The TCDB Michigan Box part 2: football

I had a great time at this afternoon's monthly show and will be recapping that in relatively short order, but this evening I'm happy to finally take care of something I've had on the back burner for more than two years.

Last March I did a quick recap of the basketball stuff I needed from what I've been simply referring to as "The Michigan Box", a 5000-count monster box that was nearly full of UM basketball and football dupes from the collection of TCDB member cijt. As a quick reminder, back in May of 2020 he sent me the box in return for a mix of some of my dupe Michigan hits and a few other things that fit his collection.

It took me quite a while to sort through everything, especially the football stuff since it was sorted by player but then brand/year instead of my preferred year/brand. Plus I had to filter out anything I already had a copy of, plus any additional copies in many cases.

Still, it was a lot of fun to do that work and very productive for my collection as well--I was able to add more than 1600 new cards to my Michigan Football PCs! Putting them away will coincide with my project of expanding the home of those collections from four to five monster boxes because they were getting pretty snug.

Here's a look at what was left in the box after I removed all the dupes (and the basketball stuff that I'd previously covered). I won't be showing all 1600+ cards, but I will show one for every player represented, plus a few of the items you see in the fifth row of the box pictured above as well.

I also snagged a picture of the players' piles to try to give a sense of scale so you can see who benefitted the most from this trade. I know by the spreadsheet I created to track all this that Jim Harbaugh was the big winner, with Brian Griese, Evlis Grbac, Derrick Alexander, and Tyrone Wheatley following in his wake. I should also point out that the vast majority of cards were from the late 80s, 90s, and early 2000s (Chris apparently set a cutoff of who he collects around 2008). The second-to-last pile you see is guys who only had one or two new cards added, and those are followed by some new TK Legacy adds.

Because this is a lot of cards to cover I'm presenting the scans without comment other than identifying the players, mentioning how many new cards they added to their PCs, and then in parentheses noting their current collection counts as of this posting on TCDB.

There are 10 scans covering the 84 players whose collections were hit followed by a scan of TK Legacy stuff, and then a few more scans with something out of the ordinary at the end. Please enjoy this mix of years and brands of football cards!:

Bobby Abrams: 1 (2)     Derrick Alexander: 130 (189)     Jason Avant: 2 (121)

Ron Bellamy: 1 (18)     Tim Biakabutuka: 89 (230)     Keith Bostic: 2 (3)

Tom Brady: 28 (288)     Steve Breaston: 2 (130)     Jarrod Bunch: 22 (34)

Jerry Burns: 2 (4)     Chris Calloway: 41 (55)     Anthony Carter: 55 (100)

Todd Collins: 30 (72)     Evan Cooper: 1 (3)     Thom Darden: 3 (7)

Dan Dierdorf: 4 (9)     Dean Dingman: 1 (4)     Tom Dohring: 1 (1)

Glenn Doughty: 2 (4)     Braylon Edwards: 31 (338)     Jumbo Elliott: 17 (28)
Matt Elliott: 1 (4)     Mike Evans: 2 (4)     Steve Everitt: 7 (27)
Justin Fargas: 2 (27)     Jay Feely: 1 (2)     Chris Floyd: 1 (9)

Devin Funchess: 1 (79)     Ian Gold: 3 (10)     Brandon Graham: 1 (47)
Elvis Grbac: 136 (191)     Brian Griese: 165 (386)     James Hall: 1 (3)
Mike Harden: 4 (6)     David Harris: 2 (94)     Mercury Hayes: 2 (7)

Drew Henson: 3 (38)     Leroy Hoard: 70 (87)     Steve Hutchinson: 1 (15)
Marlin Jackson: 2 (65)     Jon Jansen: 1 (4)     Trezelle Jenkins: 2 (11)
Dhani Jones: 2 (14)     Cato June: 1 (12)     Mike Kenn: 19 (30)

Ty Law: 59 (91)     Randy Logan: 1 (3)     Jake Long: 1 (148)
Rob Lytle: 1 (4)     Tom Mack: 2 (6)     Tony McGee: 49 (71)
Greg McMurtry: 25 (33)     Jamie Morris: 1 4()     John Navarre: 1 (32)

Mel Owens: 1 4()     Bubba Paris: 5 (9)     Chris Perry: 1 (122)
Robert Perryman: 6 (8)     Jay Riemersma: 14 (32)     Denard Robinson: 2 (119)
Jon Runyan: 1 (5)     Greg Skrepenak: 5 (17)     Jim Smith: 1 (5)

Tai Streets: 15 (48)     Mike Teeter: 3 (3)     David Terrell: 3 (157)
Anthony Thomas: 41 (196)     Amani Toomer: 87 (318)     Jerame Tuman: 1 (12)
Jon Vaughn: 29 (41)     Derrick Walker: 8 (12)     Marquise Walker: 2 (68)

Gabe Watson: 2 (32)     Tyrone Wheatley: 111 (237)
Charles Woodson: 2 (325)     Butch Woolfolk: 1 (4)

Lou Baldacci: 1 (2)     Dave Brown: 2 (7)
Curtis Greer: 2 (6)     Ali Haji-Sheikh: 4 (7)
Jim Harbaugh: 205 (368)     Desmond Howard: 64 (103)
Reggie McKenzie: 3 (6)     Trevor Pryce: 1 (4) (Griese also pictured)

How awesome was that variety?! Lots of Michigan uniforms and plenty of shininess I wanted to highlight as well. The majority of what I added was base with a few inserts mixed in, but I don't care because I love adding any new Michigan stuff I can. Speaking of that...

These were the TK Legacy cards I needed, and many of the names are notable--the Wistert family was big here, Leach was a sensation, and Morrison and Turco are two of the most successful alumni of the hockey program.

Speaking of TK Legacy, a product I broke several boxes of, Chris included an empty pack (shown roughly actual size) from an unknown year (I could probably figure it out but don't feel like doing the research) with Braylon Edwards front and center. I didn't keep any of these from my previous boxes but think I'll hold onto this one.

And lastly, there was a whole mess of tickets/stubs that I was excited to add to my collection. I love the mix of images used on these, from game action to campus sites, and many of them came from wins as well! The first two scans include 20 tickets from games between 1976 and 1984 while the final one includes plain game passes instead of tickets along with three stubs that are hard to pin down. Similar to what I did with the cards and player collection info above, I looked up the score of each game and posted the results below:

• 1976 vs. Wake Forest: W 31-0
• 1977 vs. Wisconsin: W 56-0
• 1978 vs. Arizona: W 21-17
• 1978 vs. Michigan State: L 24-15
• 1979 vs. Minnesota: W 31-21
• 1979 vs. Wisconsin: W 54-0
• 1979 vs. Ohio State: L 18-15
• 1980 vs. Cal: W 38-13
• 1980 vs. Michigan State: W 27-23
• 1980 vs. Purdue: W 26-0

• 1981 vs. Notre Dame: W 25-7
• 1981 vs. Navy: W 21-16
• 1981 vs. Illinois: W 70-21
• 1982 vs. Indiana: W 24-10
• 1982 vs. Michigan State: W 31-17
• 1983 vs. Purdue: W 42-10
• 1984 vs. Washington: L 20-11
• 1984 vs. Michigan State: L 19-7
• 1984 vs. Illinois: W 26-18
• 1984 vs. Minnesota: W 31-7

Total record of these: 16-4

• 1979 vs. Minnesota: W 31-21
• 1979 vs. Ohio State: L 18-15
• 1980 vs. Northwestern: W 17-10
• 1980 vs. Cal: W 38-13
• 1980 vs. Michigan State: W 27-23
• 1981 vs. Iowa: L 9-7
• 1981 vs. Northwestern: W 38-0
• 1981 vs. Illinois: W 70-21
• Purdue: unknown
• Michigan State: unknown
• Houston: either 1992 (W 61-7) or 1993 (W 42-21)

Total record of these: 7-2 (with 2 unknown), with some overlap with the games above.

I'm excited that I'll finally be putting these away after they've been sitting in the box for over two years, and it'll be fun seeing for myself just how big they make each of the players' stacks instead of just relying on a number on a list!

With these covered I'll be back soon, possibly as soon as this holiday weekend, with a card show recap. I hope everyone has a safe and relaxing Fourth of July weekend, even at a time when the Supreme Court has made it impossible to celebrate.

TCDB trade roundup: c2cigars, deadhead11, and Mjprigge

I had a pretty busy couple weeks in terms of card stuff that feels like it included everything but blogging. Lots of logging/scanning, going to a show, and proposing, sending and receiving some TCDB trades.

Speaking of the latter, I've been fortunate enough to have three envelopes show up recently thanks to that site (with at least one more on the way!), so I thought it would be fun to do a second (I believe?) TCDB trade roundup. Here's a quick look at what I received:

First up was either a PIF (pay it forward) or RAK (random act of kindness) from C2Cigars, a.k.a. Chuck. If his name sounds familiar to you, that's because I was able to meet up with him and Paul at a show in Paul's neck of the woods late in 2019. Continuing the spirit of a thread that's now more than four years old and 2500+ posts strong, Chuck sent me the following nine cards out of the blue:

The first two are 2021 Donruss base issues of Tigers teammates Miggy and the Candyman. I think the design could have used less white and more color, but it's cool having a couple more 2021 Tigers in my collection since I don't buy packs or anything. Candelario's lacked the power he showed off last year, but it's fun to see Cabrera chasing a couple milestones as his career winds down.

Besides those I was treated to a seven-spot of '21 Heritage Tigers. Topps is running back the '72 design this year, and it features a solid design, though I still prefer action shots to this posed stuff. But it does hit some classic notes nicely, so there's that. Miggy and Candelario are also featured here, along with pitchers Tyler Alexander, Gregory Soto, and Spencer Turnbull. Also in the picture is slugger C.J. Cron, who I was disappointed to see gone after his powerful start to the 2020 season was interrupted by injury. And then there's my favorite of the bunch: a throwback to the multiplayer RCs of yesteryear. This one includes a trio of pitching prospects: the recently DFAed Beau Burrows, who lost his lunch on the mound and then his spot on the team; Kyle Funkhouser, who's been quite good out of the 'pen; and Rony Garcia, whom Detroit snagged from the Yankees in the 2019 Rule 5 draft.

I also want to give extra credit to Chuck as Alexander's card is a short print, one of three Tigers in the high numbers (including Joe Jimenez and JaCoby Jones).

And why not include the backs for completeness?

It was very cool of him to send these my way and fortunately for me I'd already gathered a few items for him before supplementing them with a few more at last week's show (recap coming soon-ish). I may also follow his lead and pick a random TCDBer to send a PIF to so the fun continues.

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Next up is a deal I completed with John from Minnesota who goes by deadhead11 (with an assist from Paul!). A fan of Saints and Shaq, among others, John DMed me asking about a couple New Orleans hits I scored on the cheap from my monthly show, wondering if we could work out a deal around them. Hey, I'm happy to take a look, at least.

We batted the proposal back and forth a few times, and thanks to a few cards Paul was generous enough to PWE to him on my behalf, we agreed on a deal that brought me some cool Michigan Football stuff, including a pair of new autographs:

The first nine include vets like WR Derrick Alexander ('99 Finest), OT John "Jumbo" Elliott ('94 Stadium Club), insane Viking C Steve Everitt ('95 Pacific), and QB Elvis Grbac ('99 Pacific). Rookie year cards comprise transfer TE Devin Asiasi (2020 Playoff RC), beastly DL/LB Brandon Graham (2010 Playoff Contenders Rookie of the Year Contenders insert), transfer QB Ryan Mallett (2011 Finest RC), LB Jonas Mouton (2011 Rookies & Stars Longevity Silver parallel /249), and transfer QB Jack Rudock (2016 Panini Prizm RC). I loved getting some of the lesser seen vets like the two OL, and the rookies were helpful with my project where I'm chasing those, including guys who transferred out (Asiasi and Mallett), and new additions like Rudock. I appear to be just one first-year shy for the two quarterbacks here, while I own just a pair of Asiasis.

Before we get to the autographs there's one more base to admire, with former #1 Alexander getting the die-cut/horizontal treatment courtesy of 2001 Pacific Crown Royale. How could I not try to swing that as part of the deal?

But my real prizes were a pair of Thomas Rawls autographs (speaking of transfers!). John had one listed and came up with another one, which was a nice bonus for me. The Wolverines/CMU Chippewas RB can be seen here on a pair of signatures from 2016 Panini products: Infinity's Infinite Ink (/188) and Prestige. Both are great in their own right with the card on the left being thick, shiny, and numbered, and the other showing off that full bleed Prestige look that I tend to appreciate.

These are my first two solo autographs of Rawls to go along with a relic, auto/relic, and plate.

I was very happy with my experience dealing with John and would highly recommend him thanks to his patience and willingness to work out a fair deal.

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And finally, hot out of the mailbox today, is the result of a deal with TCDBer/Tweep Matt of Wisconsin, whom many of you know as Mjprigge on the former and @mjpmke on the latter. The author/librarian/Brewers fan tweeted that he was hoping to try to put together the fun debut of Upper Deck's SPx from 1996. I almost immediately asked him to send me a wantlist since I had a few I was happy to give up. We ended up matching up for five that he needed, plus a college football autograph I'd grabbed at a past show. In return, I was happy to get the following in an easily worked out PWE trade:

I think I was the most excited about card #1 here since it's the oldest: a '69 Topps Deckle Edge of former Tigers great Willie Horton. Bulking up his collection is something I've been trying to focus on recently so scoring something like that in a deal is great.

The next four cards represent three of his teammates that combined to help the Tigers win the '68 Series. Mickey Stanley is seen here on his '73 Topps base, on which someone noted in pen that the Gold Glove CF that year also played some SS, which is a bit of an understatement. Detroit manager Mayo Smith made the ballsy call to move Stanley to the all important infield spot for the World Series, replacing all glove/no-bat SS Ray Oyler while fitting OFs Horton, Al Kaline, and Jim Northrup, into the lineup as well. Man did that pay off!

The aforementioned Northrop comes up next on his '74 Topps base, and he took advantage of his '68 Series at-bats with a pair of homers and 8 RBI in the win.

Then awesome story and PH great Gates Brown joins Stanley's second appearance out of 1976 SSPC, with that product continuing to be the gift that keeps on giving. Brown chipped in 6 HR during the title-winning season, with a few coming in clutch situations off the bench.

Gates won a second ring as a coach with the Tigers in '84, a team that included former White Sox OF Chet Lemon, who came to Detroit in a swap that sent Steve Kemp to the Windy City in 1981, the year the card you see above was made by Topps . I'd say that deal worked out just fine for the good guys as Lemon put up eight solid-to-excellent campaigns in nine seasons in Motown, including a career-high 6.2 bWAR (matching the previous year) during that magical '84 season.

Last up in this scan is another ring winner, just one that didn't accomplish the feat with Detroit. I can't go that many posts on TMV without at least one Verlander, and here you can see the 2017 champ on a 2020 Topps League Leaders subset issue, which mentions his 21 wins to top the AL in 2019; teammate Gerrit Cole came in second with 20. Alas for the cheatin' Astros, they couldn't repeat the magic of 2017 for some reason, and fell to the Nats.

We're not quite done here, yet, though, because there's one more item remaining. Toymaker LJN co-produced these oversized oddballs, like Larkin's here, with Topps in 1989, and while the front looks normal enough, the back is definitely enough to throw most people for a loop. You could "play" audio clips on the top half of the back with a special record player that was sold separately (wasn't everything, back then?) making them a fun novelty, though obviously they never caught on.

Big thanks to Matt, who's a fun Twitter follow and excellent TCDBer, for another easy deal, our second (with the other happening about a year ago). I love helping people tackle sets when I can, and getting some very cool cards from a rock solid trade partner is just gravy.

At some point in the near future I'll have another recap of a deal made on the site with a familiar (at least to me) trader, but first I'll be showing off a couple other trade packages plus going over the results of my latest monthly show.

2021 Baseballcardstore.ca purchases: frugal football

After seeing lots of other folks showing off some fun purchases from Baseballcardstore.ca I finally decided to make one of my own last month, picking up 250 cards from the "Online Dime Box" for $25 (imagine that) plus their flat $4.99 shipping. (Side note: you can use a coupon code on each transaction to have them hold onto your cards until you want them all shipped.)

A few weeks later I received a very well packed and protected box that contained everything I'd ordered (nothing missing!) plus even what I think was a freebie since I ended up with 251 items.

I'm going to break this down into at least two posts--football and baseball--and may even split up the baseball stuff since there's a lot. We'll see.

So tonight I'm showing off the football stuff. My strategy here was simply to search by name and grab everything I could find of each player I collect. And why not, with cards costing just a dime each, not to mention wanting to get good value for the flat shipping cost. Though there's nothing extremely exciting here it was definitely fun adding a bunch of new items to my football PCs on the cheap as a replacement for digging through dime boxes in-person.

Here's what I got:

I like starting out strong with a college uni card, even if it's the only one of the bunch. Former #1 WR Derrick Alexander led the way with nine new cards four of which you see here in vertical format, including Action Packed, a Pro Line set you'll see a few more times, and a shiny Prestige base. A beautiful Black Diamond Biakabutuka is one of three you'll see of the Buckeye-killing RB. And Calloway returns us to the WR position in a bunch of cards that was very offensive (in the best way!).

Carter, a star WR himself, joined the 1000 yard club for three straight seasons, 1988-90, including a career high 1225 in '88. QB Collins' Pacific Invincible base is definitely one of the highlights of the purchase, a fun dime box gem. "Jumbo" Elliott had a very nice 14-year career with the Giants and Jets, so tracking down four new cards of him was a plus. And Funchess's cards (you'll see one more in the next scan) from 2017 were definitely the most recent in the group.

It only feels like I bought the entire '97 Pro Line set. Grbac joins Collins as ex-Wolverine journeyman QBs with awesome cards today, in his case the beautiful 2000 Bowman's Best design. Coach Harbaugh ups the QB count and gets a nice shiny Prestige addition of his own. HOF former Badger/Wolverine "Crazy Legs" Hirsch comes to us from a "baseball" product, Panini's Golden Age, that's about as baseball as A&G and GQ, but that's fine since he's awesome. Heisman winner Howard joins him to continue the run on receivers, and that Classic Images card is so 90s I just did a kickflip on a skateboard while yelling "radical!" and I don't even own a skateboard!

McGee and Riemersma would form a TE pair any Michigan coach would die for. A-Train and Toomer hail from the nice to look at if especially curly 2002 Topps Chrome set. Wheatley's athleticism was certainly a work of art and is captured well on a Pacific Impressions card from 2001. And Super Bowl Champ Woodley doesn't look very happy to be one of just two defenders I could find this time.

Yep, Derrick Alexander definitely had a good day, and here he adds an Ultra insert, Black Diamond base, and a couple of Crown Royales to boot (and he's still not done!). Grbac also got the Crown treatment, and we're not quite done with the die-cut beauties yet. Howard was the #2 player here with five cards including this trio that brought an Ultra Gold Medallion and a somewhat rare Lions appearance.

There's TE McGee again, joining WR alum Howard above in a cool Flair set. Transfer RB Ritchie looks ready to kill a dude on both of his cards. Toomer gets the die-cut treatment from Pacific Atomic and Crown Royale, and the previously seen Wheatley can also be seen on a different version of the latter. Between the two I'm more of a fan of the team die-cuts of Atomic, but you're getting something cool either way!

Last up is the oddly sized stuff. I snagged four players from Fleer's '97 Goudey II throwback product. Collins is by himself near the top of the set while the other three are consecutive, which I thought was cool. Looks like I need to track down Harbaugh, Toomer, and Howard to achieve the team set.

After the Funchess cards you saw earlier, the 2015 Panini stickers you see here at the bottom of Shoelace and Woodson (the day's other defensive representative) were the next most recent. The Robinson foil was a fun throwback to when I'd chase those special stickers to put in Panini's baseball books.

And last up is a trio of cards that both look and scanned better than I'd expected. Those horizontal minis on the right are Open Field holograms from 1996 Playoff Contenders. The one-per-pack insert was broken up into Green, Purple, and Red (which you can discern based on what you see around the player's name), with Green both the most plentiful and easy to pull and Red being the rarest. All three of my players here are Green, as you might imagine since they were a dime each.

I'll be back in the near-ish future with the baseball stuff but first I have a sweet new trade package to dig into, so you'll probably see that next. In the meantime, if you haven't yet I'd recommend giving Baseballcardstore.ca a look! Browsing's not as nice as I'd like but the prices, accuracy, and shipping are excellent, so if you've been on the fence I'd say go for it.

2019 COMC purchases: falling for football inserts

Well, I wanted a win and a win is what I got!  The offense stalled--for both teams, really--but Michigan's defense came up huge time after time in a vintage performance.  The team's detractors, many of whom think of themselves as fans somehow, will have to move the goalposts elsewhere, which I don't think they'll have a problem doing.  As for me, I'll enjoy another big win and celebrate with some cards.

Today's gonna be another short one before a big finish.  I picked up a small number of football inserts, and I think a decent number of you will enjoy these as much as I do since some were made during the height of cardboard creativity.

That's not me booing over here, I'm yelling "Duuuuuuuuuuuufex!"  Pinnacle's signature insert effect is on full display when it comes to this '95 Zenith Rookie Roll Call of former #1 WR Derrick Alexander.  It sure is nice to look at, and don't think I didn't catch that little "NO MORE THAN 1,200 SETS PRODUCED" notice on the bottom.  That's 42 cards of Alexander, almost as many as his 48 receptions that indeed led rookie wideouts in '94, as the back mentions.

Sticking with Pinnacle, we'll jump forward one year to the '96 version's Die Cut Jerseys insert.  This one, starring PC guy Tim Biakabutuka, isn't Dufexed, but the jersey-shaped die-cutting is very cool and instantly caught my eye while I was browsing his cards on COMC.  Bonus points for the back serving as a reminder for the way he demolished Ohio State's defense in 1995!

Now let's go with a more recent player, one that keeps up the theme of offense and brings a Michigan uni photo to the table as well.  What you see here is Devin Funchess' 2015 Prestige Extra Points Gold parallel (#16/50) of his RC from that product.  This was yet another design that I enjoyed from Prestige, with the front offering a nice bonus of showing Funch's draft position and the back providing some stats in a non-traditional format.  Add in some gold and serial-numbering and I'm on board!

By most measures, Jeff Garcia had a better career than former Michigan QB Elvis Grbac, but that doesn't quite Settle the Score, like this insert of the same name from 2001 Select (#437/550).  Elvis did leave the building in 1994 with a Super Bowl ring after getting a bit of playing time during his rookie season with the Niners, who'd go on to win it all.  Sure, it amounted to all of 50 pass attempts, including an incompletion plus a fumble (which he didn't lose) on a rush in the big game in garbage time, but that's more than Garcia can say!

Speaking of former QBs, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has been a lightning rod for criticism for many reasons, often due to his X's and O's.  I hope he and OC Josh Gattis figure things out because despite the way he's come up short in his four-plus seasons, I still root for him and want to see him succeed, if only to shut up the media and fans that build him up so they can call him overrated.  He definitely needs to improve, but fans should be getting behind him and the team.  Consider this shiny 1999 Playoff Momentum SSD X's insert (#182/300) a show of support from TMV.

Everybody else in today's post played offense but given the Iowa game's result, the defense has more than earned the honor of closing things out, just as they did against the Hawkeyes.  Tackling machine David Harris was one of my favorite Michigan defenders, and he carried over that performance to the NFL, making the program proud once again.  He must have been a great pro because it's relatively rare to see defenders on cardboard, such as this 2017 Donruss Jersey Number parallel (#28/52).  I count myself as a fan of parallels like this and the Stat Line cards which are numbered to something specific instead of a generic 100, 1000, etc.  Speaking of that other insert, Harris does indeed have a season Stat Line parallel in the 2017 product which offers his sunset cards.

With one more post in this series I'll try to get the last one--which, again, is a doozy--up soon so I can move on to a trade package, eBay loot, and another big-ass Sportlots haul.  Until then, GO BLUE!