2023 trade packages #19 and 20: It's Like Having My Own Card Shop and Cardboard Collections

It's been a busy few weeks for me card-wise. I think I mentioned the garage sale I hit up not too long ago, plus there was my usual monthly show. I scored another fun small collection via Facebook a couple Fridays ago, then headed out to the western part of the state this past weekend to meet up with Jeff and his cousin Sluggo along with John (more on that in a future post) for another show. Oh, and between all of that I also made a few more TCDb and blogger trades and eBay buys. I've got cards that need to be posted coming out of my ears!

So let's try to start catching up a little by covering a couple more blogger trades this evening. First up is Daniel of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop. Waaay back in July he sent me a nice envelope of mostly Tigers that I really appreciated:

What better parallel could there be for Tigers cards but orange? Pretty much everything here is a parallel in some way, shape, or form, which is pretty cool, even if there's only one current (and soon-to-be-former!) Tiger. The low numbering on Garcia's Refractor is very impressive but my favorite card here has to be Mr. Tiger's Stadium Club Chrome Refractor. It doesn't show up in the scan but it looks beautiful in hand. Maddux was the lone non-Tiger today but I always appreciate getting new stuff of him.

Most of what's left here is also of the parallel or insert variety. Mazara's stint was short (thankfully) but the younger Meadows is an intriguing prospect, though it's hard to say if he'll get to appear in a game with his brother, who hopefully gets some help with his various issues. Verlander's always been a lights out kind of pitcher and I'm thankful I got to see him in person a number of times with the Tigers. And lastly there was a surprise autograph of former prospect Ronnie Bourquin. Detroit took him in the 2nd round of the '06 draft out of Ohio State (no wonder he never amounted to anything!) and he never rose above the AA level before spending a few years in indy ball. He at least had a nice signature as seen on the Bowman Sterling card above, though.

Daniel, thank you again for an excellent envelope of my Motown baseballers (plus Maddux!), I appreciate it, even if it took way longer than it should have to show these off.

Not too long after the cards above hit my mailbox I got a nice little PWE from Colbey, the man whose wheels are fly like the honeys, and who blogs oat Cardboard Collections. For the second time this year he sent me some fodder for my Michigan Football PC:

Yeah, I guess if Colbey's gonna be familiar with any Michigan alumni it would be one who played for his favorite NFL team. On the back of his business card I included above he expressed hope that I needed this 1997 Fleer Goudey mini of Buckeye-killer RB Tim Biakabutuka, who played 50 games for Colbey's Panthers. Good news: I did indeed need it! That's not bad since I'm getting pretty close to 250 cards of Touchdown Tim.

And here's the back for completeness because it's the least I can do when I only have to scan one card!

Thanks to you as well for thinking of my and my favorite team to collect, Colbey! I may be hitting you back at least once before it's time to send Christmas cards.

Readers, please stay tuned for more as I try to dig out of this pile of stuff to post that I keep allowing to grow. I'll likely prioritize blogger trades for a bit more until I'm caught up on them.

2022 trade package #4: It's Like Having My Own Card Shop

This evening I have another trade package from a well known blogger that happened with an assist from TCDB. I talk to a number of guys on the site who handle IRs (inaccuracy reports) and a few of them are really cool so I've also begun trading with them. While at a show late last year I came across a nice Robin Yount relic for $5 that I knew someone would like, and once I looked over this member's tradelist, we were able to make a quick deal around this card (future TCDB trade post to come).

That deal was mainly centered around a card I knew a certain someone might like: Paul Goldschmidt collector Daniel of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop. In December Daniel confirmed in a Twitter conversation that he'd like the manurelic seen in this post here and that he'd be able to send some stuff back that I could use. That was good enough for me since we've done some deals in the past I was plenty happy with.

He ended up coming up with "a few cards from [my] want lists and a couple of Tigers cards" which ended up being quite the understatement. Just check out all the cool stuff I got back:

The Miggy you see up top is a Pink Refractor from 2019 Topps Chrome, and with the owners finally done with preventing fans from seeing baseball in 2022 it's a great reminder that he's just 13 hits away from joining the exclusive 500 HR/3000 hits club! Right now the membership includes Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Albert Pujols, Eddie Murray, Rafael Palmeiro, and Alex Rodriguez. Pretty good company!

Daniel did promise "a couple Tigers" and ended up making good on that with two more Cabreras: relic cards from 2015 Topps Heritage and 2018 Topps. Score! I now own 15 relics of the future HOFer to go with a manurelic and three autographs. I really appreciate Daniel's generosity here.

A bit of the aforementioned wantlist help came in the form of a pair of J.J. Putz cards. J.J. played for Daniel's Diamondbacks for the last four seasons of his career, 2011-14, and saved 45 and 32 games for Arizona over his first two campaigns there. Daniel sent me his 2011 Diamondbacks Topps team issue card as well as the 2012 Target Red parallel from that year's flagship set. Two more down!

That wasn't nearly all when it came to my wantlists, though, as he also sent me these six from 2007 Ultra's Iron Man insert that focuses on one of my top PC guys, Cal Ripken Jr. The 50-card set has a design I can't help but like--black with Orioles orange accents and silver foil--and I hope to put the whole thing together eventually. For now it looks like I have 14 of them so I've got my work cut out for me.

Now if that had been everything Daniel had sent my way I would have already been very happy. He had other plans, though:

...in the form of three very nice vintage cards of Hammerin' Hank! I know Daniel's a pretty avid vintage collector but I most definitely didn't expect these and I'll be happy to add them to my paltry collection of classic cards. They include the well known 1968 Topps Game as well as two league leaders cards from 1972 Topps. In 1971, 37-year-old Hank put up a career high 47 homers (one less than league leader and fellow star Willie Stargell) plus 118 RBI--third behind Torre's 137 and Stargell's 125. That year was just one of seven campaigns where Aaron hit 40+ homers and yet he still managed to set the record with 755. He remains the game's career RBI leader with 2297 while only leading the league in that category four times as well, a testament to how great he was for such a long period of time. Just wow!

Daniel, once again I thank you for all the amazing cards you sent my way, all of which were surprises and better yet, new to my collection! I hope we can trade again relatively soon if I can find more harder to track down Goldschmidts (or other needs).

Looking over on my card desk I currently see five blog trade packages left to cover, plus a crazy 24 from TCDB that I'd like to show off in some way, shape, or form. That's in addition to two shows' worth of pickups. So look for lots more posts from me, if not in a timely fashion.

My five minute post: baseball autographed memorabilia

A couple weeks ago Daniel from It's Like Having My Own Card Shop experimented with something to help him get back into blogging after a bad month or more that included unexpectedly losing his mom:  writing a post in five minutes.  A blogger with my favorite URL--"betterthanbeckett.blogspot.com"--who also just impressively completed his awesome First Night Game at Wrigley autograph collection, Daniel came up with a fun and useful idea, especially for folks like me that enjoy the scanning, checklisting, and sometimes draft preparation of blog-writing but sometimes dread the actual writing part.  In my case I think I just demand too much of myself.

Anyway, I'm fortunate to be able to try such a post under better circumstances, and I happened to have an idea already in the pipeline that would work well:  my collection of baseball autographed memorabilia.  I posted on it here years ago, but many of my old posts have dead links to images, plus I like to have everything I scan cataloged in Google albums at this point.  So I took the opportunity to take some improved photos.  That was especially useful when it came to my baseballs signed by multiple players.  Now you can see every signature!

It's been a long time since I added to this collection since the shows I go to rarely have quality signers, if any, and some of their prices have gotten ridiculous.  That makes me appreciate what I do have even more, though I'll continue adding to it as I can.  You can always view this album under the "My personal collections" section to your right.

While this will probably put me over five minutes (as if I haven't run over yet--but at least this has gotten me writing!), I'll do a quick recap of how I acquired each item:

• In-person at a show:  
• Bob Feller hat, 8x10, HOF program, and ROMLB
• Fergie Jenkins HOF program
• Willie Stargell 8x10
• Matt Anderson/Gabe Kapler bat (combined signing)
• Willie Stargell/Fergie Jenkins/Warren Spahn/Gaylord Perry ROMLB (separate signings)
• Detroit Tigers baseball signed by Al Kaline, A.J. Sager, Rick Leach, Gabe Kapler, Matt Anderson, Willie Horton, Don Wert, "Paws", and Mickey Lolich (separate signings)
• Purchased:
• Bill Freehan 8x10
• Rich Hill ROMLB
• Traded to me:
• Barry Larkin 8x10 (Play at the Plate)
• Scott Rolen ROMLB (from a 1998 Skybox Dugout Axcess redemption)
• Gift:
• Bill Freehan photo  (my mom's former boss)
• Kirk Gibson helmet  (Christmas present from my brother)
• Sandy Koufax/Tommy Lasorda/Walt Alston ROMLB  (from my uncle via a friend of his who was a Spring Training bullpen catcher back in the day)

Thanks, Daniel, for the motivation to get posting a bit more (and helping me realize that there's plenty of value in brevity).  Good luck as you get back into the habit--it's great to have you back!

2016 trade package #16: ILHMOCS is a blast from the past

To say that Daniel from It's Like Having My Own Card Shop and I haven't traded very often over the course of our blogs is a bit of an understatement--our only other deal took place in December...of 2012.  It's been so long that one of the players included in that package, Cameron Maybin, has actually returned to the team!

Fortunately for us, though, time between trades doesn't matter because we were able to pick right back up from where we left off.  I sent him some D-Backs I'd accumulated, including a couple nicer cards from shows, and in return he sent me another envelope full of Tigers goodness and more:

Tigers current (Cabrera) and erstwhile (Fielder, Fryman, and Guillen).  This is actually kind of a fun quartet since Miggy and Big Daddy are/were slugging 1Bs and Guillen and Fryman put up some nice offense from the left side of the infield.  I'm really digging the '94 Pinnacle photo of Fryman turning two, and based on the helmet number I believe the Red Sox player he's doubling up is OF Billy Hatcher.

And this scan makes me a bit sad since every player, including catcher Matt Nokes who somehow defied my alphabetical sorting, is a former Tiger, including the three active players:  AJax, Porcello, and Scherzer.  As for Pudge, I'd forgotten that he went on to play for four more teams after his tenure in Detroit:  the Yankees (2008 mid-season trade), Astros (free agency), Rangers (late-season trade in 2009) and Nationals (FA).  Though he may be gone from Motown I'm happy to see Porcello turn his fortunes around in Boston.

This scan includes four of my main Tiger PCs, with three of them hailing from the '84 champs, not to mention the Tiger teams of my youth:  Gibby, Tram, and Sweet Lou.  I was surprised that I didn't already have the Tatooine-like '95 UD base of Trammell making the tag on...maybe a Milwaukee Brewer?  It's hard for me to tell by the uniform and number, but I'm sure one of you will let me know who that is in the comments.

Five many Verlanders!  Justin gets his own scan because he was tied with Tram with five cards and I like to keep the latter together with his legendary double-play partner.  JV's bounced back pretty nicely this year, and given his results against the Royals on Friday I'm definitely wishing I went to that game instead of the slog of a loss on Saturday evening.  (Worse yet, I was too late for my J.D. Martinez bobblehead!)  Hopefully Mr. Kate Upton keeps it up...ton.

I said "Tigers and more" earlier because Daniel included a healthy stack of 15 Griffeys he hoped I needed, and I'm happy to report that the vast majority of these were new to me.  This bunch includes cards from 1990 Fleer, 1992 UD, 1994 Collector's Choice, 1996 Bowman, 1998 Skybox Dugout Axcess, 1999 UD MVP Power Surge, 2000 UD MVP, 2002 E-X, and 2002 Fleer Tradition Update.

Moving on we have another example from 2002 Fleer Update, then 2004 Bazooka, SP Authentic, and Topps, 2005 Skybox Autographics, and 2008 UD National Baseball Card Day.  Though this scan has fewer cards, it gives a bit more variety than the first nine, almost all of which are cards of Junior at the plate.  The '04 Topps features a beautiful shot of the former Gold Glove CF making a great catch at the wall while the Bazooka card gives a nice look at my absolute favorite swing in the history of the game.  Definitely a nice bunch to add to one of my favorite PCs.

Daniel, I'm glad we were able to send some cards flying across the country once more, and next time I hope we get back to it a bit sooner.  In the meantime thanks for this great bounty of Tigers and Griffeys!

Holiday trade package #1: It's Like Having My Own Card Shop

Ok, now that I'm pretty clear where all these trade packages originated from, I'd like to try posting about each of them before the end of the year, since they certainly deserve that much attention.

Today's post will cover a nifty Tigers insert package from Daniel of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop.  Daniel claimed the D-Backs when I was giving away fall cleaning lots, and he was nice enough to send some stuff I CAN use back my way.  This is actually the first time we've traded, so once again, the fall cleaning effort paid off in ways other than freeing up space, and I'm sure we'll be able to work out more deals in the future.  For now, though, here's what he sent me:

• The Maybin is from the 2008 Topps Dick Perez insert set.  Perez, of course, is famous for his work with Donruss Diamond Kings, and if Topps was going to rip off yet another idea from someone, at least they stole a great one.  It's amazing how young Maybin looks here, in the days before his notable inclusion in the deal that brought Miguel Cabrera to Detroit.  This is an awesome card and I'm holding onto it despite the fact that he's no longer a Tiger.
• Anderson and Encarnacion were considered rising stars at one point, as funny as that seems now.  The Tigers blew their #1 overall pick on Anderson, a fireballing closer, in 1997.  Players the Tigers passed on that year (again, for a CLOSER) include:  J.D. Drew, Troy Glaus, Michael Cuddyer, Lance Berkman, and Chase Utley, to name a few.
  Encarnacion looked like Detroit's best hope for a five-tool player in the 90s, but while he showed a bit of promise, rest assured that never happened.  Still, he was a somewhat useful OF when the Tigers traded him to the Reds for ineffective malcontent Dmitri Young, just one of MANY awful decisions that were symptomatic of the horrible Tigers teams of the 90s.  A freak eye injury thanks to being hit in the face by a foul ball while on the on-deck circle sadly ended his career, but I'll still remember him as a decent, if not star, player.
• This pair of Tony Clark serial #d inserts is great!  I have a couple others of the Hit Parade insert from 1998 Studio, a set I collected a bit, and that one's #d 3727 out of a scant 500.  The 1998 Leaf Rookies & Stars HR Derby Insert is a set I'd somehow never seen before, so that's even better.  The back plays up Clark's participation in "an upcoming" home run derby.  Yeah, that never happened, but Clark was still one of the few useful players on the aforementioned awful 90s Tigers teams.  The #2 overall pick in 1990, his numbers are deceptively good, including more than 250 HR, and he actually compares best to Justin Morneau, which I wouldn't have guessed.  Would I have preferred that the Tigers had taken Mike Mussina that year?  Of course.  But all the same, Clark was essentially the face of the Tigers for a few years, and I think many Detroit fans will remember him fondly.
• Munson was another of Detroit's blown top-10 picks, going 3rd overall in 1999 out of USC.  He was certainly thought of as a great prospect, but even at the time I remember considering him a reach.  He somehow managed to eke out a nine-year career despite awful stats.
  This card, though, does hail from a set I recall enjoying very much:  2000 Black Diamond.  While I much preferred the base cards, the rookies from this set are pretty cool, and definitely of the shiny variety, as you can see here.
• Justin Verlander is a little-known Tiger pitcher who may yet establish himself as a solid pro.  Experts peg him as a low-speed, control pitcher with fourth starter upside.
  I don't believe I had either of these inserts, both of which look fantastic.  Verlander's 2006 Rookie of the Year campaign more than justifies his inclusion in an All-Star Rookie-themed set.

Thanks again, Daniel, for the trade!  I look forward to making more deals with you, especially if you're going to be this good of a source of Tigers for me.  Everyone should read and follow It's Like Having My Own Card Shop immediately