2026 trade package #13: Baseball Cards Come to Life

How about some late evening Independence Day posting to catch up a bit?

One of my favorite combo bloggers/TCDbers is Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life. I especially enjoy his posts on the '85 Wendy's/Coke and '88 Domino's Tigers cards, for obvious reasons. Well, after I sent him a '67 Topps Poster he asked about after I made it and others available in a show recap, in June he was nice enough to surprise me with a PWE of needs that just so happens to include one of those Wendy's cards, plus others I was excited to get. Check 'em out:

I seriously can never have too many Grandersons, and when one of my next few TCDb trades arrives, I'll hit the 300-card mark, which is pretty cool. For that I can thank many kind traders like Bo, who sent me the 2008 UD StarQuest insert you see above. Next, Mr. Padre is from the 1989 Score 100 Superstars boxed set, one of many such fun items from that decade. And then we have the aforementioned Wendy's/Coke card, which stars Tigers OF and '84 champ Chet Lemon. That's just my second from the 22-card set (to go with the header/checklist), and there are 12 more cards of players I actively collect among the 20 I'm missing if I don't decide to chase the set.

HOF P Greg Maddux gets the second row to himself thanks to a very nice trio. I was a very active collector in the mid-to-late 90s so I'm very familiar with the designs of the first two sets: 1997 Leaf and Score. While I don't own complete sets of either, I have quite a few cards from both, and I really appreciate their designs, Leaf in particular. And then the third card is Mad Dog's entry in 2002 Fleer Hot Prospects, a product that I believe ran from its debut that year until 2004's Draft Edition. It's another design that I'm cool with, but that's pretty typical for me when it comes to Fleer from that era.

Speaking of Fleer and HOFers, the last baseball item is a gorgeous Ripken from 2003 Flair Greats. This is another flat-out beautiful design in my eyes, plus I love the 80s photo of young Cal surrounded by a very classy look.

Bo didn't stop at baseball and instead included a Michigan Football pair. Hailing from 2020 Leaf Draft's Red parallel are QB Shea Patterson and one of his best WRs, Donovan Peoples-Jones. The enshittified current Leaf iteration has its faults, but I do love seeing my college's football team represented on cards (even if they have to Photoshop the uniforms) and adding new items to my collection, so I really appreciate Bo including these as well.

Bo, thanks again for this fun surprise envelope of some PC needs! Please keep up the great Domino's and "Burgers or Gum?" series as well as the rest of your excellent blog writing, and I'll keep working on finding stuff you can use in your own collections.

Next up should be the other trade package I received in June, one that was a bit bigger but at least required zero postage for the person who gave it to me.

2024 August-December card show reports: binging through five shows

Here's a show recap post for my five trips to Taylor in August through December last year because if I do one post for each at this point it may take me until March.

8/2/24:

My purchase-tracking spreadsheet says I dropped $80 at this one, so it was a pretty average show for me price-wise.

First up, some trade bait:

I believe both the A-Rod and Hoffman up top are gone but I think I may have everything else still.

My keepers:

Hooray, a new Granderson! Newer Gwynns are nice but how about some "90s inserts rule!" action for Maddux? Griffey and Ripken complete the quartet. By the way, Bowman's Best's Mirror Image was one of my favorites back then despite the fact that the prospects they featured often didn't work out.

Holo Griffey! A numbered Gwynn! I included the back of the Mirror Image insert plus the numbered Elite Teams insert of the Braves, who definitely lived up to that description. Speaking of the Bowman's Best card, this one was quite good as obviously Maddux and Moose are HOFers, but Colon also had a very nice career, and Wright even managed to last for 19 seasons!

Basketball ended up being the story of the day with a couple of the biggest cards of the haul hailing from that sport: an autograph of Caleb Houstan (my second), the guy who plays for Ann Arbor South (Orlando), plus a nice Lakers swatch of his teammate Mo Wagner (hit #4).

Football didn't get shut out, though, as I came home with both a numbered rookie-year Griese from SPx plus a new Funchess jersey relic (hit #32 for him).

9/6/24:

For September's show it looks like I upped my total spending to an even $100, and a good chunk of that must have gone towards items for trade packages based on what I have scanned to show here. That works for me, though, as I love using these shows as a source of cards to send out to my favorite trading buds.

As for cards that weren't ticketed for specific folks, here's what I grabbed:

What can I say? I'm a sucker for autographed manupatches, and I think those signed metal cards are too cool. I probably only spent a couple bucks on each of these anyway, and hopefully they'll find a good home before long, but I don't think I've had any bites for them on TCDb just yet.

My keepers:

It's always great when I can add rarer cards like Artist's Proofs to my PCs, including Palmer's. Pudge shares his '93 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle insert with another excellent if not HOF backstop, Darren Daulton. And I'm sorry that Gwynn's the one to get covered by the peel's sticker on '95 Donruss Dominators insert you see above--a favorite of mine, by the way--but I got this one to pair with a copy that I do have peeled, so now I have one of each to enjoy.

I scored a few more basketball items this time, and THJ was the highlight as I found three new cards for his collection, including a Panini Prizm auto that represents my sixth signature and 13th overall hit of the ex-Wolverine and current Pistons standout.

The football side of things was very offensive, but only in terms of the positions represented, because I was quite happy with my little haul. The Threads jersey of Braylon gives him 95 total hits, keeping him in 4th behind Henne, Manningham, and Long, though the race to be the second to 100 is anybody's game. I also found my second auto of TE Nick Eubanks on a red parallel of his Contenders Draft issue, and believe it or not, the one I already own isn't from the same product, but an entirely different one!

10/4/24:

October was a bit of an outlier as I spent just $55, but in thinking back to that day and looking over what I have here, I'm pretty sure I recall that being a day where my favorite seller had lowered some of his prices even more so I got a lot of bang for my buck.

The available trade bait:

I'm pretty sure each of the autographs/jerseys was just a buck, plus the numbered inserts and other 90s stuff were just too cool to pass up and try to get into someone else's collection.

Not a ton for me either this time, but a few cool items:

The Maddux, Ripken, and Pudge cards were all fun additions, plus I nabbed my first card of IF prospect Trey Sweeney, one of the guys that came over in the Jack Flaherty deal with the Dodgers. If he can help force Javy Baez off the roster then he'll forever be a legend in my mind. Meanwhile, the Manning ended up being a decent chunk of my purchase price, and if I'm being honest, probably an overpay, but I thought it was a very cool piece with huge swatches, a signature, and numbering to just 10 copies. I don't know what his future is with the Tigers but this is the kind of card I see myself keeping even if he moves on.

RBs Chris Evans and Hassan Haskins stole the show on the gridiron for this month, though defenders Rashan Gary and Chris Wormley also get in on the action with cool numbered cards.

11/1/24:

I spent $105 on this one and didn't come home with any up-for-grabs trade bait, but I believe I did score some nice items for trade and Christmas card packages. But better yet, I had a very nice day bringing home some cool hits for myself, much of which I think was in the $2-$5 range:

A jersey produced by Fleer's Ultra brand becomes relic #18 (and hit #19) for Mad dog. I'm the most excited about the Arrington/Henne dual because it's getting harder to find reasonably priced copies of cards for either that I need, and Henne's one of my favorite PC guys. Arrington gets his 56th hit and Henne keeps a secure grip on the top spot in the sport with his 145th(!).

I landed pairs of autos of the rest of the players. Butt's are from Panini's Absolute and XR, and the Michigan TE who was anything BUT booty cheeks in college jumps up to 13 hits. DT Mo Hurst started his career with Oakland as seen on signature cards from Luminance and Prizm, but he's since moved on to San Fran and then Cleveland. I now own seven hits of his, all signed like these. And lastly, DPJ finally made his hits collection debut with a couple Panini Chronicles autos that were parallels done in the Obsidian design. I believe the Purple is limited to 30 copies and the Orange is /25. While they remind me a bit of many recent Leaf designs, I'm relieved that they weren't made by that execrable manufacturer, and instead I've got two quality college uni cards of one of the most talented wideouts to pass through Ann Arbor recently.

12/6/24:

With the holiday approaching quickly in December I planned on throwing down more cash towards Christmas cards fodder and was quite successful. The $115 I spent was second only to February's $130 cost, and I think the results speak for themselves as you look over the various posts and Tweets mentioning some of the cool stuff I sent out.

Once again, no unassigned trade bait, but some very cool keepers:

My favorite vintage guy was around and I think $15 of my total went to him for this trio of super cool Freehan items. Those include a '65 Topps Hot-Iron Transfers, '70 Topps Super, and '73 Topps Candy Lids. I'm always on the lookout for new Freehan stuff because anything I don't have is something I'll treasure. That made these an exciting purchase for sure!

I believe everything else I got for myself from my favorite seller was from the cheaper boxes, so everything here was probably $1 at most, and more likely $0.25 or $0.50. Once again, the "90s inserts rule!" tag is in full effect, and you have to know I was loving it. Fun insert designs starring three of my favorite 90s heroes always make my day. By the way, I think Freehan and a Pacific card featuring in the same post is very apt since they each remain criminally underappreciated these days.

Well, that's the rest of 2024 in show recaps for me. I believe what's left for me to cover for last year at this point is COMC, eBay, Facebook, and something else really fun that I don't think I've teased yet. Once I can catch up on those I can get to some cool trades I've received this month, January and February's shows (I'm sure I won't have those all done by this Friday), and maybe more timely TCDb trade recaps.

You might even say I still have a whole lot to...show you! (Sorry.)

2024 trade package #18: the Lost Collector

Happy December! Tonight I'm finishing off my trade packages from August, and this one was a fun surprise envelope from A.J., the Lost Collector.

He and I don't trade a ton as this is just the fifth bunch of cards I've received from him according to my stats, but I think that's mostly because his collection is a bit more specific and I haven't always had great luck finding cards he needs, especially for his signature Tino Martinez PC. But that's totally fine as it makes it more special when we can send cards back and forth.

Here's a look at what he sent this time:

HOF pitcher Jim Bunning is more often associated with the Phillies, and it's their cap that he wears on his plaque in Cooperstown, but he spent a very productive first nine seasons of his career with Detroit. That means I was happy to see him wearing the Olde English "D" on that 2019 Topps Archives Silver parallel, which is numbered /99 on the back. Fellow former Tiger Nick Castellanos also gets the serial treatment on a 2019 card out of that year's Bowman: a Sky Blue parallel limited to just 499 copies as stated on the front. That's a nice numbered pair!

The other cards in this package represent Michigan Football guys, who I might have mentioned beat Ohio State for the fourth year in a row yesterday (just making sure nobody forgot). These cards bring to mind the ones A.J. sent me last December (which I finally covered this past February) as those were 100% Wolverines gridiron guys.

A Score RC of WR/PR Ronnie Bell (who was recently waived by the Niners) leads off this group. Another star WR comes next in the form of Nico Collins, who's back and starring for the Texans after a few weeks off due to injury. DB Brad Hawkins follows on one of just 12 cards he has to his name, and that reminds me that I need to grab one of his signed cards from that '22 SAGE product. Injured difference-maker edge Aidan Hutchinson comes next with a cool pair from 2023 Donruss Elite and Score (Celebration insert). It would be amazing if the Lions could make an improbable run to the Super Bowl with Hutch returning from his injury to lead the team to their first ring. And lastly, we have one more WR in Donovan Peoples-Jones, who doesn't seem to have played anywhere during what would be his fifth NFL season after being cut by the Lions in the preseason. He's represented on a great looking Score Red parallel (pictured in a Wolverines uni!) from his 2020 rookie season.

A.J., thanks so much for this fun surprise PWE and the goodies therein! I appreciate it as always, and I'm happy to get to say that you'll also be getting at least a little something Christmas cards-wise from me at some point this month, likely before the big holiday.

As for the next few posts, I count five more trades I still need to cover, plus I'm aware of at least one more on the way, so I'll likely keep these recaps going before seeing how I want to tackle my remaining 2024 pickups (Facebook Marketplace, shows, eBay, TCDb deals, and COMC once they arrive). My priority remains thanking folks for their generosity that's 100% in the spirit of this holiday season!

2021 trade package #25: the Lost Collector

A.J. may call himself the Lost Collector but this is a dude who's far from lost when it comes to sending great PWEs. The chaser of all things Tino Martinez had promised to send a few Michigan cards my way and then as usual I forgot all about that so the envelope that showed up this past Friday was a surprise to me.

After Michigan's satisfying win over Penn State yesterday afternoon I'm definitely in the mood to show off some Wolverines cards, so here's what A.J. sent my way:

Three players, two brands, and one scan, so this will be nice and easy to recap! McKeon ("Mc-KEWN") was a solid TE in Ann Arbor and went undrafted in 2020 before being selected by the Cowboys, for whom he recorded his first pro catches in this afternoon's demolishing of the Failcons. Patterson, of course, was Michigan's QB in 2018 and 2019 and had an up-and-down career that left him undrafted as well. He's now playing in the CFL where a few other Wolverines have found success, so that's cool. And DPJ is definitely the most successful of this trio, with at least one catch in each game this year, and three TD catches in his previous two games. The 2020 sixth-rounder (which is still ridiculous to me) could see his role increase with headache machine Odell Beckham Jr. gone.

2020 Score is the first of the two products that featured in this PWE, and it's one with a design I give a thumbs up to, in no small part thanks to college uni photos. Patterson's RC represents the lone base of the four while the other three are Black parallels covering all three players here. Score has traditionally put out quite a few unnumbered color parallels over the last decade and these may be among my first from last year's offering. More Michigan uniform cards are always welcome to join the PC!

The other product you see is 2020 Leaf Draft, which just includes just Patterson and Peoples-Jones in its 100-card checklist. A.J. sent me base and Gold parallels of both guys, which was super helpful in making sure I had my bases covered there. I'm not sure where Leaf gets off throwing a "RC" logo on their cards, but I haven't taken that tag seriously from other brands for years, so why not go nuts? The only real downside of brands like Leaf is that they have to airbrush parts of the uniforms so you get quasi-team looks. Still, I appreciate the product as it's sometimes responsible for cards and occasionally autographs of guys that might not otherwise get them.

The group you see above bumped my collection of McKeon to 5 plus 7 each for Shea and DPJ. Bonus points to A.J. for a 100% college uni PWE!

Here's the backs for completeness. I'm kind of curious why Leaf used gold accents on both the base cards and Gold inserts, but again, Leaf gonna Leaf.

A.J., thanks again for hitting me back just in time for me to celebrate my Wolverines being 9-1 and in the hunt for the playoff with two games left. I'll keep looking all over for cards you don't have, though I know how much of a challenge that is when you could easily rename your blog "Too Many Tinos"!

TCDB trade: ravensray52

On this very fall football Saturday highlighted by a win by my Wolverines to get the team to 7-0, I'm once again in a celebratory mood, so let's cap the day off with my latest TCDB deal!

I believe John, a.k.a. ravensray52, took advantage of the site's very useful trade-matching feature which simplifies getting trades going. Basically it gives you a list of everything you have available on each other's wantlist, meaning there's less time wasted if things don't work out. For that little effort, why not go for it and say "Here's everything we each need, what do you think?"? That's exactly what he did and the deal was history.

Besides the obvious former Baltimore NFL star John collects NFL die-cut and acetate sets, meaning he has excellent taste. A while ago I grabbed a couple numbered die-cuts at a show, I think for a dime or quarter apiece. He wanted those in exchange for seven cards that will be going to my Michigan Football RC collection and agreed that PWE shipping was acceptable so we quickly agreed to the transaction. Before I shipped his envelope I even managed to find a couple more die-cut inserts not on my trade list since I thought the trade was a bit lopsided in my favor.

A few days later these showed up in my mailbox:

Devin Funchess: this 2015 Rookies & Stars Longevity RC is the shinier version of a design I don't tend to like, but as with Topps' Chrome it's an improvement. I now have 21 of his 24 first-years and 70 of his cards overall.

Jake Butt: the former star TE who had to retire due to injuries is seen here on his 2017 Elite RC which is also shiny plus numbered /499, not to mention a product with a design I usually appreciate. I've now tracked down 10/14 rookie Butts and 24 of his issues.

Taco Charlton: Vidauntae "Taco" Charlton really missed out on NIL stuff, didn't he? The former first-rounder has bounced around but suited up with Dallas as seen on his above 2017 Rookies & Stars RC, putting me at half of his 20 first-years and 14 total cards, most of which don't look this boring.

Amara Darboh: one of Michigan's more enjoyable recent WRs in my opinion, Darboh makes yet another appearance here courtesy of his rookie year 2017 Select card. It reminds me a bit of a couple of the Bowman's Best designs around the late 90s--in a good way--and is my 7th of his 13 RCs and 55th overall.

Chase Winovich: this is just my second card of the high-character edge rusher who epitomizes "relentless motor" and neither is a Michigan uni card, with this one from 2019 Prestige using a Combine photo. That's a bit of a letdown as that brand often pleases me with college shots, but beggars can't be choosers, especially as this is my first of Wino's 10 RCs!

Donovan Peoples-Jones: after totaling 2 TDs for all of 2021 the talented WR snagged his first pair for this season in last week's loss to the Cardinals. Michigan fans definitely saw hints of that talent as captured on the above 2020 Panini Legacy RC, the first of two straight Michigan uni cards, my 3rd of 17 I'm chasing, and 5th overall card of DPJ, which reminds me I need to step up my game in terms of his collection!

Chris Evans: every time I look at this 2021 RC of the former UM RB who scored against the Lions last week (as if that's difficult!) it makes me think of Elite, but it's actually another Panini Prestige design, one that again incorporates college photos, meaning it gets a thumbs up from me. It gives me two of his 10 first-years I've tracked to-date and represents card #3 of a guy who embodies Kid 'n Play more than Captain America.

And here's the backs for those of you that like to see them.

Once again this was a great example of the kind of fun you can have with deals big or small on TCDB. Thanks, John, and GO BLUE!

10/1/21 card show report: I want Blue to show me the way

With a big Michigan game looming at noon on Saturday (which went quite well for the Maize & Blue, if you hadn't heard), I once again took a Friday off to head to the monthly show in Taylor a couple days ago. Although I was disappointed to see that my favorite seller still had no dime boxes with him, and that most of what was in the $0.50/$1/$2 boxes was as uninteresting as the last couple shows, I did have some fun going through his quarter boxes, pulling out 60 items, mostly for trade bait, for $15. Given how busy his tables were when I got there, though, I started at the table of a guy I don't remember seeing before. He had a shoebox of 2/$3 autos and relics, of which I grabbed eight, plus some quarter cards that were serial numbered. I snagged eight of those as well, dropping another $14.

Again, it was nothing huge to write home (or blog) about, but I still accomplished my goal of adding some trade bait plus new items to my collection--two scans' worth--so I left reasonably satisfied. Here are my scores from this trip:

My baseball pickups all came out of the big quarter boxes. Griffey's is a base from Topps' 2006 Co-Signers product, and while some might call the design "busy" I find it shiny and fun, plus it's a new Junior! I still appreciate Kinsler's time with the Tigers enough that I sometimes collect cards of him with the team for whom he's more well known, the Rangers, such as Bowman Chrome Refractors from 2011 and '13. Maddux was my other baseball twofer thanks to a 2016 Topps Wrigley insert and '96 Collector's Choice Silver Signature parallel. '96 was definitely a good year for UDCC's design. Last up is a 2002 Leaf Rookies & Stars subset issue of Cal Ripken Jr., meaning I have 3/4 of his run in the bunch (missing #251 celebrating his '82 AL ROY). Not a bad little group with three of my big four non-Michigan PCs hit!

Meanwhile the Michigan side of things was a full nine cards strong with the three other sports represented. Coach Juwan Howard stars on one of the two numbered cards I grabbed for myself, a '98-'99 UD AeroDynamics Tier 1 die-cut that was limited to 2000 copies. It's even more enjoyable collecting him since his successful return to Ann Arbor has made some "experts" look foolish for predicting that he'd be a bust.

Of course football was the main attraction and I scored seven cards of six subjects. TE Devin Asiasi transferred out to UCLA but remains in my collection thanks to non-Bruins cards like his 2020 Absolute Retail base, which I'm not sure counts as a RC. I'll decide at time point. Former UM footballer and US president Gerald Ford gets in on the action with a 2015 Topps baseball insert. Quality OL/unquality person Taylor Lewan pops up twice on Score Gold parallels from 2017 and 2020, with the design on the latter much better since it goes all the way around the border. Bengals TE Tony McGee is the subject of a '96 Pro Line parallel that was a staple of the era: a Printer's Proof. Cleveland WR DPJ's partially airbrushed uni/helmet comes courtesy of 2020 Leaf Draft. And top 10 college football player of all time Charles Woodson continues to appear in the base sets of newer Panini products, such as 2020 Mosaic, in this case with his first/final team, the Raiders.

And finally we have one more quarter numbered card, one that I was excited to dig up: a Mike Knuble 2001-02 Pacific Hobby LTD parallel that's numbered 76/99 on the back. I'm a fan for a few reasons: I love Pacific's base designs from the time, their numbered parallels are fun, and Knuble's one of my favorite Michigan Hockey alumni as he also played for the Wings, winning the '97-'98 cup that brought glory back to Hockeytown. There are few ways to spend a quarter better than this!

It's hard to believe that just two more months and their respective shows remain in 2021. Given how bad things were last year (and in some cases continue to be thanks to selfish idiots) I'm grateful to have been able to get back to them this year even if the results aren't always what I hope.

But speaking of results I did hope for, Saturday's destruction of Wisconsin has me in good spirits as I look to have another good week of collecting no matter what it brings. That should include a post showing off another PWE that showed up the other day, one that brings some shine to ward off the recent cloudy weather here in Ann Arbor. Stay tuned and Go Blue!

2021 trade package #16: The Lost Collector

A few weeks ago when I did my show report after getting to one for the first time in forever, I mentioned that as usual most of my money went towards trade bait, which was excellent since that's generally my best source for reasonably priced quality items for trade packages. As solid as everything was, it was only $1.

I mention that because one of the cards I snagged just in case was a Tino Martinez numbered jersey. I deal with enough folks that could potentially use it that I was glad to bring it home, and at worst it could go on TCDB anyway. That worst cast scenario was in no way necessary, though, because the first person I offered it to (via Twitter DM) is a bigtime Tino collector, and as it turns out he even needed it, despite being over the 1,100 mark in that player collection!

I'm guessing that most of you who know him already put together that I'm talking about A.J., a.k.a. the Lost Collector, who was nice enough to show his appreciation in his post here. A.J. didn't stop there, though, as he subsequently sent me an unexpected PWE with a few cards that fit my collections perfectly:

That trio of Tigers along the top is an excellent start! First up is Ty Cobb's appearance in 2020 Topps' Topps Choice insert set. In that one you can find past and present players on Topps designs from 1956, 1965, 1987, 1991, 2008, 2011, and 1971, with the latter being the source for the Georgia Peach's card above. In addition to the usual writeups, the backs mention in large print which set the designs came from, which is a good way to try to educate folks less familiar with their past products.

Big Daddy is up next on his 2019 Topps Chrome Update Family Business insert, and "daddy" is the key word here. Every player in this Refractorized insert has or had at least one other family member in the game, and of course Tigers fans were well acquainted with Cecil's son Prince before he became a star in his own right. Due to the way the younger Fielder's tenure with Detroit ended, my opinions of the two have flip-flopped and I'm back to preferring the guy who brought joy to the area when he socked 51 HRs in 1990.

Last up in the Tigers group is Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline, who got plenty of screen time in my most recent post. Happily, while I added a bunch of new stuff to his collection via Sportlots, I still needed the 2019 Topps Update Perennial All-Stars insert you see above (my third, to go along with Griffey and Ripken). The back states that Al is the youngest position player to start an MLB Midsummer Classic at 20 1/2 in 1955 (the year he won that batting title), plus he'd be named to 13 in a row (15 total), which is the definition of "perennial"!

Last up today is a pair of Wolverines that makes me appreciate this envelope even more, because it shows that A.J. put as much effort into knowing what to include for me as I did in finding something for him. I love my Michigan uni cards and that's exactly what I have here in 2020 Prizm Draft RCs of QB Shea Patterson and WR Donovan Peoples-Jones. It's no surprise that Shea went undrafted after the way his Michigan career went, but DPJ has a chance to make some noise in his upcoming second season with the Browns after putting up 14 TD catches and two punt return scores in college.

And here's the backs for those of you who like to see those.

A.J., once again I'm glad you liked the Tino, and I'll be happy to look for more stuff you could potentially use, especially if I can get back to the same show next week. Either way, I really appreciate you getting me back with this five pack that really targeted my collections nicely!

With nothing else coming in the mail for the foreseeable future I'm planning to be back next time with more Sportlots cards as I continue to work through those stacks.

2020 trade package #22: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

It's been another good month or so for trade packages, as today's post (and at least one that's upcoming) will prove.

Tonight's mailer showed up this past Sunday, a pleasant surprise to find on my porch a few days ago. What was in it? Even more Canadian bakin' from Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store. Your friendly neighbourhood king of dollar store repacks had let me know about a few cards I could expect at some point, and happily it didn't take him very long to fill out another enjoyable envelope to send across the border:

No baseball this time so we'll get right into the hardwood stuff. Almost everything was from the glorious 90s so there's a huge variety of brands and designs to choose from. Coach Juwan Howard looks radical on one of Skybox's many era-appropriate looks. Brooklyn's LeVert gets a chance to put on a show as the NBA playoffs resume. I remember rooting for "Sugar" Mills as a Piston before knowing he was a Michigan alum. And Rice, Rumeal, and Tarpley are all pretty well known products of the program.

A trio of Loy Vaught and a lone C-Webb close out the basketball content, and then it's on to the gridiron. I needed all three cards of Brady in his old uniform, from 2020 Panini products Legacy and Score. I'm liking the Score base design as usual, and there's a good look at TB12's competitive nature on a Gold parallel of an insert called Game Face. Giants big back Jarrod Bunch also makes a couple appearances out of '93 Stadium Club and '94 Collector's Choice.

A cool horizontal UD Toomer is joined by the highlight of the football content for me: four more 2020 Score Wolverines. Gary's a second-year card so he's with the vets, then there's the trio of Wolverines from the set's rookie class. TE Sean McKeon ("Mc-KYOON") went undrafted but signed with the Cowboys after a solid career both blocking and catching at the position. Transfer QB Patterson's name was well known around the country as the signal-caller, but nobody was surprised when he went undrafted after a not-as-good-as-expected couple of seasons in Ann Arbor. Still, his name was big enough to get him into lots of products this year over others, such as first-round C Cesar Ruiz. Such is the hobby. Talented WR Peoples-Jones rounds out the group after he left for the draft a season early. He too failed to reach his vast potential in college but was explosive at times, and hard work and good coaching could make him a valuable wideout. I'm looking forward to snagging any other 2020 Wolverines as they show up in new products.

The start of the hockey content includes envelope stalwarts Cogliano and Knuble, whom I'm always happy to see, but young star D-Man Quinn Hughes, whom I got to see over his two years in Ann Arbor, is the big highlight here. The card on the left is a foil-y RC (/199) out of UD's high-end Buybacks product, one I saw broken a few times on Phil Hughes' Youtube channel. It's definitely got that super premium Upper Deck shine to it. The other is a cool horizontal insert called Rookie Science from UD Credentials, with the formula for "velocity vector" on the back. That's too much math for my English major brain, so instead I'll enjoy the colorful front. Colors are pretty!

This scan of the rest of the hockey starts out very strongly with two new Dylan Larkins. New WolverWing #1 is a sweet rainbow die-cut out of 2019-20 Allure called White Rainbow, which I know because the back literally tells you! Well done, UD. That's joined by his base card from the previously mentioned Credentials. Patch gets a textbook Ultra insert fro 2016-17 Fleer Showcase (made by UD) called Scoring Kings, which has a lightning background that didn't scan very well. I believe that SPA of Trouba is my first of him with the Rangers since he joined them, but I'll have to check. Werenski hails from the Rainbow parallel of OPC's Platinum product that I always enjoy seeing. Shiny!

And then we get to the three big hits of the package. If you thought I was excited about the two Hughes cards you saw earlier then you'll know I was geeked for Doug to send me my first auto of him as well! I'm fortunate to trade with someone like Doug who pulls so many ridiculously nice cards and is willing to trade them. I'll certainly be working on hard on trying to pay him back for this 19-20 Exquisite auto (/99). That alone would have made the envelope, but then there's also a sweet dual jersey of Patch, whom we also already saw, out of last year's Artifacts. This is basically a numbered (/165) relic version of the base card, and it looks great. And last up is the only non-Wolverine in the pile, but it's a card that looked great with the other hockey stuff. Like Larkin's card above, this one is from UD's Allure, and the back tells me you're looking at a Red Rainbow Jersey. You literally couldn't pick a better color for a Red Wings card, and I'd say the up-and-coming winger Zadina is a player to get excited about too!

Doug, thanks once again for another killer envelope! As I've told you in our usual back-and-forth I have a few things in-hand and elsewhere for you, and I'll keep adding to it until it's worthy of this greatness, and then send it back across the Detroit River. Until then, may your hot hand continue as your personal and group breaks go on!

2020 trade package #13: My Sports Obsession

I think I've said this once or twice already, but despite my lack of spending this year--only around $250--for multiple reasons, I've had lots of great new cards come into my collection. You can chalk that up to the word that used to come before "cards" in this hobby: trading. TCDB has been a great new source for that, and I really do plan to show off more of my deals that came from the site.

But first, I always like to give top billing to my bread and butter, which is trades with other bloggers. Buddy of the blog Jeff of My Sports Obsession is one of those fine folks, and we keep a nice stream of the many collections we have in common going back and forth.

Jeff sent me a nice mailer that arrived at the end of May, and I was thrilled not just at the excellent content, but also that every single card was new to my collection--quite a feat when you'll see who was involved:

I mean, the baseball end of things involved my #1 and #3 overall PCs in Larkin and Ripken. Barry comes to us on a 2020 Donruss card whose design honors the '86 set. released a year before his RC. The back gives him credit for playing his entire career with the Reds and ranking with Pete Rose at the top in several team stats, though I think Barry deserves extra credit for not betting on baseball or being a shitbag in general. With Jeff's help his collection gets a bit closer to 800.

While I wasn't surprised that I needed a 2020 Larkin card I was shocked to find that two 1991 Donruss base offerings and a '92 Fleer issue were new to me. I'm not shocked that I didn't find it worth buying junk wax-era stuff like those but you would think I'd have had them long ago one way or another. Great job by Jeff to fill in those gaps and add another cool pair in a 2018 Donruss variation and '93 UD Then & Now hologram insert. UD's holograms always get a thumbs up from me. With five additions Cal's within spitting distance of being my first 1000-card PC!

Closing out the scan is a basketball pair--my second and third cards of one-and-done Wolverine Ignas Brazdeikis, who was a lot of fun to watch while he was here. Both are rookies, which is great by itself, but the Prizm card also features a college uniform, so it's my pick of the duo. Jeff's focused on collecting UM basketball alumni from roughly the past decade and I'm grateful that he thought of me during his search.

Now here's some maize & blue fireworks! I'm not sure the last time I could post a 100% Michigan uni scan like this in a trade recap, but regardless, this is flat-out awesome. Jeff provided my first taste of 2020 Michigan RCs out of 2020 Prizm Draft by including QB Patterson and WR DPJ. Shea's senior year ended up being disappointing for his draft stock and it wasn't a shock that he didn't get chosen, but I guess Panini included him here (and likely will in other products) figuring the fan base will be hot after his cards regardless.

Anyway, those look great, and I'm looking forward to adding first-years of whichever other draftees make the cut in subsequent sets. Meanwhile, those two are joined in the set by a pair of Tom Brady base cards, each of which sticks with the college theme, much to my approval.

Next is a pair of non-Panini 2017 cards: a Leaf Gold parallel of RB De'Veon Smith and SAGE HIT base of DE Chris Wormley. I don't think Smith lasted very long in the league after going undrafted, but Wormley got flipped from the Ravens to the Steelers a few months ago, so hopefully he'll make a difference there. Side note for anybody who's curious: I do count pre-draft all-star game photos that include UM helmets as "Michigan uniform" cards.

Finally, we've come to the big hit of the envelope, one that happens to star a big hitter. Rashan Gary may have worn #3 during his time in Ann Arbor but everyone will always remember the way he came in as the #1 overall recruit. That makes getting this college-themed Prizm Draft auto that much sweeter! As I mentioned when discussing my two other autos of the DE, I wish he put a bit more effort into his signature, or at least used more of the sticker, but it is what it is. And what it is is another Rashan Gary auto, and I'm excited!

Jeff, thanks again for sending me some great new additions to my collections, especially those of the UM variety. On that subject, I have a LOT to send back your way soon, so get ready for some work updating your collections on TCDB!