TCDB trade roundup: five by five

On this lovely Ann Arbor evening I've got five more swaps to show those of you interested in that kind of thing. These were all smaller than the last ones I did so I was glad to up the total to five in order to get more stacks put away.

First up tonight is my fellow Michigander Johnsogr who lives in Frankenmuth, a German town known for the world's largest Christmas store, Bronner's. I was able to put a nice dent in his 1995 Stadium Club baseball wantlist, chipped in some 2015 Topps Updates, and as a surprise I gave him around 150 1996 Topps dupes I had sitting around as well (mostly from, you guessed it, that Facebook collection I bought). I was happy to get the following in return:

Gold Grandy! That one's numbered /2009. Junior Griffey is from the 1992 Triple Play Gallery of Stars insert that was just another name for Diamond Kings. Grimes is another new UM Baseball guy making his way into my PC thanks to minors cards, necessary since the '89 draft pick of Oakland was out of baseball by 1994. Larkin looks cool whether he's at the plate (1999 Bowman International) or in the field ('95 Stadium Club Super Team Division Winners). My Henneman collection is over 101 cards thanks to items like the '95 Flair above. And while Tigers cards are preferred, I'll take Morris in any uniform, including the Jays ('93 Select).

One of the main reasons I wanted to trade with John is that he had 10 cards to knock off my '94 Finest wantlist, the biggest of which was Cal in the #2 spot up there.

Manny's a relatively big name too, to be fair. 31 more cards (not including what I haven't posted yet) would let me close the book on the second version of Finest.

He also had a few football items for me to sweeten the pot. Jenkins is a college uni card by virtue of being made by Classic, and I was quite excited to add a 2003 Topps Chrome RC of TE Bennie Joppru since it had been so difficult for me to find one for a reasonable price. You might be a bit surprised to see me post a pair of Lions cards since I have almost nothing to do with that tire fire of a franchise, but these two 2006 Topps Total trios include two Wolverines that suited up for the loveable losers, OT Jeff Backus and DE James Hall.

It's always great trading with people in Michigan and John was obviously great to work with since I was happy to pay it forward with that big stack of '96 Topps base. His 700+ trades with perfect feedback mirror my experience so go check him out!

Next up is Las Vegas native hershey (a.k.a. Brian) who was mainly interested in some '96 Bowman and Flair cards from my set-fillers to go toward some of his PCs, plus a trio of Eddie Murrays. In return I got some baseball PC stuff of my own, a couple vintage-ish football items, and more baseball set help:

Abbott is a 2005 Topps Rookie Cup Reprint, though not of his RC since Rookie Cup is the obvious theme here. You'll see another from this set in the next scan. Bergman, Hernandez (including Sportflics!) and Lemon are nice additions to the PCs I'm working on of the '84 Tigers. And that '98 Ultra Artistic Talents insert was probably the item I was most pleased to add in this deal.

Next, both of Cal's cards here are from 1993: a Leaf Heading for the Hall insert plus a Denny's Grand Slam Hologram produced by UD. Sabo, like Abbott above, is a reprint, and his Rookie Cup card was found in '89 Topps, a year after he was named NL ROY. That puzzle card is the last one I needed out of the 23 for Ty Cobb's puzzle inserted into '83 Donruss packs. Henson (who I just watched beat OSU in 2000 on Youtube) is seen on a 2003 Fleer Double Header mini insert called "Let's Play Too!"

And then there's a cool pair of '81 Topps cards of former Wolverines Randy Logan and Jim Smith. I only have five and three cards of them, respectively, but they have a total of just 31 cards between them so that's not too surprising!

And here's the set help I was able to get from hershey. I can't recall if either or both of the '94 Ultra cards will go to the set I'm building or the second one I'm putting together to trade. The back of the '95 Score checklist you see with Toronto on the front has the Cardinals on the back so it's an all birds checklist! And I appear to be just one card short of my chase for '96 Donruss thanks to this quartet headed by Bonds, plus possibly more in the piles I have yet to scan. As a reminder all three of these sets are projects that started from that Facebook collection I purchased.

Everything went well with this deal and while I haven't traded again with Brian yet I'll do so again with confidence thanks to my experience here and his perfect feedback with more than 800 deals under his belt.

Next we'll go from one prolific trader to one who's ever busier. bravefan1 (Scott) sent me a second offer not long after we completed our first deal (covered here) and this one proved to be a nice little PWE trade for both sides. I sent him a quartet of Braves, including a nice Andruw Jones insert, and got the following back (plus a Matt Boyd insert for John):

Last time I loaded up on Cronenworth and Mize and this time the story was mostly three other Tigers. Those classy looking Cobbs hail from 2021 Diamond Kings (Art of Hitting insert) and Topps Gallery. The DK card looks great as always and the Gallery possible uses an image that I haven't seen a thousand times, so those are great. Mr. Tiger looks a bit out of place on Panini's modern 2021 Mosaic design but he's 100% welcome here all the same. Maddux (2021 Stadium Club) was able to wear a shirt like that three times in his career, all with the Braves: 1995, when they won it all, and '96 and '99, both losses to the Yankees. And Skubal's been a bright spot in Detroit's rotation (today's not-as-great performance aside), not that I knew that would be the case back in February when I landed 2021 Diamond Kings and Topps Gallery RCs of the young star.

I haven't traded with Scott a third time just yet but I wouldn't be surprised to get another offer from him soon as he continues to get closer to 1500 comments, all positive, in his TCDB transactions career!

This evening's penultimate trade comes from an older but familiar name: hiflew, a.k.a. Johnny, a.k.a. the dude that writes (wrote?) the blog Cards From the Quarry. I hadn't actually traded with him for more than 10 years for whatever reason so this was a nice surprise, and possibly one for him as well since I was able to recognize his username but he might not have put mine together. So that was a fun blast from the past!

In return for a quartet of '96 Flair Rockies, a numbered Todd Helton insert, and memorabilia cards of Jason Jennings and Troy Tulowitzki, I ended up with four baseball items, two football cards, and four baseball Nolans, the latter of which I happily sent to Paul (including a Nolan Ryan #d /35). Here are the keepers for me:

Jeimer's got some work to do to get back to the kind of value he posted the last two seasons (2.0 and 3.8 bWAR) and I'm hoping he can heat up with the weather. His Topps Gold parallel here is from 2021 Topps. Former Tiger Austin Jackson is next, and even though he's pictured with the hated White Sox I was glad to land his 2016 Topps Update Gold parallel since I'll always associate him with the Tigers. Former Wolverine Barry Larkin's 2021 Donruss card above is appropriately decked out in Holo Blue, as befitting of his alma mater. Maddux can be seen once again tonight, this time on a 2021 Topps '86 Topps insert, making me pine for the days when Topps wasn't shoving the '87 design down our throats. And lastly, former Wolverines Jake Butt and Taco Charlton appear in college unis with hilariously airbrushed helmets on their 2017 Leaf Draft Gold parallels. I think the funniest part is that their helmets are different colors here.

Big thanks to Johnny for kicking off a new deal after more than a decade, and if I can pile up more Rockies he'd like I'll happily work with him again as he nears 300 completed trades!

With all of those covered so far I get to end this post with the easiest deal to cover so far: a one-for-one trade with brooks1856. All he was asking from me was a '96 Flair Ozzie Smith (silver background, gold foil letters, to be specific) as he'd tried to land it a couple other times and ended up with the wrong version. I don't recall what he originally offered me but after looking over his trade bait I quickly countered and asked for this:

Slurpee coin! Lou Whitaker is joined by the Wizard and Buddy Bell on this 1986 7-Eleven Southeast Region coin that I'm now proud to have in my collection. The theme is Gold Glovers and Sweet Lou was just coming off winning his third straight when this was made; Bell won six in a row from '79-'84 and Smith, of course, was the gold standard in the NL at his position from 1980-92. Good company for sure!

Though I own all 30 of the 2000 7-Eleven set I'm woefully short on older gems like this one so I was thrilled to add it in a deal, especially one that cost me just one card in return.

Here it is in its full motion glory:

Oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh. Don't be surprised if I re-use this animated GIF on the day the Tigers retire his jersey!

As with everyone else mentioned tonight, this member was an excellent trader and I couldn't have been happier with how well everything went, so it's possible more deals are in our future.

Well that knocked a nice chunk of cards off my desk, and I'm thinking I'll continue this series the next time I post unless something else shows up sooner, including my first eBay pickup in a while.

A great time to be a sports fan in Michigan?

Who else would I start with?:

Michigan pantsed Minnesota 58-0 (and that was being charitable thanks to some field goals, a couple punts and, of course, finally getting some backups in) and my Wolverines are 5-0.  While I'm sure an undefeated season is just about out of the question, this is still a very encouraging start.  As always, IT'S GREAT TO BE A MICH-I-GAN WOLV-ER-INE!

In other college football news...:

Not only did the Buckeyes lose again, once again in embarrassing fashion--the team that beat them, Michigan's little brother Michigan State, was embarrassingly bad as well.  Please to enjoy this gem from the always hilarious EDSBS.  Excerpt:

Matt: Dantonio can't coach, but he hates humanity with a burning passion and that's what makes him the moderately successful and extremely lonely person he is.

In other college sports news:

Defending second place-finisher (damn you, Minnesota St.!) Michigan hockey kicks off their regular season tomorrow night against Niagara.  I'm hoping for another Frozen Four appearance, but since it's too early to be thinking about that, here's an example of the best college sports intermission tradition IN THE WORLD: (suck it, Badgers with your "jumping around") 

The Lions don't have a word for "winning" yet, so for now we're calling it "unlosing":

Well, I guess I covered it yesterday, but what a great comeback by the Lions.  Bonus genius response to a post entitled "Things Rob Ryan can eat":  "He can't eat his foot...that's already on his brother's menu." (courtesy of hiflew)  Johnny, for that comment you get

RESPEK KNUCKLES, my friend.
Yay Tigers, yay Curtis/boo Curtis:

The Tigers split with the Yankees in a water-logged pair of games.  Good ol' Grandy sure made a statement in the Bronx, but Miguel Cabrera and Papa Grande had the last laugh.  Valverde then made a tongue-in-cheek guarantee that the Tigers had this thing in the bag, inspiring me to create this guy:

Because of the weather weirdness, game three will be tonight, sans off day, in Detroit, with the Hamburglar facing Jesus Verlander. (for reals this time, we promise)  Go Tigers, and for the love of God, Leyland, DON'T SCREW THIS UP FOR US!

Does this blog still talk about cards?  I wanna talk about cards:

Careful what you ask for--I have major shipments from COMC and SportLots, plus something from eBay and maybe even from Blowout on the way.  Expect to see a nice uptick in card-related content in the next week to 10 days!

Trade post Tuesday with Hiflew

Johnny/Hiflew (Cards From the Quarry) and I agreed to a trade at some point recently, that much I'm sure of, because I vaguely remember sending him stuff, and he reciprocated by sending stuff back that arrived to me today:

First up is this JJ Putz 2008 Topps Heritage Chrome parallel.  Compared to some of Michigan's recent baseball alumni, JJ's had a pretty nice career (plus he's still kicking ass for me on my fantasy team this year).  As far as non-hits go (I do collect those too!) this is a super addition to my Michigan baseball PC.  Topps Heritage is pretty reliably a beautiful set, and that plus Chrome equals awesome.  As usual, these are numbered (this one's a difficult-to-read 0962/1959).  I think this is part of what started this deal because I remember asking Johnny about it a while ago.

Next is this Chris Perry 2004 SAGE HIT Silver auto.  Perry was a beast of a running back and a Heisman finalist at Michigan, and here we have a great shot of him determined to pick up a big gain in a game or practice (or at the park, in his full uniform for some reason).    Welcome home, Chris Perry #13.

Finally, Johnny sent over a David Terrell 2001 SPx Winning Materials ball/jersey.  The older football versions of these often turned out more interesting than their baseball counterparts, and I think this is a great example.  In this football set we get a couple small swatches, but one's a non-white jersey, and the other is a ball, which I feel, without any facts to back it up, is rarer than a bat card when it comes to baseball relic stuff.  For comparison's sake, here's what I'm talking about in an example from the same year:

I love my Ripken relics, but the Terrell is hands down much better in my opinion.  (Did you notice how I both explained which one I preferred and detailed why, Chris Olds?)  Rounding out the card are a nice action shot of Terrell plus one of my favorites--serial numbering (105/750).  Just curious, do you people prefer serial numbering on the front or back?  It doesn't make a huge difference to me, but in general I like it on the back because I like the front to have enough going for it that it doesn't need numbering to improve it.  Anyway, that's David Terrell #26 for me.

Three quality Wolverines PC additions equal a great trade package for me, plus I'm pretty sure I dumped my unwanted Rockies on Johnny, so this deal was even better for me, but hopefully a win-win overall.  Thanks for an awesome third trade, Johnny!

hiflew Likes Ike!

Johnny told me to steal images, which I interpreted as all of his images

If you're reading this you may be one of my regular users, but more likely you were involved in Johnny/hiflew's exciting break over at Cards From the Quarry (and I do sincerely mean exciting considering what was pulled).  Johnny politely asked me if I'd handle a couple randomizations for him since I was otherwise uninvolved and therefore impartial.  I readily agreed, somewhat because we'd traded before and he's a cool guy, and mostly because he's got Ollie Williams doing his weather reporting.

Johnny's instructions were to take the eligible teams for each card and randomize them three times.  I now present to you live footage of said discussion:


With that out of the way, here's what you probably already scrolled down to, or thereabouts considering there's a shiny video right above this.  We've got two cards up for grabs from Johnny's 2004 Topps Chrome II baseball portion of his break.

The first that we'll Holy Hand Grenade into someone's loving hands is a Presedential Pastime Refractor of James Madison:

How many Refractors do YOU have, Marbury?  That's what I thought, so suck it!

Old Jimbo here was US President #4, was dubbed the "Father of the Constitution" and rocked a mean wig, so he's got that goin' for him.  Also he did lots of other stuff.  </public_education>  What I'm going for is that the guy was one of the better presidents to pull, so whoever gets this card is getting something pretty nice.

Here's your timestamped randomization, brought to you by random.org, the sports card blogosphere's official provider of randomizations.  And now a word from Stampy, the random.org timestamp elephant:

I got nothing, just wanted a cheap Simpsons reference

Here's your list of eligible participants:

Four teams vie for the J-Mad.  Who will it be?

And-a one

And-a two

CUBS WIN!  CUBS WIN!

Congratulations to "Jon" whose name I don't recognize but who will now enjoy the Refractor-y goodness of Mr. Constitution Sr.

I saved the big prize for last, which interestingly has even more eligible winners, the Presidential First Pitch seat relic of Dwight D. Eisenhower:

Pictured:  Ike giggling at the suggestion that Washington would throw THAT much money at Jayson Werth

(As opposed to Dwigt)

Johnny reported this as a case hit, and they are indeed 1:15 box-loader packs, so this was definitely a nice pull.  Ike was the 34th President and was a Republican, which means he automatically had it in for the possibly-yet-unborn Thorzul.  He's considered one of the greatest presidents ever, and this is a sweet addition to anyone's collection.  The seat, incidentally, comes from an appropriate place--Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., home of the now-defunct Senators (the ones that got paid to play baseball, not screw you) and the Redskins.

Ok, that's enough context, on with the button-pushing:

Well that many people will certainly make this more interesting.

Juan

Too

And your winner is the OTHER team from Chicago, the OzzieSox.  Congrats to Darren on the big win!

So there you have it, a couple impartial randomizations.  High fives to both the winners and a tip of the hat to everyone else who participated in another fine break by hiflew.  Now to make you feel more at home during your time away from his site, here's some purple so you don't suffer from withdrawal:

Sunday fun with Dr. Cheeks

Relevant pic to sum up this post:

Hello, I'm Dr. Cheeks. I'm doing my rounds, and, uh, I'm a little behind.

I've been a bit busy with family in town, plus the usual work stuff.  But I wanted to give credit where it was due (and show off a couple nice hauls) for a great trade package and a couple nice Blowout pickups.

Trade with Johnny/Hiflew of Cards From the Quarry:

Johnny was one of the responders to my trade bait post and totally shocked me by requesting the Rockies I had up for grabs.  For our second trade so far, those plus some insert needs for him and some other assorted Rockies got me the following (in addition to a few NFL Wolverines and Lions):

Some Detroit Tigers, including a new Granderson!

and the real highlights, 2008 TriStar Farm Hand autos of Tiger prospects Cody Satterwhite, Daniel Schlereth (traded from Arizona) and Ryan Perry.  Schlereth is a green parallel #d to 50.  This is a great group of Tigers pitching prospects and surprisingly each card is my first autograph of each player.  This is a great looking set made up of an excellent group of prospects, so I think Johnny made a smart choice busting the product.  I'm hoping all three guys make some noise for the Tigers soon, although Perry's already done fairly well for the bullpen and I don't think Schelereth is far behind.  Thanks again to Johnny for another nice deal and I hope you enjoy yours as well.  Those of you that haven't traded with him are missing out, so if you've been putting it off, get off your ass and get trading.

Blowout pickups:

What, do you think a week could go by without me buying something on Blowout?  I had two arrive in my mailbox this weekend:  a small Wolverines lot and a two-card Braylon Edwards lot.  The damage:

Alan Branch 2007 UD Premier Notheworthy Autographs auto

Braylon Edwards 2005 Leaf Certified Materials Freshman Fabric jersey

Braylon Edwards 2008 UD Masterpieces Captured on Canvas jersey

Braylon Edwards 2010 Topps Magic auto

Chris Perry 2004 SAGE Bronze auto

Leon Hall 2007 Playoff National Treasures auto RC

The Edwards auto (my second!) and Captured on Canvas jersey came together in a lot (something stupidly cheap like $12) and the others I think set me back $20 or less.  Picasa tells me I now have 248 different Wolverines hits in the PC, so another milestone is coming soon.  I'm also now up to 15 Braylon Edwards cards, well short of current leaders David Terrell (25) and Jake Long (23), plus I only have the two Braylon sigs.  Well, I'm getting there.  The other big hit for me was the gorgeous Hall auto/RC.  I know nobody really cares about collecting defensive players, but I'm happy to go after one of the better performing Wolverine DBs in the pros in recent memory.  He's no Woodson (nobody is) but has shown a ton of promise, and this is a great numbered autograph RC of the guy.

I should have a few other things coming in soon and as usual you'll all be privy to that.  When time allows I'll try to get back to posting more regularly.  In the meantime, go keep up with BA Benny's ongoing group break or something.

New trade post (remember those?)

It's been a little bit since I had a trade post to, uh, post, but fortunately Johnny of the new hotness that is Cards from the Quarry (warning: more purple than a day of basketball and pancakes at Prince's house) came through with some nice stuff today.  As I once did with some of you, he read my blog and hit me up about trading while also introducing me to his blog, which I'm now following (and you should too, whether or not you're a Rockies fan).  I'm always down for that, so trade we did.  I sent some Colorado stuff his way, and here's what I got back:

Why should you care about these two?  Well, you don't have to, but I do because 1) the Wertz finishes up my 1994 Topps Series I set (Yes, it took me that long.  Anybody got a Series II set they want to offload cheap?) and 2) the LoDuca puts me at the magic number of five cards left for 2006 Topps, placing it in my Five or Fewer list which is on the right sidebar down there somewhere (replacing 1994 Topps I, incidentally).  A great start!

A couple of Tigers oddballs.  What's funny is I had lots of both of these types of cards, but I don't think I had any of the Tigers, at least definitely not these two.  Not bad for filling out the package.

Some Topps Golds (which I'm still a fan of) and a Refractor-y Sheff, comprising a nice group of inserts.

Ah, my favorite of the lot, and the one Johnny originally contacted me about:  a 2010 Topps George Sisler manupatch.  The card commemorates his last Major League team as a player, the Boston Braves.  So why was I interested?  Sisler played ball (as a mechanical engineer, no less) for the Maize and Blue, which explains how he turned out alright despite being born in Ohio.  A beautiful patch of a Wolverine Hall-of-Famer.

I hope some of you get to trade with Johnny soon, but either way, do make sure to check out his blog.  Thanks again, Johnny (and may your cards arrive to you as quickly).