2022 trade package #20: Collector's Crack

The next couple trade packages you'll see came courtesy of a couple longtime blogger friends but with a bigtime assist thanks to TCDB.

The deal you'll see tonight was my first with Mark, a.k.a. CynicalBuddha, of Collector's Crack, since July of 2019. Obviously it had been far too long since we sent cards back and forth from Alaska and Michigan, so I was glad to see we had so many trade matches for each other. That made figuring out a deal a breeze, and then we even managed to make it a bit bigger by adding on some hits.

Everything went smoothly and I added the following items to my collection:

I don't know if they'll ever all be healthy at once, or all on the Tigers even if that works out, but for now I'm still enjoying collecting stuff of three of the team's best young pitchers. Right now Mize leads the trio in my collection with 45 cards (some of which I believe I'll be showing off in future TCDB roundups), with Manning second at 16, and Skubal #3 with 14.

Over here we have some Tigers and other PCs. The Miggy cards were fun throw-ins for me, and I'll continue to add nice Cochrane cards to his PC whenever I can get them, Tigers uniform or no. Remember when Kirk Gibson was managing the D-Backs?

Gwynn is a major PC for me and the three items here all looked great to me--a throwback to his college days, a colorful Diamond Kings insert, and another throwback to Topps' Doubleheaders product. The latter is in a much easier to manage format than the original's flimsy paper stored in a plastic stand, but other than that the concept is pretty much the same: one side is a reprint of the player's RC and the other is their card from that year (or in the case of the '21 insert, their final Topps card):

I'm always glad to see Jack Morris in a Tigers uni in newer products because despite his greatness with Detroit he's often lauded for his performances with the Twins and Blue Jays. And why not keep adding to my collection-leading PC of Ripken?

Three many Verlanders comprise half of this final scan, and while I was glad to add a new Tigers card thanks to the 2012 A&G insert, my favorite is the Stadium Club Chrome from a couple years ago as that brand looks so sharp.

On the relics side of things I scored a double of a Bowman Heritage bat of Magglio (I somehow missed that I already had it, but that's cool, I made it available back on TCDB) and a new similar card from 2005 Donruss Champions (one of his two appearances in the set). Mark also came up with a new JV relic for me out of 2013 GQ, my 32nd hit of his, 19 of them being relics like this one.

Mark, thanks again for a great trade! I was happy to be able to run it back after we let three years go by.

For those of you reading this who aren't familiar with Mark, please go check him out on TCDB under his cynicalbuddha account, add him as a friend, and get trading with him. I can promise you an easy deal where both sides are happy just like this one!

Still to come: another old blogging pal and I work out a pretty large deal on the site....

2019 trade package #22: Collector's Crack

Going back to the theme of "trade packages I received this month" (and it's definitely been a great few weeks in that regard), here's a fun mailer of Mark from Collector's Crack.  The Alaskan who calls himself "Cynicalbuddha" let me know I should expect something from him, and sure enough I was the new owner of a fat stack of Tigers (plus one non-Tiger) that'll fit perfectly among my collections:

As I tend to do, I'll start with the Tigers I have sorted by player in my monster box devoted to the team.  Bonderman is a great reminder of that awful 2003 team that lost 119 games, something the 2019 squad seems determined to beat.  The Evans, Morris, and Sweet Lou bring to mind much better times, especially the 1984 season!  And that UD Past Time Pennants Morris looks amazing to boot.  It's too bad Fryman never made it to a World Series, and I doubt A-Jax gets to one with his current organization (the hapless Mets), but at least Miggy and Kinsler won it all, albeit with other teams.

Speaking of Jackson, my favorite quasi Granderson clone, here's a nice relic of him from 2013 Topps.  The history he was chasing was joining last namesake Shoeless Joe as the only AL rookies to amass 100 runs, 180 hits, 30 doubles, 10 triples, and 25 steals (in 2010).  He lost out to flash-in-the-pan closer (as they always are) Neftali Feliz in ROY voting but went on to enjoy a much better career.

Next is a mix of miscellaneous guys and inserts.  Fick wasn't part of the 2003 squad staffed mostly by nobodies, but Young decided to put up a career year out of the blue.  Bautista never amounted to much with or without the Tigers (though he did play for parts of 12 seasons) but those Score Boys of Summer inserts are a bastard to find, so I was surprised to see one here.  And Doherty somehow went 14-11 back in '93 (when starting pitchers used to earn decisions), the second season of an otherwise unremarkable five-year career.

I grouped the rookie types together here.  Frank Catalanotto had a fun name and I was disappointed he was given up in the ill-advised trade with Texas for malcontent Juan Gonzalez.  Encarnacion was flipped for the previously mentioned Young.  Exavier "Nook" Logan had a cool nickname until you found out it was pronounced like the the Kindle competitor.  Sanchez was used in the deal that brought even bigger malcontent Gary Sheffield to Motown.  Stewart's still an intriguing prospect, albeit with a good amount of shine off of him given his 2019.  And 2006 World Series winner (against his original team!) Jeff Weaver gets paired with Masao Kida, Detroit's stab at Japanese success that netted them just 51 games over two seasons.

Here we have a bunch of stickers (and one mini), which caused one of the many distractions that led me to take so long to get this post going.  Naturally I had to track down my Panini albums to see if I needed any of the six from '89 that you see above (I didn't).  I'm planning on doing one or more posts covering those, potentially giving me fodder for content that isn't "Look what I bought/traded for!"  Happily the '90 Topps Sticker of Whitaker and the JV from the same product's 2016 version are new to me!

I think this section is where Mark's effort this time really shines:  a selection of HOFers and fan favorites on some amazing designs.  Cobb got the most action but we also get looks at Sam "Wahoo" Crawford, "Hammerin'" Hank Greenberg, and the inseparable pair of Kaline and Kell.  A couple versions of Diamond Kings get their just due as does the previously mentioned Past Time Pennants and some great black-and-white shots.

And that wasn't nearly all!  Kell's back for more and he's joined by '68 champ Mickey Lolich and HOFer Hal Newhouser of the title winners of '45.  And then there's the bonus of three Colgan's Chips inserts, which can mean only one thing:  Panini's Cooperstown.  The trio couldn't be better, either:  C Mickey Cochrane (a '35 champ), 2B and PC guy Charlie Gehringer, and Mr. Tiger once again.  Speaking of the Mechanical Man, it's about time I added another cut sig to his collection.

Mark also paid the nine-Verlander minimum* to get his trade package featured here, and I was fortunate enough to need most of them.  Though there's some good options I'd have to go with the '06 Heritage second-year card as my favorite--look how young he is there!--but the '14 Opening Day Breaking Out insert is a nice reminder of chase cards Fleer produced in the 90s, so it's a solid runner up.  The countdown to 400 gets closer with a new total of 381.

*not actually a thing, but it should be

Last up is the only non-Tiger in the whole envelope, a Ripken Franchise Feats insert from this year's Topps.  The listed stats threw me off until I realized they were referring to the entire team, not just Ripken's experience (limited to just the '83 Series, for example).

Mark, thanks again for hitting me back with so much great stuff!  I'll be happy to return the favor again once I can pile up more items that'll fit your PCs as well as these fit mine.

A PWE from CB, a BA Benny teaser, and @floppscards

CynicalBuddha's PWE is anything but plain:

I received a couple card-related items in my mail yesterday, and the more manageable of the two (more in a moment) came from Mark/CynicalBuddha of Collector's Crack.  Apparently he was fairly pleased with the package I sent his way recently, so he decided to send me a few more Tigers, not that he needed to do so after our last trade.  Still, it was a nice PWE surprise on an otherwise dreary Monday:

I think at this point everyone in the civilized world knows these are the Gold and Emerald parallels from 2013 Topps.  While Delmon is now part of the group of players traditionally called "former Tigers," his exploits last fall were enough to sway me to hold onto his Detroit cards. (At least until I forget why I'm keeping him and send them to someone else!)  So in short, this was a perfect kind of PWE trade to open up after the first work day of the week.  Thanks, Mark!  I definitely look forward to more trading in the future.

BA Benny tradesplosion preview!:

While he's not back among the land of bloggers (or, I guess, Blogoland, since that's one of his favorite terms), Mike from BA Benny's Stuff and Junk sent me a trade package that I've been looking forward to for a while--not that I don't understand why he just got around to sending it considering the 1980s Hollywood cocaine party's worth of snow and assorted bad weather that got dumped on his state.  As always, he made it worth the wait, and while it'll take me a while to get everything scanned and posted (I don't even know where to begin right now!) I wanted to at least give you guys a teaser of what's upcoming:

Medium flat-rate box = SCORE!

Three boxes, a boxed set, wrapped-up stuff, cardboard-protected stuff, and MegaBarry

THAT'S A LOTTA NUTS CARDS!

So, yeah, that should be a lot of fun!  Stay tuned for what I'm betting will be a series of posts about one of my largest trade packages ever from my #1 favorite trader ever.

More like...FLOPPS trading cards--oh wait...:

I don't know how I missed this up until now, but someone made what just may be a parody of Topps' Twitter account.  See, based on what's being said, it's not completely out of the question that @floppscards is the new official mouthpiece for the dictatorial card company.  I mean, they're certainly consistent with Topps' messages to and sentiments towards collectors:

Spooky.  Anyway, the whole reason I found out about this account was reading Blowout's boards as usual.  Oh sure, there's multiple threads a day about the impossibility of getting through to customer service at Topps (and, to be fair, Panini).  Still, some collectors had found a reasonable method of resolving their cases of missing hits, long overdue redemptions and the like:  tweeting at Topps' support account, @toppssupport.  Some chose to directly message Topps there while others, usually with more success, made their requests public, so that at least in theory, Topps' hand would be forced.

Well, a Blowout member noticed today that the @toppssupport account has gone the way of Topps Total, leaving lots of collectors in the lurch.  While it's possible something will step up to take its place by the time you read this, or not long after, this is a second black eye on Topps face when it comes to customer service. I'm pretty sure that means they've run out of eyes.  The company already does a horrible job of packing out its products, considering the multitude of reports of missing hits, and it appears as though they insert redemption cards as a practical joke on consumers as they fail to fulfill those in a timely fashion, if ever.  More recently, they've also taken a reputation hit after completely messing the Turkey Red distribution to disappointed buyers.  Still, at least people had the recourse of working with someone through @toppssupport instead of dealing with the most common experience I've heard so far:  trying to call, getting stuck on hold for a half hour or more, then either leaving a message that's never responded to, or failing to leave a message because that box is already full of other collector complaints about Topps' shitty QA.

So considering the fact that Topps has killed the most effective means of customer support while keeping the propaganda machine humming along, is it so far-fetched to believe that @floppscards is simply a misspelled official Topps account?

Holiday trade package #4: Collector's Crack

Today's trade package hails from Gold Rush country, a.k.a Alaska, thanks to the generosity of Mark, a.k.a. CynicalBuddha, of Collector's Crack.  Apparently a fan of the state of Wisconsin's teams, Mark picked up the Packers and Brewers from my fall cleaning lots.  Here's what he sent back my way, which was clearly 1000 times better than what I sent him:

Right off the bat is one of the highlights of the package:  a Verlander 2012 Topps SP.  I think I've pulled one or two of Topps' short prints since they ramped those up in recent years, but I didn't have any stashed in my PC, and certainly didn't have one of one of my favorite players ever, so, yeah, WOW.  The stickers you see of 80s core Tigers Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, and Jack Morris come from 1984 Fleer and are a nice, unique addition to my Tigers PC.  So is the next card, a Bowman insert featuring Justin Verlander and fellow #2 overall pick and pitcher Danny Hultzen of the Mariners.  Rounding out the group is a 2012 Bowman Draft Rookie-Or-Not-Who-Even-Knows-Anymore? of Tigers pitching prospect Jacob Thompson, Detroit's second-rounder this year.

And if you can believe it, it gets better:

To say Mark put a dent in a few of my sets wouldn't do justice in that he essentially left a dent's worth of cards I still need to pick up.  Included were 39 of the 2009 Topps baseball I needed; three from 2008 Topps football; and 23 from 2010 Score football, ALL of which were rookie short prints.  To give you an idea of how much these helped, here's my 2009 Topps baseball list before

and after:

And 2010 Score football is down to just FOUR!  Wow was that a lot of help.  While I'm celebrating here, seeing former Hokie Kevin Jones reminds me I should be congratulating Spankee's Virginia Tech team for their exciting overtime bowl win the other day!

So after all that, things even managed to get better from there:

While I already had one, I was excited to pull a Granderson hit out of this package.  I guess I really DO have Too Many Grandersons now (wakka wakka wakka).  Anyway, that's headed over to the trade bait album and I'm sure I'll be able to use it to acquire something else I'll really like.

And finally, a Tigers hit I most certainly DID need, a 2012 A&G Jhonny Peralta jersey!  This is my first hit of Detroit's most recent shortstop, and a player I've come to appreciate (apparently more than some other Tigers fans, for whatever reason) thanks to his valuable bat at one of the keystone positions.  While I hope Detroit can ultimately develop a player to take over, I've been happy to see Jhonny and his fairly potent bat out there the last few seasons.

So once again, a big thanks to Mark for an extremely generous trade package.  I'll give you the same promise as everyone else so far--I'll get you back with something just as good very soon!

As with some of the others I've covered lately, Mark's blog is pretty well-known and successful, but if you aren't already following it, check out Collector's Crack as soon as you can--he works hard to churn out posts in between fishing and repairing his igloo.