2024 trade package #17: Cards on Cards

I'm in a very thankful mood as I write this post, and not just because this past Thursday was turkey day. I'm grateful I still have family around as I get older, and friends to hang out with, a secure job, enough money to live my lifestyle, and a home.

And more specifically, today I'm very thankful that my Michigan Wolverines beat Ohio State for the fourth straight year despite breaking in a first-year coach, weathering injuries, having one of the worst QB room/offensive coordinator combos in program history, and having nothing to play for but pride, But they did it anyway!

And even more specifically to the hobby and this blog, I'm extremely grateful to everyone I have the privilege of trading with and talking to about cards, plus those who read and even comment over here despite my relative lack of posts.

In a similar vein, I'm very thankful for old blog friends I go way back with, like Kerry of Cards on Cards. Kerry's my college team/pro teams collecting doppelganger in the northwest, and he was one of the earlier folks I traded with waaaay back in 2010 not long after I started Too Many Grandersons. He sent me a fairly large envelope of stuff back in August, and I'm thankful that folks like him don't mind me taking until it's a hair before December to recap it!

Here's what he sent:

Some big names I collect to start things off with Miggy, Cronenworth, Greenberg, Greene, and Junior Griffey. Jake was born eight years after Topps originally used that design in 1986.

That's Griffey and now Gwynn and Maddux; Will the quartet be completed? Read on to find out. But first, check out these super nice additions to my collection of Matt Manning. My favorite: the 3D card, easily. We need more of these and fewer Refractor patterns (colors are fine). The Clearly Donruss acetate card is a close second, though!

His fellow high draft pick Mize also gets in on the action to a lesser degree. Morris and a few other '84 Tigers popped up in that Pinnacle Limited set much to the benefit of Detroit collectors like myself. Oh, and the short wait is over: Kerry did indeed complete the group by including four Ripkens, including a cool Red (I think?) parallel numbered /2023. Cy Young-winner Skubal is next, and while I fully expect our cheap-ass owners not to make a reasonable attempt to sign him, I'll enjoy him wearing the Olde English "D" as long as I can.

Next, Tork is definitely facing a make-or-break season as a former top guy who'll need to earn a spot on a team that should be contending in the AL Central. I really like the mix of Panini designs Kerry included here. The Sport Kings card you see of Tram is my first of the HOF SS from 2024, and that's another one of those products than can be useful for finding players you don't necessarily see much elsewhere. Hopping back to present players, could Verlander return to the Tigers? It's not out of the question, but locating that cool gold playing card-type issue on TCDb was as I'll need to do research on a checklist. Finishing out the baseball stuff, Griffey and Cronenworth make repeat appearances while a John Denny Swell card from 1990 puts me down to just nine short of that set.

While Michigan Football's overall record this year has been pretty disappointing (though wins over the two rivals on the schedule sure helped!), the basketball team is looking pretty nice under new coach Dusty May. I know I said that in my last post but that continues to be the case. None of the guys in this scan played for him but they've all since played in the NBA so that's cool. Bufkin's in his second season with Atlanta, THJ is putting up some minutes with the Pistons, and Houstan and Howard are both with Ann Arbor's pro franchise in the south, Orlando (more on that below).

The former coach's son is getting increased minutes for the Magic in his second season, which is nice to see. Speaking of familiar names, I think most people know Jordan Poole and Duncan Robinson, whether or not they know about their Ann Arbor connection.

I haven't seen this many Duncans at once since Kerry's Cardinals employed father & son duo Dave and Chris! Rose is one of a couple Fab-Fivers you'll see tonight. And as for Franz Wagner...

...the budding Magic star is yet another Orlando player represented here. It may be too late for me to get an autograph of Mo's younger brother at a reasonable price but I really appreciate Kerry passing along this many cards of Franz in one package. Meanwhile, THJ makes one more appearance in sticker form and then we have Jett's dad on a phone card, which is such a 1990s thing I think I just teleported to the mall to go to a music store after watching an episode of TRL when I got home from school. A very cool addition indeed!

And now the team of the day: the football Wolverines! My (new) Big Ten buddy is familiar with how to identify who played for my school just like I'm more than happy to look up guys from his. Transfer TE Erick All makes his collection debut out of '23 SAGE HIT, appearing in a Michigan uni despite having transferred to Iowa. Brady's about the most well-known Wolverines guy in the business but I really have to talk up fellow QB-turned-broadcaster Devin Gardner, who did an outstanding job calling Michigan's game last week after having done a very insightful podcast for a few years. Speaking of successful QBs, I was very happy to see a couple rookie-adjacent cards of '97-'98 champ Brian Griese out of Fleer Brilliants and Upper Deck UD3. Buckeye-killer Haskins is back in the NFL with Jim Harbaugh's Chargers while blog favorite QB Chad Henne rode off into the sunset after carrying the clipboard for another Chiefs title team. Turner is sadly out for the season for the Bengals but hopefully the DB will come back stronger than ever next year.

And last up tonight are these two former Wolverines receivers, both pictured wearing the Maize & Blue on Leaf autographed cards even though they each transferred out! Black was a fairly highly touted WR recruit who produced very little in three seasons before transferring to Texas for the doomed 2020 COVID season. This marks my third signature of the 4* from Connecticut.

Henning, who's also making his collection debut tonight, appeared over the 2020-22 seasons for the Wolverines, rushing for a pair of scores in 2021, with none bigger than the opening score of that year's edition of The Game. Ohio State has yet to beat its hated rival ever since. Meanwhile, Henning remained in the conference and headed to Northwestern, where he picked up five total TDs (four catches and a run) in '23. This season he caught four more and that'll do it as the Wildcats won't be bowling with a 4-8 record. We'll always have that TD in the inspiring '21 OSU win, though!

Kerry, thanks so much again for all of this great stuff! I really appreciate how well you hit so many of my various collections, and it remains a pleasure trading with you for going on 15 years. I'll be gladly including you in this year's Christmas cards and already have a few things set aside for you.

Up next will be one more August envelope, and then we'll see if I pivot to wrapping up the rest of the year's trades before I get to everything else because I always feel like those should get priority.

2022 trade package #18: My Sports Obsession

Well it's already August--hell, almost halfway through it!--though today's felt more like a late September kind of day, 60s and rainy.

I've kept plenty busy with card stuff, especially TCDB as usual, and non-card activities (almost done with the new Lego Star Wars, reading, starting up Better Call Saul), and all of that has put blogging on the back-burner for me.

That said, I do have some stuff to cover, and most importantly I owe a very cool person a trade package post.

Longtime buddy of the blog Jeff of My Sports Obsession, a fellow Michigan fan who I know is also looking forward to the upcoming football season, hit me with a mailer last month that went above and beyond in quality. Check it out!

Jeff and I have a lot of player collections in common so it's fun to swap cards of them back and forth. I was really happy to see the four above cards of Cronenworth as many of his cards are still beyond reasonable/affordable prices. I've snagged a few through TCDB trades and I'm grateful to Jeff for sending more! My favorites are the Diamond Kings card (even sans logos) and Bowman Chrome insert since it's a Refractor. TCDB tells me I have exactly 50 of him logged so far, not bad!

My biggest PC remains one Calvin Edwin Ripken Jr., and he's another guy Jeff collects bigtime. Because I have over 1100 Ripken cards I looked at the above (and below, as you'll see in a second) base items Jeff sent and though, "Thanks, buddy, but these are all dupes." WRONG! Somehow I needed all but one of the Cals he sent me (seen in the next scan). That's a pretty big surprise because besides the volume of cards I have of the Iron Man, these pretty much all came from when I was going crazy buying all kinds of boxes/packs without any kind of focus. They're a terrific mix and I'm happy to have them.

Here you see seven more of Ripken, and the lone double is the Pinnacle Inside card right down the middle. If nothing else I'm shocked I didn't have the UD Starquest insert that opens this scan. The '98 Ultra base is the last of the older bunch and then we have a 2018 Topps Silver Pack card that came out two decades later. Maybe someday I'll have as many Ripkens as the number of consecutive games he appeared in: 2632. Thanks to folks like Jeff maybe I'll get there.

Oh yeah, and then we have the biggest surprise of this package. Out of nowhere popped out a 2016 Panini Pantheon Milestone Scripts Bronze autograph of Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline. Wow! Al had a beautiful signature, of which I'm well aware thanks to owning seven of them now, and let me tell you, it doesn't get old at all each time I get a new one. This one is from a set that celebrates certain marks, and as you can see it highlights Al reaching the 3,000 hit plateau with a total of 3,007. He achieved that count in his final season, 1974, his 22nd in the bigs. Interestingly enough those extra seven came from his 30-game cup of coffee in 1953 over 30 plate appearances. He's currently #32 overall in the category, with fellow great Roberto Clemente the last in the club with 3K exactly. Now that Miggy has joined elite company (he sits at #25 as of this post) it's hard to say how long we'll be waiting for the next member.

Anyway, this is a stunner of a card and I was absolutely floored to find it. And then I turned it over and it got even better:

Yep, it's limited to just 15 copies. Just amazing. Thanks so much for your generosity, Jeff!

That's not all there was by a long shot, though, because as I mentioned, Jeff and I both chase Wolverines as well. From the growing group of basketball alumni we have a shiny twofer of three-point machine Duncan Robinson, who just got paid, and a great college action Michigan uni card of Mo's bro Franz Wagner.

Football begins promisingly with a Gold Zone parallel of star CB Leon Hall's 2007 Score RC, #d 532/600. I do love numbered parallels from this era. Joining him is former 5* QB recruit Brandon Peters, a guy who looked like as sure of a future star as anyone. Things didn't work out that way and he transferred to Illinois, in whose uniform he appears in the above Bowman University card. One of Jim Harbaugh's earliest and most promising recruits at the position, it's a shame things didn't go differently but I'm happy he was able to get his chance with the Illini.

On the hits side of things, first up is another Michigan uni card, this time a great autograph out of Panini's excellent Contenders Draft product. Zach Gentry was a QB recruit who successfully converted to the TE position and got himself drafted by the Steelers. Next to him is a guy with whom the word "success" most certainly applies, at least during his career in Ann Arbor, Chris Perry. The insanely talented RB ended his four-year Wolverines career all over the record books and as a Heisman finalist in 2003. I love the 2004 Fleer Sweet Sigs Copper auto (#011/160) Jeff was nice enough to include here because I thought the trend of signatures on all kinds of manufactured materials was very enjoyable. I believe this is the fourth such card I have of him out of 56 hits. Very cool!

Jeff, once again, thanks very much for being so generous with this latest envelope! I was already going to appreciate the Cronenworth and Ripken cards and the Michigan additions were excellent, and then you blew me away with the Kaline! Hopefully I'll have some great stuff to send back your way before long, plus maybe at some point we really can get together for a show?

All of you should get on over to My Sports Obsession while I work on my next post covering last weekend's show. After that it shouldn't be too much longer before I start catching up on my latest batch of TCDB swaps. Until then, keep enjoying summer as those of us who watch look forward to the return of college football!

2022 trade package #17: the Diamond King

You all know I love trading, possibly as my favorite part of the hobby. Pair that up with shows and you've got a one-two punch of collecting fun!

A few weeks ago I posted my recap of July's show and that included the usual array of trade bait. One of those items was a '91 Topps Desert Shield of Twins P Scott Erickson that I scored for just a buck. Not long after, Kevin, who blogs as the Diamond King, let me know he wanted to make a deal for it. Great!

I looked through his posts from earlier this year to get an idea of what I might like for it and found something that would be perfect: Derek Jeter's bronze base card from 1996 Finest. It would be the last one I needed to complete the 220-card bronze part of the set (I'm not chasing the rarer Silvers and Golds), and was something I couldn't find a reasonable deal for online, buying or trading. So that was perfect!

Here's everything Kevin sent my way:

I would have been perfectly happy with just the Jeter but Kevin was nice enough to include a few Verlanders I know about and some other cards that were nice surprises! Of the Verlanders (four many!) my favorite is easily the 2015 Elite Inspirations parallel. It's shiny, die-cut, and numbered (/65) so what's not to love? The others are parallels as well: 2017 Topps Gallery's Canvas, 2019 Topps Fire's Flamethrowers Gold Minted, and 2020 Donruss's Highlights Rapture. Seriously, Panini and Topps have so many color/pattern variations I can't keep them all straight! These are some great looking cards, though.

And from basketball we continue the parallel them. Three point machine Duncan Robinson can be seen on 2019-20 Hoops Premium Stock's regular Prizms version, which I believe is sometimes referred to as "Silver" if not just "Prizms." And recent HOFer Chris Webber shares his 1999-00 Finest Double Feature insert with former three-year teammate Jason "White Chocolate" Williams. These cards could be Refractor-ized either in full or on either side, and in this case you might be able to tell that Williams' side gets the coveted bending of light, but I think it's a cool Webber card either way.

Kevin, many thanks for reaching out to make this deal, finishing my '96 Finest (bronze) set, and sending me some other great stuff with it! It looks like this was just our second trade since I've been blogging, and first since June of 2013, so I hope we don't wait so long to make the next one!

Up next is another blogger trade I'm excited to show off with a very cool surprise hidden inside.

2020 trade package #32: Scribbled Ink

Baseball's over, with the Dodgers finally claiming the World Series they were cheated out of in 2017, and they no longer have to worry about being the NL version of the Indians, winning a number of pennants in a few years but not a ring.

That certainly doesn't mean the baseball cards have stopped coming in, though! Buddy of the blog and former fellow Michigander Paul of Scribbled Ink let me know a couple weeks ago to expect a PWE, and not long after it arrived. He also informed me that this envelope, and I quote, "...make make [me] a bit uncomfortable." Interesting....

I pulled it out of my mailbox and immediately noted how well protected it was thanks to a good amount of cardboard, then removed the contents. First cardboard piece:

I mean, I dunno, recycling seems like a good thing, no?

Second piece:

👀 I don't think this is what the kids mean today when they say they're "vibing" but I'm probably too old to know. This was definitely good for a laugh, and I'm glad I didn't have to try to explain this to anybody, unless someone decides to go through my trash. Well done, Paul!

Anyway, here's the cards he sent, all seven of them:

Junior Griffey is certainly a nice start. He was still playing in 2010 when that A&G base was made, and that would be his sunset campaign, while the stats on the back cover his 2009 return to the Queen City. He'd hit the final 19 of his 630 career homers in '09, and he'd do it looking like the kid who made his debut 20 years prior. And 10 years after his penultimate season, Topps would produce an Archives card of him with the '75 design, giving us another look at the backwards-hatted Junior.

Next up is one of my favorite Tigers mashers as a kid, 3B Dean Palmer. His '96 Finest base was a need, from one of my favorite designs that came out of that product. In fact, the 1996-97 run is probably my favorite two-year pairing they came up with. Dean-o played in only 36 games during the strike-shortened '95 season, but in '96 he'd go off for a career-best 38 bombs, a number he duplicated in his Motown debut in '99. I hope to keep pulling in as many of his cards as I can find and I appreciate Paul shooting one my way, likely because he found it on my TCDB wantlist!

HOF SS Tram never got to play on the left side of the infield with Palmer because 1996 was his last season, a year before his '97 Score Premium Stock card came out. The Topps-level cropping is a bit weird but I like the horizontal photo otherwise.

Then we have two (many) Verlanders, both of which were new to me, always a difficult task. Up top is a 2019 Topps Sticker where he's paired with former Mariners closer Edwin Diaz, who was shipped to the Mets in a hilarious lopsided deal (a.k.a. business as usual for that New York franchise). The other looks just like the 2013 Heritage base I've received a ton of, except for one thing:

it's the Venezuelan version! These are immediately obvious thanks to the black backs and actually fairly decently short-printed. Not a bad addition at all to the (too) many other Verlanders I own.

And last up today is a bit of a surprise in the form of a basketball card: a 2019-20 Illusions base of former Wolverines basketballer Duncan Robinson. A solid contributor in college, nobody expected him to do much in the NBA after going undrafted, but don't try to tell him that. In just his second season he was a big part of the Heat fighting all the way to the Finals before losing to the LeBron James-led Lakers superteam. It was fun watching him drain some big threes in the highlights I saw, and I hope this season leads to a long and satisfying career for the Michigan man.

Here's some backs, including the Venezuelan Verlander you already saw. Hey, remember when Michael Wacha was a thing? Stay away from the Mets, kids.

Paul, thanks a ton of some great cards well protected by some X-rated materials! With any luck I'll get to a show next weekend and come up with a few items to send back your way, though I don't know that I'll try my luck one-upping you in the packaging department. If I do make it up to Taylor Town I'll definitely be thinking of you if I get surrounded to the point of molestation by smelly, sweaty guys digging through boxes.