2024 trade package #27: Baseball Cards Come to Life

And now we've come to my final trade package of 2024. This one arrived just after Christmas and was a fun surprise from Bo over at Baseball Cards Come to Life. He and I had previously made a trade via TCDb a couple years ago but this was our first "blogger" trade outside that site. Bo asked for some of the beat-up vintage I made available a few weeks ago and I came up with a pretty solid group of those for him in addition to some other stuff that I found on his wantlists.

He was nice enough to return the favor with some extremely cool stuff he must have pulled straight from my own wants as all were new to me:

The top group here represent my favorite items in the entire package. I wasn't familiar with the 1969 MLB PhotoStamps because their combination of vintage and oddball-ness made me unlikely to notice them. So I'm grateful to Bo for gifting me four of the Tigers that could be found: PC favorite Bill Freehan and fellow Detroit greats Willie Horton, Denny McLain, and Jim Northrup. I love the fact that these came out the year after that team won it all, and receiving these inspired me to add the others to my wants: Kaline, Cash, Stanley, McAuliffe, and Lolich.

The vintage action didn't stop there, though, as he included two '72 Topps base that I needed: Ted Simmons plus Darrell Evans' In Action subset appearance. That's a second-year of Simba and it puts me very close to his full Topps base run. Technically it's a second-year of Evans as well; His RC came out two years earlier instead, then he got consecutive base sports in '72.

Going back to oddball-ish stuff, the bottom row includes a Superstar back of Mr. Padre, a Topps Sticker of Willie Hernandez (shared with HOFer Steve Carlton), and a UK Mini of Jack Morris. There's enough of these one-offs that despite being common still represent holes in my collection, though not if someone like Bo can help it!

Next, he included a trio of Brandon Inge needs. Though I've long since had the '07 Topps base, I did indeed lack the Red Back seen above (I didn't scan the reverse, so trust me, bro). From that same year I was also treated to a horizontal photo of him attempting to make a crazy diving play in the stands (found in that year's Upper Deck product), and then Brandon's appearance in Topps' throwback 206 product released in 2010.

The last of the baseball content was one of a number of 2001 UD Vintage team checklists I've been chasing for a while because they include one or more guys I collect. In this case, Cal's the lone Oriole in my PC, but I do remember this team well, one that included ex-Cleveland star Albert Belle, Jeff Conine, Brady Anderson, and more.

Did Bo's generosity end there? Most definitely not! Also tucked into this envelope were three former Wolverines I needed from 1975 Topps football: longtime NFL O-linemen Dan Dierdorf and Reggie McKenzie, plus 10-year NFL CB John Rowser, who suited up for Green Bay, Pittsburgh, and the pictured Broncos. I now have 12 cards from this set, partially thanks to Bo, and just need #s 203 (an All-Pro card that includes HOF G Tom Mack) and 395, which is Giants RB Ron Johnson.

Bo, thanks for sending all of these needed cards my way! I hope we can increase the frequency of our trading in the new year and fortunately that shouldn't be too difficult with you making your wants available on my favorite trading site!

And once again thank you to everyone who contributed to TMV as a reader, commenter, and trade partner. I appreciate you all and will keep going in 2025--as long as none of you try to hold me to a three-post-per-day pace. I can't promise I'll put up six posts in a single month! But please do keep in mind that I still have a good amount of 2024 content to cover in the form of pickups from Facebook, TCDb, eBay, and shows, plus at least one other surprise source.

I'm not sure how long it'll take to catch up on those, so for now, I'll wish a happy new year to everyone who took the time to read this. May your 2025 be filled with good news, good friends, good food, good health, and everything you could want!

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!

2022 Sportlots purchases: 90s and 2000s Tigers PCs

I'm back this evening with the last of my Sportlots purchases from late last year. Yep, it only took me until ::checks:: mid-March to cover my 2022 purchases!

Anyway, as we just did this past weekend it's time to spring forward and look at some cards starring players that are younger than those in part 2. Tonight's subjects are Tigers and Tigers-related PCs from the 90s and 2000s (including a small number of 2010s):

Cecil is one of the players in this post that got a very nice bump to his collection with some 19 additions, giving me a pretty nice total of 225. Since I'm not supercollecting him (as in, I'll take what I can get but I'm not actively chasing everything) I put my focus on affordable but cool looking base and inserts. There's plenty of cool to go around here with Collect-a-Books, a hologram, Sportflics, fun inserts, and more. Fleer's EMotion product is a precursor to the bordered/framed cards you still see these days.

You'll see a bit more of Big Daddy down below but the '96 foursome up top is quite cool if you ask me. Yep, we're back in the days when I loooooved Topps' products!

Two Grandersons does not equal too many Grandersons, but they're always welcome in any quantity. I think the Unique Unis insert could have been less bland but I do like the recognition for Detroit's olde English "D." The shiny Lineage parallel was a fun add too, even if it's from his time with the Evil Empire.

BInge is a Tiger I've come to appreciate a bit more lately, but I think what spurred me to collect him a bit more recently was when he joined UM's baseball coaching staff for a short time. Two of his three additions are on display here from Diamond Kings and one of Topps' many parallels.

As for Dean-o I count a massive 30 new items for his collection giving me a TCDb-dominating 469 cards. I'm now more than halfway through the wantlist I put together on the site, where I've excluded a number of issues that don't really fit my collection. This group includes some fun 90s inserts such as a '97 Studio Silver Press Proof and Ultra Gold Medallion plus a '98 Finest No-Protector parallel. The Flair Showcase card is certainly a highlight in terms of base design quality.

There's even more 90s insert-age to see here, like four different versions of his Topps Stars card, numbered between 2299 and 9799 copies. The die-cut Paramount Team Checklist is also a beaut, and who wouldn't love to see Pacific back in the game in this time of bland, thoughtless designs?

There's a few more Palmer cards below but this scan gets us through the rest of his vertically oriented stuff. The die-cut Black Diamond Reciprocal parallel and Topps Gold insert were of particular interest to me, but it was also nice to track down a cheap copy of his '01 Topps Limited base as well.

Underappreciated spark-plug Tony Phillips gets a bit more love in a scan below but right here you see him with the Angels on his '98 Score Showcase parallel, an insert that brings me back to a fun era of chasing such cards.

This purchase also boosted my Mickey Tettleton collection a bit. I'm over half the number of Froot Loops' cards documented on TCDb and maintain a huge lead when it comes to him as well. This time it was all parallels of the slugging catcher, with a pair from Stadium Club, a Collector's Choice Silver Signature, and the '97 version of Score's Showcase, another personal favorite.

Then we have the remaining six Fielder cards, all of which are landscape style. The Leaf Power Brokers and Donruss Bomb Squad inserts, the latter pairing him up with NL counterpart Andres Galarraga, highlight his ability to mash dingers. Denny's provides his second hologram card of the post. '95 Pinnacle's Museum Collection is a top 10 all-time parallel for me. I nabbed one more Sportflix issue from '95 because I've always enjoyed that product. And why not a third Score parallel as well?

We can just about (but not quite) close things out with this scan. Inge gets one more addition in the form of an Emerald parallel, appropriately from his brief tenure in Oakland in 2012. I only scored one AJax this time but I made it count in the looks department since it's a Topps Chrome Refractor. Palmer gets a couple more interesting UD items and a '95 Pinnacle Museum Collection card of his own. I have 21 cards from that parallel and another four on my list! And Tony Phillips gets three more added to his total (257, again, a TCDb lead) thanks to Stadium Club parallels.

We're not quite done though because there's still this oversized item:

Palmer joins Barry Larkin as having one of these cards in my collection from 1994 Upper Deck All-Star Jumbos. While a chunk of the cards focused on one player, this one pairs up Dean-o with ex-Giant and new teammate for 1994 Will Clark. Palmer's fellow corner IF put up five straight All-Star seasons between 1988-92 in San Fran, and he'd make his final Midsummer Classic team in '94. Dean, for his part, put up 19 homers during that shortened campaign but wouldn't reach the All-Star game until 1998 with the Royals.

Hooray, I've finally covered all of these Sportlots additions! Next time I expect you'll be feasting your eyes on a very generous trade package from one of the coolest bloggers around, and then I'll get to my backlog of other stuff (eBay, a show, and TCDb trades, at least). Happy almost baseball season, y'all!

2/4/23 card show report: We Bought a Dime Box!

Considering I'm planning on heading to my monthly show tomorrow, tonight's probably a good time to get the cards I brought home from February's posted and recapped!

A few weeks ago I headed to Taylor as I usually do once a month for my favorite show. This time there was a twist, though. Not only did my usual seller have an assortment of dime boxes to peruse, but he had a sign near them offering them up for $25 each! That definitely piqued my interest. I didn't immediately jump on that, though, and I took a while compiling 50 cards from those boxes plus nine from the $2-or-3/$5 selection.

It felt like kind of a waste to head home with just 59 cards for $20, though, so I checked with the seller about the dime box offer. Did he care if I built one dime box out of the six or eight or so that were there? "Do whatever you need to do," he replied. I made sure not to take advantage of that by stuffing the hell out of one of the 3200-count boxes, plus I had no intention of spending an hour-plus filtering out specific cards. Basically I tried to grab handfuls of what looked good from each box, focusing mainly on baseball with some football along for the ride.

In the end I was happy with what I put together, which you can kind of see for yourself in the image above. It worked out to a bit more than two rows of baseball, a bit more than one of football, plus maybe half or slightly more than one row of basketball that I didn't notice. The dude let me fold the 50 dime cards I'd grabbed earlier into that box, so my total was $25 for that plus $15 for the nine two-buck cards I'd grabbed. I returned home to the fun of flipping through that box.

And fun it was! I pulled a few things for myself and lots for others which will be heading out in trade packages. Nothing extremely valuable, not that I expected there to be, but I got my money's worth in useable cards and entertainment value, that's for sure. It's possible I'll list some of what isn't already earmarked for others on TCDb, such as solid groups of recent Topps flagship and Heritage commons, but even if I don't I'm satisfied with what I pulled.

Here's a quick look at my keepers from the dime and $2 boxes:

The baseball content included a new Heritage Cronenworth for me plus a few former Tigers, one of those appearing in a Detroit uniform. Subsequent runs through the box produced two more for my collection: another Scherzer (also as a Met) plus an Indians card of Victor Martinez, a guy I don't go out of my way to collect but whose cards I do keep.

The dime box produced four new basketball items for me in former Wolverines Caris LeVert (x2), Jordan Poole, and Duncan Robinson. '20'-'21 Donruss was the most prominent set from the basketball group and I'm considering putting those up on TCDb if I think they'll generate a few trades. Meanwhile the McGary jersey of course came out of the $2 box and it looks nice with a die-cut design and solid blue swatch. That's my fifth relic and eighth overall hit of McGary.

Switching over to football, a couple transfers were the stars here. My original perusal of the dime boxes while at the show produced the pair of Thomas Rawls (who transferred to Central Michigan) cards, and after I scanned everything I came up with one more base card of the RB not seen here. Ex-Patriot Chase Winovich was a fun find as well on a solid Donruss design. And GOAT DB Charles Woodson adds to his lofty PC total (TCDb says 331) with a select base card from a couple years ago.

The $2 box supplied the rest you see here, including my first two hits of transfer TE Devin Asiasi, who was a great recruit that headed home to UCLA after spending the 2016 season in Ann Arbor. New England took him in the third round in 2020 and he caught one TD pass for them later that year. After a single appearance in 2021 the Bengals picked him up and he got in 12 games this past season, catching a pair of passes.

I believe both autographs you see from 2020 Panini Illusions were together in the $2 box, an exciting find for me because I previously had zero hits of him to my name and I'm making more of an effort to track down certified autographs of any former Michigan Football players I can. The card in the dead center of the scan is the base version of the Rookie Signs insert and is numbered /199 while to its right you see the Black version which is numbered /50. These additions make the single-season Wolverine member #238 of my UM Football PC.

And last up is a solid looking relic of highly ranked WR Nico Collins, who left college having not seen as many targets as he deserved, only to be stuck with the Texans and their abysmal QB options. He's seen here on a rookie year 2021 Panini Playbook jersey card that counts as his fourth relic in my PC and fifth hit overall.

Barring unforeseen circumstances I should be heading back to Taylor tomorrow having opted against going today due to a snowstorm that currently has it looking beautiful outside, if not conducive to safe driving. I don't expect to be bringing another dime box home but you never know! I look forward to seeing if I get any further value and entertainment out of that and in the meantime hopefully I'll have more great items to include in upcoming trade envelopes after tomorrow afternoon.

TCDB trade: randylaw, part 2: Detroit Tigers 1980s-today

 

Welcome to part 2 of my recap of the large deal I made with randylaw on TCDB. Since I already explained how the trade was done in part 1, plus I have a LOT of stuff to show off today, let's get right to it!

Today's theme is Detroit Tigers players from the 1980s-today (obviously not including the '84 guys I showed off last time):

There are a few guys in today's post for whom I acquired under five cards, and four of those players bookend this photo. Miggy and Castellanos ('14 Topps RC) are two of only three active players I counted in this post, but that's because the sets lean 90s-heavy. Granderson (including an SI For Kids Card) is obviously a favorite of mine, and Guillen, on a shiny UD Spectrum base, was a fun and productive player not that long ago.

Next we have three stalwarts of some bad 90s Tigers teams, but ones I enjoyed watching growing up anyway. There's a quick five-spot of former 1B and current MLBPA chief Tony Clark. While he didn't exactly live up to his top prospect billing he did have a solid career. A couple creative late Pinnacle issues--Inside and X-Press--highlight the group.

I bet if you asked a bunch of people my age who their favorite Tiger for much of the 90s was, they'd say Cecil Fielder. His 51-homer season was a blast to watch, and blast was something he did often, compiling almost 250 bombs in parts of seven seasons in Motown in a successful homecoming from Japan. In his group here you'll find a mix of oddball, low-end, and some of my favorite brands that modernized design like Ultra and Stadium Club. The '96 Ultra brings back memories of busting packs searching for my Tigers and the many cool inserts that were available.

Playing on the opposite corner from Fielder was Travis Fryman, who also debuted with the Tigers in 1990. He put up consistently solid numbers in Detroit before departing a year after Cecil, heading to Cleveland by way of the expansion D-Backs. His haul starts with some low-end stuff as well but I was able to add some mid- and later 90s stuff too, with my favorite being the '96 Score Dugout parallel.

My Mike Henneman (also known as "Henne-butt-chin"!) collection got a very nice boost in this deal. Though the former reliever only spent 10 seasons in the Majors he was effective to the end, putting up 31 saves (against seven losses, granted) in '96 with Texas, his sunset campaign. Before that, though, he tallied 154 saves and 57 wins in eight-plus seasons with the Tigers (and then got flipped to Houston). I scored a couple of his 1987 XRCs, a few oddballs, and some other fun 90s items among 23 new items.

I wouldn't leave out Brandon Inge, whom I affectionately refer to as "BInge", if I had any chance of adding cards of his. I like that the five above show his positional versatility, a reminder that he went wherever he was needed on the diamond.

Austin Jackson ("A-Jax") was another somewhat recent favorite of mine who won me over as Granderson's replacement after the latter was dealt. All I could get of him here was a '17 Topps base of him with the White Sox, but it was worth an add for me.

Nokes was with Detroit for just four-plus seasons, but the former PTBNL in a deal with the Giants had a big '87 season and played during my early impressionable years of being a fan, so he immediately became one of my favorites along with Lou Whitaker. There's plenty of oddball stuff to enjoy there--Holsum Discs, what's up?!--but my favorite is no surprise to anyone: the Sportflics card.

Rounding out this scan is a guy who was a big contributor to the team's success around 10 years ago, Magglio Ordonez. I ended up with only Tigers cards, though I can't remember if I did that on purpose or if Randy didn't have any White Sox stuff I needed. In any case, that meant plenty of nice shiny stuff from the mid-2000s on like Bowman and Topps Chrome, and my favorite of the bunch: that beautiful 2007 Bowman's Best base.

This photo (which is a good example of why I prefer scans when they're feasible--just look at this mess!) includes just two players, meaning their hauls were among the largest of the trade. They also both happen to be PCs I've been focusing on more lately.

First is slugging 3B Dean Palmer and 14 new cards. Only three of them have him in a Detroit uniform, but that's down to what I needed and what years I could grab, meaning the rest are with the Rangers and Royals. I was glad to add some new Stadium Club items, including one with a cameo from future Tiger Ivan Rodriguez. Also, the Tigers trio is pretty solid with Finest and Fleer Showcase issues.

The other is the late Tony Phillips, who got an excellent bump of 36 items to get him over the century mark. The versatile IF/OF spent a good chunk of his career with the A's, winning a ring with the '89 team, but the five years he was with Detroit were his second longest tenure with a team. Here you can see I came up with one Oakland card, one after he joined the Angels, and 34 with my favorite team. They span 1989-95 so as you'd expect there's a ton of variety, with multiple Panini stickers, Stadium Club looks, and some Donruss, Leaf, and even a couple Triple Plays! You'd better believe I'm super excited for that Sportflix card, though.

We'll finish up today's post with more guys with few cards bookending larger groups. Polanco and Pudge joined Magglio in contributing to some of Detroit's playoff teams so I still like adding stuff of them when I can. Sheridan was a Tiger from 1986-89, again, when I was just starting to watch the team, so I rooted for the Ann Arbor native back then. I think a lot of us thought Thompson was going to be an ace, and I for one was pissed when Detroit sent him to Texas for Juan Gonzalez's stupid ass, but injuries meant he never pitched for the Rangers. And then there's the last guy from this post still playing (probably, since that's pending a return from surgery) in Verlander, popping up on a 2018 Heritage base.

As for the other two players, the first is Tanana, who pitched for 21 seasons, eight of those with his hometown team. He was such a fixture of the franchise in the 80s and early 90s that I accidentally included him in the photos for the previous post without thinking, before remembering that he didn't join the team until June of '85. I came out of the deal with 20 new cards of his, beginning with '86 Donruss and ending with '93 Score and his sunset season. Like a number of other players seen here today you'll notice I found some stickers and other oddballs of him, plus a number of brands I love like Studio and Stadium Club.

And last but definitely not least today--so say 20 new cards of his own--is Fruit Loops himself, Mickey Tettleton. I think I initiated this trade with Randy because he had so many needs out of the stuff I'd grabbed in that Facebook Marketplace lot, but what sealed the deal for me was that he had so many new cards I needed of guys like Palmer, Phillips, and Tettleton as well. Better yet, 16 of these were made depicting him with the Tigers, and a lot of them show him in action behind the plate. This haul also got him over the 100-card mark, putting me at about a quarter of his collection, which is pretty cool!

That's "all" I have for today but I hope you enjoyed this look at what was largely a throwback to 80s and 90s Tigers, with a few from the successful teams from the decade starting in 2006. If you liked these you won't want to miss the finale which has lots of interesting stuff you may not be expecting!

2020 trade package #3: Chronicles of Fuji

I count myself among the people lucky enough to trade with Fuji and I'm always glad to hear when he's sending something my way since I know it'll be great.  That was mostly definitely the case when Mark played Santa last month and sent out a fleet of envelopes all over the country.  Even with my expectations high Fuji's generosity always manages to surprise me.  Check out this latest mailer:

Make no mistake, this package was a hit parade, and this isn't even half of it!  We'll start with Michigan pitching great Jim Abbott on a signature from UD's Goodwin champions.  As usual with the brand the artwork is suspect but the auto is top notch!  Then there's a whole mess of Tigers.  The first of two Miggy relics from 2019 Topps is a jersey from the set done up in the '84 design, which reminds me of the Tigers '84 set I grabbed at Comerica Park last year.  Next is a 2017 Topps Holiday jersey of Michael Fulmer which is somehow my first hit of the former ROY whom I continue to hope returns to full health.

Going a bit older school we have what I considered a pleasant surprise:  a 2000 Topps Traded autograph of former catcher/infielder Brandon Inge.  He could be streaky but put together a few nice seasons in the mid-aughts with his best year coinciding with Detroit's return to the Fall Classic.  That's my first auto of BInge and only my second hit overall along with a jersey, so this was a great inclusion!

Last up in this scan is a trio of nice jersey relics of Trashtro pitcher Justin Verlander.  I may cover this more in a future post but for now to answer what may become a FAQ:  yes I still collect JV, though I've soured on him as a player given his lackluster reaction to his team cheating its way to a title.  Anyway, these relics are quite nice and hail from 2017 Ginter and Heritage and '19 Donruss.

And the bevy of Tigers doesn't end there!  Up top is a very cool acetate auto out of 2002 Topps Pristine of '01 first-round bust P Kenny Baugh.  In a round one short on quality regulars (Joe Mauer, Mark Prior for a minute, Gavin Floyd, Mark Teixeira) Baugh was still a bad miss as he never made it out of the minors, plus he was selected ahead of, among others, David Wright!  That see through auto card is super cool, though, and I'm planning on keeping it for now despite the fact that I rarely hold onto cards of such players.

The other two here are somewhat similarly designed jersey relics of former teammates Miggy and V-Mart.  Cabrera's is from 2019 while Victor's was made the previous year.  I may have looked this up and mentioned it before, but as teammates from 2011-18 they combined for 454 HR while seeing their production fall off a cliff after 2016.  By the way, this is just my second hit of Victor and first of him as a Tiger, so again, nice job by Mark!

And now we're on to the "other sports" portion of the package.  I thought the Jimmy King/Ty Wheatley duo card made for a nice segue between the two games seen her, and naturally I enjoyed the college photos out of the terrific looking '95 Classic Five Sport set.  Biakabutuka's card is also very interesting:  a $20 phone card inserted into packs of '96 Press Pass.  They apparently also could be found in values of $5, $10, and $1996.  Remember phone cards?  That's so 90s.

And I'll give the best card of this bunch its own paragraph.  Glen Rice is probably the best player from the '89 champs and I'm always happy to get new stuff of his, especially when I don't have to buy it myself!  This 2016-17 Panini Excalibur Calligraphy card is a textbook example of how nice his signature can look, and he clearly lives up to the set's name here.  This is my fifth auto of Rice and of course I want to keep adding more.

Last up is the football hits portion, or what I'm going to refer to as the "Long haul" for obvious reasons.  I wonder if any of you can picture my face after I pulled card after card out of this package and thought, "How much great stuff did Fuji just send me?!"  I mean, take a look at the previous three scans and keep them in mind when you look at this bonanza.  Yowza!

Let's start with Touchdown Tim in the upper-left corner.  You wouldn't know it from the looks of it but that card was made by Fleer during his rookie year of '96, and despite the plain look it's nice to have since he doesn't have a ton of signed cards.  Then we have what's just my second auto of DL Ryan Glasgow of the Michigan walk-on Glasgows.  The reason it's difficult to see his name in that scan is the color of the foil--blue, appropriately enough--since it's a parallel version of his regular auto in the set.  As usual with Contenders/Draft I think it looks awesome and love the college action photo they went with.

Before we get to the guy who had the biggest day I can cover two of his teammates and fellow '08 draftees.  #1 PC guy Chad Henne is first with a jersey relic out of that year's UD product and then we jump forward two years for a sweet dual jersey out of Sweet Spot of another top guy in Mario Manningham, a.k.a. the namesake of my defunct sister blog.  The latter looks especially cool with, yep, a great college photo.

And now to the man of the hour, Jake Long, who represents a quarter of today's hits, with all of them being autographed!  Two of them--'08 Stadium Club and '09 Topps Mayo--include "just" signatures while the other three--'08 Leaf Certified Materials, Bowman Sterling, and UD Premier--come with relic bonuses.  Again, pulling these out one at a time was a crazy experience, and I'm humbled once again by Fuji's trademark generosity, not to mention the effort I like to credit when people go above and beyond to hit my preferred college collections.

Mark, thanks once again for this stunner of an envelope!  I'm not sure when or how I'll hit you back, but regardless of what you say I intend to do so one way or another.  And in the meantime I'm enjoying seeing the similarly amazing packages popping up on other blogs.  It's good to be a friend of Mr. Fuji!

2016 trade package #23: these cards are anything but Pedestrian

Now that I'm back from celebrating Christmas with my family (I hope everyone else also had a great holiday!), I can get back to trade packages.  This one comes from another new-to-me trader:  Chris of the (Pedestrian) Collector.  Chris was actually the very first person to claim items from my giveaway, and I was happy to see that lead to another new trade partner, as was one of my goals with the project.

He sent me this nice little bundle of Tigers:

Binge!  Former SS-turned-C and 3B Brandon Inge was a fun guy to watch with the Tigers despite his often maddening inconsistency.  Here's the 2009 All-Star on his 2000 Topps Chrome Traded RC (which would have come from a box set).  Following him is former teammate and fellow left-of-the-infield (SS) guy Jhonny Peralta on a 2013 Topps Gold insert, #d 1879/2013.  He made it to the World Series with Detroit in 2012, bookended by All-Star campaigns.  And finally, from 2015 Topps Heritage we have a multiplayer rookie card of a couple 2016 Tigers:  starting C James McCann and RP Kyle Ryan, who's pitched in parts of three seasons in Motown.

Hey, cool, a new entry for my Alan Trammell PC!  Chris went back to 1988, when I would have been five, for this oddballish Topps Big card from the first of the product's three-year run.  The front features two photos of Tram, one being a portrait of a still-young Tiger and the other of the should-be HOFer in action at home at familiar Tiger Stadium with a pretty intense look while making a play.  I'm not that far over the 100-card mark in his collection so I love getting "new" stuff like this!

And then there's my favorite of the bunch:  this 1960 Topps of pitcher Frank Lary, who's mostly known for his 11 years with the Tigers.  The year this card came out, Frank embarked on his first of two straight All-Star appearances, including a career season of 1961 in which he went 23-9 with 22 complete games, won a Gold Glove, and finished third in the AL Cy Young voting.

This card is just my fourth Tiger issue from that 56-year-old set to go along with Al Kaline, Paul Foytack, and a team card; I also have one non-Tiger from the set:  a low-grade Carl Yastrzemski RC.  This is a great looking design with multiple photos and one of my all-time favorite versions of the tiger logo on a card.  I'm happy to add it to my criminally-neglected (by me) vintage collection.

Chris, thanks again for participating in the giveaway and for becoming a new trade partner!  I look forward to more trades like this one in the future, especially as I pile up more Red Sox stuff for you.

2015 trade package #16: these Tigers from Bob Walk the Plank are a perfect 10!

A few weeks ago I received the latest package in an ongoing trade with TMV kindred collector Matt over at Bob Walk the Plank, and not that I want to detract from all of the other great stuff he's sent me, but boy was this envelope loaded!  I'm talking 100% hits, and some really good ones at that.

Matt noted that this time he was going in a bit of a different direction (kind of like I did with the last package I sent him), and he did so in two ways:  sending me mostly Tigers (and just one Wolverine card, on display tonight on TMM), and finding many of those from newer sets I hadn't touched yet.  The result was pretty mind-blowing:

Nick Castellanos 2014 Topps Supreme Autographs Green auto (#SANC) (#31/45)

Nick Castellanos 2015 Diamond Kings DK Signature Materials Silver dual jersey auto (#34/99)

Not terribly interesting fact:  I now have three hits of Castellanos, all of which include autographs, in my Tigers PC.  Very cool fact:  all three of them came from Matt in the form of these two plus another he sent my way back in January.  Verdict:  team trading gets a big thumbs up from me!  The Supreme card is numbered pretty low and is great to have now before his prices blow up should he become a bit more consistent at the plate.  And the Diamond Kings card gives me all the nostalgia feels of the classic Donruss subset/brand, plus it's a sweet auto/dual jersey card!  What's got two thumbs and doesn't care about the lack of MLB logos?  THIS guy.

Derek Hill 2014 Leaf Trinity auto

And now for something completely different....  Trinity is a very cool set that included some fun cards like this one which comes with an interesting inscription.  Don't get me wrong--autographs that are "just" autographs are great, but that's what makes cards like this a fun treat.  Leaf let the players have a bunch of space to sign their names and make a personal mark as well.  An outfielder, Hill was indeed Detroit's first-rounder last year (#23 overall), and while his stats so far aren't terribly exciting, he's young and filled with potential, good enough to be ranked #3 in Baseball America's pre-season organizational top 10.  Not only am I thrilled to have a card of his, I'm geeked that it's one as fun as this one is!

Brandon Inge 2007 Upper Deck Spectrum Swatches jersey (#015/199)

BInge!  My nickname for the former Tigers C/3B/wherever the hell he was useful is also a good description of my activities this weekend vis a vis Orange is the New Black.  Unlike that show, which is celebrating its third season, this card marks my first of Brandon in the Tigers collection, an oversight I somehow allowed until Matt rectified it!

Magglio Ordonez 2006 Upper Deck Star Attractions Swatches jersey

Magglio Ordonez 2008 SPx Winning Materials Team Initials 99 jersey (#52/99)

Magglio Ordonez 2009 Topps Allen and Ginter Relics jersey

Magglio?  More like Mag-THREE-o, amirite?  I now own 12 hits of Maggs, and they often seem to come in bunches like these for whatever reason.  Fine by me since I loved the guy during his Detroit tenure (2005-2011) which included the 2006 World Series appearance that resulted from his game 4, 2-out, walkoff three-run homer against the A's in the ALCS.

Ivan Rodriguez 2008 SPx Winning Materials Limited Patch SPx patch (#88/99)

Speaking of Magglio and his teammates, here's another guy that played on that 2006 pennant-winning squad, and in patch form no less!  For once the "patch" label actually applies with a lovely two-colored white/blue swatch with stitching in the middle.  This is my fourth Pudge hit, and though I haven't necessarily done this on purpose, all of them come from his time with the Tigers, which is pretty cool.

Max Scherzer 2014 Topps Supreme Supreme Styling Autographs Green auto (#26/45)

If you didn't think this was a high-end trade before, well hold onto your hats, bros.  Prof. Charles Xavier's favorite pitcher Max Scherzer is certainly styling here on a card that got a successful trim from a shark with a frickin' laser beam on its head.  The green and gold make for a nice combination, but the signature and crazy low numbering make this a winner, not to mention a card I wouldn't have expected to get in a trade in a million years.  Expect the unexpected when you trade with the proprietor of Bob Walk the Plank!

Alan Trammell 2003 Sweet Spot Classics Autographs Black Ink auto (#096/173)

You'd think he'd stop there, unless of course you've traded with him in which case at this point you're like "Yeah, there's probably still something great you haven't shown us yet."  Right you are--peep this gorgeous Sweet Spot auto of classic Tigers SS Trammell.  I've been fortunate to pick up some nice stuff of the '84 Series MVP, but all of that has some stiff competition in the form of this signature stunner.  My fourth auto (out of eight hits) has me hungry for more.  What a great way to close out an incredible bunch of cards!

Thanks again for raising the bar in our ongoing trade once again, Matt.  I'm already hard at work assembling items worthy of a response while I look forward to the next envelope of awesomeness you send my way!

2014 trade package #12: the Tigers take another Walk on the Plank

(So much for having the spring cleaning contest ready--maybe next weekend?)

Well, it's been a while since I've had a trade package to show off over here--since March 27, specifically.  That deal ended up being a spiffy 100% Tigers package courtesy of Matt of Bob Walk the Plank.

It would appear that ol' Matt is back at it.  I commented on his 2009 Topps 206 box break post last Monday and just a few days later I had a package in my mailbox that included the card I asked about (which you can check out over on TMM tonight), plus some bonus Tigers:

This here is a Brad Ausmus Copper parallel from 2000 Pacific, which is one of the product's nicer (read: not so ugly) designs.  The newest Tigers manager, Ausmus doesn't exactly have a ton of cards with Detroit since he was with the team for just parts of three seasons.  For that reason, it's great to get such a nice shot of the catcher and his awesome mask, and on a numbered card, no less.

Joining Ausmus in the non-Topps parallel #d to 99 club is former 3B (among other positions) Brandon Inge.  Matt sent me this 2010 UD Gold (#66/99 if you can't see the numbering atop his glove) which will sit with the other BInge cards I've got in my Tigers box.  He always seemed happiest the hot corner and made lots of great (and a few bad) memories for fans there during his days in Detroit.

Finally, Bob Walk's #1 fan included a very nice surprise indeed, this 2009 Upper Deck Ballpark Collection Quad Swatch Memorabilia quad jersey, which includes four pretty good pitchers, the best of which is, of course, Justin Verlander.  As it turns out, I already have a copy of this very card, but not to worry, it won't go to waste, and I have a feeling you'll all be seeing it again pretty soon!

Matt, once again I'd like to thank you for being an excellent trader, and I've already got some things in the works so I can send you a nice response.  Readers, please show Matt some love and head over to Bob Walk the Plank to follow his great blog tonight!