2024 eBay purchases: Six more from 24

I'm still slowly plugging away at the piles of 2024 stuff left to cover and after this post should have something like two to go (I think).

This one shouldn't take me too long to recap as it features just six cards, though they're all eBay purchases from last June through December and are pretty decently significant. I'll try not to get too wordy!

Win #1 was the most costly and I nabbed it back in early June:

My second certified auto of Sweet Lou hails from 2019 Donruss Optic and is the Red parallel that's limited to a scant seven copies! This one uses an action photo of Whitaker about to make some good contact, and while it lacks any MLB logos I do like the shot. It's also a fun throwback to the 1985 design used the year after Detroit last won it all, so that's a nice bonus.

Lou doesn't appear in a ton of autograph sets and of course this particular card is fairly rare, so I didn't mind spending a bit under $60 to get it. My favorite in my collection is still his 2001 Topps Archives rookie reprint auto, but I'm thrilled to add a second like this one to it. I also picked up a JSA-certified 1983 Fleer auto (apparently from 2011 Leaf Ink) a while ago to give me sort of a third signature.

This one is definitely sweet!

A few weeks later I scored another pricey high-end signature card, and if I recall correctly, Greg was the one that let me know it was available, so if that was the case, thank you to him for the assist.

Bill Freehan's autographs have naturally gone up in price a bit due to his passing a few years ago, although I would say not egregiously so. In any case, I wasn't shocked that this dual signature card of him and fellow Wolverine/Tiger Rick Leach wasn't super cheap since I'm assuming TK Legacy, one of my favorite products as the manufacturer focuses on individual colleges, was likely distributed regionally. I don't recall if I saw this one up for sale before, or at least at a price I could handle, but at this point in my life, a bit under $50 was money I was willing to spend.

Naturally I love it because Freehan's one of my Michigan favorites--he went on to play for the Tigers and is a franchise great there too--and Leach is also a pretty significant Wolverine. But the focus on the college careers of both players is especially cool, as is their link which the back goes into. What it also doesn't mention is that both also played football for the Wolverines. Leach's gridiron career is more notable than Freehan's since he was a touted QB, but Bill was a notable two-sport athlete as well.

Not only is this my 14th signature of Freehan, but as a bonus it's also my first certified signature of Leach, who joins the baseball hits collection as member #40!

Roughly a month later I threw in a low max bid on a basketball card and was surprised to win it:

You all know I love my cheap plates so I was glad to win this one of former Wolverine Nik Stauskas for a mere $6.50 ($4.25 bid plus $2.25 in tax and shipping). "Sauce Castillo"'s RCs were released in 2014-15 so this cyan plate was used to create his rookie in that year's National Treasures product. I believe these plates were actually inserted into a subsequent product like a later National Treasures offering, but we still have them listed under 2014-15 NT on TCDb so I'll leave it categorized as such for now.

Believe it or not this is my SIXTH plate of Stauskas, which isn't something that happened intentionally, and it's hilarious to me that half of my hits of his are of the 1/1 variety while I only just recently picked up an autograph.

At the end of August I continued the printing plate theme with a return to baseball:

As usual here's my disclaimer that the subject of this card is pitcher Matt Miller who was drafted by the Brewers, not the Rockies/Indians P from Mississippi or the Texas Tech lefty who appeared in a few games in the early 2000s for the Tigers. The one I collect was born in South Carolina, went to high school in Indiana, and of course played for Michigan.

It looks like this Miller was only in organized ball between 2010, his draft season, and 2014, all while in the Brewers org. He pitched parts of the 2011 and 2012 seasons with the pictured Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (who doesn't love minor league team nicknames?) and appeared on 31 total cards catalogued on TCDb, with a mix of minor league issues joining regular issues from 2010 Elite Extra and 2011 Topps Heritage Minors and Pro Debut. Oddly enough I now own the yellow plates from both of the latter, and my only needs include his for minor league issues plus the remaining seven 1/1s from the Topps products. As rare as it is to find cards of his I need, $10.60 wasn't an unreasonable price for this.

Once again just a couple weeks later I added one more plate to my collection courtesy of eBay:

I think I may have mentioned my proclivity for collecting Rich Hill around here before! Now I can make the crazy claim that I own more 1/1s of Dick Mountain than I do combined hits of any one other player in my baseball collection (Zach Putnam has 35 to his name)!

This is my first of his from the 2020 flagship set to go along with the same year's Chrome Update and an On-Demand Mini Silver 1/1 parallel. The lefty dwarfs all others in that collection with 152 hits, literally representing more than 1/3 of the 447-card total. It's a mountain of Hills! (That definitely sounds better in my head than a mountain of Dicks.) Sometimes it's not easy staying at the top and I definitely had to fight off a few other bids to land this one for a bit more than $16.

My final personal eBay purchase wouldn't be until early December, and the subject of the card (at least one of them) remained the same:

The "Chirography" name had been around for almost a decade as part of Upper Deck's SP Authentic product when this dual signature starring Hill and fellow lefty pitching prospect Sean Marshall was made in 2006. I believe I own nearly 100 cards that include Rich's autograph so you could say I've studied his handwriting quite a bit in my hobby career.

Out of that grouping, I have a few signature cards he shares with others but this is my first that includes his former teammate Marshall, who was drafted a year later than Hill in 2003. He lasted nine years in the Majors, pitching six in Chicago and three more with the Reds, mostly as a bullpen guy from mid-career on. Marshall's now 42 and has been out of the game since 2014 while Hill has a chance at 45 (in March) to pitch in his 21st season. Crazy! I hope he gets a shot at more than the four games he pitched for Boston last season and gets to go out on his terms when he's ready.

Once again, hooray for more cards that I can put away! I think my last two '24 posts should be a few more Facebook Marketplace buys and then my late-year COMC haul. Then I'll be glad to get reporting on 2025 trades, shows and more.

2024 August-December card show reports: binging through five shows

Here's a show recap post for my five trips to Taylor in August through December last year because if I do one post for each at this point it may take me until March.

8/2/24:

My purchase-tracking spreadsheet says I dropped $80 at this one, so it was a pretty average show for me price-wise.

First up, some trade bait:

I believe both the A-Rod and Hoffman up top are gone but I think I may have everything else still.

My keepers:

Hooray, a new Granderson! Newer Gwynns are nice but how about some "90s inserts rule!" action for Maddux? Griffey and Ripken complete the quartet. By the way, Bowman's Best's Mirror Image was one of my favorites back then despite the fact that the prospects they featured often didn't work out.

Holo Griffey! A numbered Gwynn! I included the back of the Mirror Image insert plus the numbered Elite Teams insert of the Braves, who definitely lived up to that description. Speaking of the Bowman's Best card, this one was quite good as obviously Maddux and Moose are HOFers, but Colon also had a very nice career, and Wright even managed to last for 19 seasons!

Basketball ended up being the story of the day with a couple of the biggest cards of the haul hailing from that sport: an autograph of Caleb Houstan (my second), the guy who plays for Ann Arbor South (Orlando), plus a nice Lakers swatch of his teammate Mo Wagner (hit #4).

Football didn't get shut out, though, as I came home with both a numbered rookie-year Griese from SPx plus a new Funchess jersey relic (hit #32 for him).

9/6/24:

For September's show it looks like I upped my total spending to an even $100, and a good chunk of that must have gone towards items for trade packages based on what I have scanned to show here. That works for me, though, as I love using these shows as a source of cards to send out to my favorite trading buds.

As for cards that weren't ticketed for specific folks, here's what I grabbed:

What can I say? I'm a sucker for autographed manupatches, and I think those signed metal cards are too cool. I probably only spent a couple bucks on each of these anyway, and hopefully they'll find a good home before long, but I don't think I've had any bites for them on TCDb just yet.

My keepers:

It's always great when I can add rarer cards like Artist's Proofs to my PCs, including Palmer's. Pudge shares his '93 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle insert with another excellent if not HOF backstop, Darren Daulton. And I'm sorry that Gwynn's the one to get covered by the peel's sticker on '95 Donruss Dominators insert you see above--a favorite of mine, by the way--but I got this one to pair with a copy that I do have peeled, so now I have one of each to enjoy.

I scored a few more basketball items this time, and THJ was the highlight as I found three new cards for his collection, including a Panini Prizm auto that represents my sixth signature and 13th overall hit of the ex-Wolverine and current Pistons standout.

The football side of things was very offensive, but only in terms of the positions represented, because I was quite happy with my little haul. The Threads jersey of Braylon gives him 95 total hits, keeping him in 4th behind Henne, Manningham, and Long, though the race to be the second to 100 is anybody's game. I also found my second auto of TE Nick Eubanks on a red parallel of his Contenders Draft issue, and believe it or not, the one I already own isn't from the same product, but an entirely different one!

10/4/24:

October was a bit of an outlier as I spent just $55, but in thinking back to that day and looking over what I have here, I'm pretty sure I recall that being a day where my favorite seller had lowered some of his prices even more so I got a lot of bang for my buck.

The available trade bait:

I'm pretty sure each of the autographs/jerseys was just a buck, plus the numbered inserts and other 90s stuff were just too cool to pass up and try to get into someone else's collection.

Not a ton for me either this time, but a few cool items:

The Maddux, Ripken, and Pudge cards were all fun additions, plus I nabbed my first card of IF prospect Trey Sweeney, one of the guys that came over in the Jack Flaherty deal with the Dodgers. If he can help force Javy Baez off the roster then he'll forever be a legend in my mind. Meanwhile, the Manning ended up being a decent chunk of my purchase price, and if I'm being honest, probably an overpay, but I thought it was a very cool piece with huge swatches, a signature, and numbering to just 10 copies. I don't know what his future is with the Tigers but this is the kind of card I see myself keeping even if he moves on.

RBs Chris Evans and Hassan Haskins stole the show on the gridiron for this month, though defenders Rashan Gary and Chris Wormley also get in on the action with cool numbered cards.

11/1/24:

I spent $105 on this one and didn't come home with any up-for-grabs trade bait, but I believe I did score some nice items for trade and Christmas card packages. But better yet, I had a very nice day bringing home some cool hits for myself, much of which I think was in the $2-$5 range:

A jersey produced by Fleer's Ultra brand becomes relic #18 (and hit #19) for Mad dog. I'm the most excited about the Arrington/Henne dual because it's getting harder to find reasonably priced copies of cards for either that I need, and Henne's one of my favorite PC guys. Arrington gets his 56th hit and Henne keeps a secure grip on the top spot in the sport with his 145th(!).

I landed pairs of autos of the rest of the players. Butt's are from Panini's Absolute and XR, and the Michigan TE who was anything BUT booty cheeks in college jumps up to 13 hits. DT Mo Hurst started his career with Oakland as seen on signature cards from Luminance and Prizm, but he's since moved on to San Fran and then Cleveland. I now own seven hits of his, all signed like these. And lastly, DPJ finally made his hits collection debut with a couple Panini Chronicles autos that were parallels done in the Obsidian design. I believe the Purple is limited to 30 copies and the Orange is /25. While they remind me a bit of many recent Leaf designs, I'm relieved that they weren't made by that execrable manufacturer, and instead I've got two quality college uni cards of one of the most talented wideouts to pass through Ann Arbor recently.

12/6/24:

With the holiday approaching quickly in December I planned on throwing down more cash towards Christmas cards fodder and was quite successful. The $115 I spent was second only to February's $130 cost, and I think the results speak for themselves as you look over the various posts and Tweets mentioning some of the cool stuff I sent out.

Once again, no unassigned trade bait, but some very cool keepers:

My favorite vintage guy was around and I think $15 of my total went to him for this trio of super cool Freehan items. Those include a '65 Topps Hot-Iron Transfers, '70 Topps Super, and '73 Topps Candy Lids. I'm always on the lookout for new Freehan stuff because anything I don't have is something I'll treasure. That made these an exciting purchase for sure!

I believe everything else I got for myself from my favorite seller was from the cheaper boxes, so everything here was probably $1 at most, and more likely $0.25 or $0.50. Once again, the "90s inserts rule!" tag is in full effect, and you have to know I was loving it. Fun insert designs starring three of my favorite 90s heroes always make my day. By the way, I think Freehan and a Pacific card featuring in the same post is very apt since they each remain criminally underappreciated these days.

Well, that's the rest of 2024 in show recaps for me. I believe what's left for me to cover for last year at this point is COMC, eBay, Facebook, and something else really fun that I don't think I've teased yet. Once I can catch up on those I can get to some cool trades I've received this month, January and February's shows (I'm sure I won't have those all done by this Friday), and maybe more timely TCDb trade recaps.

You might even say I still have a whole lot to...show you! (Sorry.)

2024 TCDb trade roundup part 1: the goods

It's about time I get an actual card post up this month so I'm able to put more stuff away.

My TCDb transactions stats tell me I completed 41 deals last year (not including PIFs), which is my second best so far (76 in 2022) and a couple better than '23. Tonight I'm highlighting a few of those for various reasons--favorite members, interesting cards, or whatever else. I'll have a part 2 up soon that covers "the rest" with probably very little commentary.

So without further ado, here's some cool cardboard I made deals for in '24:

BaltOrioles:

This is mostly here because of the Sparky relic--my second of old George--but the minors cards of some of my more obscure Michigan Baseball PCs and the oddballs are quite cool too!

cynicalbuddha:

I worked out a deal with Mark of Collector's Crack late in the year because we had a lot of matches including some items I could use for Christmas packages, plus he's always been a good dude. Since some of it indeed made it into holiday envelopes, this isn't nearly everything I got from him, to give you a good idea of how fun this deal was. The auto of the late Mallett is my fifth while I accidentally grabbed the rookie auto of DT Mike Martin because I apparently hadn't logged it on the site. Oh well, more trade bait! Thank you to Mark for an awesome deal.

firesnbeers (trade):

Brian's one of my closest friends on the site so the stuff I got from him would have been here regardless, but this was a super fun swap. The Action Packed cards aren't the standard ones you usually see as they have a little (I'm assuming fake) diamond in them. He found a couple partial sets of those at an antique store-type place, I believe. I also loved getting all of the former Wolverines/Brewers from the beer set, and there's lots more to love here too.

firesnbeers (PIF, 1/24):

Yeah, no big deal at all, just a trio of VINTAGE KALINES! The '58 he shares with slugger Harvey Kuenn and the '59 solo card are now the oldest cards of Mr. Tiger in my collection, and the '64 League Leaders card that includes Yaz was a great treat as well. You'll see more of ex-Wolverine Paciorek in a bit but he's one of a number of Brewers and Packers police cards I've acquired thanks to Brian.

firesnbeers (PIF, 11/24):

I think I may have asked him for the Miggy you see here but the other two were HUGE surprises. The Maddux jersey looks terrific, and boy is that Daz Cameron jersey number piece sweet! WOW!

firesnbeers (PIF, 12/24):

I knew these other Pacioreks were coming at some point but had no idea the rest would be included in this Christmas gift! We already had Mr. Tiger, so why not Mr. Padre on a nice relic? And speak of the devil, there's a beautiful Kaline relic (piece of pants) from one of Upper Deck's superlative Baseball Heroes sets. Last up in this very generous mailing to close out a year in generosity is a Topps Archives Purple auto of Alan Trammell, numbered to 150 on the back. Whoa! Tram has a gorgeous signature and fits in well on a design used during his playing career: 1993 Topps.

Thanks so much, Brian!

HamPstr88:

Speaking of Brian, I was glad to be introduced to one of his friends and fellow Wisconsinites on the site, Jeff. Though I handsomely rewarded him later, Jeff sent me the items above in a deal that was heavily in my favor. It starts with a '71 Topps RC of HOF Michigan alum Ted Simmons, a huge get for me. The 2020 Heritage Buyback of another Michigan Ted, Sizemore, also from the '71 Topps set, is next. And how about just my second Simba auto from '22 Heritage's Real Ones Autographs set? Oh, and the jumbo of Riley Greene ('23 Update Oversized Combo Box Topper) was a pretty slick throw-in.

This kind of deal only assures that I'll continue trading with Jeff in the future!

jasongerman9:

Jason, a fellow Michigander and another of my best buddies on the site, is no stranger to these posts as we've dealt a few times, often in blind trade form, though I think in this case I mostly picked out stuff I wanted. He was nice enough to grab the top three cards for me on COMC to finish up the 2008 Topps and '21 Topps Series 1 near sets I grabbed at a garage sale last summer. I think he may have had the rest of these in his port as well and shipped back to himself. Among the great stuff you see is a minors card of former Michigan icer Milan Gajic, a guy I enjoyed watching play in Ann Arbor. The Burnaby, BC native's four years with the Wolverines matched mine and I liked seeing his skills on display, which led to the saying "Gajic is Magic."

Thanks, Jason!

Mjprigge:

It definitely feels like there's a Wisconsin bias to this post but that's unintentional. Matt's always been a fun Twitter follow and my trades with him have always gone well. This time I got more help with my '95 Finest set (22 more to go!), a cool trio of Tigers, and a full set of the cards that were a bonus addition to his book Opening Day in Milwaukee. It's very cool to know collectors that have produced content like this, and I'll be reading that at some point.

Puckfiend (Secret Santa):

I once again participated in TCDb's Secret Santa event late last year (run by Dan/vrooomed, mentioned below) and the person who drew my name was an LA Kings fan named Paul. He did a nice job by sending me a card of a player I collect, a 2024 Topps Pristine Green Refractor of Ripken, then made things more interesting by including David Wells' book and the note you see above. I'll be reading it at some point and then passing it along as requested (though I'm not sure that I'll do the picture thing).

Rayeveryplayerand76e:

Ray in Philadelphia was super easy to work with as we had no problems making a one-for-one basketball auto swap. My prize was my first hit, an autograph, of former Wolverine Tariq Abdul-Wahad. The French SG was born Olivier Sant-Jean and played college ball for Michigan in 1993-94 and 94-95, then transferred to San Jose State for his final two seasons. He was the 11th overall pick by Sacramento in 1997 and played parts of six seasons with the Kings, Magic, Nuggets, and Mavs. Fleer included him in their cross-brand Autographics signed insert in 1998-99 and now I can add another name to my list of Wolverines for whom I own a certified auto!

tucha:

Way before Canada Post went on strike I made a fun PWE trade with Al in Langley, BC. To absolutely nobody's surprise, my return included OPC and hockey! The Bird and Simba cards are great and I love the look of both of the Larkins, but I really appreciated getting the buyback of Michigan icer Jeff Norton limited to "just" 25 copies. It probably doesn't seem like a big thing but I made sure to thank him for including it without asking a lot.

vrooomed (PIF):

Five-time member-of-the-year (including 2024!) Dan is another TCDber I count as a close friend on the site which is why you see his name along with Brian's and Jason's here a lot. When he's not efficiently running something like a fantasy league, giveaway, or Secret Santa, or working on inaccuracy reports to correct things on the site, he sometimes finds time to trade as well. We've sent lots back and forth, and this time he mailed me a few things I asked him about (most of the stuff in the first scan) plus a couple nice stacks of cards from 1987 Hygrade. Thanks to what he sent I now own 51 of the 114-card set and will likely chip away at it slowly. It's definitely a classic product that you still see all over the place.

Thanks, Dan!

Ymmat (PIF, 4/24):

Ymmat (PIF, 8/24):

Joe and I flip stuff back and forth quite a bit too, so even if we're not formally trading we're sending each other PIFs. This is one of two occasions last year where he played on my TCDb username of FreehanSolo. He covered the first part of the name with a pair of Tigers catcher Bill: his '63 Topps RC plus an SP Legendary Cuts jersey. Wow! I already had my own copy of the rookie, which is of course also a favorite of John's, so I passed this one on to fellow Tigers fan Paul to enjoy. I'll be keeping the relic, though, because it was new to me!

In terms of the "Solo" portion, well, Han's Star Wars card is obvious but I had to look up the other. From a 1965 set covering the TV series it's Napoleon Solo ("...and 2 beautiful women," which, yep!) from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. He was played by Robert Vaughn on the 60s spy show and Henry Cavill in the 2015 movie remake. Very clever of Joe!

Ymmat (trade #1):

For our first trade of the year, closed out last July, I got some 123 items from him in return for just 49 (though I threw in some extras, namely Legends Sports Memorabilia card sheets and a few magazines to even things out). A large chunk of my end went to Brian, Dan, and Jason, especially a bunch of '86 Topps football for Brian's set build, but I got some fun stuff for myself too as you can see above.

Ymmat (trade #2 + PIF):

If I recall correctly, the contents of this trade arrived in three PWEs. The first two included the items that were part of the transaction while a third contained what you see in the last scan, which I'm treating as a PIF as they were a nice surprise! The main deal included some fun new stuff including my first card of recent Wolverine pitcher Connor O'Halloran, a 2023 fifth-round selection of the Blue Jays who was born in nearby Mississauga, Ontario.

As you can see, the second group includes another Freehan/Solo pairing, a couple more vintage Tigers, a Dingler and pair of Greenes, and lastly, two surprise autos. The first is a Blue Topps Chrome of pitching prospect Sawyer Gipson-Long, the guy Detroit got for Michael Fulmer from the Twins at the '22 trade deadline. His signature looks cool, the parallel color is nice, and this one's numbered /150 to boot. It's joined by a Stadium Club auto of another guy with a sweet sig, SS Zack Short. He came to Motown at the 2020 deadline for Cameron Maybin (after his second stint with the Tigers) and played parts of the 2021-23 seasons. He's since bounced around to the Mets, Red Sox, Braves, and most recently, Astros.

Obviously Joe is a very generous guy and I can assure you we'll be hitting each other's mailboxes again this year!

Thank you to everyone in this post for continuing to make TCDb the best place to organize your collection and trade, and here's to more of the same in 2025! I'll be back soon with part 2, though I haven't decided if I'll mix it up with content from somewhere else first. We'll see!