2026 Facebook Marketplace purchase: on it with ONIT

Sometimes I take so long to post about something that it manages to become relevant again. Such is the case with my first Facebook Marketplace purchase of the year.

Back in March I found someone nearby offering a big random lot of cards from ONIT's 2025 Michigan Football team cards. As it turns out, these differ from the ones Jeff previously sent me, which look like this. The ones I'm posting about this evening are kind of the "regular" team set version while Jeff's monthly box cards are a slightly different version called "Timeless." And there's a few others besides that. Welcome to the world of NIL cards.

Anyway, I contacted the seller, and after a bit of back-and-forth, he determined that he could put together two complete 79-card sets, and wanted $25 each. That sounded reasonable to me, so I grabbed one for me and the other for Jeff.

So how are these cards relevant right now? Well, the NFL draft concluded on Saturday and some of the Wolverines who were selected can be found in this set representing the 2025 team. (Also, spring practice just ended and there was plenty of local talk about the team. But, yeah, mostly the draft.)

I scanned all of the cards for the corrected TCDb checklist (after we cleared up the "Timeless" product confusion) so I figured I'd show them off here, even if only a few of my readers might be interested. If not, maybe I'll see you in the next post!

Anyway, the guy gave me each set in one of the boxes, so I have that to show off first:

I'm not sure how much these boxes were, but I know the seller did decently well on the autographs in his case. With a number of other inserts available too, I wonder if two boxes would be enough to guarantee a set.

Unless I'm mistaken, the four players seen here are S Rod Moore up top followed by (L to R) QB Davis Warren, WR Semaj Morgan, and QB Bryce Underwood.

And now, on to the cards themselves. I'll drop a few notes under some of the front scans, but I'll let the images speak for themselves in terms of the design.

This is a pretty strong group starting with big LT prospect Babalola, wunderkind (with a lot of work to do!) QB Underwood (making his collection debut), and third-string back Kuzdzal, who acquitted himself very well when duty called last season.

Some of these guys will be playing in Ann Arbor next year, but one who won't is former walk-on QB Davis Warren, who somehow beat OSU 13-10 a couple seasons ago, and that was actually less impressive than his biggest accomplishment: overcoming leukemia. He headed out west to Stanford with the Bryce Underwood era in full effect, and I can guarantee everyone's rooting for Warren to succeed.

This group is one of the more newsworthy relative to the other scans. EDGE Derrick Moore was the first Wolverine selected in this draft, and better yet, he's staying at home with the Lions, who took him #44 overall (2nd round). K Zvada couldn't repeat his outstanding 2024 season but signed as a UDFA with the Giants. QB-turned-WR McCulley came over from Indiana and didn't have as big of an impact as it seemed he might, but he was decent enough to sign with Miami after the draft. And Hausmann's story, which included him stepping away from the team near the end of the season, is now known, and worth a read as it touches on mental illness and the pressures athletes face.

There are a few likely '26 contributors here but nobody I'll bore you with in terms of details.

QB Jaydn Davis unfortunately didn't pan out, but I join my fellow Michigan fans in wishing him well as he transfers to East Tennessee State. Meanwhile, LB Jaishawn Barham, who joined the Wolverines for two seasons after a pair with Maryland, was Michigan guy #3 taken in the draft, #92 overall to the Cowboys (3rd round). 

This is another pretty good group. LB Jimmy Rolder was the fourth Wolverine taken in the draft at #118 overall (4th round) by...the Lions again! The team's leading tackler could maybe help a team with lots of needs on defense. RB Jordan Marshall is a guy lots of fans were looking forward to seeing last year, and he lived up to the hype with 10 rushing TDs and 900+ yards, limited only by some late injuries. He formed an outstanding tandem with Bama transfer Justice Haynes, who popped for 10 scores of his own and a crazy 7.1 Y/A on just 121 rushes in seven games. The injury bug got him too, unfortunately, and that stalled what may have been a Heisman-caliber campaign. Justice is off to Georgia Tech for the '26 season and I wish him happy trails.

Hey, we've got a couple more draft picks here! TE Marlin Klein's decision to leave early seemed strange but he did decently well for himself, getting taken by the Texans at #59 overall (2nd round), surprisingly high, and before some other well-regarded players at the position. Still, he was Wolverine #2 selected, and will surely form a fearsome matchup along with ex-Michigan star Nico Collins. We also have "TE" Max Bredeson, who was pretty much a FB, and a very successful one at that. His blocking was top-notch and he was often found in the endzone ahead of his RBs as they piled up TDs. Max was the fifth Wolverine selected in this draft at #159 overall (5th round) by the Vikings, which means he'll happily join ex-teammate JJ McCarthy.

Another few guys to discuss here. Ka'Apana is unfortunately already out for the season due to injury. DT Benny was the sixth and final Michigan guy selected this time, going to the Wolverine-friendly Ravens at #250 overall (7th round). S Rod Moore, one of the cover guys, will hopefully be back to health during the next season as a key part of the defense, and one who made some big plays for the '23 champs. And WR Morgan (another cover guy) transferred to UCLA after showing some flashes of brilliance overshadowed by frustrating drops. I still hope he lives up to his potential there and gets his shot at the NFL.

In this last group I can note that EDGE TJ Guy also signed as a UDFA, and he'll be joining Benny above, plus former DC Jesse Minter, Baltimore's new HC. Speaking of HCs, the less said about former guy Sherrone at this point the better.

The seller also included a copy of a header-type card, one that mirrors the front of the box. I decided to keep it (and scan it) as that makes this a nice even 80.

With all that said, congrats to the 2026 draftees (and UDFAs), and here's to the success of the '26 team in a few short months. GO BLUE!

I believe I'll be back next with my April show cards, then we'll see how long it takes me to cover two trade packages before my May show recap, with the event happening this Friday.

2/6/26 card show report: February fun

I did end up going to my monthly show yesterday (as opposed to Friday) which was kind of a nice change of pace. You'll get to hear all about that eventually, but before then I'll be giving you a look at what I brought home earlier in February.

My total spending on that Friday was $98, split almost down the middle between my usual seller ($50) and one I've checked out a few times lately for some more oddball stuff ($48), especially the 6/$5 tubs.

Speaking of the latter, I picked up a lot of 14 of the 1967 Topps Posters for $23:

This isn't all of them as I set a few aside for other collectors, but I do have these available for trade. If it isn't obvious, there are dupes of Campaneris and Wagner. If you'd like to claim these, please do so and we'll work out a trade!

Next up is the baseball bunch from the usual guy. I believe the Briceno came from his box of cards that are $1 each or 6 for $5, and though it's not a RC, I thought it might be a good time to pick up something of one of Detroit's better catching prospects. The Bunnings all came from the dime box, and I didn't mind that all four picture him with the Phillies instead of the Tigers. There's three great brands plus Gypsy Queen in the quartet. Speaking of HOF pitchers, the Red Prizm of Maddux is a bit of a color match for his Braves.

And then there's the biggest card I scored for myself this time: a Jack Morris auto from 2004 Upper Deck Etchings. Numbered to 375 up front, it's obviously a sticker-graph, but a cool one in my opinion since it's not the boring old clear sticker that often gets signed. The card itself looks great too, not that I'm surprised given UD's output of classic looking vintage-themed products during that decade. I'm also happy to keep up a streak of autos of Morris with the Tigers instead of his other well-known teams (Minnesota and Toronto), with that count now at five. This was a great way to round out my purchase at that seller's tables for a reasonable $10.

Before we go back to my loot from that seller in football form I'm going to show you my other keepers from the second seller. Once again I scored some of the previously mentioned 6/$5 bin items, and you'll get to see one in a minute, but in addition to that and the Topps Posters above, I grabbed these:

For a combined $20 I scored a trio of 7-11 Slurpee coin sets. These lenticular "coins" are among my favorite oddball collectibles and I couldn't pass them up! Also, I know I'll definitely be getting a comment from Fuji on this post!

Scan #1 shows off the complete 1984 Central Region set. Per TCDb, these have an "E" suffix for the card numbers (which are Roman numerals) as opposed to "H" for the East and "K" for the South. There are 24 total and you see each of those above, with plenty of stars mixed in with other favorites. Lou Whitaker and Ted Simmons are my PC guys here but I'm happy to have the whole set!

The second scan starts with 15 of the 16 coins from the 1986 set (also the Central Region, which you can tell since the fronts have blue borders and the backs are yellow). I didn't realize until I got home that while what I bought came with 16 coins, one of them was a dupe and I was missing probably the best one: Steve Carlton/Nolan Ryan/Tom Seaver. No biggie, I may be able to score that on eBay soon. Anyway, this set is even more reminiscent of the very similar Sportflics cards as it opts for trios (except for the Dwight Gooden that leads the set). Those obviously work well on this style of card and I like how they look. PC guys for me include Cal Ripken Jr. (on an MVPs coin with Keith Hernandez and Don Mattingly), Jack Morris ("Ace Pitchers" with Bert Blyleven and Rick Sutcliffe), Lance Parrish ("All-Star Catchers" with Carlton Fisk and Tony Pena), Chet Lemon ("Star Outfielders" with Brett Butler and Willie Wilson), Darrell Evans ("Home Run Hitters" with Tom Brunansky and Cecil Cooper), and Kirk Gibson ("Big Hitters" with Paul Molitor and Greg Walker).

The last set here is the Detroit Region version made in 1987. From what I can see, Detroit is the only area that had its own team represented by itself. Chicago got a 16-coin Cubs/Sox split, the East got Mets/Red Sox/Yankees, Mideast got Orioles/Red Sox/Cubs/Mets, and West got Angels/Dodgers. This set was made close enough to the '84 World Series team that the biggest stars are still present, and there are only two players (Darnell Coles and Dwight Lowry) that I don't collect. Gibby, Tram, Sweet Lou, and others are all there, plus relative newcomer Frank Tanana, in the 12-coin set. Cool!

Before getting to the final item from this seller I thought I'd grab an image of an example back of each coin.

Besides those, like I said, I kept one of the 6/$5 items for myself. That was the complete 12-card set of 2015 Topps Update's Pride and Perseverance. Thought it wasn't in the greatest of shape since its team bag got bounced around in the tub plenty, I thought it was worth it for less than a buck. While the design is typically fairly boring in the usual Topps way, the idea was a great one: examples of players who overcame adversity. It's inspiring to read about how these guys defeated obstacles that could have prevented them from playing. Former Detroit Tiger Curtis Pride and Jim Abbott feature in this set, and I'm glad to have it in my collection.

And now we'll close things out with some football, mostly from I believe the dime and quarter boxes. Score-A-Treat and Donruss feature heavily, but I did manage to find a colorful Absolute parallel of Corum, a Mosaic of Moody, and Topps Resurgence base of Woodson as well.

This could have been a decent trip if I'd stuck to my usual guy's tables, but the 7-11 coins definitely upped the experience to an excellent one. And I'm glad to say I had an enjoyable time yesterday as well, but like I said, you'll have to wait a bit for that. I still need to show off a couple TCDb PIFs, a pair of eBay purchases (with one on the way), and at least one March trade envelope. Until then, may the weather continue going in the right direction as we get deeper into spring training!

2025 eBay purchases: maize & blue plate special

Hey all, tonight we'll take a look at the stuff I bought on eBay for myself in the second half of 2025. Let's get to it!

This first card is actually my most recent purchase but it doesn't fit in well with the rest so we'll start with it. Back in November I showed off the 2022 Michigan Valiant box set I bought, and I mentioned that when I opened it I had dupes of QB Cade McNamara's card #69 and was missing #68. Long story short, I plunked down $3.69 a bit before Christmas to be able to cross this one off the list. It's a decent overpay for what should be a cheap card, but I haven't found singles for these to be easy to find, and since I got such a ridiculous steal of a deal on the set, spending under $4 to finish it didn't bother me.

Now we'll head back to late September when I picked up this cyan (essentially blue!) printing plate auto of former Michigan/UMass RB Michael Cox. For some reason at the time I was under the impression that I didn't already have a hit of Cox in my collection, though I did, but that's ok since this one's much nicer, and wasn't crazy expensive at about $12.50. Plates like this one from 2013 Panini Contenders are great on their own but even better when they player signs them. By the way, for those who don't know or remember him, Cox played at Michigan from 2009-11 (mostly that first year), then headed to UMass for his senior season. He was a pretty unlikely draft pick by the Giants (7th round, 2013) but managed to rush for a TD in each of 2013 and '14 in a combined 18 NFL games.

It took until November for me to strike on eBay again, but when I did early in the month I hit paydirt with another Cyan plate. This time it starred DT Maurice Hurst the younger: a 2018 Luminance plate of his RC inserted into that year's Plates & Patches product. This one appealed to me since it's a college photo, of course, and earned me the first 1/1 in his PC to go along with seven autos. After being drafted by the Raiders he moved on to the Niners, sat out a year with an injury, and then has suited up for the Browns ever since. I happy put up a bit under $11 shipped to get this one in my collection.

Speaking of productive Michigan DTs, I then scored my first hit of one of Jim Harbaugh's "gifts from the football gods" who, along with Mason Graham, anchored a fearsome DL that helped the coach go out on top. Kenneth Grant went #13 overall to the Dolphins last year, and here you see him on a black plate used to produce his 2025 Panini Absolute RC. Because of the color, the front's not much to look at, but I love the metallic colored backs of these plates. Just under $9.50 was surprisingly enough to start a hits collection for a guy that could be a future star, and who's one of 273 (and still growing!) subjects in that bunch.

Last up tonight, how about a 1/1 of a former #1 overall pick? Jake Long was one of the best players out of Michigan's outstanding 2008 draft class that's still my favorite. The four-time Pro Bowler stuck it out for nine NFL seasons with Miami (his drafting team), Atlanta, Minnesota, and also the pictured St. Louis Rams on this yellow plate from 2014 Topps. I picked it up for a little over $9 the week before Christmas to put the stud LT at 99 hits, putting him one shy of being the third football PC to hit the century mark, behind fellow '08 draftees Chad Henne and Mario Manningham. It's also my third 1/1 (all plates) of the top pick. Not bad!

For those interested, this haul puts my combined plates & 1/1s collection at a crazy 198. Whoa!

I'll try to finish up 2025 in the next post or two with my second half of the year TCDb trade haul, and then it'll be on to 2026.

2024 Facebook Marketplace purchase: garage SOLD!

My card room is a mess and I also dragged my feet putting together this post because I kept looking at both, thinking of the amount of work that needed to be done, and went off and did something else. Did I chip away at each a bit at a time to make things easier on myself? HA! Nope, but I finally lowered my standards enough to snap some bad pictures (no scans here!) so I can finally cover my last June pickup (here in early October).

So briefly, a family posted a garage sale in a city not far from me on Facebook, and the amount of card stuff piqued my interest. I couldn't make it out there the first day but the following day I got there mid- or late-morning. The husband saw me eyeballing the card stuff (fortunately a good amount of what I saw in the photos was still there), and told me he'd be happy to take $100 for everything left. I don't think I even pretended to think it over before I said "Yep, let's do it."

The guy helped me fill up my car, and let me tell you, it was a HAUL. As usual I had a blast sorting through everything, and most anything of interest to some of my most common trading buddies has been mailed out. But in this post I'll show you some of my keepers and also leftover stuff to give you a small taste of what I took home here. I'll be leaving a lot out because it was that or pretty much never get to this, and it was holding up the rest of my posting. So here we go.

First, my keepers:

A bit of baseball.

A basketball trio. Campy!

A football foursome.

Lots of Wings, especially the Russian Five.

There was a box of cut up vintage baseball stuff for $10, which I was going to grab regardless of whether or not I took everything home. I'm not counting any of these in my collection because they're so incomplete, but I'm extremely happy to have playing days cards of the likes of Carlton, Clemente, Koufax, and others.

A couple large HOFers I happen to collect.

There were a bunch of factory sets in the lot, and here's two I kept for myself: 1990 Sportflics and 1992 Donruss. That's my first Sportflics complete set, though I do own Pinnacle's 1996 Sportflix (not to be confused with these). The '92 Donruss box has the shrink-wrap removed but the cards themselves are still in their bricks.

See? Also, the Sportflics cards include a bunch of trivia holograms.

Here's some other sets I kept. The discs are particularly fun 80s oddballs, and in one or two cases I believe I own full sets represented here that I'm upgrading to boxed form.

Have you ever seen all 20 Topps Screenplays from 1997? Now you have! This was one of the main draws for me and I was thrilled they were still available.

All of them include the tin, informational disc, packing foam, and cards, and some of the cards (like the Gwynn above) still have the protective peel on them. I may give these their own post in the future, and either way I'll probably peel all of them to enjoy them that way.

Here's a couple near sets. The '92 US Playing Card Co. Tigers Playing Cards set is missing only PC guy Mickey Tettleton (King of Hearts) and Scott Livingstone (3 of Spades). The '21 Topps 1952 Redux set came with a near set of '21 Topps Series 1 that you'll see below, and it was short just Dylan Carlson's card (#T52-33), which I'll likely procure in the near future, and then I'll probably keep the set.

There were a couple tubs of magazines and similar items and these were my keepers. The Legends Sports Memorabilia issues were extremely cool since they included sheets of cards and postcards you could collect. I tore a bunch of them up trying to get those items out safely and then cut them by hand, relatively poorly (as those of you who received some of these from me already know--sorry!). More on those shortly. You'll see more examples of the magazines below, but besides those, sticker books, and Becketts, there were some Topps magazines and I pulled cards (individual and panels) from those as well.

Here's a look inside the two Topps sticker books and the two Legends Sports mags from above.

These are the Legends Sports and Topps magazine sheets I'm keeping intact.

Here are the postcard sheets and individual postcards I opted to hold onto.

I also scored a fun mix of individual (if poorly cut) cards of some of my favorites.

This Cal Ripken Jr. streak newspaper, nicely preserved, was a fun find! Meanwhile the mini pennant is one of a bunch also found in the lot, and some of you were lucky enough to get one of one or more of you favorite teams.

As for stuff I'm less likely to keep and more likely to trade or get rid of somehow:

More factory sets! I left the price stickers on some of these for some reason. The four Topps sets on the left are all pretty much unopened (slightly torn shrink-wrap in some cases), and are from 1988, 1989, 1991, and 1992. I may decide to keep the factory sets I don't have (all but '91) and ditch the hand-collated sets I have, we'll see.

Meanwhile, the 2006 set was opened but it did include the bonus pack of five rookie inserts (the first five in the set, so nobody good). 2008 didn't include any bonuses and a note indicated it was missing Paul Konerko's base card for some reason, which I've since acquired. Lastly, '21 Topps Series 1 was missing a total of four cards; I had two from previous pickups and landed the other two in a recent trade. That's the box that came with the '52 Redux insert set missing a single card. Yeah, I'd pay $3 for that!

Here's the rest of the low-condition vintage stuff, which, as I mentioned, was all of $10 if I bought it by itself. I gave a few of these out but may be willing to donate more depending on interest.

There were a few of this Topps Mini set, and I kept one for myself and included a few in trade packages, but I still have four left.

A box that said "vintage basketball" on it included a mix of 1981-82 Topps cards, with a lot of dupes.

Speaking of vintage, how about some cool old hockey cards?

Here's some other small complete or near complete sets from the lot.

I was able to consolidate the remaining magazines down to one tub after keeping what I wanted, sending some out in trades, and sacrificing some for their card/postcard content. Leftovers include some Sports Illustrateds, Becketts, Legends Sports, and more.

This small stack of Legends Sports mags mostly still have their card sheets and/or postcards intact.

But like I said, I did cut a lot of them up and ended up with some leftover card sheets, postcards, and individual cards.

Here's the baseball mini pennants I didn't send out, plus the tiny selection of football (with way too many outdated Washington flags!) plus a Joe Montana Starting Lineup.

One of the most useful items that came as part of the deal was this beat-up but still fine to use sorting tray. Cool!

Items not pictured include a few albums with empty pages, a random sheet or two of stamps, a few comic books that weren't really notable, and I believe a couple other boxes of random cards.

This is about the best I can do covering enough of what I came home with to give you an idea, but regardless, it was a blast as always and I came away happy that I basically bought out the card portion of the guy's garage sale for $100.

I hope those of you that received some of these items enjoy them as much as I did digging them out for you!

I believe next time I'm back (hopefully much sooner this time) I'll be back to covering trades from July until I catch up on those, then you'll see other pickups from the month.

Until then, EAT 'EM UP, TIGERS!