2023 trade package #28: the Collector

Welcome back, everybody! I hope you all had an outstanding Christmas like I did. And now I'm back to show off more presents in the form of trade packages that I received in the last couple months of 2023.

We've at least made it into November now, though I'll still be covering 2023 pickups in January. Oh well!

Tonight's envelope was a PWE that came from Chris, the Collector. He and I have been sending cards back and forth for about seven years now and the fact that we're both on TCDb also makes things a bit easier since we can find more specific needs for each other. Here's what he sent this time:

Funny story about the '96 Finest Bonds and Clark: I sent Chris a big old package of stuff a few weeks ago including some complete sets, and one of those was one of my dupe Finest Series II bronze sets. I believe Chris kept the cards he wanted or needed and put the rest on his trade list. I noticed the two above, which are the last two I needed for one last extra S2 bronze set, and basically got them back from him. Nice!

Mike's son Daz didn't end up working out in Detroit after being acquired in the deal for Justin Verlander, but I can't blame the Tigers (or anyone else) for assuming he'd pay off his potential. His '22 Heritage High Number card is one of several Tigers I own from that set.

Meadows is another guy that came over in a lopsided trade and unfortunately his Tigers career was all too brief things to injuries and anxiety, but I continue to wish him well as he potentially works his way back to playing. His '22 Stadium Club Chrome card looks outstanding, as you'd expect from that brand.

Kudos to Chris for remembering that I collect cards of Dean Palmer, like the above '95 Pacific. I suppose, though, that he can just look at my TCDb ranking of members who collect Dean-o and see that I'm quickly approaching the top spot.

Finally, "hockeydude" lived up to his username by sending me a pair of ex-Wolverine icers from 1993-94 Donruss. That season was Jeff Norton's first with the recent expansion Sharks after six with the Isles, the team that drafted him. His career would span all the way through 2001-02, so, not bad! Meanwhile, Stewart, a native of someone I know's hometown of Kitchener, Ontario, would make his NHL debut after three college seasons in which he showed steady improvement. That makes the card you see above his Donruss RC, which I'm glad to own now.

Chris, thanks again for these cards, plus the couple shipments you sent this month that I'll cover at some point! I'm glad you had such a successful year of trading on the DB and that I could be part of that fun!

Back soon with another trade recap.

2021 trade package #20: Bob Walk the Plank

I'm taking a break from sorting through that Facebook lot (currently working on a 5000-count box full of '96 Score!) to thank another cool person for a trade package so I can put away some cards.

The envelope from today's post arrived a few weeks ago courtesy of buddy of the blog Matt (@walktheplank82), the estranged writer of Bob Walk the Plank, though he does occasionally still post over there. As always, I was very pleased to see what he sent:

Tigers, part 1. A lot of what Matt sent this time was from 2021 Bowman, Select, Stadium Club, and Topps flagship, meaning practically everything was new to me.

Today's a good day to be mentioning Cameron--who, along with Jake Rogers, is starting to make the Verlander trade look less lopsided--as he came up with a huge two-out RBI double to overtake the Jays in extras. After some of the bums the team has trotted out the past few years it's great to see what guys like Daz and Derek Hill can do for you.

Dingler is a rare OSU alum I'm rooting for as he's been more than worth a second-round choice in last year's draft based on the numbers he's been putting up in the Minors. Best of all, the numbered Refractor Matt sent me is blue!

And Mize has definitely taken some steps this season on the way to fulfilling some of that promise that made him go #1 overall in 2018. He currently leads the pitching staff (and in fact the team overall) in bWAR, is tops in innings pitched, second in wins (with 6) and has a complete game to his name. The Bowman and mini Topps insert are cool but I really like seeing the Stadium Club base next to his design variation, which should be the '92 version. I'm not sure how short-printed those are, but the latter is especially cool!

IF prospect Paredes hasn't done a lot this year due to injuries but he's young enough to still get a good look the next couple seasons. Reyes is only 19 so we may not know if he'll be a factor at SS for a while yet. Skubal is definitely more of a known quantity at this point. He's roughly the same age as Mize and doesn't have the same prospect pedigree, but his performance in the Minors has earned him a role in the rotation and he's run with it to the tune of eight wins to lead the team. The HR ball has been his enemy but he appears to be a fixture for years to come. That Stadium Club base provides a great look at the end of his delivery.

And then we have the guy currently considered the team's top prospect after being selected 1-1 in 2020 as many expected. The corner IF with the big bat got promoted to both AA and recently AAA this year, and I may have to get down to Toledo to see the stacked roster of prospects they've got right now, which includes another one in Riley Greene. Matt sent both his Bowman and Chrome base cards as well as a shiny Chrome insert to bolster my small collection of the future (hopeful) superstar.

And if those Tigers prospects weren't excited enough for me, he treated me to a trip to the #cronezone with this quartet of recent Michigan star Jake Cronenworth. San Diego shrewdly traded for him late in 2019 and he's rewarded them by placing a fairly close second (tie) in last year's Rookie of the Year balloting, then putting up 5.0 bWAR plus almost 20 HR thus far in 2021. He has positional versatility and has done quite well hitting near the top and middle of the order. Thanks to these cards from Bowman/Chrome, Select, and Topps, I now own five cards of Jake with the Padres and 17 overall--I was collecting his 2015 Bowman Draft/Chrome cards before he was cool! Now that everyone knows him and he's appearing in way more products I'll likely have to wait a while for some of his better stuff to be affordable, but in the meantime it pays to have friends like Matt.

These 2021 Topps HR Challenge cards make for a nice brief intermission. I believe when I asked him, Matt told me he probably threw them in by accident, but it worked out nicely since they hadn't been scratched, and I immediately thought of another buddy of the blog, Paul, who's addicted to the game, and has done quite well for himself on it when he's not jinxing players into 0-for-30 slumps and significant injuries.

Now we head over to the gridiron, with Michigan due to kick off the 2021 season in under two weeks! And there's lots of college action photos here to help me get ready. Brady's cards are split right down the middle with 2.5 each of him in college and pro action, and I love the Panini-branded items from this year--Contenders, Prizm, and Score. This year's QB play doesn't need to approach that of #10 to lead to good things for the team, but if that's Cade McNamara's (or eventually J.J. McCarthy's) future then that works for me!

And then we have a couple much more recent alumni. Collins was a huge WR recruit who came to Michigan over the likes of Bama, and he was about as productive as he could be considering the playcalling didn't send the ball his way nearly as much as it should have since it would have pretty much been Henne-to-Braylon all over again. Better yet, he had the dubious honor of being selected by one of the worst organizations in the league, the Texans. But he still has a ton of potential so we'll see what happens for him this year. I'm loving all three cards Matt sent from Contenders, Prizm (an Orange Ice parallel, I believe), and Score, representing his debut in my collection.

Meanwhile, Chris Evans (the RB, not Captain America) found himself selected by the Bengals in the sixth round. He had a pretty decent career in Ann Arbor with the lowlight of a lost 2019 as he was suspended for academic impropriety. Outside of that he was a great story, and a dynamic player out of the backfield to boot. I don't know if he'll last in the League very long but I hope he does, whether it's in Cincy or elsewhere. That Prizm Draft card you see above is my first of him as well.

We started the football section with NFL's GOAT QB and we'll end it (and this post) with a guy I consider one of the greatest DBs in college and NFL history: Charles Woodson. This is a fun quartet with three cards from his '98 rookie season: a Playoff Contenders Leather insert (cool die-cut!) plus RCs from Score and UD's Black Diamond Rookie Edition. And lastly, I love seeing that Woodson is still appearing in new products like 2021 Score thanks to their Game Face insert. It's obvious how serious Charles was when he played and that's why he was one of the best.

Matt, thanks again for this fun surprise full of great stuff! I have some stuff set aside for you and continue to add to it, especially thanks to the plethora of stuff I got on Facebook (Jason Kendall might make an appearance or two), so I hope to have something you can show off on Twitter soon.

I'll continue to try to carve out a bit more time to cover stuff I have in-hand before recapping the Facebook stuff, and that includes a show, two eBay purchases, and a TCDB trade, all of which I believe I've mentioned a few times here. Until then, if you don't hear from me, assume I'm sorting even. More. Cards.

2020 trade package #17: Cards on Cards

Would you believe I'm capable of same-day service? I used to get trade packages posted within a day or two, but laziness and other stuff have caused me to get out of that habit. Fortunately today I'm showing off a new envelope hot out of the mailbox. This one comes from Kerry over at Cards on Cards, and just a month after the last one he sent me! The Cardinals/Ducks fan had some Tigers group break loot along with a few odds and ends for me, and I'm definitely glad he was nice enough to send them all the way across the country.

The biggest bunch of cards, about one-and-a-half scans worth, came out of 2019 Bowman Heritage. I remember older versions of the brand but I'll be honest, I didn't realize they were made in 2019. They look quite nice, though, even sans names up front. Kerry sent me one member of the veterans/rookies portion of the set, IF Dawel Lugo, who you see right down the middle. Surrounding him are seven of the eight Tigers found in the prospects set, with only OF Daz Cameron missing (we'll get to him in a minute). They include, in order: P Beau Burrows, OF Jose De La Cruz, P Alex Faedo, P Matt Manning, P Casey Mize, P Franklin Perez, and P Joey Wentz.

All of those guys appear on MLB's list of Detroit's top 30 prospects, and I was familiar with each except De La Cruz, who appears to have been an international signing. The system can use all the bats it can get right now, though the draft seems to have gone a long way towards that goal. Mize and Manning are pretty much 1a and 1b right now, and I hope both eventually slot in toward the top of the rotation. Speaking of Mize, the last card in this scan is his Black and White parallel, the only non-Chrome parallel I saw listed on TCDB.

Here's the back of Burrows' card to give you a better feel for the design. It's a fairly classic vintage Topps back. You'll notice that the cards in this group are numbered "53P-#" while the vets/rookies go with "53VR-#".

Here we finish off the Heritage run with some Chrome goodness. Pitchers Manning, Mize, and Wentz return in base Chrome form (numbered "53CP-#", take a guess what the "C" is for), and then we finally get to Cameron on a beautiful Yellow Chrome Refractor (#10/75). Given Topps' recent flagship designs it appears I was wrong to complain about borders because they make Refractors so much nicer looking and easier to distinguish. The mirror finish on this Refractor is great and the yellow border really stands out.

Moving on to the other group break cards we have a quintet of '20 Gypsy Queen. Kerry indicated that he ended up with these by accident so I think he scored some good karma by sending them to a Tigers fan. Lugo makes another appearance and he's flanked by IF prospect Willi Castro, potential closer Joe Jimenez, Rule 5 OF Victor Reyes, and young C Jake Rogers. These represent just under half of the non-SPed team set.

The last group of this perfect three scan package is a mix of Tigers and a few other guys I collect. John's guy Boyd's from the very shiny 2020 version of Select, and I happen to know he's got a few colorful parallels from this beauty of a set. All three Miggy cards from from 2019 Donruss products: a flagship pink parallel and a couple die-cut cards from Leather & Lumber which really look sharp! Paul's guy JaCoby hails from another Panini product--2017 Absolute (it's a blue parallel). Griffey's actually on the back of a 2020 Donruss card, and you'll see the front in just a second. Cal's a super shiny 2005 Leaf Certified Materials base that I'm excited to have. And JV represents the Trashtros on one of his 2019 Donruss base variations and a 2020 Topps Sticker where he's also the back side.

Allen's the front man on the Griffey card, and I had to flip through TCDB before figuring out that this is a 2020 Donruss insert called American Pride, and that this exact version is a parallel called "Rapture." Panini, I love you, but WTF is up with the names of your parallels, which you often don't even distinguish with serial numbering? Anyway, Niko being up front on the Topps Sticker he shares with Verlander was a nice little bonus.

Kerry, thanks for this cool surprise package stocked with a bunch of all-new stuff for me! I have a fat stack of stuff to send back your way and I'm pretty excited about a few items, so I may have to get that out on the Oregon trail very soon.