2025 trade package #27: Wes Moore

It's getting later on Christmas Eve but I'm still up for giving some thanks to another cool person who sent me cards in November (and getting a post up before the holiday official hits).

Tonight's cards came from Alabama native and former Pancake King, Wes Moore. I think most people who follow me here are aware of Wes's legendary trade war exploits and a sense of generosity that would put him in the Olympus of traders if one existed. In case anyone reading this hasn't heard of him (or the Pancake King story) before, just search his name on some of your favorite blogs to be amazed.

Anyway, it had been quite a while since either of us sent the other anything, I think, but his joy for giving certainly wasn't rusty when he sent me a nice bubble mailer last month. This one was filled with mostly Tigers, but also some football Wolverines--mighty kind of an Alabama fan towards one whose school was trying to poach the football coach from his!

Here's a look at what I found inside:

I have to say, the guy is still a pro, and the case these came in protected them perfectly.

Just in time for Christmas, this scan of Tigers includes silver and gold, and other colors too! There were enough Refractors in this envelope that I used the insert's name as a tag for this post. Former Tigers Avila and Castellanos fit the bill here while Bondo, Coke, and Big Daddy bring the gold. Fielder also represents silver, like the bells, with an Electric Diamond parallel from '94 UD.

Hey, more color! I still remember the hype around '90s Select Certified and its rare mirror parallels, which is somewhat similar to the more recent appreciation for that era's Precious Metal Gems. Fulmer and AJax bring more Refractor heat while All-Star Riley Greene bucks the Christmas colors trend with Sky Blue. No Refractors for Manning but the colorful effect is essentially the same on Prizm and Topps Rainbow Foil inserts. Nokes is a great throwback to one of my favorite 80s Tigers plus the fun stuff we got back then like stickers and boxed sets. And Magglio looks cool on a throwback Topps insert.

Will the Tigers stop pinching pennies long enough to give Skubal (and his fans) the gift of a new contract? I'm not holding my breath, but it's not impossible. Panini didn't have this festive season in mind when they made the parallel Tork appears on, which is more suited for another holiday. The Stadium Club Super Team card is my favorite in the package because I haven't found them easy to acquire and this one includes two of my Tigers favorites in Alan Trammell and Tony Phillips. Turley's another Refractor but I didn't recognize his name, which can happen as Bowman products sometimes include 16th round picks like the ex-Baylor P. And speaking of Refractors, how about a Negative version of a player who was fairly positive for Detroit, Justin Upton?

Last up tonight, the closest to gold these Michigan Football cards come is the maize they're wearing, but there's some silver to be had. And more importantly all nine cards feature college photos, which is very cool!

I'm not a big Leaf fan these days, but I have to say that Trinity Steel card of Blake Corum looks quite nice, partially because of the cool lava pattern in the background (in addition to the cool shot of him running hard as always). His '23 backup and lightning to Corum's thunder, Donovan Edwards, gets four cards added to his collection thanks to college stalwart SAGE. The fourth card is from their Artistry product, but I haven't found a checklist for that yet to get added on TCDb and will have to work on it when I have time.

Defensive backs Will Johnson and Makari Paige join the Don out of this year's SAGE product, and the latter represents my first card of Makari that isn't a Valiant Michigan issue. Ex-#1 WR Greg McMurtry, a five-year NFL vet, looks good on his '90 Score RC. And Colts LB Kwity Paye looks ready to bring the pain on a Wild Card Matte issue.

Wes, thanks for thinking of me once again, and I appreciate your trademark generosity and ability to get nice cards into the hands of others. I don't know if I can find anything you might need but if I do, rest assured I'll work on returning the favor. For now I'll happily thank you for this perfect Christmas present.

I'll be taking tomorrow off, of course, and then plan on returning with a couple show posts next on the docket. Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas, y'all!

2025 trade package #13: the Collector

Hey all, I'm finally back to cover the first trade envelope I received in July, a month that ended up being super busy collecting-wise. This one came from Chris, The Collector, a couple months before his family experienced a heartbreaking loss. Please head his way and show him some support--he's one of the best and most generous members of the blogosphere and deserves all the love people have shown him.

True to his history of generosity and the effort he puts into finding great stuff for the collections of folks he trades with, he sent me a pair of PWEs containing some much-appreciated cards from all four major sports:

Encarnacion turned out to be an awful person off the field but at least Flair Showcase is a GOAT product. IF prospect Graham is still in Detroit's system after being selected in 2022's second round and he helped the team to the 2025 Midwest League championship after a dominant regular season. Jobe unfortunately had to undergo TJ surgery but if healthy could be a big part of what will probably be a Skubal-less rotation in a couple years. Kell's Topps Tribute card is probably the best looking in the bunch (with some great options) and I'd love to add more from that product. Keider's had some ups and downs as a spot starter for a team hoping to cling to a division title. And I'm not sorry that Wentz and his absurd ERA stats are gone!

As for basketball stuff, Dickinson was a star in Ann Arbor before transferring to Kansas for his final two seasons and going undrafted. THJ stuck it out for three Michigan seasons and became a first round pick who's still in the league. And a nice little run of Juwan Howard cards begins with the outstanding EX2001 product.

Juwan may not be Michigan's coach anymore but I'm still happy to collect any new cards of him like the very interesting bunch above. Those include some cool UD and Fleer stuff and even a post-career Finest issue from four years ago. He's joined by Fab Five teammate Chris Webber on another of my favorite designs from a Topps Chrome set.

Football wasn't as well represented this time but that's fine since it dominates my Michigan PCs anyway. In this case it's a Michigan uni card of RB Donovan Edwards out of Bowman Chrome U. In some ways he didn't live up to lofty expectations, especially in his final college season in 2024, but he supplied plenty of big runs as a runner, receiver, and even trick play QB, for teams that beat OSU, won conference titles, reached the playoff, and ultimately won it all in 2023-24. I don't know if we'll get many cards of the NFL UDFA but anything that gets sent my way is very welcome here.

Lastly, we have a five spot of Michigan Hockey cards from the erstwhile hockeydude. Four of those are O-Pee-Chees from a fat pack he got at Target, and his note mentions a fifth that he kept for himself and replaced with a UD Artifacts base of Luke Hughes, a guy from his team, the Devils. I like all of these but Beecher's a nice addition to a tiny-but-growing collection, and of course I'm a fan of Wolverwing cards like Compher's, which is also a Retro parallel. You'll be happy to know that Doug hadn't sent me any of these (yet, anyway), Chris.

As always I'd like to thank my buddy from New Jersey for all of these goodies and being so talented when it comes to finding quality fodder for trade packages. Chris, I know things are very difficult for you and your family right now and I hope any time you spend with them processing your grief gets you to a better place. I always mean it when I say I'm here to help with anything and that you have so many friends in the hobby. Thank you for thinking of me here as you were going through a terrible situation.

I hope to be back with more trade package coverage soon as I owe many other great folks similar thanks.