2023 trade package #31: the Collector

Happy new year, friends! The calendar has flipped over to another year but in terms of cards I need to recap I'm still stuck in 2023 a bit longer. It's worth it to give credit to some traders that continued to send me great stuff through the end of the year, though.

Tonight's subject is Chris, the Collector. Chris actually sent me a couple envelopes in December and this was the larger of the pair. Here's what arrived in this one:

Sparky's looking mighty fine in Tiffany form! Baez, Miggy, and Greene (plus Tork in the next scan) are all from '23 Topps Archives, and I got at least one of each of the 1956, 1965, and 2003 card designs. The second Cabrera is an insert from that product: 1957 Hit Stars. The Gibby cards were both new to me: a 1990 Starting Lineup rookie year version (so he's shown with the Tigers, not the Dodgers), and 1993 Pacific Spanish's Jugadores Calientes (Hot Players) prism insert. Grandy is from the beautiful Topps Tribute set, in this case 2013's version. And Topps can't keep up with the number of times Hill changes teams so they should just airbrush his jersey and go with "???" for the team.

Here's a bit more baseball plus a basketball pair. Fan favorite Chet Lemon comes from '87 Donruss Opening Day. Ripken is from UD's strange Ionix product released in 2000. Remember when Scherzer pitched for the Tigers? There he is on a 2014 Topps Blue parallel. There's the Tork I previously mentioned, part of the 1956 design portion. And how about that super cool Brandon Inge auto? Sticking with the 2023 Archives theme he's the first card alphabetically in the Fan Favorites Autographs insert, a yearly favorite that mixes current stars with past team guys like Jayson Werth, Jesse Orosco, Devon White, and Chili Davis. Very cool of Topps to include him here on the 1964 design. That's just my second signature of his to go along from one made waaaaay back in 2000. Thanks, Chris!

The basketball portion pairs up Robert "Tractor" Traylor on a '98 SP Top Prospects card that was hard to scan with HOFer Chris Webber out of UD's 2003-04 Glass. I have Chris's Fab Five teammate Jalen Rose from the same set.

There was a bit of football and hockey to be had as well! AC's 1989 Starting Lineup card is one of few (if any) SLU cards I own and a very cool item to find in this envelope. I don't know if I'll ever have the corresponding figure but I appreciate owning the card. Grbac's '98 Bowman Chrome Refractor looks amazing as that insert often does. Oddly enough this envelope didn't include current blog namesake Justin Verlander but Chris did find something to represent my defunct second blog: a Mario Manningham 2011 Rookies & Stars Longevity parallel numbered to just 99. No, I still don't have enough of him! Former teammates Patterson and Peoples-Jones probably couldn't have predicted our Wolverines would be in the national title game this coming Monday and it still sounds strange when I think about it, but I can't wait! And Hutch was a big part of Michigan Football's turnaround, and now he's due a lot of credit for how much he's returned the Lions' D to respectability and helping the team to its first playoff berth in forever.

Chris wouldn't be TCDb's hockeydude if we didn't swap hockey cards once in a while, and here he threw in a 2023-24 UD base of Red Wing C Robby Fabbri. The former Blues draft pick arrived in Hockeytown in a 2019 trade and is now in his fifth season with the winged wheels. He's even looking likely to top his career high of 17 goals with 11 as of this post. Let's go, Red Wings!

Chris, thanks again for all of these great cards, not to mention being a fantastic trade partner and regular reader/commenter. I appreciate the effort and quality you put into envelopes like these and I'm looking forward to trading with you more in '24!

I think I now have six blogger-type trades from December left to cover in addition to that month's show, late year eBay purchases, and lots and lots of TCDb trades from throughout the year, so I'll keep at it as I work on catching up. First, though, should be show #1 of the year for me tomorrow (Saturday), and then Michigan's first shot at a national championship since 1997. GO BLUE!

Fun freebies featuring A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts

Who doesn't love free stuff? That's why my post is all about this evening.

The main star for tonight is Jon over at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts. I was one of a pretty large group of folks who participated in his "Take my cards Tuesdays" and "Free Card Fridays" back in May, and I know I saw quite a few familiar names in the comments so this won't come as news to many of you. I give Jon a ton of credit for his generosity as he was truly asking for nothing in return--not a follow, not cards, not a damn thing. And some of the stuff up for grabs was very high quality considering the price, or total lack thereof. Stars? Check. Serial numbered inserts? You bet. Vintage, oddball, and non-sports? All there, friend.

All he asked was for folks to try to limit their initial requests so a reasonable number of people could get a chance to claim something. I had no problem with that and came away with eight cards I chose plus a bonus:

The baseball selection was pretty much Tigers baseball royalty. Cobb, Cochrane, and Manush are all HOFers, Miggy will join them in a few years, Evans and McLain came up big for title-winning teams, and Granderson is one of the best players the farm system has produced in the past 20 years. I think the Purple Refractor of Granderson was the one I wanted the most from this bunch so I made sure to get my comment in very quickly!

Before we get to the football pair, the Evans you see up there is the bonus Jon was nice enough to include (along with, remember, my free cards) and it was totally new to me. Normal '87 Topps? Nope, I already said it was new to me:

That's a blank-back version! What a fun throw-in.

As for the two Michigan football stars, Anthony Carter's is an SI For Kids issue from 1992, and HOF Rams LG Tom Mack's hails from 1976 Wonder Bread. I believe I can count my NFL food issue cards on one hand so that oddball-ness is extremely cool to me, in addition to it being a vintage piece of a former star.

Thanks again to Jon for treating so many of us to some quality free cards!

Next up is a freebie via Twitter thanks to a friend. Buddy of the blog John saw an account named C-Train GatorMayne offering up the following card gratis and asked him to send it my way, which he did:

Ex-UM WR Nico Collins is looking mighty fine on a 2022 Panini Obsidian parallel called Electric Etch Orange. It lives up to its name for sure and as always it looks better in person so just take my word for it when I say it looks nice.

Thanks again, John!

Last up tonight, I believe I've mentioned a number of times that my mom has always been very supportive of my interest in the hobby, one of the many reasons I appreciate her so much. She gets out to garage and estate sales once in a while and sometimes even grabs things she think I might like. At some point in the past year or two she found me a sealed 1991 Topps baseball factory set.

A few weeks ago she texted me asking if unopened 1990 Donruss packs were worth anything. Naturally I asked if she was thinking of starting a fire. Anyway, she specifically wondered if I thought she overpaid for 10-15 "packs" of them, and I thought, "probably, but it's the thought that counts, thank you!"

Well, it turned out to be a bit better than that:

Hmmm, opened but...

Ah, those are the "packs she's talking about. Let's take a look at a few of them:

Yep! It's an opened factory set and but with the base cards and Grand Slammers still sealed, meaning the only thing that appears to be missing is the Yaz puzzle, which I believe I already have anyway. Each sealed brick has 55 base cards plus one Grand Slammers insert except for the 13th brick which has the Bart Giamatti tribute base card in place of that insert.

While I already had a complete set put together by hand, it's fun knowing I for sure own a complete run of the cards with the factory set border, which is a bit different than the one on cards that were packed out. That and it's really nice having another set my mom specifically bought for me. Please believe I treated her well as always when Mother's Day came around in May!

So thank you to everyone involved who made my collection that much better with the free cards you saw this evening! Stay tuned for some more trades before I catch up on other stuff I'm excited to show off.

2021 Baseballcardstore.ca purchases: frugal football

After seeing lots of other folks showing off some fun purchases from Baseballcardstore.ca I finally decided to make one of my own last month, picking up 250 cards from the "Online Dime Box" for $25 (imagine that) plus their flat $4.99 shipping. (Side note: you can use a coupon code on each transaction to have them hold onto your cards until you want them all shipped.)

A few weeks later I received a very well packed and protected box that contained everything I'd ordered (nothing missing!) plus even what I think was a freebie since I ended up with 251 items.

I'm going to break this down into at least two posts--football and baseball--and may even split up the baseball stuff since there's a lot. We'll see.

So tonight I'm showing off the football stuff. My strategy here was simply to search by name and grab everything I could find of each player I collect. And why not, with cards costing just a dime each, not to mention wanting to get good value for the flat shipping cost. Though there's nothing extremely exciting here it was definitely fun adding a bunch of new items to my football PCs on the cheap as a replacement for digging through dime boxes in-person.

Here's what I got:

I like starting out strong with a college uni card, even if it's the only one of the bunch. Former #1 WR Derrick Alexander led the way with nine new cards four of which you see here in vertical format, including Action Packed, a Pro Line set you'll see a few more times, and a shiny Prestige base. A beautiful Black Diamond Biakabutuka is one of three you'll see of the Buckeye-killing RB. And Calloway returns us to the WR position in a bunch of cards that was very offensive (in the best way!).

Carter, a star WR himself, joined the 1000 yard club for three straight seasons, 1988-90, including a career high 1225 in '88. QB Collins' Pacific Invincible base is definitely one of the highlights of the purchase, a fun dime box gem. "Jumbo" Elliott had a very nice 14-year career with the Giants and Jets, so tracking down four new cards of him was a plus. And Funchess's cards (you'll see one more in the next scan) from 2017 were definitely the most recent in the group.

It only feels like I bought the entire '97 Pro Line set. Grbac joins Collins as ex-Wolverine journeyman QBs with awesome cards today, in his case the beautiful 2000 Bowman's Best design. Coach Harbaugh ups the QB count and gets a nice shiny Prestige addition of his own. HOF former Badger/Wolverine "Crazy Legs" Hirsch comes to us from a "baseball" product, Panini's Golden Age, that's about as baseball as A&G and GQ, but that's fine since he's awesome. Heisman winner Howard joins him to continue the run on receivers, and that Classic Images card is so 90s I just did a kickflip on a skateboard while yelling "radical!" and I don't even own a skateboard!

McGee and Riemersma would form a TE pair any Michigan coach would die for. A-Train and Toomer hail from the nice to look at if especially curly 2002 Topps Chrome set. Wheatley's athleticism was certainly a work of art and is captured well on a Pacific Impressions card from 2001. And Super Bowl Champ Woodley doesn't look very happy to be one of just two defenders I could find this time.

Yep, Derrick Alexander definitely had a good day, and here he adds an Ultra insert, Black Diamond base, and a couple of Crown Royales to boot (and he's still not done!). Grbac also got the Crown treatment, and we're not quite done with the die-cut beauties yet. Howard was the #2 player here with five cards including this trio that brought an Ultra Gold Medallion and a somewhat rare Lions appearance.

There's TE McGee again, joining WR alum Howard above in a cool Flair set. Transfer RB Ritchie looks ready to kill a dude on both of his cards. Toomer gets the die-cut treatment from Pacific Atomic and Crown Royale, and the previously seen Wheatley can also be seen on a different version of the latter. Between the two I'm more of a fan of the team die-cuts of Atomic, but you're getting something cool either way!

Last up is the oddly sized stuff. I snagged four players from Fleer's '97 Goudey II throwback product. Collins is by himself near the top of the set while the other three are consecutive, which I thought was cool. Looks like I need to track down Harbaugh, Toomer, and Howard to achieve the team set.

After the Funchess cards you saw earlier, the 2015 Panini stickers you see here at the bottom of Shoelace and Woodson (the day's other defensive representative) were the next most recent. The Robinson foil was a fun throwback to when I'd chase those special stickers to put in Panini's baseball books.

And last up is a trio of cards that both look and scanned better than I'd expected. Those horizontal minis on the right are Open Field holograms from 1996 Playoff Contenders. The one-per-pack insert was broken up into Green, Purple, and Red (which you can discern based on what you see around the player's name), with Green both the most plentiful and easy to pull and Red being the rarest. All three of my players here are Green, as you might imagine since they were a dime each.

I'll be back in the near-ish future with the baseball stuff but first I have a sweet new trade package to dig into, so you'll probably see that next. In the meantime, if you haven't yet I'd recommend giving Baseballcardstore.ca a look! Browsing's not as nice as I'd like but the prices, accuracy, and shipping are excellent, so if you've been on the fence I'd say go for it.

TCDB trade: randylaw, part 3: everything else!

It's been a tough season for...well, all sports really, but in particular it's been a tough season for Michigan Football fans. Fortunately, card collecting doesn't have a season--it's all year, baby!--and it often helps lift my spirits.

So with that, welcome to the third and final post covering my large TCDB deal with randylaw!

Today's recap features a fun mix of stuff: classic Tigers, vintage, my core four PC guys, and Michigan sports:

I told you this would be a fun one, and we're just getting started! I called this section the "classic" Tigers for obvious reasons. Guys like Cobb, Cochrane, Fidrych, Greenberg (the hard-to-read insert), Horton, and Prince Hal are well known to folks beyond Tigers fans, and it was nice adding to my collections of each guy. I was particularly excited for the 1974 and '77 Hortons since I'm slowly trying to build up his run of stuff made during his career. I now have 10 of those from the 60s and 70s (plus an SSPC issue as well) so that's going nicely. Conlon (Hughie Jennings!) and Topps' earlier 90s Archives offerings also chip in here.

Here's one reason I was particularly excited for this trade: Randy had some solid vintage Tigers to choose from, and choose 'em I did! The six you see grouped together are my first examples from 1957 Topps, and they give me a nice start towards the 26-card team set. Hoeft is a guy I'm vaguely familiar with and of course Kuenn is the player most well known to me. These have been well loved, especially the Finigan, but of course that adds character and I wouldn't have it any other way! They're joined by a '61 Topps league leaders card that includes pitcher Frank Lary, and a '75 team checklist. Whomever owned the latter noted in red pen that they had all the team's cards except SS Tom Veryzer.

Naturally I took advantage and grabbed everything I needed of my "core four" guys: Griffey, Gwynn, Maddux, and Ripken. And naturally most of that was junk wax-era stuff, but that's ok, because they were all new for those collections! On the oddball front I had fun adding a couple Griffey UD Looney Toons holograms and another Holsum disc, this time of Gwynn. Those two players also appear on the most recent cards in these scans. By the way, the other player on Gwynn's Pinnacle Idols subset, for those like me who didn't recognize him, is Willie Davis of the Dodgers.

Everything else features a subject for my Michigan sports collections. Abbott joins Griffey from the previously mentioned hologram set. Appleton, born Pete Jablonowski, was a former Wolverines pitcher who spent 14 seasons in the bigs, appears here on a Conlon card, which is good since I probably can't easily afford his 1930s Goudey and Play Ball cards! The well known (especially around here) Gehringer joins Appleton with a Conlon issue. Though I scanned them backwards, I was glad to add a pair of Ted Simmons cards as I continue to grow his PC: '74 Topps and '89 Score. Knuble was a Wolverwing and Roberts also is a former Wolverines icer. Davis (and her partner Charlie White) and Shibutani (with her brother Alex) were Olympian Wolverines who medaled in ice dancing, including a gold for Davis in 2014.

And then there's the football, which proved to be nice to scan in its own group. The first four are 2017 Elite Draft Picks rookies (meaning college uni shots!) of Jake Butt, Amara Darboh, Jourdan Lewis, and Jabrill Peppers. WR Jehu Chesson was the other UM RC in the set and I already had that, so I'll just need to add the Tom Brady base at some point. There's plenty of stars like AC, Harbaugh, Thomas, and Toomer, and I even snuck in vintage cards of S Thom Darden and Curtis Greer (both '81 Topps). Swell cards of Bill Hewitt and Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch round out a fun group.

I hope at least a few of you found this three-part series interesting, and regardless, that you got a good idea of the potential there is in terms of TCDB trading. As I've said multiple times, Randy was awesome, and given his huge wantlist, I could definitely see trading with him again in the near future!

With these covered I would expect my next posts to be a trade package (a PWE) and small eBay purchase, so watch for those soon-ish.

2020 Facebook Marketplace purchases: Go Blue? Don't mind if I do!

I'm now caught up enough for a minute that I can finally show off at least one of my two Facebook Marketplace hauls.

Way back in mid-March when "stay the hell at home" wasn't quite what it was now, I actually came up with a diamond in the rough of Marketplace's mix of scams, overpriced crap, and poorly-spelled listings:

Those of you who followed Too Many Manninghams for a bit would know that I absolutely love the TK Legacy Michigan product and am out to get everything I can from its base, insert, and autographed sets. So this was quite exciting indeed to come across before even taking into account the ridiculously low $20 price point. I'm generally willing to pay up to $5 for TK Legacy autographs I need, so I definitely consider this a steal. The image you see above includes 18 Michigan autos, three of Michigan State guys (Drew Stanton is pictured with the Lions), plus an Omar Vizquel IP/TTM. You can also see stacks of TK Legacy base and inserts for both the Wolverines and Spartans.

The in-person pickup went fine and I added the following new items to my collection:

This group includes three of what I consider the "base" cards (numbered with "L" for "Lettermen", I believe), one Coach, and five checklists. There are two new Braylon cards, one a checklist, and a Bo as well. TCDB tells me I now have 31 of 197 base cards, one of five coaches, and half of the 14 checklists.

This next group opens with four cards starring former Michigan fixture Bennie Oosterbaan. The player and coach whose name graces the team's field house is one of four players (Anthony Carter, Brian Griese, Mike Hart) to get the "Legend" insert treatment, and I only need card #3 in this set of five. Then it's on to a quintet of the eight "Game Day Diary - The Rivalry" inserts I added this time, cards that cover the storied back-and-forth between the Wolverines and Buckeyes. I particularly like the 1902 and 1940 game scores!

And here we have the rest of the inserts, including the other three rivalry cards, one of which covers the enormous 1969 upset victory for the good guys. I now have 10 of the 22 cards in this set, and in case you're interested, a similar one was made for the UM/Minnesota Little Brown Jug rivalry. The other five are from the Program Covers series, a very cool look at past programs. I have eight of the 56 made, and these are hand-numbered to either 400 or 250 copies each. For those interested, here's the games and their results:

• Minnesota, 1923: 10-0 Michigan
• Wisconsin, 1926: 37-0 Michigan
• Ohio State, 1927: 21-0 Michigan
• Chicago, 1905: 2-0 Chicago (the only points Michigan gave up that year!)
• Ohio State, 1941: 20-20 tie

And last up are the autographs I needed, one each from five different sets. The one new Go Blue autograph is my first of the amazingly named Hercules Renda (named after dynamite!), a former player and assistant coach. His signature is beautiful and this is a textbook example of why this set is so great, besides covering players that wouldn't get cards otherwise: look at all the detail he put in, listing his playing years and jersey numbers, plus a notation mentioning his coaching. Wow! Speaking of being impressed, that's my 130th of 185 autographs in this set.

Next is my first All-American auto from a pretty solid 18-card set. Muransky--or apparently "Big" Ed Muransky!--was an OT in the late 70s/early 80s. I'm now short just his base card of his three appearances in this product as I've had his Go Blue signature for a while.

The Quarterback Club Autographs set (which is sometimes changed to "Quarterback Collection" as seen here) is a 30-card set, and David Hall ('82 and '83) is my sixth of those. These are hand-numbered in quantities between 50 and 500 copies, and Hall's is /200. As with Muransky, I already have his Go Blue auto and just need his base issue.

The most well-known player in this group is former WR #1, Anthony Carter, and my 10th of his autographs happens to be my first from the 10-card Playbook Autographs set, one highlighted by legendary coach Bo Schembechler. Each subject drew out a favorite play that got printed on the card, which they signed. The back mentions that this play "was used in a 9-3 victory over Ohio State in 1980 in Columbus," so that's pretty cool. It's also hand-numbered /300.

Last up today is former RB Billy Taylor from the M-Stat set that focuses on a key number or record tied to a player. Taylor's claim to fame here is a 102.4 YPG average (3072 rushing yards over 30 games (he didn't record a carry in three other appearances)). One of my favorites, Mike Hart, appears to own the record now. Anyway, Taylor has a great looking signature on yet another hand-numbered (/100) autograph, my third of the 34 in the set, and second Taylor to go with--you guessed it--an M Go Blue auto.

(I'll also mention in passing that a Kirk Gibson football card came up in the Michigan State pile so I decided to keep it but not show it here because this is a Michigan blog!)

In addition to what I showed off here there were lots more autos and other cards, and some of those are ticketed for future trade packages or TCDB, so they won't go to waste. Either way, I certainly got more than my money's worth and I'm thrilled!

Please stay tuned for an even larger recap of an even bigger haul coming up soon.

2019 Michigan Gameday #11: at Indiana

There isn't really much to dislike about Indiana, aside from the smell coming from the city of Gary when you're within 25 miles of it, or the existence of Mike Pence.  Parks and Recreation was set there, and it's where you can find Bloomington, home of the Hoosiers.

The football team there has rarely been relevant enough to discuss except in the occasional spoiler role, but this season they've done pretty well for themselves in getting to 7-3 with an understandable loss to OSU, a close defeat in Happy Valley last week, and the dubious honor of being the most recent victim of a Michigan State victory...about two months ago.

Speaking of the Spartans, they're still searching for their dignity after getting absolutely pantsed last weekend, showing little fight--except for the literal variety after the whistle--in a 44-10 drubbing.  Michigan did just about everything you could ask for as Jim Harbaugh's team continued to display the execution and swagger that's necessary this deep into the season.

They'll need that to continue this afternoon for a 3:30 matchup in Bloomington.  Despite the ugly record above, Indiana has often pushed the Wolverines to the brink, somehow finding a way to play their best game of the season when this game rolls around.  Sure, Michigan hasn't lost in this series since 1987 (and before that, 1967) but there's been some close ones, and a few instant classics.

Who could forget Wangler-to-Carter in '79, setting off a Bob Ufer celebration for the ages?  Or the close call 10 years ago that saw Rich Rodriguez's team escape with a 36-33 win by the skin of their teeth?  Even Jim Harbaugh joined the part in his first season as head coach with an insane 48-41 2OT finish in 2015 that included a last-second FG by the Wolverines to get to the extra period.

As for this afternoon, I'm hoping for more of the same team from this season since halftime of the Penn State game, which has outscored its opponents 107-38.  Maybe the offense could resemble the one from the 2013 game, in which QB Devin Gardner, RB Fitz Toussaint, and WR Jeremy Gallon hung 63 on Indiana--though the defense should look elsewhere for inspiration instead of allowing Indiana 47 points.  I absolutely believe Michigan isn't overlooking Indiana with The Game looming next weekend, so I'm looking for the same effort over the last few.  Beat the Hoosiers and then get ready for the Buckeyes.

LET'S GO BLUE!

8-10-14 card show report: SPxcellence

It's been a bit less than a month since I last hit a card show, but with the usual sources not turning up much recently, I decided to head back to Gibraltar Trade Center in Taylor at least one more time before it closes up shop later this year.

As usual my focus was PC cards for me and trade bait for you guys.  I found some of each, and the former can be seen on a TMM post this evening, and the latter will hit a few of your mailboxes soon!

I eventually got sick of flipping through quarter/$0.50/$1 boxes and hit a wax dealer on the way out.  I'm not a big box breaker anymore, but I did see one that caught my eye:

I loves me some Upper Deck football cards, which nowadays combine beautiful photography and design with college photos.  I threw down $65 for 10 packs of five cards, including four guaranteed hits.  After I got back I looked up Blowout's box price, and while it's $10 less, that doesn't account for shipping (and waiting), so I don't feel like I overspent.

Here's how I did:

Base cards:  40/50 (80%), no doubles

Since this was a relatively small number of cards, I just scanned 'em all to show them off:

Pretty good player selection other than Andy Katzenmoyer.  Lots of big names and nice photos.  I'll likely just grab them from Sportlots, but if anybody has the 10 I need please let me know:
3 10 13 15 23 36 37 39 40 50

As always, here's a back for completeness in the form of set's lone Wolverine, Anthony Carter:

Inserts: 

1996 Inserts:  Collin Klein and Steve Young; 1997 Inserts Landry Jones

I love the callback to SPx's designs from 18 and 17 years ago (wait, seriously?!), especially the '97 card, although my experience with both original sets is limited to baseball.

Finite Legends Eddie George (#209/899); Finite Rookies Tyler Eifert (#464/899) and E.J. Manuel (#783/899) (3:10 odds)

Pretty good players again here, even if one of them is a Buckeye.  These are heavy on the gold foil, but I like how they look.

Hits: 

Le'Veon Bell Autograph Jersey (#108/475)
Keenan Allen Winning Big Materials Patch (#06/10)
Ryan Nassib Super Scripts auto
Marquess Wilson Rookie 2013 Signatures auto (#228/299)

Well, I got my four promised hits, three of which were guaranteed to be autographed.  Although Bell's a Spartan, he was still a good pull and I'm hoping he'll get me a chunk of change back.  The Allen falls closer to Topps' definition of a "patch" but is limited enough that maybe I can get something for it as well.  I like the design of the Nassib auto but it'll likely take a bit to find someone that wants it.  As for the Wilson, after I posted the results of my break on Blowout I was quickly able to trade it for a Denard Robinson relic, so that's a plus.

Overall it was an enjoyable rip, even if it was a quick one at just 10 packs.  I pulled zero doubles, the set will be cheap to complete, and I got some sellable/tradeable inserts and hits.  If you find this at a show or elsewhere for around $50 total I'd call it a no-brainer.

Everything you see from the inserts on down is available for trade minus the Marquess Wilson, so if you see something you like please let me know!

2014 trade package #14: My Legendary Mistress

Easily one of the coolest banners you'll ever see

It was in November of 2013 that I last received a trade package from Adam of My Cardboard Mistress, but fortunately for me, the legendary Spankee decided to do something about that, and now I've got another great one to show off!

Leading off (baseball pun!) is this pair of 2013 A&Gs of two-time former Tiger Omar Infante.  The base card is actually an SP, which makes it a nice get, and the Mini is a mini and is therefore automatically cool.  These are actually the only baseball cards in the bunch...

Because the main draw was a complete set of 2011 UD College Football Legends!  This beautiful set calls back to the design of the extremely popular set of the same name that came out in 1997, and that ended up being a great choice.  The design is gorgeous, featuring action-packed color AND black-and-white photos atop a cool but simple bottom border that includes the player name and a small cropped version of the main photo.  As the name implies, all cards feature players in their college unis.

Adam busted more than a case of this late last year and remembered that I expressed interest in picking up a set from him.

I'm thrilled to pick it up, and really only have two complaints.  For one thing, where are all the Wolverines?!  Just one is represented.  And secondly, why bother including a group of 2011 rookies when you could have had room for more legends?  Not EVERY set has to include rookies.  Those small gripes aside, this is a beautiful set chock full of college stars, and I'm proudly adding it to my football collection.  Here's a look at the full set, with captions because the names are tough to read since the cards aren't the easiest in the world to scan:

Keith Jackson, Tommy McDonald, Willie Buchanon, Ron Yary, Tony Casillas, Steve Young, Jason White, Daryl Johnston, Troy Aikman

Raghib Ismail, Bubba Smith, Roman Gabriel, Bob Griese, Alan Page, Mike Alstott, Craig Morton, Bo Jackson, John Elway

Paul Hornung, Greg Pruitt, Jerry Rice, Lee Roy Selmon, George Rogers, Lee Roy Jordan, Doug Flutie, Tim Brown, Barry Sanders

Jim Kelly, Kellen Winslow Sr., Bernie Kosar, John Cappelletti, Roger Craig, Rocky Bleier, Floyd Little, Brian Bosworth, Charles White

Earl Campbell, Mike Singletary, Thurman Thomas, Eddie George, Danny Wuerffel, Billy Cannon, Rod Woodson, Dave Casper, Ozzie Newsome

Archie Griffin, Andre Rison, Chris Spielman, Antonio Freeman, Tony Mandarich, Daryle Lamonica, Herman Moore, Cris Carter, Dwight Stephenson

Ken Stabler, Gary Beban, Gino Torretta, Ron Dayne, Andre Ware, Eric Metcalf, Steve Owens, Jim Plunkett, Ty Detmer

Herschel Walker, Todd Marinovich, Warren Moon, Gale Sayers, William Perry, Dan Marino, Tom Rathman, Joe Theismann, Billy Sims

Jim McMahon, Johnny Rodgers, Tony Dorsett, Adrian Peterson, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Steven Jackson, Jake Locker, Pat Devlin

Christian Ponder, Colin Kaepernick, Prince Amukamara, DeMarco Murray, Kendall Hunter, Noel Devine, Daniel Thomas, Greg Little, Leonard Hankerson

Ronald Johnson, Titus Young, Blaine Gabbert, Cam Newton, Ryan Mallett, Andy Dalton, Mark Ingram, A.J. Green, Julio Jones

And the 100th card (actually #58) of your lone Wolverine in the set, Anthony Carter:

And as usual, while I'm at it, for completeness here's a back from Aaron Rodgers' card:

And amazingly that's not all!  Head over to TMM to see the Wolverine portion of this package as well.

Thanks as always for a fun-filled envelope, Adam!  Maybe you'll get a Hokie-filled package in return before much longer, who knows?  Readers, head over to My Cardboard Mistress for some great blogging, and don't forget to