2022 Sportlots purchases: the Michigan stuff

We've hit February and I've got a show to get to in a couple days so tonight I've decided to start covering the Sportlots cards I purchased at the end of 2022. I've split them up into three groups so I don't drag out getting them posted for too long, and tonight you get to see the Michigan Baseball and Football PC cards I nabbed from there:

Scan #1 starts with my 12th different Jeff Criswell. You also see four of the six Cronenworths I picked up there (with two way down below), from a few different variations of '21 and '22 Topps. At some point I should compare how many Drew Henson baseball cards I have versus football, out of the 100+ in his collection. And it feels like I pick up lower-end cards of Hill far less often than I should be able to, so these two and the pair in the next scan felt like a win for me.

The other two Hill cards joined the Rainbow Foil parallel out of '20 Update, and those are Royal Blue and Yellow inserts. Also, as you can see, I definitely didn't neglect my Larkin collection (930 cards strong!) with the seven cards you see here to go with three more near the bottom. Sometimes I think '96 Topps Chrome doesn't get as much love as it deserves compared to the initial version of Finest but maybe that's just a nostalgia thing for me. Speaking of loving Chrome, the '21 Stadium Club card looks excellent as a perfect combo of the two.

Sportlots has been a good source for parallel versions that seem overly expensive elsewhere, like the Topps Limited and First Edition cards of Matheny above. Hal Morris demonstrates some fun options we had back in the 90s out of Leaf Fractal Matrix, Pacific Online (Web Card! Yep, the ones with the codes), and the Gold version of '99 Topps Stars, #d /2299. Putz's sickly green parallel came out of the 2014 product. And Clayton Richard gets in on the parallel fun with Rainbow Foil, Limited, and 582 Montgomery Collection cards, plus another one in the next scan.

Another Richard parallel and another team too as the Blue Jay appears in Topps' 150th Anniversary insert. Meanwhile, my collection of Branch Rickey is very small at just eight cards, but it was much smaller before these additions so I was glad to bolster the collection of the former Wolverine and innovator of the game. How could you possibly go wrong with products like SP Legendary Cuts and TCMA?

There ends the regular sized vertical stuff but I added a few oddball items as well, and I'm happy to report you'll see similar items scattered across the other two posts. To Larkin's collection I added an '89 Panini Sticker, which I probably pulled from a pack and stuck in the album when I was about six, plus a couple tiny Topps Micro cards. Then I got full-on oddball with a 1984 7-11 Coin of Ted "Simba" Simmons. While I'm much more familiar with the most recent offerings from the convenience store, namely the 2000 set, I have just a few of the coins from the 80s so I love adding fun pieces like this one!

The baseball group is complete with this six-pack of horizontals. My tiny collection of Bourque increases by one thanks to another Rainbow Foil parallel. A shared Padres card that includes Cronenworth gets a couple appearances thanks to 582 Club and Star versions. My Tommy Henry PC nears double digits with a Heritage Minors issue from 2020. It's pretty rare to find new items of Ryan LaMarre that I need right now, but I did track down a '17 Topps All-Star Game factory set version. And Rickey gets one last look on a classic UD card depicting him with recent birthday boy and monumental baseball innovator Jackie Robinson.

To those I added nine football cards, all of which are rookies except for the Collins, which I must have added by mistake since his '22 Prestige card would be a second-year (but is still much appreciated). Other than that, let's pretend I scanned the rest in order. QB Scott Dreisbach has four RCs I'm chasing and I picked up my first two out of '99 Leaf Rookies & Stars and Score Supplemental, so I'm happy to welcome him to the Rookie Blue project. Floyd's Playoff Momentum Retail is the 10th card in his collection and seventh of eight first-years that I need. Fellow '98 guy Griese is down to just five missing rookies out of 39 with the addition of the shiny Upper Deck Encore you see above.

Bengals rookie DB Dax Hill is the first of two Michigan uni cards, and his '22 Panini Legacy RC is my second such card of a guy who just missed out on a rookie-year Super Bowl appearance. Transfer RB Jon Ritchie is yet another '98 guy and I'm chasing four of his 12 rookies after picking up his '98 UD base. Saints OL Ruiz is the other college uni guy tonight, and the '20 Playoff of #51 is the third of seven cards I need, which is actually a decent number for an offensive lineman! Finally, Pats LB Josh Uche, who had two three-sack games this season, sees a '20 Donruss Optic RC added to his bunch, number five of the 13 I need to complete his run.

I'm quite happy with the variety I picked up that you see before you this evening and I'm looking forward to seeing what people think of the other two groups as well, so watch for those soon!

2021 Sportlots purchases part 8: more Michigan? Marvelous!

Previously: Quick summary and set wants; Big and small we have them all!; Better off Ted; A Tettle-ton of Froot Loops; Lucky Tiger Seven; Dizzying Deans, Sportlots has been Barry, Barry good to me

Just two posts left after this one! Tonight's will be another group post instead of a single player like the last one, though we're sticking with Michigan Baseball as the theme. I believe I counted 17 different players in the scans below, enough that I originally considered splitting them up, but I'm feeling motivated to finish these up. Therefore, it's more Michigan mania!

We'll start with this group since I found a lone new card for all nine players. Up top are three of the older Wolverines you'll see today: 1976 SSPCs of P Jim Burton and OF Tom Grieve, plus a '78 TCMA of 1B/OF (and UM football player as well) John Herrnstein. Burton's '78 SSPC card will sew up his four-card run whenever I can find it. Herrnstein's collection will be tougher to complete because, as a reminder, he shares '60s rookie star cards with Willie Stargell and Dick Allen.

The next four are some of the latest Michigan alumni to make their pro debuts. Blomgren, Criswell, and Franklin (2020 Bowman Draft) were all selected in the first five rounds of the '20 draft, while Brewer (2020 Topps Heritage Minors) was a Houston 3rd rounder the year before. They're all pretty good prospects, and these items represent my first for each player except Criswell (my 4th).

A couple "S" players close out the scan. First is a 2011 Triple Threads Sepia parallel (#d /625) of HOFer George Sisler, giving me 99 different items of "Gorgeous" George. The other continues the run of oddballs, especially of the food issue variety (foodballs?) in this series: an '81 Topps Coca-Cola St. Louis Cardinals issue of P Lary Sorensen. Aside from the obvious Coke logo up front and different numbering on the back, these are very similar to the base cards, but still fun pickups for your everyday player or oddball collector.

Jim Abbott got the biggest boost in numbers to his collection of the players you'll see today, and this group of nine isn't even all of them. The scan is bookended by food issues from Topps/Bazooka's 1990 partnership plus 1993 Kraft, a pop-up I won't be popping up myself. Also from 1990, starring a poorly chosen photo emblematic of the junk wax era, is Donruss' Learning Series, a 55-card set geared towards elementary- and middle-schoolers.

Then things get Canuckified with 1990 Fleer Canadian and O-Pee-Chee, a couple issues from our friendly neighbors to the north. That Fleer photo was another bad choice, to be sure. A pair of Classic cards produced in 1991 and '92 look much better to me since action shots almost always trump portraits in my opinion, plus it's always really cool to see portions of Jim's one-armed delivery. Last up here is a pair of '93 Upper Deck Gold Hologram cards, which are annoying to have to track down as a player-collector, but then I suppose they do give me a reason to collect a second version of a card where Abbott's wearing a Michigan shirt! You'll see one more of these below since he was all over that '93 set.

One last Abbott (for now) gives way to a few slightly more recent guys. I found a new pair of cards of Portage, Michigan native and 2019 Arizona draftee Tommy Henry: his Bowman Draft and Draft Chrome Refractor issues. It's always nice when I can track down stuff with backs that mention Michigan in one form or another, such as these that include his college stats.

Drew Henson is a player whose cards I get to chase in two sports, and here I have four of the five from this purchase. The first couple are from 1999 team sets for New York's Tampa affiliate, with the second apparently hailing from an "update" set that's almost identical. The '02 Hot Prospects insert he shares with another guy that had some hype behind him, Xavier Nady, is pretty cool thanks to a pair of rounded corners. And to those I added a four-player 2003 Bazooka sticker whose players happen to appear in the order of best MLB career to worst!

You'll see more of both of the other guys in this scan in a minute, but interestingly enough they're both still involved with the game despite their ages. Old Rich Hill turned 41 a few months ago but is still pitching pretty well, though of course those efforts are now for the Rays instead of the Twins, with whom he appears on his 2020 Topps Heritage base. And former Cardinals C and manager Mike Matheny made the relatively short trip to Kansas City to helm the Royals after being let go by St. Louis, the team pictured on his 2004 Topps 1st Edition parallel above.

The other Matheny cards I found were both from 2005. The first is also a 1st Edition version of his Topps flagship base, and it offers and even better action photo than the previous year's. I wonder if an out resulted from that throw? The other is the Silver parallel from Total, which wasn't as good as the 2002-03 versions in my opinion, so I'm not really disappointed the brand disappeared until the bastardized cash grab online version resurrected the name in 2019.

The rest of this scan stars William Harold Morris, and almost everything I scored of Hal this time was of the oddball variety, but that worked for me as a fun way to beef up his PC a bit. Here you see a trio of Classic cards from 1989 and '91, a 1991 Baseball Cards Magazine issue done up in the style of '66 Topps, and Morris' three appearances in a Rembrandt/Ultra-Pro promo set put out in '92. The latter was a 20-card set featuring casual shots of some baseball stars (such as Bobby Bonilla and Jose Canseco), mainly focusing on their favorite pastimes, such as tennis for the guy above. The backs included Ultra Pro holograms and a message of the "limited" nature of the cards; the ones you see here received 125,000, 250,000, and 100,000 copies, respectively.

Two more Morris cards get me just a pair shy of 300 for his collection. The first is from the US Playing Card Company's 1992 Baseball Aces deck, and it's only natural that someone playing for the Reds should be assigned a suit of that color. The other is the only "mainstream" card in his bunch, his '95 Collector's Choice Silver Signature parallel, making him the fourth Wolverine I've found from that set (Steve Ontiveros, Steve Howe, and Scott Kamieniecki are the others).

Player #2 in this scan is Hal's former teammate Chris Sabo, and as with Morris I came away with '89 and '91 Classic issues of "Spuds". You can add him to the food issue club as well thanks to a '92 Jimmy Dean oddball from an 18-card set that also included Jim Abbott among its stars. Lastly, also from 1992 is a goofy design (and funny photo of Sabo utilizing a hitting training aid) from Topps Kids. If you care for whatever reason, the latter is the variation that has two asterisks in the trademark line instead of one.

It seems like a good idea to mention that this post will be published on Juneteenth as we look at the last player in the group of vertical cards. Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker was a C for Toledo of the old American Association, considered a "major league", back in 1884, making him the first black player (or just "the first black in the majors" according to the cringe-y back of the 1986 Fritsch Negro League Baseball Stars card you see on the left) to break the color barrier. That makes Jackie Robinson's bravery in 1947 no less important, though, as he fought through the same kind of ignorance and hate that Walker did. While you won't find him on too many cards, unfortunately, another of his items can be found relatively easily: a base card from Upper Deck's 1994 product Baseball: the American Epic, which describes Fleet's history a bit more intelligently.

To finish things up today, here's a six-pack for your weekend. First up is the final Jim Abbott Gold Hologram from 1992 Upper Deck, a set that included lots of those artsy cards. My Tommy Henry collection grows by one more thanks to a cool 2020 Topps Pro Debut base that makes good use of the card's orientation. A multiplayer card including fellow Yankees prospects from the time Juan Rivera and Jackson Melian is Drew Henson's other appearance from the Minors team sets mentioned above. I got two cards closer to Rich Hill's 2020 Topps rainbow with his base card and Gold Star (factory set) parallel, not to mention two more cards from his year with the Twins. And lastly, Sabo joins Morris in needing just two more cards for a milestone (he's at 198) thanks to one last food issue: a 1992 French's card he shares with HOFer Wade Boggs. I've never been a mustard guy but that 19-card set full of All-Stars is fun and I may have to try to track down more of those.

Considering these additions combined with those from some of the earlier posts in this series, I got a lot of good work done on the checklists of some of the many former Wolverines I collect, and added some fun pieces.

Still to come in the final two posts are one more single-player feature plus a last one with a team theme that I think will please many of you!

2019 COMC purchases: the 12 cards of COMChristmas

I'm going through another one of those periods where I want to get some posts up, especially so I can catch up to new stuff from this month, but I don't feel like writing.  It also doesn't help that work's been stressful lately, plus there was the tragedy of the helicopter crash yesterday that cost Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and other families their lives.

Solution:  don't write much and just get posts up!  Pictures something something thousand words, right?  So here's the baseball loot from my latest COMC shipment, mostly comprising purchases from the Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions:

Today's only autograph is my first card of Nationals pitching prospect James Bourque, an Ann Arbor native with a pretty strong mustache game who pitched for Michigan in 2013 and 2014.  He got a one-game cup of coffee (Shot of coffee?  Drip of coffee?) last season five years after the team drafted him in the 14th round.  He's got lots more Bowman Chrome autos (like this one from 2019) to chase as well as a 2019 Topps Update base and its 50,000 parallels, and is the 27th member of my baseball hits PC.

2001 marked my first year of college and it was also an excellent year for collecting, falling right in the middle of that '95-'05 decade that I love so much.  Upper Deck was still around and they obliged relic-hungry collectors back when that was still quite a novelty.  For just a few bucks each I scored three such cards of Tony Gwynn, all from products I'm very familiar with:  SP Game Bat Edition, SPx, and UD Legends.  I believe I now own 10 relics (plus an autograph) of Mr. Padre, and I'll happily add more of these whenever the price is right.

Although he's known better as a Yankee during his brief (failed) foray into baseball, Drew Henson was a Red for a bit before being flipped back to the Bronx.  That makes the color of this Mirror Red parallel of his 2003 Leaf Certified Materials bat relic somewhat appropriate.  Donruss/Leaf/Panini/Playoff/whoever made some beautiful cards like this in the aughts and the price was low enough to add another Henson relic (#074/250), giving him 15 in the baseball collection.

Don't worry, I'm not boring you today with a post that's just hits, which I'm guessing a number of you would ignore as they're not your taste.  Looking for something else?  I got you, fam!  The "90s inserts rule" tag makes another heralded appearance today in part because if this amazing '97 Leaf chase card called Knothole Gang (#1046/5000).  Leaf layered a thin, wood-like material die-cut in the shape of a fence with a large hole in the middle over a photo, in this case Barry Larkin doubling up Braves stalwart Jeff Blauser.  These are too cool and I believe I'm chasing a few other PC guys, so I hope I'll have more to show off soon!

It's been long enough since I finished up my purchases on COMC that I can't remember for sure (and don't feel like doing the work to verify this), but I believe I came out of those sales with 19 printing plates/one-of-ones intended for my PCs and Christmas Cards packages.  Something like eight of those stayed with me, including this 2019 Topps Update Black plate of PC dude Clayton Richard, who appears with the Blue Jays for the first time.  Richard is now one of three Michigan Baseball guys with nine or more such cards in his collection, joining J.J. Putz (10) and Rich Hill (23) with nobody else above four.  Also, this marks my 130th plate and/or 1/1, though I may revise that collection a bit in the near future.  Anyway, I'll be casually on the lookout for the other three plates to go with this one!

The three jerseys of Gwynn above are awesome but this trio of Ripken inserts might be my preferred group of the two.  Up top is the '97 version of UD's amazing, um...Amazing Greats insert.  These also have a bit of a wood grain texture with a diamond shaped slide/cel insert on the right.  The '98 iteration is beautiful in its own right, and they're so different that I'm happy to appreciate both.  Oddly enough, Cal's my only example from '97 while his '98 card is the only one I lack of the Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken group.

The other two get me a bit closer to the fun 2000 Fleer Gamers Cal to Greatness set.  #s 6 and 9 here give me the full run of 1-10 while I'll now have to track down the rarest ones, #s 11-15.  Those were a tough 1:144 while the first five were 1:9 and the others 1:25.  This might take a bit of time and money.

I don't harp too much on HOFer "Gorgeous" George Sisler having played at Michigan, do I?  Nah, I'm sure I don't.  In case you forgot, here's a great photo of him courtesy of Panini's 2015 National Treasures Collegiate Multi-sport product.  It's a numbered base card (#74/99) and I initially balked at the price of more than a buck for such a card, but I eventually relented, especially as I'm trying to get him past the 100-card mark.  Hopefully the next time I add some they'll be this nice!

I'm happy to end today's post with a pretty nifty card of recent HOFer Alan Trammell.  Back in the early 2000s the Playoff brand was responsible for a product called Absolute Memorabilia, and boy did they make some great looking cards.  One of their most notable issues was the Tools of the Trade insert, one that came in autograph, memorabilia, and combo versions.  And when I say "combo" I mean you could get six-plus game-used pieces and maybe even a signature!  No matter what you got, the design looked great, like this here 2004 card of Tram (#088/250).  This bat/jersey duo appears to give me a nice split of five each of autos and relics of the Tigers legend.

Hopefully I'll get the next post in this series up a bit sooner.  For now I'm planning a combo basketball/football post, then more football for the big finish.  That way I can finally get around to covering a huge trade package, a show or two (the next one's this weekend!), and one eBay card, and get to where I'm somewhat caught up.

2019 trade package #41: Scribbled Ink

My final trade cards of 2019 came courtesy of buddy of the blog and fellow Michigander (for a bit longer!) Paul of Scribbled Ink.  He's a busy dad so I try to meet up with him now and then if we get the chance, and as luck had it we were both available for his monthly neighborhood show in Troy on the last Saturday of December.  I don't tend to enjoy that show as much as the one I frequent in Taylor, though this one ended up working out quite well.  More on that soon!

Anyway, Paul let me know that fellow TCDBer C2Cigars would be in town and was interested in a meetup, which sounded like fun to me.  He was a cool guy and we all swapped a few cards while hanging out at the show for a while.

On a related note, Paul brought a box of stuff for me, and out of that big pile I ended up with a nice chunk of new cards for my PCs.  (I'm trying something a bit different tonight by only scanning the new stuff instead of everything, and we'll see what I do in the future.)

We'll start with a few 2019 Topps Tigers.  Greene (the only Update example here) was traded to the Braves, of course, and utility guy Rodriguez went to Milwaukee on waivers, but the other two seem to be ticketed for a good amount of playing time in 2020.  I think I've mentioned this once or twice before but I got to see Lugo play with Single-A Lansing a few years ago when he was in Toronto's system; He then got flipped to Arizona before heading to Detroit in the J.D. Martinez deal.

Pretty much everything else was baseball PC stuff.  Before I show off the spoils I wanted to demonstrate the composition of this box.  The pile on the left is all Jim Abbott cards while the one on the right is everything else!  I did a count and came up with 80 total Abbotts, 48 of which were unique, and I needed five of those, which means Jeff's getting a bunch of new cards of one of his favorites!

One of the words of the day is definitely "oddballs," and that's a good word when it comes to sending cards to me because there's always a high likelihood that I don't have one you're sending me.  Four of Abbott's cards here fall into that category, including some unlicensed issues and a '92 U.S. Playing Cards four of spades.  Even the more mainstream card is a bit odd--a '92 Studio Preview.  I happen to think preview cards are lots of fun to collect too, and my collection of those is also fairly small.  By the way, there were some really nice Abbotts in the dupes pile, so I want to make sure to give Paul credit for those as well.

The letter "G" is a big one today as well.  One Grandy isn't "too many" but it's a great place to start, and this Orange Refractor from 2012 now has a happy home with me.  Griffey cards from '96 Summit (co-starring Johnny "Noodle Arm" Damon) and 2019 Topps Perennial All-Stars are also very welcome, especially since they push his collection over the 900 mark to 901, allowing him to join Ripken in that very exclusive club in my collection!  A nice little run of Gwynn--the player who got the most new cards this time--follows, and that begins with an odd-ish boxed set Fleer card from '86.

Again, I give lots of credit to Paul for sending some super nice Gwynn cards that I obviously liked since I'd picked up a number of them myself.  This run of five (with more below) starts with another unlicensed item, then jumps ahead to the next couple of decades.  The UD Heroes card actually came out of Prospect Premieres in 2002, which might explain why it looks so different compared to that name's usual design.  And I love the throwback to Donruss's Heritage Collection on Panini's beautiful Diamond Kings card from 2017.

Supercollection guy Rich Hill would appear here but both his items were dupes; That's still worth mentioning since Paul smartly tossed them my way in hopes of feeding my favorite PC.  I can generally find good homes for those anyway.  Instead, how about a super cool Pacific Barry Larkin card, 2000's Invincible, which, as a reminder, is a base card!  Man do I miss Pacific.  Paul certainly didn't miss when he managed to hit my Clayton Richard wantlist twice:  2018 Topps Big League's Blue parallel and 2019 Topps Update.  Clayton's made a decent number of Topps appearances in the last few years for a lower tier pitcher so there's still plenty I need.

I'll include the last card from that scan in this group, which includes four of the packages five many Verlanders!  The Chrome 2019 Topps 150 card above has a Refractor finish while the one that follows it is an X-Fractor from the base product.  Topps Fire isn't really high on my list but of the Gold Mint and Orange (#108/299) parallels above, the latter looks pretty sharp and I do like that it's numbered.

The horizontal cards formed a nice group of eight, and it starts with more winning with Gwynn.  '94 Select and '96 Collector's Choice (with Edgar!) take me back to the early years of my teens when I was collecting a bit, but the UD3 and Ionix cards from a bit later really hit home with memories of some of my prime collecting years before I took a bit of a break in college.

And again, props to Paul for hitting a couple of my slightly more obscure PCs.  Two-sport star Henson gets his 59th card, and and awesome one too, from back when Refractors really meant something and didn't have like 80 versions.  His 2003 Topps Chrome Gold Refractor has that big fat serial numbering (#062/449) that brings back fond memories of collecting in the first half of that decade.  And he also surprised me with a 2002 card of Putz I needed from that year's Piece of History product (#793/950), my 199th checklisted card out of 217 overall.  Well done!

Closing things out here, Cal makes one appearance as a co-star on a 2019 Topps Historic Through-Lines insert with Astros star Carlos Correa.  Baseball-Reference finds that the latter's age 22 season, 2017, was Ripken-esque, plus there's the card's point that both were AL rookies of the year.  And then there's one last Verlander, another appearance from 2019 Topps Update.  Not only can I credit Paul for the 900th Griffey I'm posting, but he's also responsible for JV #400!  As with Junior he's now one card over that mark.  Quite the exciting trade package, no?

Well we're not quite done yet.  "Bipped with Sabos" is your new favorite band name that you're gonna steal, and in my case I laughed at seeing these 90s Topps second-years of Spuds because of a purchase I made that that day's show.  Anyone need this card in quantities ranging from 1-12?

The final baseball item is a graded copy of Alan Trammell's '84 Topps Rub Downs oddball issue.  I already had a regular copy but Paul pointed out that this one got an '84 grade, so it'll be fun keeping it this way.  Until I crack it, trim it, and resubmit it under the name "Vary Gee, sports card influencer" and it comes back as a 110.  By the way, SGC bills itself as "THE MOST TRUSTED GRADING & AUTHENTICATION SERVICE IN THE INDUSTRY," which is like Curt Schilling calling himself the most trusted athlete in a room with Aaron Hernandez, Ray Rice, and Pete Rose.  Good luck with that.  Anyway, cool item!

And at last, the final item in the box was this Jordan Poole 2019-20 Prizm Draft Prizm parallel, my first of a guy who 1) hit this amazing buzzer-beater in 2018 to send Michigan to the Sweet 16 on the way to an appearance in the title game,

and 2) is not Jordan Peele, the hilarious actor and brilliant writer/director of Get Out.  I'm very happy to begin his collection with a college card.

Paul, thanks again for all of this and so much more!  I'm looking forward to more trades and hopefully a couple games and shows before you head to the northeast.

With my 2019 trade packages wrapped up I'm planning on covering the aforementioned late December show next, then I'll decide if I want to finish up 2019 with my COMC loot before moving on to my first show of 2020, trade package (a box!) #1 from this year, and my first buy on eBay.  Stay tuned!

2019 Sportlots purchases: Rookie Blue on a Bye

The boys in Maize & Blue may be on a bye week but that doesn't mean I can't have my own Michigan Football Saturday.  Today I'm covering 62 new cards for my Rookie Blue project where I'm chasing every RC of each guy to suit up for Michigan (excluding autograph and relic cards).  Since this is a chase I started when I was still posting on Too Many Manninghams, the checklist I'm working from is currently here while the album containing what I've picked up so far can be found here.

And now on to the new stuff for today.  In the past I've generally shied away from buying these RCs on Sportlots because most of my spending leans toward the $0.18 site minimum price.  This time, though, I finally bit on some that were in the $0.45-$0.75 range, especially from one seller who had a bunch I needed, many of them numbered.  My overall spending has been down this year and this purchase was very productive so it was pretty easy for me to justify it, especially after surveying the damage to that checklist I mentioned above.

So here's the main event:  62 new RCs of 35 former Wolverines!:

2008 draftee and PC guy Arrington's numbered '08 Stadium Club RC is my 17th of his 19.  Former OL Baas only has five to chase but they've been tough sledding, and the UD pair above gives me three.  Touchdown Tim gets his 30th of 32 thanks to '96 Score Board Lasers, a card I hadn't caught for my checklist until recently.  Michigan-to-W. Illinois LB transfer Bowens had just one card for me to chase:  that 2005 Topps Total.  Alan Branch (who kills QBs) gets numbered '07 Gridiron Gear Retail (ugh) and Select first-years to put me one short of his 26 RCs.  Finally, you can see two Butts (hehe) out of three in this post, in this case '17 Playoff and Rookies & Stars.

Campbell's '99 Fleer Focus was a huge add for me here because that numbered RC was impossible for me to find for under $1 until recently on Sportlots, and now I've tracked down all three of his cards.  Former Cowboy Charlton, who's doing pretty well when he, you know, actually gets playing time, gets within one card of halfway to his 20 after the '17 Select you see.  You'll also see Chesson again below, and for now Rookies & Stars and Prizm from 2017 are above, followed by fellow '17 guy Darboh's own R&S.  Darden's '74 Topps fixes an earlier misstep when I thought his '75 was the RC for some reason, and I'm glad to have that fixed, not to mention a new vintage add!  And then we have three out of a five-card run of transfer RB Fargas:  2003 Bowman Chrome plus Fleer Authentix and Focus (the latter of which are numbered).  Some of you might recall that that "Rookie Authentix" piece in the middle can be removed, another goofy Fleer innovation of the time.

This scan begins with the other two Fargas RCs, Mystique and UD's Honor Roll, which are also numbered, and I'm now half way to his 22.  Gold is a guy from 2000 so his stuff can get a bit of a Brady bump, but the Playoff Momentum above, my 7th of his 9, wasn't bad.  Fellow '07 draftees and PC guys Hall and Harris appear on numbered cards from Select and SP Authentic, and while I need three more of Hall's 23, the Harris is the 24th and final RC of the former tackling machine, sewing up another player.  Here-and-gone dual-sport guy Henson gets a nice trio highlighted by '04 Fleer Greats along with Playoff Honors and the college-themed Prestige for 18 of his 37.  And lesser known 2017 DB Delano Hill marks the first of three appearances of Panini Phoenix with one of his two rookie issues.

PC guy Marlin Jackson's 25th of 30 first-years is from '05 Ultimate Collection like Baas's above, and we'll see that product (different year) in a couple more scans.  '97 Ultra (and its great design!) was the last of three I needed for transfer TE Damon Jones.  Speaking of that position, I landed a couple more for Bennie Joppru:  the gorgeous '04 Donruss Classics plus Fleer's Avant, both numbered, which get me to 25/32.  I'm short just one of WR Marcus Knight's 15 rookies thanks to this 2000 trio of Fleer Showcase and Leaf Certified (both numbered) plus Playoff's Absolute (surprisingly not numbered!).  And I was thrilled to knock off a beautiful pair of numbered college uni RCs starring '04 DB Jeremy LeSueur--Classics and Elite, which leave me three short of his nine.

CB Jourdan Lewis is 2017 Panini Phoenix guy #2, which is also RC #2 in his collection.  Former #1 overall pick Long joins Arrington from '08 Stadium Club for his 19th of 22 rookies.  Transfer QB Mallett gets a big boost with six cards, all from 2011 Topps brands, to get him up to 8/10.  And we get the first of a pair starring another QB, John Navarre.  This one's from 2004 Fleer Platinum, and I was surprised that it was a numbered card given the brand's history.

Navarre's other issue is from the previously mentioned Ultimate Collection, and his pair puts him at 13/25, as his stuff continues to be a thorn in my side.  Do-everything dude Jabrill Peppers is '17 Phoenix player #3, and the 8th of his 21 RCs is from a product that's grown on me a bit.  Next you can see two of the three Jon Ritchies I found, representing another backfield guy that transferred from Michigan and ended up with the Raiders.  These are from '98 Bowman Chrome and Skybox Premium.  Aaron Shea is yet another 2000 draftee and here you see him on a shiny and numbered Pacific Prism Prospects card (his 11th of 15) which is a good reminder that the Brady from this set and others will be super expensive.  I happily checked off another player by adding RC #9 of 1999 WR Tai Streets from Leaf Certified.  Toomer joined Biakabutuka above from the '96 Score Board Lasers set and I now need just two of his 23.  And finally this scan includes a numbered pair of LB standout LaMarr Woodley--2007 Donruss Classics and Leaf Certified Materials--that go nicely with a third card below.

This mostly horizontal scan starts with a trio from the love-it-or-hate-it 2017 Panini Unparalleled set, including the previously seen Butt (7/14) and Chesson (8/13) plus the lone RC of DT Ryan Glasgow, part of the amazing walk-on family at the school.  The well-traveled Dhani Jones has two RCs and you can see one above, which he shares with a couple other Giants in 2003 Topps Total.  Another Giant follows as transfer CB Will Peterson (#2 of 4) appears on his numbered 2001 Titanium Post Season that uses a kick-ass die-cut design.  Ritchie's third card is also a die-cut from '98 Crown Royale, and gets me to 7 of his 12.  WR David Terrell looks a bit lonely without fellow Bears draftee Anthony Thomas on a 2001 Fleer Legacy RC that puts him at 27/53 rookies and 149 cards overall, one short of his RB counterpart.  And lastly, we have one more vertical card that didn't fit in a group of nine:  Woodley's numbered 2007 Topps Performance base, which puts him at 20/26.

This post plus some fun results on the field today definitely made this a fun college football Saturday for me.  And for those of you who prefer the diamond, I'm now done posting football pickups and should have something like five baseball posts to close out this series.  Thanks for reading and GO BLUE!

2019 trade package #4: Scribbled Ink

It had been a while since I last saw Paul from Scribbled Ink in-person--a Tigers game we both attended with John--and longer still since we first met up at the monthly Troy card show near his house--almost exactly a year ago.  Thankfully the stars aligned and we were both able to make it back there yesterday.  I went mostly to bring Paul a few things I'd set aside for him but I did manage to spend a few bucks while I was there, and I'll probably post show recaps in the next couple days.

In the meantime here's all the fun stuff Paul brought for me:

Without looking I'm not sure if this is a full team set of Tigers from 2018 Topps Update, but anyway they're all new to me as far as I know.  Candelario still has plenty of promise on an otherwise uninteresting 2019 squad while Greiner, Hicks, Jimenez, and Greene should all be around too.  Gerber was once an intriguing prospect but was grabbed by the Giants on waivers earlier this year and then DFAed.  Liriano is back with the Pirates after an unsuccessful 2018 campaign both for him (his numbers sucked) and the team (who couldn't flip him because he wasn't very good).

Here's a few more 2018s, this time mostly from Heritage.  I was surprised Paul gave me a Jones since he's one of his guys--must be a double!  Unfortunately JJ will likely have to start the year on the IL.  I raised an eyebrow at the Shore (Bowman Chrome) until Paul reminded me the Tigers picked him up from Oakland as a PTBNL in last season's Mike Fiers deal.  And finally we have Detroit's most underwhelming Opening Day starter since, I guess, 2004?  The forgettable Jason Johnson opened that season.  Jeremy Bonderman got the nod in '05 and '07 but I generally remember him fondly.

The Tigers may not be great this year but happily Paul also included a bunch of cards of some of my PCs.  I'd forgotten that I landed a Silver Rediscover Topps buyback of Jim Abbott's '89 Topps rookie so it was fun having that pop out of the pile, along with an oddball Cardtoons card from '93 celebrating his no-no in a goofy way.  I was surprised that I didn't already have a fun 2001 SP Top Prospects insert of former two-sport guy Drew Henson.  And a trio of Barry Larkins was also a nice highlight, especially a 2017/'18 pair of Topps inserts that were new to me.

The Michigan run continues with a pair of '99 Fleer-branded Hal Morris base and an '89 Fleer Box Bottom card of Chris Sabo.  The Sabo was actually a double for me but it's such a huge upgrade over the one I'd previously picked up (from Sportlots, I believe) that I was glad to keep it.  And lastly Paul kept me on-brand with two many Verlanders.  I've already managed to sew up both versions of these 2007 Topps/Chrome Generation Now cards but they'll make fine trade bait, especially as I try to get things going on TCDB eventually.

Thanks again for meeting up at the show again, Paul, and for another fun in-person card swap.  I hope to be able to get you out to my favorite show in Taylor before long so you can see what I consider the best dime and quarter boxes in the area!

2018 trade package #19: Scribbled Ink

I enjoyed one of my best blogger meet-ups yet a few Sundays ago when I joined Paul from Scribbled Ink and the eponymous John of John's Big League Baseball Blog in attending Alan Trammell's number retirement ceremony on August 26.

I'll pretty much defer to Paul's outstanding pictures from our seats in the Kaline's Corner section of right field, but I snapped a few shots myself.  This was the scoreboard as we waited for things to begin.  The "72 degrees" temperature was wildly inaccurate considering the muggy weather, but it didn't stop us from having a great time.

Tram joined Morris, who'd enjoyed the same honor earlier in the month.  Unfortunately Paul and I arrived just a hair too late to snag the promotional giveaway jersey--it was like Black Friday up in there--but the occasion was enough by itself for us to have a great time.  The speeches by Lou Whitaker and Trammell himself were great and really highlighted why they continue to be revered a couple decades after retiring.

The game itself was pretty typical for 2018.  Overpriced flop Jordan Zimmermann continued his reign of terror, putting the game practically out of reach for the stalled offense by allowing five runs, including a two-run shot a handful of rows behind us.  And at-that-time uninjured future star Michael Kopech showed why he was so highly regarded, stymieing Detroit's hitters for six solid innings.  Fortunately Detroit kept it somewhat interesting by loading the bases a couple times, even if they couldn't capitalize.

A particular highlight for us was a ninth inning HR by SS Ronny Rodriguez that barely eluded our section and went into the tunnel, where it was hoarded by staff working down there.  John and Paul are clearly visible in the video replay while I'm obscured by the foul pole (which is fine--I got some screen time a while back thanks to a Rajai Davis walk-off slam!).  John's the circled guy while Paul is the dude wearing the Detroit jersey.

So all in all it was a great time and I think we're all itching to do this again next year, maybe even with others involved.

A positive outcome of this event was Paul and I swapping some cards.  He brought a bunch of surprises to go with a couple things I'd claimed, and I'm very excited with what I ended up with:

It's the namesakersons!  Grandy is from the '07 Topps Generation Now insert set I'm chasing while JV is an Orange parallel (#189/299) from 2017 Topps Fire.

PC guy Rich Hill had just bested fellow PC guy Clayton Richard a couple days before this game so it was fun to see an autograph of the former pop up here.  As with the rest of his cards produced in 2009 he appears as a member of the Orioles on this Topps Career Best auto.  That came out a year before his first tour of duty with the Red Sox, after which he bounced around between LA, New York, and indy ball.  Things turned around from there and the rest is history!

Dual-sport star Drew Henson was the surprise star of the package thanks to these six cards.  The RC from 2001 Fleer Platinum plus the Fleer Tradition This Day in History insert from the following year were both new to me, with the latter joining up nicely with the autographed version I own.  The others are quite nice as well, including the Triple Crown RC which is numbered /2999.  I shouldn't be too surprised a local guy like Paul came up with these for me, though!

The Barry Larkin pile was almost as good in quantity with this cool five-spot.  A brand spanking new 2018 Archives base was a nice touch but I'm especially excited about getting the pair of 1998 Pinnacle Inside Stand-up Guys inserts that comprise this piece:

This product's can packaging and inserts like this were literally outside the box in an era where cards were fun, prior to a Topps monopoly seemingly imposed by the Dolores Umbridge of collecting.  Anyway, Barry's in good company on these cards, too, joined by the likes of Nomar, Jeter, and A-Rod.  Anytime I can add something like this to my collection it's a win, so bonus points to Paul here.

Here's one last trio of Michigan Baseball guys in my PC:  Hal Morris ('89 Donruss), J.J. Putz (2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary) and Chris Sabo (1994 Score Rookie/Traded) rounded out a very nice bunch of cards I didn't know I was getting.

But what I was prepared to haul home, thanks to Paul being nice enough to tote them to Detroit and then to Greektown from his parking spot, was this pair of sets:  1989 and '92 Topps.  He'd grabbed them on the cheap at a show and I claimed them as I continue to try to fill out Topps' flagship products from 1983 (when I was born) to some endpoint, maybe 2010 since I don't care about the more recent versions.  Thanks to Paul, plus arpsmith earlier this year, I'm one set away from that goal:  1990.

While I try to track that down I'll do up posts for each of these sets similar to the ones I did for the four I grabbed from Adam back in January.

Once again, a big thanks to Paul for bringing all of this great stuff, and to both Paul and John for a fun day at the ballpark.  I'll see you guys there next year, and hopefully sooner too, maybe for a show!