adds already this year.

Tonight you'll get to see the entirety of my first COMC order since late 2020. A number of factors, some pandemic-related, made the site a lot less attractive for a while as their processing speed for adding and shipping cards dipped below acceptable standards. After seeing that things were closer to normal late last year, I once again dove in during their big Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.

About $160 later, I had a nice stack of cards for myself and some Christmas card packages to boot (some of which still need to go out once my oft-mentioned Sportlots box ships!). Here are the items I scored for my own collections:

Baseball part 1. God do I love me some 90s inserts, and few could compare to Upper Deck's Amazing Greats in 1997 and '98. Both versions look stunning, and the Maddux you see above is from the former. Its wood grain design and clear inset player image look great, plus I love the punny name of the insert. From the same year you also get a look at another GOAT insert technology: Pinnacle's Dufex. I nabbed PC guy Dean Palmer's Museum Collection parallel for under a buck, and boy does it look nice in its own right.

To those I added a five-pack of ex-UM pitcher autos, all of which I believe were less than $2.50. Bourque's is a Refractor of the only other hit I owned of him, and that's numbered /499. New Rockie Jeff Criswell gets a nice trio added to his total out of Bowman Chrome, Elite, and Topps Pro Debut, and of course the middle card is my favorite since it features a college uniform photo. He now has four such cards to his name in my collection. And I ended up with a single card, but a spiffy one, of Criswell's potential Colorado teammate, Karl Kauffmann, also from Elite. It's a Status die-cut parallel numbered /99 and gives him four autos also out of six total hits.

The other two baseball items deserved their own scans. I thought the 2013 Panini America's Pastime booklet of former Tigers (and Yankees) A-Jax and Granderson was just too cool to pass up, especially for just $6.45. I don't have many booklet cards in my collection and getting one with large relic swatches from two of my favorite Tigers OF was a coup in my book. The one you see above is the Gold version numbered /49. The Granderson pinstripe is a nice bonus!

Card number two here was I believe the most expensive one I landed for myself, but well within my price range for a card of its type. My purchase history says I dropped $8.34 for Clayton Richard's 2018 Topps Cyan plate, one of five 1/1s I bought this time (but the only one for myself). That gives the former QB/P 13 total 1/1s to his name, 10 of which are plates.

Switching over to football, it was easy to split these into vertical and horizontal scans. A couple players got the most love this time but I also added a pair of new names and lots of college action cards so I spent my money well.

My first autograph of stud WR Nico Collins was one of my biggest steals at just $3, and I couldn't complete the purchase of it fast enough at that price given they usually go for more (plus the whole Michigan uni thing). Darboh got four new additions to his count (two more below) including a sweet triple jersey/auto and a green parallel of his 2017 Prestige autograph (/150) seen here. I love the latter's use of an action shot from a home game in the Big House.

Chris Evans made his debut in my hits collection thanks to the crazy cool 1/1 Matt sent me, and now I have a college uni autograph to go with that, also courtesy of Prestige. Talented DB Lavert Hill is making his first appearance with a 2020 Prizm autograph, and so is the guy on the last card of this scan, outstanding C (and current New Orleans Saint) Cesar Ruiz out of the same year's Playbook product. I'm making a more concerted effort to add hits of players missing in my collection and that work paid off here with some great looking cards of two recent Wolverines, both in their alma mater's duds.

And who could forget the namesake of my former other blog, Mario Manningham? I scored three verticals and one horizontal card (in the next scan) of the Super Bowl hero. One's from '08 Absolute and it comes with a football chunk plus jersey swatches in the shape of his number. The second is one of his two appearances in 2008 SP Rookie Edition and is done in the style of SP's '93 product. And the last one seen here is 2010 Prestige auto limited to a somewhat strange 113 copies.

Over on the X-axis we start with the other two Darboh cards. The current iteration of Leaf is pretty sketchy but you still get some extremely cool cards from them sometimes, like Amara's inscription-laden Trinity auto seen above. The jersey/auto/RC next to it from Panini's Illusions was also pretty cheap and further enhances one of my quieter quality collections, which now stands at 47 cards!

I occasionally chase cards of some of the guys that transferred out such as QB Ryan Mallett and found a good price on the slightly flawed (bit of a crease between his first and last names) auto/jersey from 2011 Timeless Treasures. That kind of thing doesn't pop up much in the other places I tend to look, so why not drop $2 for a solid hit?

The final Manningham card--though four is NOT "too many"--is from the hit-laded 2008 SPx product, and this one's a dual jersey with the swatch windows also in the shape of his jersey number. Mario's just one hit away from joining the 100-club in this collection, which currently includes Chad Henne and nobody else! (Jake Long remains at 97 and Braylon Edwards is chilling nearby with 93.)

One of my most interesting pieces I scored this time is the Denard Robinson 2013 Panini Black Rookie Shadowbox auto you see above. I thought the card enclosed a small mini jersey but it turns out it's just a flat image in a shadowbox-type design. That's still extremely cool, plus it's a new autograph of Shoelace for my collection, and it was just $2.25, so I'm very happy with it. That appears to be hit #54 of the dual-threat QB.

And this evening's final addition is my fifth hit and third autograph of DT Chris Wormley, a Ravens draftee who now suits up for the Steelers. He's the final recipient of a college uni auto for his collection, in this case out of 2017 Elite Draft, a product that was made for collectors like me. He's got a very good signature, especially with how low standards have gotten, and this one wasn't even $2, so it happily found a home in my football collection.

I was glad to be able to take another ride on the COMC train in 2022 and score some nice cards at great prices, plus they even arrived in time for me to send some out before Christmas! I hope those of you who follow the folks I sent them to (and will be doing so soon) enjoy seeing even more spoils on other blogs and social media.

As for me, while I wait for Sportlots to send me my now-ready-to-ship box cards, I get to show off some fun early 2023 items thanks to two fantastic trade partners plus some spoils from last weekend's show. It was a great start to the year in collecting and I'm looking forward to another enjoyable one with all of you. Happy new year!

11/4/22 card show report: November big spender

A couple Fridays ago I once again made it back east to Taylor for the monthly show after missing October's, and because of that I was willing to spend a bit more than I usually do if the opportunity arose.

I spent about my average of two hours flipping through my favorite seller's boxes and came up with the following totals:

• 60 quarter cards
• 55 dollar cards
• 7 $2 cards

All of that came out to $84 and the guy asked for $80, which was plenty reasonable. I was quite happy with the amount of trade bait I grabbed, especially out of the dollar boxes, and I suspect that he moved some stuff I would have skipped from the $2s into that. Anyway, I once again came home with a good amount of trade bait for some of my favorite folks plus plenty to list on TCDB. Speaking of the site, I also stopped by a vintage dealer that's often there and grabbed a couple cards for buddies I trade with there for just $5, so that was a successful stop as well.

In terms of what I'll show off tonight, as always I'll lead off with the unassigned trade bait:

Former Wolverine Bourque is a dupe for both myself and Jeff though I didn't realize it at the time. We'll get to the Caldwell in a minute. Cobb is SN149; Ervin, Prosise, and Reynolds are SN199; Robiskie is SN50; and Stewart (a cleat piece!) is SN15. As for the Caldwell, how great could it be seeing as it's the only card here out of the quarter box?

Wait, does that say "1/1" on the right?! It sure does! I have no idea how that snuck into the pile of quarter boxes, and even then how nobody grabbed it before me, but either way it's an exciting score! It's definitely not in mint condition having bounced around in at least that box for a bit, but I'm sure it'll make someone happy.

Trade bait #2: as you can see I like getting my money's worth on the $1 and $2 cards with autographed relics, and I've always liked those Topps Strata cards with the acetate windows. Funchess is another dupe for both Jeff and me but seemed worth a grab just in case. Hardy and Mayle are both SN799 as is the Palmer manuhelmet. Prosise card #2 is SN499 and the Walton cards are SN399 and SN99, respectively.

Just shout if you want anything you see above and we can try to work out a deal!

Now we'll move on to my keepers:

On the baseball side, out of the quarter box we have a Griffey from this year's Gallery that looks classy plus a Maddux from 2008 Topps Moments & Milestones (for his 300 career wins). I believe both basketball hits were in the $2 box and those are of former Laker (among other teams) Mo Wagner (Franz's brother!) and former lots-of-teams GRIII (numbered /199). Wagner moves up to three hits while Robinson III gets his sixth. Last up in this scan is one football item that didn't fit in the next one: a Panini Unparalleled RC of Packers defensive star Rashan Gary, who's sadly out for the season with a knee injury. According to my list I now have a third of Gary's 21 RCs I'm tracking.

The rest of the football also came out of the quarter box. The Nico insert is timely since the WR actually caught a TD today despite the Texans' garbage QB situation. Darboh's shiny SAGE insert would look cooler if it wasn't partially airbrushed. Braylon's insert is from back in the 2000s when serial numbered inserts were still awesome (this one is SN1000). Former Lion Graham Glasgow, who escaped the tire fire here (for Denver, so take that for what it's worth) had eluded my collection up to this point so I was thrilled to track down his lone RC (2018 Panini Unparalleled) plus what I believe to be a "Flight" parallel.

On a day that was good to my Michigan RC collection I also picked up my very first first-year of last year's stud Wolverine back Hassan Haskins out of this year's Prestige. It's a Michigan uni card that's sure to give Ohio State collectors nightmares for years to come! Then we go back to the Panini Unparalleled well for the last time, though this isn't actually a RC but, oddly enough, a parallel, for my first card of former FB Joe Kerridge (from 2018, just like Glasgow's card). Just one of 12 issues of him made, this is the Superplaid version numbered /150, starring a guy who played in 12 games over two seasons with the Pack (not bad for a fullback!). I wasn't gonna skip a Prizm parallel of transfer RB Rawls out of the quarter box. And lastly we have one more RC, and a college uni card at that, of Pats LB Josh Uche, who just picked up three sacks in last Sunday's win over the Colts.

Well, I set out to spend more than usual to make up for the last show, plus to start re-stocking my trade package coffers and bring home some items for myself, and I'd say that I succeeded on all fronts. I'm looking forward to what will likely be my last show of the year in a few weeks in hopes of having enough fodder to allow me to do one of my favorite holiday traditions of sending out Christmas cards, maybe with an assist from COMC thanks to their seeming return to competence this year? We'll have to see, but after feasting on turkey on Thanksgiving I may be going back for seconds from a couple sources for some holiday shopping.

7/2/22 show report: freedom isn't free but dime boxes practically are

(I don't want to forget to mention that I didn't skip June's show, I just ended up with practically nothing to show off since almost all of it was trade bait destined for packages, many of which were shipped out, so it wasn't worth doing a recap.)

Like I said in last night's post I had a great time as usual at the monthly card show yesterday. For whatever reason the crowd was relatively small at the time I got there so I had a lot more breathing room and felt better about taking my time. First I worked on the $1 and $2 boxes and then I still had enough energy (and wasn't totally stiff from standing for an hour-plus) so I wandered over to the dime boxes. This time all of the boxes that weren't $1s and up were 10/$1 (he usually has quarter and $0.50 boxes) so I tried to take advantage of that while I could.

In the end I came home with 80 dime cards, 23 from the dollar box, and 20 more that were $2 apiece. Yes, that totals $71 and not that's not what I paid because this guy is awesome and told me my total was $60. Hell yeah! That's why I'm a repeat customer and pretty much make the monthly trip just to head to his table.

As usual, first you'll get a look at the general trade bait I scored that's up for grabs:

Everything here was a dime except for the Erickson ('91 Topps Desert Shield) and Anderson dual relic. Young is /475, Anderson is /200, Carlson is /125, Fasano is /897, Helu is /897, Jones is /249, and Ollison is /299. I'll grab numbered cards from dime boxes all day every day!

And the rest of the trade bait. Treadwell (/599) and the Jets insert (/800) were dime cards. No, Jeff, you don't need either Darboh (according to TCDB), though you're welcome to them if you like having dupes.

If you see anything you want please claim it in the comments!

Ok, now for the stuff I kept for myself:

Part 1: baseball. The first six came out of the dime boxes. The top three are 2020 Topps and Update Turkey Red inserts, and I thought it was cool getting two of Junior on the teams he's most known for. Meanwhile the GQ cards are 2013s. I grabbed a few more since I couldn't remember if I had them or not, and those ended up being dupes, but they'll happily find good homes soon enough. JV is a 2020 Topps Holiday card, and I can never have enough of his cards. And lastly, the Pudge jersey /250 from 2002 UD 40-Man was just $2 so it seemed well worth picking up. I now appear to have 10 hits of his, one of which is an autograph, with the other nine being relics like this one.

Part 2: basketball and football. Everything here except for the final two cards also came from the dime boxes. THJ's and Duncan Robinson's cards were the right color for me to pick up for sure. Transfer TE Asiasi's first Select card at the top was a RC need (my third of 13 if I'm tracking correctly) while I also added Prizm parallels of him and stud C Cesar Ruiz, all from the 2020 product. 2021 draftees Chris Evans and Kwity Paye are next and appear on the retail versions of their Panini Absolute cards from last year. You can tell the versions apart easily because despite both of them having that foil design, the hobby cards are serial numbered and these aren't.

And lastly I came up with two new football hits, both of which I believe were out of the $2 boxes. First is a large 2017 Spectra jersey swatch of the previously seen Darboh, numbered /199. It's my 42nd hit of the former WR, and like Jeff I have a crazy number of his better cards, probably because we keep helping each other out with dupes (mostly Jeff!). Joining him was transfer RB Justin Fargas (whose USC Trojans are joining the Big Ten!) on a 2003 Bowman Signs of the Future auto. Although I could have sworn I already had something of him I was wrong so this is my first hit of Huggy Bear Jr. That makes him the 232nd member of my football hits collection, which is nearing the 1600-card milestone, by the way.

As usual you can expect to see some of what I picked up in some blogger trade recaps once I get them mailed out, and the rest is available here or on TCDB. Until next show, have a great July and stay cool!

TCDB trade: ravensray52

On this very fall football Saturday highlighted by a win by my Wolverines to get the team to 7-0, I'm once again in a celebratory mood, so let's cap the day off with my latest TCDB deal!

I believe John, a.k.a. ravensray52, took advantage of the site's very useful trade-matching feature which simplifies getting trades going. Basically it gives you a list of everything you have available on each other's wantlist, meaning there's less time wasted if things don't work out. For that little effort, why not go for it and say "Here's everything we each need, what do you think?"? That's exactly what he did and the deal was history.

Besides the obvious former Baltimore NFL star John collects NFL die-cut and acetate sets, meaning he has excellent taste. A while ago I grabbed a couple numbered die-cuts at a show, I think for a dime or quarter apiece. He wanted those in exchange for seven cards that will be going to my Michigan Football RC collection and agreed that PWE shipping was acceptable so we quickly agreed to the transaction. Before I shipped his envelope I even managed to find a couple more die-cut inserts not on my trade list since I thought the trade was a bit lopsided in my favor.

A few days later these showed up in my mailbox:

Devin Funchess: this 2015 Rookies & Stars Longevity RC is the shinier version of a design I don't tend to like, but as with Topps' Chrome it's an improvement. I now have 21 of his 24 first-years and 70 of his cards overall.

Jake Butt: the former star TE who had to retire due to injuries is seen here on his 2017 Elite RC which is also shiny plus numbered /499, not to mention a product with a design I usually appreciate. I've now tracked down 10/14 rookie Butts and 24 of his issues.

Taco Charlton: Vidauntae "Taco" Charlton really missed out on NIL stuff, didn't he? The former first-rounder has bounced around but suited up with Dallas as seen on his above 2017 Rookies & Stars RC, putting me at half of his 20 first-years and 14 total cards, most of which don't look this boring.

Amara Darboh: one of Michigan's more enjoyable recent WRs in my opinion, Darboh makes yet another appearance here courtesy of his rookie year 2017 Select card. It reminds me a bit of a couple of the Bowman's Best designs around the late 90s--in a good way--and is my 7th of his 13 RCs and 55th overall.

Chase Winovich: this is just my second card of the high-character edge rusher who epitomizes "relentless motor" and neither is a Michigan uni card, with this one from 2019 Prestige using a Combine photo. That's a bit of a letdown as that brand often pleases me with college shots, but beggars can't be choosers, especially as this is my first of Wino's 10 RCs!

Donovan Peoples-Jones: after totaling 2 TDs for all of 2021 the talented WR snagged his first pair for this season in last week's loss to the Cardinals. Michigan fans definitely saw hints of that talent as captured on the above 2020 Panini Legacy RC, the first of two straight Michigan uni cards, my 3rd of 17 I'm chasing, and 5th overall card of DPJ, which reminds me I need to step up my game in terms of his collection!

Chris Evans: every time I look at this 2021 RC of the former UM RB who scored against the Lions last week (as if that's difficult!) it makes me think of Elite, but it's actually another Panini Prestige design, one that again incorporates college photos, meaning it gets a thumbs up from me. It gives me two of his 10 first-years I've tracked to-date and represents card #3 of a guy who embodies Kid 'n Play more than Captain America.

And here's the backs for those of you that like to see them.

Once again this was a great example of the kind of fun you can have with deals big or small on TCDB. Thanks, John, and GO BLUE!

2020 COMC purchases: look at these 'graphs (and more!)

Time to finish up a look at my late-year purchases from COMC so I can close the book on cards I bought in 2020, a year that often felt as bad as a Nickelback song.

I decided to throw all of the football content in one post and just try not to get too verbose about it. That way I can get this stuff put away and move on to other incoming items and stuff I want to post about. I'm showing off 35 cards tonight and the vast majority include signatures, hence today's title and the meme above. Let's get down to business:

The other 34 cards fit nicely into two scans each of nine (vertical cards) and eight (horizontal), so I'll give the only non-hit its own spot here to start. Old Ty joins Amani Toomer (back-to-back in the set, in fact) in my collection of the amazing 2000 Bowman's Best Acetate parallel, which is so cool I scanned both sides for this post!

Ok, on to the (mostly) 'graphs! Many of the cards you'll see were excellent deals that fortified some of my better football PCs. Avant's from the era of shiny stickergraphs and is numbered /125. Breaston did play a couple seasons for the Chiefs, who could repeat as champs tomorrow evening. J-Booty's auto comes on an Optic card, making it shiny in a different way than Avant's. Taco (Michigan uni!) was drafted by Dallas but is now potentially in line for a ring as a bit player for the Chiefs. I continued to bolster Darboh's collection with the three autos you see here (and more in a bit), and Jeff and I have lots of those in common which I noticed while adding them on TCDB. Braylon's huge Browns swatch (/150) was a nice value. And I scored another, uh, signature? of Gary, who had a solid sophomore campaign with the Pack.

Now this is a top three I can get down with: a trio of college uni cards! Gentry's tiny John Hancock graces a Prizm card, Big Mo is one of those acetate cards from Leaf Trinity's Clear line, and I tracked down auto number two of former lineman Trezelle Jenkins. Then it's on to just four out of an absolute bounty of Jake Longs, including a quad jersey/auto, autograph, and not one but two plates (2008 Topps Mayo and 2010 Topps), the first I've acquired of the former #1 overall pick. It's been a while since I've posted a new pickup of former college star DL Mike Martin so why not celebrate his return with a beautiful UD Black signature (/199)? And I enjoy seeing former stars like Toomer get recognized after their careers in Panini's various products, like this Certified jersey (/49) of Amani "It's Not A" Toomer.

Not everything was autographed in this bunch but most was. One of the exceptions was a cool rookie year Avant jersey (/499) where the shininess of the card is better than the swatch. Leaf's cards are fantastic values for college collectors like this sick giant patch/auto of WR Jehu Chesson that cost me less than $3. The three other Darboh cards I found were jersey/autos, two of which came with nice pieces of what's becoming a familiar Seahawks jersey for me as a collector of his cards. Braylon's Topps "patch" isn't terribly impressive but was a cool find for under a buck, and the large jersey number relic card (/25) is even better. Panini's Contenders/Draft products are also outstanding for those pursuing cards of their favorite schools, and here I was glad to find my third signature of former DB David Long.

And the last grouping allows me to end the post with a bang. I was very pleased with my Long haul (pun intended), nine cards for about $33 that also included four jersey/autos and an auto/manupatch. The Gridiron Gear card is one of those where the signed swatch can be pulled out, similar to the Denard that follows the group, though I think in Shoelace's case the signed piece isn't from a jersey. I was thrilled to add another of A-Train's beautiful signatures to my collection. And we'll end on a non-auto, a dual relic of WR Marquise Walker, representing Tom Brady's Bucs in this post.

Once again I had a great time landing some amazing pieces for my collection at pretty nice prices, even if my trade bait purchasing was less than ideal this time around. Just a few quick collection notes: Long zoomed past Braylon thanks to his big day, with the OT hitting 97 to the WR's 93 (Manningham's in between at 95), and threatening to become the second member of my 100-hit club (Henne). Despite his cards being relatively recent, Darboh's already over the 40-mark to 41. And Avant gets to 65 hits, good for sixth overall. Michigan's former WRs feature heavily at the top of my collection with #s 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 16, and 17.

With these finally able to be put away in their boxes I'm not sure where I'll go next: possibly my first Baseballcardstore.ca order, or perhaps an interesting purchase from a new vendor, not to mention an incoming trade envelope. If I manage to get myself to put up a Super Bowl-related post tomorrow I know which one it'll be, and I'm curious to see reactions to it.