1/2/26 card show report: jumping back in in January

Tonight I'm back with my first show recap of the year, which was incidentally my first card spending of 2026. The first day of January's event was Friday, the 2nd, and I took that day off of work because, why wouldn't I?

I spent a pretty solid total of $90, with most of that going to my favorite seller, and a few bucks at a different table I've been to a few times. More on that later.

First up is some trade bait. I've got tons of relics and autos available on my TCDb sale/trade list, but these were cheap enough--generally $2 or $1 or less--that I decided to add them.

Baseball:

Football:

You know the drill: claim 'em if you want 'em!

As for my keepers, they had a bit of a 90s bias to them:

The Rainbow parallel of Criswell is obviously newer, but otherwise, the gang's all here! Yes, it's the quartet of Griffey, Gwynn, Maddux, and Ripken, though Maddux's cards are a tad newer. With the "90s inserts rule" tag in full effect once again, we'll begin with Griffey's inserts. The first is from 1997 Pinnacle XPress and is called "Far and Away." The other is one of my all-time favorites from back when Topps actually tried, and it's called "Clout Nine." That's a hell of a squad right there.

The lone Gwynn is actually a promo for one of Fleer's typically excellent Ultra inserts: an acetate 1996 chase card called "Season Crowns." Yes, this one looks even better in-person.

Mad Dog gets a new pair of parallels from last year's Donruss product, the first of which is one of a ton of Optic versions.

Lastly, there's three new Ripkens. The first is actually one of two cards you'll see that came from a purchase from the other seller I mentioned. I previously noted buying from them when I went for a second trip to the November show with Angus and found some cool stuff in their $1 or 6/$5 bin stuffed with miscellany. One of the things I found this time was a small package of 1991 Stadium Club Members Only cards, which I broke up to keep the pair I wanted then trade the rest.

The two beautiful inserts you see here are from a single-card 1996 Pinnacle offering called "Cal Ripken Jr. Tribute," a shiny and relatively tough 1:150 pack pull, plus 1998 Ultra's "Notables." I love anything that highlights Ripken's streak and that Pinnacle issue is flat out beautiful.

The final Ripken is an Elite Series insert from the previously mentioned '25 Donruss product. You can tell it's not from the heyday of inserts because it's got a plain white border along with the lack of logos. No, it doesn't hold a candle to the insert that originally claimed the name, but nothing is these days, and it's still a new Cal I needed, so I'll take it.

The Fielder/Canseco was my other keeper from the '91 Stadium Club Members Only cards, and it serves to note that those two led the AL in homers that season, tied with 44. That came a year after Big Daddy put up 51 bombs to get Motown rocking.

The final baseball single here is a 2005 Topps Total RC of once-again relevant guy Justin Verlander. HEY, THAT'S THE GUY WHAT I COLLECT! Of course, I grabbed this first-year of the future HOFer before the Tigers boosted their rotation by having him come home. Sanchez, the pitcher he shares the card with, was one of three players flipped to the Yanks for Gary Sheffield in November of 2006, by the way.

The final single period is a lone football card: a Donruss Optic parallel of Jake "Money" Moody that's the right color for a former Wolverine. His NFL performance has unfortunately been anything but "money," which is the way it can go for specialists, unfortunately. I hope he lands on his feet (unintentional kicker pun?) next season.

Finally, I have two more items from the oddball stuff found at that second table:

Back at that November show I grabbed the first box (#s 1-12) of these 1990 Collect-a-Books, and I was excited to find the next dozen in the exact same place! Gwynn is my lone PC guy from this one but the player selection is excellent, even if the QA isn't (former Giants slugger Kevin Mitchell is missing an "L" in his last name). Will I find the last box to round out the trio? Stay tuned (spoiler alert: no luck in February so the search continues).

The last item tonight is the oddest of all: a 1982 McDonald's placemat starring four Tigers from that era: John Wockenfuss, Rick Leach, Chet Lemon, and Alan Trammell. This thing is relatively large--about 17"x11"--when it comes to the type of items I tend to store, but for less than a buck I couldn't pass it up. Who knows, maybe I'll even eventually find the other three!

Obviously February continues to fly by so this month's show has already come and gone. I'll recap that somewhat soon (maybe) but first need to thank a couple very cool bloggers for trade cards they sent me this month. I also have a couple TCDb PIFs in hand and my first eBay pickup of the year on the way.

Until then, I hope everyone's had as nice of a start to collecting in 2026 as I have!

10/31 and 11/2/25 card show report: a November to remember

Now that I'm caught up on November trades, let's take a look at what I came home with after spending two days at that month's Taylor Town show.

First, I went on Friday as usual, which was actually Halloween, but for all intents and purposes, that was the first day of the November show so that's how I'm treating it here. Also, as is often the case, I spent all of my time and money at the tables of the seller I usually see since he's only there on Fridays and Saturdays. I dropped $60 there and was happy with what I got, including these keepers:

90s(ish!) inserts rule when it comes to the Gwynn and Maddux cards I picked out. Mr. Padre is from a 2000 UD insert named Cooperstown Calling, which wasn't exactly a reach for the legendary hitter, and the shiny rainbow foil and overall design really grabbed me. Mad Dog's insert is from the same year's Stadium Club Chrome product, and it's an acetate chase card called Clear Shots that very much lives up to its name.

The other baseball item was a 2020 Absolute Black autograph card of Tigers C Jake Rogers. These manuball inserts are perfect for signatures and the price was right when I factored this into my total cost. I know Rogers has pretty much given way to Dillon Dingler as the future of the franchise at the position, but I still appreciate the stability Jake brought behind the plate. Plus the card just looks cool!

As for football, I scored a Topps Resurgence RC of Michigan (via Indiana) TE AJ Barner (who caught another TD for Seattle today), a Prizm parallel of Devin Bush, and my first autograph of Josh Uche, which is a 2020 Panini Contenders Draft Picks card and therefore features a college action photo. Uche put up some nice defensive numbers in his junior and senior years (2018-19) and got himself selected in the 2020 second round, #60 overall, by New England. He had a career year in '22 with 11.5 sacks for the Pats, and has since bounced to KC and now Philly. As it turns out his signature is fairly legible by today's standards!

I then headed back on Sunday afternoon to meet up with Angus of Dawg Day Cards as I explained in this trade post.

Not only did I have a great time meeting him for the first time in person and swapping some cards, plus having a like-minded person to flip through boxes with, but spending a second day at the show gave me an opportunity to look around at the other tables I rarely see. I think my purchases were split up between something like five or six other sellers, so I can thank Angus for getting me back out there to the benefit of my collections (in addition to the time he put in driving over from Canada).

You'll see a few cards from my favorite vintage seller who I do make sure to stop by when he's around, plus a mix of a few others. Oddly enough, I spent another $60 exactly on day two. Here's what I grabbed:

Four of the cards in this image were courtesy of the guy who specializes in vintage (plus one more in the last scan), though one of them will surprise you. First is the '63 Topps League Leaders card which includes former Tiger Jim Bunning, whose 19 wins in '62 were the fifth best behind the other four on the card who all had 20+. Harvey Kuenn may be in a Giants uni but like Bunning I'll collect him regardless, and he's seen on the fun '63 Post design. Below him is a '70 Fleer World Series card of the '07 Fall Classic, just the fourth played, in which the Cubs defeated Detroit (the first of three straight Tigers pennants that ended in defeat for them). And lastly, the '23 Topps Museum Collection jersey of future HOFer Max Scherzer came from one of his boxes as well, one that often has some more modern odds and ends, though usually not hits like this. I probably would have grabbed it even with him on another team, but the large swatch of the Detroit star grabbed my eye and I knew I had to have it.

Meanwhile I grabbed a few cheapies elsewhere including an '86 Sportflics six-player card where Tiger Darrell Evans was one of the bunch (most AL HR) along with Wade Boggs, Don Mattingly, Willie McGee, Dale Murphy, and Dave Parker. Henneman is a '94 SP Die-Cut, Magglio is a 2006 Bowman Gold, Scherzer (again) is a 2019 Finest Refractor, and JV is from 2021 Topps 70 Years of Topps.

I think one of the last tables we stopped at had one or two tubs of very random things that were something like a buck each or six for $5. Angus and I both grabbed shrink-wrapped stacks of Fleer Stamps which you probably saw on Night Owl's blog since we each sent some to him. I scored a few other items for collecting pals too, but kept one for myself: this unopened box of 12 1990 Collect-A-Books. You can see on the back that the bunch includes Griffey, who I already have, but I thought it would be fun to keep this unopened and maybe try to find the other two boxes. Also, the other 11 players are solid to fantastic, and you can't beat that for a buck!

The lone basketball single I picked up was a Ruby Wave Prizm of Duncan Robinson, whom I may have mentioned once or twice is now with the Pistons.

As for football, my second signature of FB Ben Mason hails from '21 Contenders, and it's a bit goofy as he's pictured with Baltimore but noted as having been signed by the Pats. Considering his position it's a bit surprising that he was drafted at all but Baltimore took him in round 5 in 2021, and he got into one game with them a couple years later in the midst of bouncing around various practice squads. His signature isn't bad and this is my first pro uniform auto of him, so that's cool.

He's joined from the sport by a legendary name in Elroy Hirsch. "Crazy Legs" of course is a HOF multi-position guy who played for both Wisconsin and Michigan, and he suited up for the Chicago Rockets and LA Rams in the 40s and 50s. I love finding vintage stuff of him such as the '57 Topps you see above, which is simply a classic design. It's my second oldest card of Hirsch as I already have his '56 base, but I still need his Bowman issues from 1950-54, including his RC.

And we'll close out with hockey. A dime (or maybe cheaper?) box turned up 24-25 Artifacts base cards of Hobey Baker winner Adam Fantilli plus Owen Power, and then I spend a couple bucks on my 11th relic and 16th hit of Jack Johnson, this one from 2007-08 UD.

Clearly I had a great (and productive) time spending a couple days at this show, including one with Angus. And happily the in-person show hangouts didn't end there since I got to do another one the following weekend, which I'll cover next time.

Until then, I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday, including those of you who received cards from me, and that some of you are getting some days off of work like I am!

2018 Sportlots purchases: Tons of Tony

It's time for the penultimate post in this Sportlots series and today I'm #gwynning.  It's all Mr. Padre today for you Tony Gwynn fans, so enjoy some cardboard (and other material) spanning 1986-2017!

This is a scan only a certain tertiary adjunct of unimatrix 01 could appreciate /VOYAGER'd.  Yep, seven of nine cards you see here are Sportflics, with #s 1, 2, 6, and 9 representing solo shots hailing from 1986, '87, '88, and '94, respectively.  #2 and 3 are from '87 and include Dave Parker and Kevin Bass (best NL RF) and Wade Boggs/George Brett/Hubie Brooks/Tim Raines/Ryne Sandberg ("The Players Poll").  The Padres card is also from '87, in this case a Team Preview set, and that one co-stars 11 other players, three in each corner.  '93 cards from SP and Studio round out this group.  By the way, the back of the SP card helpfully states, "Gwynn confused onlookers by donning Padres pitcher Scott Sanders' jersey for a spring training game."

Another Studio base is the second and final '94 representative, then 1995 kicks off with a Leaf Limited trio that includes the Bat Patrol insert plus a Gold parallel, which actually uses a different photo.  After a Score parallel (one of a couple you'll see today) is an Upper Deck trio comprising SP and both of Tony's SP Championship bases.  For as many of my PC guys that are in the latter I'm probably a decent way towards completing it!  One of Gwynn's Stadium Club subset issues ends this scan.

A base card from the solid '95 UD design is the end of that year's stuff, then 1996 starts out with the excellent fourth-year version of Finest, another Score parallel, and one of my favorite Studio designs of all time.  You really couldn't go wrong from '96 on, in my opinion.  After that is a nice Topps trio of the Classic Confrontations insert, Gallery, and Laser.  The Laser experiment didn't work, but kudos to Topps for trying something different--and at least Gallery didn't get tossed into the cardboard scrap heap!  And in case you're curious, the insert covers Gwynn's stats against "aces" like John Smoltz (.468 AVG, 2 each of 2B/3B/HR, 9 RBI) and John Smiley (.200 AVG).  Then we get a look at the first two of a trio of base cards from one of my favorite UD flagship sets I don't own (with '97 being the other).  The "Young at Heart" subset is especially fun.

Tony's regular base appearance--and a supremely cool one at that--is the last of the '96 items, and then we get a brief look at 1997.  I remember first seeing Bowman Chrome's debut at a mall show and still like the design today.  That year's Studio look is another winner as is the second year of Topps Gallery.  And there's an example of the greatness of '97 UD and its cool commemorative stamps, plus the fun die-cut Star Attractions insert.

Moving on to '98, Bowman Chrome still featured a pretty nice look, plus I grabbed the base product's International parallel with it.  And one of that year's highlights was the mind-bending E-X2001 design, half of which was a weird foil pattern with the rest being acetate, all on a super thick card!

This is a fun scan that begins and ends with the same brand.  The '98 version of Fleer's Flair Showcase (Row 3) leads off, and that's followed by a couple more cards from that manufacturer's partnership with Sports Illustrated.  '98 closes with a stunning SP Authentic base plus excellent cards from Topps Gallery and Gold Label (Class 1).  A little 1999 run includes Bowman's Best plus returning brands Finest and Showcase.  As usual with some of these Finest cards I'm often torn between peeling them and leaving them, with the best option probably getting a second copy to peel!

There's plenty more of my favorite brands to see here including more of Sports Illustrated, Topps Gallery, and Topps Gold Label.  Each of those had a design I liked at least to some degree every time they were produced.  They're joined by two final 1999 UD offerings:  another top set for me in Century Legends plus Ultimate Victory.

Then the entirety of my 2000 haul was mostly a Topps affair with a Pacific base interrupting a run of Finest, Gallery, and HD.  The Gallery card is the fifth of Gwynn's five-card run from '96-2000, and I'm fortunate to own his 2003 card as well.  HD was also a very, very nice looking product though definitely not worth the high wax price.

Bowman Chrome and Donruss Classics make a nice pair of cards to open up a multi-scan run on 2001 that then goes into a Fleerstravaganza of brands from that year:  E-X, Focus, Genuine, Premium, and Showcase, with Focus and Showcase owning the best designs in my opinion.  Mid-end products Leaf Limited and SP Authentic are a nice way to close out the scan but we're not quite done with 2001 yet...

...because first we need to cover cards from another of Studio's best designs plus a very nice look for Ultra.  It's possible '96 is my favorite overall Studio base design but this one is very high on the list as well.

At this point we start getting into cards produced after Gwynn retired so there's a bit more jumping around.  2002 is represented by an Ultra design I don't care for quite as much paired with a great photo, plus a base from one of UD's cooler one-and-dones, World Series Heroes.  After that we get lots of appearances in sets that tend to focus on retired legends:  '03 Sweet Spot Classics, '04 Greats of the Game and SP Legendary Cuts, and '05 Leaf Century and UD Past Time Pennants.  I've always been partial to the Sweet Spot and Legendary Cuts brands but for my money nothing tops the base offerings from Greats of the Game.  As you can see Fleer was on top of their game with this framed design and vintage photo!

One last card, UD's Sweet Spot Classic, fits in well with the stuff above, then we jump into the current decade with four Panini items and one from Topps.  2015 Archives is the example of the latter while the former is responsible for 2012 Cooperstown, 2015 Diamond Kings, 2017 Diamond Kings' DK Originals insert, and Donruss flagship from the same year.  The recent iterations of DK prove that the brand doesn't have to be low-end just because they lack the MLB license, and I continually appreciate that they offer some solid alternatives to Topps' mailed-in efforts of late.

Here's one more scan that starts and ends with the same brand, this time in horizontal form!  The first column is all Stadium Club with cards from '92 Dome, '96, and 2015.  The other two hail from 1995 Leaf's Checklists insert and Sports Illustrated's World Series Fever set from 1998.

And still we're not quite done yet because there's one oddball item left to look at:

As in the Griffey post last week I have another Collect-a-Books to show off!  This is the 1990 version, and of course it's worth seeing all it has to offer:

As you can see this purchase treated Gwynn's collection very nicely, adding more than 80 new items to give him a milestone-breaking total of 567, good enough for fourth place behind Ripken, Griffey, and Larkin...at least for now!  One player remains in this series and it's the one who got the most cards added to his collection.  The big finish will be posted soon, and have you figured out who it is?  Stay tuned!

2018 Sportlots purchases: Junior's Jargon

I may have asked this before, but did anyone else look forward to starting off their post-cartoon Saturday afternoons in the 90s with Fox's In the Zone--featuring the Junior's Jargon segment which had the title music above--along with the pregame show and Saturday game of the week?

On this late summer Saturday afternoon let's look at a big pile of Ken Griffey Jr. cardboard from Sportlots:

This first scan includes a nice bunch of early 90s Stadium Club with a pair of '92s, a '93 "Murphy" boxed set base, and a couple more from '94.  Lots of great looks at Kenny's sweet swing plus a home run derby victory there.  Besides those, down the middle is a fun '94 trio of Pinnacle and both of his Sportflics appearances that year.  Hooray, Sportflics!  Last up is a '95 Leaf Great Gloves insert, a reminder of his 10 straight Gold Glove Awards.

In the next scan we get another example of UD's 1995 SP Championship for this series, then a couple more Stadium Club issues from the same year.  1996 brings one of Bowman's Best's cooler designs, a typically strong Studio look, and a Topps Classic Confrontations insert, which shows how he'd performed against a mix of "aces" such as Mike Mussina (zero hits in 14 ABs) and Roger Clemens (17/36 with two homers).  The bottom row comprises 1997 cards from Donruss Signature, Studio once again, and the first of a bunch of excellent Topps Gallery appearances.

The first two cards here finish off '97 with an Ultra Checklist insert and Upper Deck Defensive Gems subset from the excellent base set that year.  Then '98 opens with the base version of Donruss Elite (as opposed to the iconic insert), then a pair of base cards from one of my favorite 90s brands, Fleer's Sports Illustrated (and its variants such as Then and Now).  Another fantastic Stadium Club issue joins the beautiful Topps Gold Label (Class 1) and card #1 from Ultra to finish up 1998.  That Ultra example is one of the best in the product's whole run, if you ask me, and Gold Label's debut couldn't have gone any better either.  Another Fleer SI card from 1999 gives us a very popular 90s duo with Junior joined by guy-who-hit-dingers Mark McGwire.

Now we're into the last of the Mariners cards for a bit with a few more '99s:  an SP Authentic insert called Home Run Chronicles, a high-flyin' Topps Gallery base (with a cameo by utility guy Charles Gipson), and a cross-manufacturer insert called Home Run Heroes, in this case from Upper Deck.  Then there's a quick look at early Reds cards from 2000 out of Fleer's E-X and Topps Gallery once gain.  A great shot of a backwards-hatted, laughing Kid on that Gallery card, no?  2001 opens with Donruss' classy, uh, Classics, and then there's a little run of Fleer in the form of E-X, Focus, and Genuine.  I'm not sure why I like that Focus design as much as I do, but anyway that's a cool snapshot of what I have to assume is the ivy at Wrigley.

Here's what I'm calling the "artistic" scan.  The top trio closes out 2001 with Fleer Premium, Topps Gallery, and Ultra.  That year is when Gallery went to a painting look instead of simple photos, and I'd describe what's going on in the Ultra photo as interpretive dance.  2002 then begins and opens with masterpieces from Diamond Kings and Topps Gallery (it really was a great brand back then!), with Donruss' Classics and an Originals base plus Flair in-between.  Flair's excellent design kind of fits the artsy theme as well!  This scan then finishes up with Griffey's Reds base from Donruss Team Heroes, and I need to see if I need the Mariners version as well.

2003 goes out quickly with Flair, Playoff's amazing one-and-done Portraits, and a Topps-branded Bazooka comic.  Even more art!  Portraits may have been a bit redundant with Diamond Kings around but looked fantastic in its own right.  The rest of the scan jumps a bit into the future with UD base from 2006-08 (including a cameo by some guy in a Giants hat, right, arpsmith?) plus Elite Extra, Leaf Certified, and Topps Gallery cards from 2004, '05, and '08, respectively.

The last of the vertical cards makes a stop in 1999 for the always excellent SP Legendary Cuts, SPx and a short-term stop with the White Sox (barf), and a pair of UD base cards, one of which captures Junior's return to Seattle.  Also having him rep Seattle are a 2016 Diamond Kings base and Topps Berger's Best insert.  Serious question:  if I hadn't told you which Topps reprint insert that was, would you have been able to guess?

The group of horizontal Griffeys was small this time, but fortunately I ended up with a few nice photos.  #1 is a second example from Fleer's Sports Illustrated Then and Now product from '98.  Second is an insert I've found for a few of my PC guys, Pacific's 1999 Invincible Sandlot Heroes.  2002's Ultra base features arguably the best image of the bunch.  2003 UD's design is nothing to write home about but I value the product enough to have included as many examples as I could find for some of my bigger PC guys.  And finally, 2017 Stadium Club brings us in its time machine back to very early in a future HOFer's career with a great shot of the Kid batting.

And yet we're not quite done.  First I have one of those fold-out posters that Fleer liked to insert back in the day, this one from 1998 SI Then and Now's Great Shots.  Griffey was one of those guys who actually showed joy in playing the game sometimes, but he could also be as focused as he needed to be.

And finally, once again I tracked down a Collect-a-Books oddball issue of one of my favorites, in this case from 1991.  These are fun to own and surprisingly cheap, though I don't suppose they're exceedingly rare.  As always I'm scanning every page for your reading enjoyment:

This gaggle of Griffeys was a blast to put together and show off, plus it was very productive toward his collection which now stands at 742 items and growing!

I now have three posts left in the series on this here blog (and four to get to on TMM), including two more solo projects and an ensemble cast as well.

2017 Sportlots purchases: hey, Abbott!

I'm doing my best to take advantage of the holiday break off from work to get some card stuff done, and yes, that does include doing up at least a few posts!

Before I get to today's content I also wanted to make sure to give a shout out to Kin of I Feel Like a Collector Again for the PWE he sent me recently, the contents of which are posted on TMM this afternoon.  I'm not sure how many of you who read/follow this here blog venture over there as well so I'm at least giving you a heads up to credit Kin for his Christmastime generosity.

And now, the subject of tonight's post:  Jim Abbott.

Jim Abbott.

I had plenty of luck piling up some cards of Abbott as I was filling out my Sportlots cart, and that's no surprise since his career spanned part of the junk wax era into the 90s (remember when we still had choices of brands?), plus he was enough of a fan favorite to appear in some recent products too.

In the following scans you'll see a nice mix of base from the 80s to today, a few inserts, and plenty of oddball too!  Essentially if a seller with something in my cart had anything of Abbott for around $0.25 or under, in it went.

I hope you all enjoy this look at the history of Jim's cardboard!

This first scan starts way back in '88 when I was just five, and opens with Jim's Topps Traded base highlighting his Team USA membership.  I think that's been talked about a decent amount here (and elsewhere), but as a reminder he helped lead the US to the 1988 Olympic gold medal with baseball as a demonstration sport that year.

There's also plenty of boxed set/oddball-type stuff from Classic, Donruss, Score, and Topps, an early-ish Fleer insert, and an example from the previous incarnation of Sportflix (Sportflics in this case, and not "Sportsflics" as you see so often).  Dead center is Jim's 1990 Collect-a-Book, and I'll show that in more detail at the end of the post.

This next group is mostly mainstream stuff with base and inserts from '91 Stadium Club, and 1992 Bowman, Leaf, O-Pee-Chee Premier, and Pinnacle (a solid early insert effort), though it does include oddball stuff from Toys 'r Us/Topps and a Jimmy Dean food issue along with another boxed set item from Score.

We remain almost entirely in 1992 with this bunch, beginning with a Score boxed set card and an insert (and a very nice, if simple, one) from the same brand.  Studio's sophomore version follows, then a pair of the superfluous Topps Gold parallel along with the more interesting Gold Winner version.  An oddball-ish Topps Kids card and McDonald's/Topps pairing close out the year while another Classic Game card begins '93.

Now we stay in '93, the year I hit double-digits and Abbott started appearing on cards as a Yankee.  Again there's mostly mainstream stuff here with the exception being that second card from Duracell.  Jim's first Angels tenure ends with cards from Donruss, OPC Premier, and Topps Gold, then his New York career starts with Select, SP, Stadium Club, the Yankees Stadium Club team set, and Triple Play's Gallery of Stars, which was essentially Diamond Kings 2.0.  The trio in the middle is a nice look at how the quality of cards continued moving in the right direction.

Here we finish up with '93 and Jim's UD base plus a couple from the kid-oriented Fun Packs.  The start of 1994 includes Bowman, Collector's Choice, Donruss (Special Edition), Finest, Flair, and Leaf Limited.  I feel like Finest took a step back in its sophomore season before making a small improvement the following year and finally getting back on track in '96 (other than the protectors, which I could do without).  There's some nice pitching action shots here, and even a bonus background shot of Abbott hitting, a relative rarity before interleague play.

1994 continues with OPC, Pacific (and its old, terrible logo), a Score Gold Rush parallel, Sportflics, Stadium Club Team, and another food issue:  Tombstone Pizza.

That never gets old.  Meanwhile, 1995 opens with the second offering of Collector's Choice, that brand's probably unnecessary Special Edition (Silver Signature), and the slightly improved third year of Finest (boo protectors!).  The Collector's Choice SE card does have a great example of Pitching Face, though.

Now we get into the meat of '95, when Jim signed as a free agent with the White Sox.  That year's weird Fleer design along with Pacific's Crown Collection and Upper Deck Series I (and its Electric Diamond parallel) featured Abbott with his old team while Leaf (still one of my favorite designs of theirs), SP, Stadium Club Series II (Super Team World Series), UD Series II, and UD Special Edition depicted him with his new team.  One cool thing I noticed about this group:  no borders!

Jim returned to the Angels in a midsummer deal in '95, and all three '96 cards above--Emotion-XL, SP, and Summit (Foil parallel) capture that.  That SP design remains one of my favorites from the product's whole run.

The '99 Upper Deck Victory base in the second row hails from his final season, before which he'd signed with the Brewers.  Then we get a nice bunch of retrospective cards:  2002 Topps American Pie, 2004 UD Yankees Classics, 2005 Donruss Greats and Topps Rookie Cup, and 2013 USA Baseball Champions Highlights.  We're not quite done with his post-career cards, though.

Despite the stupidity of the Toppsopoly, at least they've thought to include him in various recent products.  The final three regular-sized vertical cards hail from 2013 Topps Gypsy Queen's No Hitters insert, 2014 Topps' Upper Class (with a great photo of a very young Jim in the old-school uni), and 2015 Topps Update's Pride and Perseverance, an actual good idea from Topps!

Then we're off to the beginning of the horizontal stuff.  Upper Deck celebrated a nice little milestone with its Fifth Anniversary insert that spruced up some of its cooler issues from the original '89 version, such as this multi-exposure that was Abbott's RC in that iconic set.  Sticking with UD but moving up a year, we have a 100% hologram card from that year's Denny's set (note that they weren't always completely holograms).  Also from '94 is a Fleer Golden Moments insert (one they'd use again, fortunately) that includes Abbott and two other pitchers:  Chris Bosio and the late Darryl Kile.  All three tossed no-hitters the previous year, though Kile's was not of the shutout variety as he allowed an unearned run on a wild pitch.

This scan finishes up the horizontal stuff, beginning with 1994 Stadium Club (the label-maker set!) and Upper Deck Electric Diamond.  1995 is represented by the pair of Flair and Studio (and its credit card design).  Three more cards for the following year:  Pinnacle's high-end (at the time) Aficionado--the set that taught us a new word for "fan"--Stadium Club, and its Silver parallel.  And finally, from 20 years later we have another example of Stadium Club, and a very nice one at that.

Last up is the stuff that came in weird sizes.  That includes Panini Stickers from 1990 and '92 (I should check to see if I have these in my albums), a 2010 TRISTAR Obak Mini, and tiny Topps Micro cards from 1991, 1992 (two of them) and '93.

And finally, here are the scans from the Collect-a-Book for those of you who were curious:

Back and front

Inside #1

Inside #2

Inside #3

I hope you all had fun poring over a crazy 92 cards of Abbott for his PC, giving me an excellent new total of 247!

I don't know who'll be up next, but stay tuned.