6/6/25 card show report: June boon

So, yeah, I went the traditional route and you're getting my June show recap tonight. It's another short one but still filled with cool stuff so I hope you all enjoy it!

According to my spending tracker, that monthly Taylor Town show on June 6 was my only spending for the month, though I certainly made up for that in July! More to come on that.

Anyway, I dropped $110 on some quality stuff, and some of that included some choice 90s inserts. My usual guy had recently bought out a collection with a good number of those found therein, and he invited me to flip through a big box of those (mostly baseball, some football). They were all unpriced, so I was somewhat careful about what I chose, but in the end I was very pleased with the price he gave me after looking them up. You'll see a few of those below and possibly more in trade packages as they get dispersed.

No trade bait this month, so let's get to the goods!

Now this is my kind of scan! And yes, the "90s inserts rule!" tag is in full effect here. First up is a '96 Sportflix Double Take insert starring Ken Griffey Jr. and then-bigtime prospect Ruben Rivera. The two year run of Pinnacle's Sportflix product remains undefeated when it comes to inserts (and we'll get to another one in a minute) including this one that pairs up a couple stars on an extremely cool lenticular design. That particular Griffey card is paired with another one of my favorites from the era: '98 Studio's Freeze Frame. I think the J. Geils Band would approve of this photograph-themed chase card that's numbered /4500 on the back.

An Al Kaline Iconic Card Reprint from 2019 Topps is the lone exception to the 90s greatness in this scan (besides the two hits, of course), and it gives me yet another tribute to a RC I really need to track down one of these days.

Back to the 90s fun and the decade's other notable junior. Dress For Success is a '97 Leaf offering with a faux jersey feel and even slightly raised lettering that makes the card live up to its theme quite nicely. This one's numbered /3500 and yet another example of the kind of stuff we're denied in this era's creative doldrums. The second of three Cals is a '98 Leaf Rookies & Stars Pennant Edition MVP insert, which is also numbered (/5000), and this one picks a top player at each position on the back, with the Iron Man slotting in at 3B. Finally, we get our other look at '96 Sportflix and its Hit Parade insert. Sure, the scene in the background doesn't change per card, but the motion is still extremely cool and I continue to have a fondness for cards that look like this.

And then we have the pair of baseball hits, both of guys that spent at least some time behind the plate. The first is a 2016 Ginter jersey relic of Victor Martinez, who caught over 850 games, mostly with Cleveland and Boston. It was nice getting him on a card where he's pictured with Detroit, for whom he played the final seven years of his career. He's joined by HOF catcher Pudge Rodriguez on a 2004 Donruss Elite Career Best bat card (#d /200). The bat relic version of the card has a back with a COA statement instead of the base insert's explanation of the titular career best number, in this case his 1999 MVP season total of 113 RBI (he never did reach 100 again), plus becoming the first catcher in the 20/20 club (35 HR/25 steals, both also career bests). The bat chip may be relatively tiny but it's still a pretty cool card to me!

On the basketball side of things I did end up with a single new card: an autograph of Moussa Diabate. My second such card of the French C and former Wolverine (2021-22 only) is a rookie-year insert from 2022-23 Prizm called Sensational Signatures. While I don't think you can describe this one that positively, it's still a fun addition for me.

I scored a football hit as well, but first we'll look at the single 90s insert I purchased from that sport. Collector's Edge was certainly prolific during that decade, and that includes 1998, Charles Woodson's rookie year. What you see above is his second base card in the product, which is numbered /5000 like the rest, but is from the "Super Masters" subset which has a different design than the rest. Rookie year and numbered? Sounds like something I'd like to add!

And finally we have this evening's lone football hit. That ended up being auto #2 of UM and Dallas Cowboys TE Luke Schoonmaker. Found in 2023 Panini Contenders, this very reflective foil card is the Playoff Ticket parallel of his base auto, and it's numbered /149. Hopefully the third-year TE is more successful with the Cowboys than fellow ex-Wolverine/Cowboy at the position Sean McKeon.

That's it for June's show but stay tuned for July's recap which includes a fun cameo! Also I'll be back soon with one of the other posts I promised last time.

2025 trade package #6: Topps Cards That Never Were

Hey, look, I've finally made it to the last trade package I received in January! It was a busy month for my mailbox as this was #6 for the first month of '25, and it was a PWE from Jeremy of Topps Cards That Never Were.

He and I tend to send envelopes back-and-forth without warning, which is a lot of fun to do in this hobby of ours. I certainly wasn't expecting this one but enjoyed its contents as usual. Here's what Jeremy gifted me this time:

Not many managers get much more Classic than Sparky, and he still owns the Tigers record for wins with 1,331, exactly 200 more than fellow HOFer Hughie Jennings, the only other skipper in franchise history with more than 700 victories (Jim Leyland hit that number exactly).

Fielder and Fryman, seen on a pair of '92 issues (Big Daddy's a Gold Hologram version), were the main corner infielders in Sparky's twilight years in Motown. They manned those spots together from 1990-96, when Fielder was traded, a year after Anderson's last dugout appearance.

Keith (Topps Holiday) is tonight's only active MLBer but he still looks very promising despite struggling a bit to get his bat going for the surging 2025 Tigers.

When (not if!) I hit 1000 unique cards of Barry Larkin, it'll be thanks to many of you who've contributed, like this Donruss Orange parallel/'24 Panini Prizm pair from Jeremy. As of this post I need just 19 more.

Robson's the only recent guy besides Keith in this post but the OF and 2016 Tigers draftee (8th round) hasn't been in the organization since 2022.

Pudge joins Sparky in this post as a Tigers HOFer and he has something in common with Fielder above as well: the card you see above is the tougher to find Gold Hologram variant. It's really nice getting those knocked off my wantlists!

Big Daddy makes one more appearance featuring the star of my last post, Mickey Tettleton. The Cecil/Mickey pairing posted 35 and 32 HR in 1992, then 30 and 32 the following season when the UD card above was released.

Last up tonight is a 2014 Panini Golden Age Mini Hindu Back of Red Wings HOF C and current GM, Steve Yzerman. He's come in below expectations in terms of getting the franchise back to the playoffs but may still get there with a bit more time. If nothing else he'll always be a franchise icon and "The Captain" that led the team to three Cups.

Jeremy, thanks again for treating me to this fun PWE. I may actually be returning the favor relatively soon once I decide to pull the trigger to mail the small stack I've put together for you.

With that, January '25 trades are done and I should be mixing things up a bit with January's show recap next time.

2023 eBay purchases: rockin' around the Christmas Tariks

With 2023 blogger trades all wrapped up I'm moving on to my eBay purchases from the last four months of the year.

We'll start back in early September when I happily spent a bit more than $12.50 delivered for my second plate of Denard Robinson. This particular Shoelace 1/1 is his magenta plate used to make his 2013 Absolute RC, specifically the "base" version and not the variation where he's carrying the ball in his other hand. You all know I love me some Denard, and I hope he's one of the holdovers on new Michigan coach Sherrone Moore's staff.

A bit less than two weeks later I was quite happy to win this Trey Burke plate for a little under $10 shipped. The 2016-17 Contenders Draft magenta plate you see above is my third 1/1 of the former college star, but it's my first of him pictured as a Wolverine instead of with the Jazz so it's my new favorite. This one puts Burke one away from joining the double-digit hit club in basketball as the fifth member, though a couple others are also getting close.

At the end of the month I was thinking about how well Tigers P Tarik Skubal had pitched after returning for the season's second half. He started off a bit slowly but ripped off four straight wins in the final month to end the year at 7-3 with a solid 2.80 ERA. I decided I wanted a nice card of his and landed on this 2021 Absolute Rookie Leather Signatures Tan auto for about $13. Maybe I'll get something with actual team logos on it in the future, but I'm a sucker for fun gimmicks like this and was more interested in jumping on something before he possibly develops into a higher-end starter. And even if he doesn't, I've got a pretty cool card of one of the team's solid core of starters.

Next, early in October I found a bunch of stuff for myself and others all from one seller and took advantage of low auction prices and combined shipping. The three cards you see above are the ones I grabbed for myself. First up is a Pudge jersey that I thought was worth a flier at $1.50. He'd joined the Yankees in '08 so UD listed him with them, but he's pictured as a Tiger and I'm betting the swatch is from a Detroit jersey, not that it matters too much to me since I collect his non-Tigers cards too. That appears to be relic #10 and hit #11 of the HOF catcher.

To that I added a pair of Leaf-branded cards of former UM WR Tarik Black, our second Tarik of the evening! Black was a top-200, 4* recruit coming in to Ann Arbor in 2017 but he'd compile just 50 catches for two scores in 18 games over three seasons before transferring to Texas, where he put up similar numbers in the shortened 2020 COVID season. I was very happy to add a couple Wolverines uniform autographs of him to my collection (as subject #240) even though they're from the wish.com iteration of Leaf, which is part of the "way too many parallels with ridiculous names" problem. That said, I have enjoyed the State Pride design over the years.

I included the backs to show that the top card is numbered just 4/4 while the other is #19/20. As best as I could tell, these are from 2021 Leaf Metal Draft Flashback Base Autographs Mojo (even though the provided checklist SNs don't match) and 2021 Leaf Metal Draft Flashback State Pride Autographs Wave Blue. For just $4 and $3, respectively, I was satisfied with what I got.

The next time I spent money on eBay on something for myself it was the first day of December and I was able to score this 2012 Bowman yellow plate of Michigan WR Steve Breaston for a cool $8 even. That year's design has always been an outlier when it comes to Bowman but not in a bad way in my opinion. Then again, it's fairly familiar to me as I already had purchased the magenta plate of the same card! Breaston is therefore one of a number of PCs for which I have multiple 1/1s.

That distinction is true of former Reds prospect Ryan LaMarre as well. The 16th hit in his collection is also the 5th 1/1, which is quite a ratio if you ask me. And this design is also well known to me because the black plate you see above from 2010 Bowman Draft is the third one I now claim ownership of from the set! I've checked off the black, magenta, and yellow versions and just need the cyan, making this one of five plate sets where I have three of the four (others are Chad Henne 2014 Prestige; Clayton Richard 2011 Topps; J.J. Putz 2012 Topps Mini; and Rich Hill 2006 Topps). That was worth a bit under $12.50 shipped as far as I was concerned!

Finally, with Christmas just five days away and having barely crossed the $1800 mark in spending for the year, I decided to treat myself to an upgrade. My copy of Kirk Gibson's 2001 Topps Archives rookie reprint auto was one of my favorite cards in my entire collection, but it was somewhat faded when I bought it, and leaving it and some others out where too much sunlight got to them didn't do it any favors:

That's a recent pic I took of what's essentially an auto-less Gibby and a very faded 1999 SP Signature auto of Griffey (that I pulled myself and regret ruining this much all the time!). So I was very much on the hunt for a much better copy despite the cost of Kirk's signature going up quite a bit.

And you know what? For the nice, bold blue signature you see above on my new copy, I didn't think twice about plunking down $53. It's great having such a nice version of that piece in his collection and I'd do it again if I had to. But I probably won't because I'm not letting that sucker get any regular sunlight!

And those nine cards are how I finished up 2023 when it comes to personal eBay pickups. I still have lots more to show off from the end of last year but I'm at least making some headway, and I'll be back soon with more!

8/4/23 card show report: dozens of dimes

A couple Fridays ago I headed back to Taylor for my favorite monthly show and as usual I wasn't sure what to expect. Sometimes the guy whose tables I spend about 98% of my time at has lots of great dime stuff and on other occasions the $1 and $2 stuff ends up being more worth my effort.

This time the more expensive boxes were a bit crowded so I joined a few guys on the other end by the dime boxes. There were tons to look through and as usual I passed on the stacks of more recent base from all sports plus most of the basketball. But I started having luck finding card after card for myself or others and quickly amassed a healthy stack.

Eventually the other end freed up and I picked up some fun stuff there, then headed back to the dimes to finish up my day, until I found one last big item in his "as-priced" box that I didn't want to pass up.

Here's what I believe the breakdown was this time:

• 190 dime cards = $19
• 8 "dime" cards in toploaders @ 8/$1 = $1
• 6 $1 cards = $6
• 8 $2 cards = $16
• 1 card priced at $20 minus a $7 overall discount = $13

That's a total of $55, right in my usual range; this year I've spent as low as $40, as much as $85, and an average of about $66, so this was a pretty average day for me, though the variety made it very interesting.

And now here's what you came to see: the stuff I'm showing off today (trade bait and personal stuff).

First up is trade bait, starting with baseball. As usual, please comment/email/propose something on TCDb if you see anything you like.

The Bonds insert was a solid dime box find. The Abreu manu/auto was $2 and is numbered /99. The large Jones jersey was #d /299 but has been traded already on TCDb.

(Mostly) numbered football 1/2: lots more fun finds in the dime box! Anderson and Filani are /999. Evans is just a cool die-cut. Forte is /199. Hardman is /460. Jackson is /250. Lundy is /699. McGary is /199. Milloy is /400.

Numbered football 2/2: Rice is /249. Rogers, Switzer, and Thomas are /299. Willis is /1000. And Gates is /1250.

And now my keepers:

Baseball 1/3: just about everything here was a dime, though I think the Braves insert may have been a buck, I forget. Griffey, Gwynn, and Maddux? Check. New Cronenworth? Check. The Cash was a fun find, and I happily snapped up a BInge Bowman Chrome RC too.

Baseball 2/3: it was obviously a great day for dime box Ripkens (and check for him as well)! I think this seller tends to put cards in those boxes when they don't sell for $0.50 or a quarter and this time I benefitted from that nicely. The newest stuff is mostly boring as usual but I'm happy with the '83 reprint and Gallery card, and the '94 Donruss parallel was a fun throwback.

Baseball 3/3: lots to like here! The front of Posey's Team Pinnacle insert is Dufex and I grabbed it for the guy on the back:

Meanwhile, Skubal joined Mize is current rotation guys in the dime boxes. A Verlander base plus a parallel rep the guy whose name's on the blog. Gwynn and Ripken come back from encores. Pudge gets another very cool multiplayer insert add, this time from the 90s. Piazza and Daulton were both very good company, plus 90s inserts rule!

And then we have the card that was marked as $20. I thought it would be very cool to have a card with such a nice looking patch plus autograph of one of the better recent Tigers catchers in Jake Rogers, a.k.a. the only guy left from the Verlander deal (much less J.D. Martinez and Justin Wilson/Alex Avila). $20 felt like too much but I decided that if he came down closer to $10 I'd go for it. As I mentioned above, he knocked $7 off my total of $62 including everything else to make it $55 and I felt like that was fair. So there's my first hit of the guy keeping the team afloat behind the plate!

Football 1/2: and now we're down to the final 11 cards, which of course I had to split up into two scans because 11 > 9. I was thrilled to find more Michigan RC help for Collins and Ojabo, both of which I think could be in for big seasons this year (Collins with a potentially functional QB, Ojabo if he's 100% healthy). As usual Panini reused the same Ojabo photo in at least two products, but that's nothing new. Finding these in the dime box was great news as far as I'm concerned.

Football 2/2: parallels and a hit. I found the Rookies & Stars parallels of Paye, (transfer guy) St-Just, and Thomas among a stack of them in the dimes, and they were eventually joined by a Blue (what other color could be better?) Donruss Press Proof of DPJ.

And last up for today is my 94th hit of former stud WR Braylon Edwards. I can't remember if I paid $1 or $2 for this numbered 2007 UD Artifacts jersey, which is the usual plain white swatch, but I'm always up for a new item for the collection so I was happy to snag it.

Another nice show day in the books! And with that I need to get back to logging, scanning, and posting so much more stuff that came in, including a simply incredible trade package (among several other really good ones), eBay stuff, and a quick recap of a garage sale I hit up yesterday that ended up being fruitful.

I hope everyone enjoys the last bit of their weekends and is looking to the return of college football in a few weeks as much as I am!

TCDb trade roundup: vrooomed

Here's a great way to get another big staff of stuff off of my desk! Over the past few months I've made a few deals and received a couple PIFs from Dan (a.k.a. vrooomed), one of hardest working members of TCDb and one of my earliest friends there. I received so many cards from him that it made sense to just devote one post to what he sent in March, June, and whenever he sent other envelopes.

Check out all these great additions to my collections:

Lots and lots of Tigers today. Miggy and Pudge will feature quite a bit but it's fun seeing others too like  Heilmann and V-Mart. 

This isn't nearly what I was referring to with the Rodriguez cards, by the way. You'll see! Sweet Lou and the Iron Man are always welcome sites in trade packages. Did anyone ever refer to Cal as "the Ripper" at any point?

Lots of inserts/shiny/both here with a bit of numbering too. Funkhouser's from the higher-end Sapphire set. Seeing Cabrera being applauded by fans is always fun, especially in Refractor form. And Pudge's Ultra insert makes me miss Fleer once again.

Though Dan lives in New York he's got some pretty nice Red Wings PCs and I was glad to grab some of his dupes for my way-too-small Yzerman collection (currently just 66 cards). It's fun seeing this group of various years and designs from his long and storied career.

The next bunch of scans (including this one) represent my own haul of a large deal we made after Dan got a massive amount of extras added to his trade list from the 70s-90s. I grabbed a huge chunk of stuff to help Jeff with his 80s set wants plus some White Sox and other PCs as well. But I also filled in some PC and team gaps of my own. Northrup and Cochrane were fun vintage adds, and I also picked up the remaining '81 Topps Coke Tigers I needed to finish up that set (except for Alan Trammell, who I still need to find).

A couple of playing days cards of Evans get me near the century mark for his PC, just two shy. You'll find more of Fielder below as well to go with this pair, the highlight being a '96 Fleer Update base. It's not always easy finding Kirk Gibsons I need but it's no surprise when he pops up on an '88 World Series-related item. Talented player and broadcaster Curtis Granderson is another guy you'll see a bit more of as you scroll down, and this pair of inserts looks great. Speaking of chase cards, how about big four PC guy Griffey and his sweet swing?

After seeing the Juniors Ripken and Griffey already, we get a quartet of big four guy Mr. Padre, with that top row being 100% inserts. View to a Thrill combined a very cool name and design back when card manufacturers that cared about such things still existed. Herndon and Hernandez (out of order which I realized after scanning, as usual!) are two more key '84 Tigers you'll see here, and both get pre-Detroit additions to their PCs. Thanks again for the Hernandez deal, Phillies! (Oops, I shouldn't play that up too much, that's Dan's team!)

Lemon and Morris were of course teammates of those two guys in '84, and Lemon joins the group that gets pre-Tigers adds to their piles. There's more Morris goodness in a bit. Late 80s slugging catcher sensation Matt Nokes came along for the ride with a Sportflics base being a favorite of mine.

The catcher he took over for was the "Big Wheel" Lance Parrish, who was certainly a Diamond King, and then a cheap-ass owner caused him to leave for Philadelphia in '87 (and he was then traded to the Angels the following year). Peaches was a great #2 on that '84 squad, and he's actually signing at my monthly show next weekend, but I don't know if I'll make the extra trip out to get him on Saturday. Local boy Pat Sheridan (born in Ann Arbor, went to Eastern Michigan in nearby Ypsilanti) joined the Tigers in '86, too late to win a ring with a bunch of the guys I've mentioned today, but he did get his own with the Royals in '85.

A couple more Sheridans, Detroit-style, give way to a fun group of Frank Tanana, a well-travelled guy who had pitched in California, Boston, and Texas before heading to Detroit. The Angels aren't represented here because the earliest card is from '81 but I do have a few of him with California, plus all of his other teams besides the Yankees. Something like three different options exist for those and I'm sure I'll snag at least one at some point.

Here we have some horizontal stuff and a few odd-sized items. I'd say Big Daddy (RC) enjoyed a better career than fellow prospect Cory Snyder, who started out hot and fizzled out quickly. If I have to see Grandy with a NY team I'd rather it be with the Mets. Griffey's paired up on that Stadium Club insert with Darryl Strawberry, a cool combo at the time. Morris' sticker is a fun one, and if you like those you're going to love a particular pair of scans coming up shortly. And Kinsler and Maddux are from the 2010s Topps insert size of die-cut minis that replicate the '89 Topps look.

Closing out this group is a huge chunk of Pudge cards. Looks like I soared past 300 to 351 cards of him thanks in large part to this deal. Most of what you see is Texas stuff, which is to be expected, but there's a couple other teams mixed in there. As is the case whenever I get a bunch like this, I really enjoy looking through the various designs and getting a sense of what the style was each year. There's some pretty solid inserts mixed in there too! See if you can spot any you're a fan of.

The latest envelope was headlined by these two items: a Silver Slate parallel of Granderson and a Denny's Grand Slam hologram of Cal that I somehow didn't have.

At some point after he got everything else updated in terms of his trade list, Dan added a bunch of 80s Topps and OPC stickers, and he was nice enough to send me all that I needed, which amounted to a Ripken and a whole bunch of '84 Tigers, including a few Series-related stickers.

And here's the rest of them, all of which feature your 1984 champions.

Many thanks to Dan for our formal and blind trades/PIFs that have been lots of fun to keep going. A lot of these items were ones I was glad to get but wouldn't have wanted to pay for, especially the 80s stuff, so it was a perfect way for me to acquire them to fill in some gaps. And here's to our next deal, whenever that is!

2023 trade package #13: the Angels in Order

I know it's been a few weeks since I last posted but I've been busy with stuff like turning 40 and visiting a friend down south. Still, trade recaps await so I'm back to it!

It's been great for the blogosphere to have Tom from the Angels in Order back and writing very regularly (something I obviously can't manage!), and an even cooler development is the way he's taken to trading on TCDb. His exploits there (TCDb ID "calangels") where he's well on his way to the 100-transaction mark in just a few months led to our first trade in about three years. I was happy to tack on some extra stuff to his original proposal and off we went!

Here's my end of the deal:

We start with a trio of '87 Leaf Tigers. I took a look at the team checklist for the set and these sew up the players I actually collect from it, meaning I'm ignoring Bruce Fields' and Walt Terrell's entries. Next, I can't say no to more cards of Maggs and Pudge, a couple of key '06 Tigers, whether or not they're depicted with Detroit. That would explain why my collections of them are as large as 236 and 351 cards, respectively!

The last Tigers card was a '96 Collector's Choice Silver Signature parallel of the team checklist starring who else back then but Big Daddy himself, Cecil Fielder. The '96 set featured one of the product's better designs in my opinion.

And then we move on to cards of three guys that make up my big four PC group of non-Tigers/Wolverines. Ripken gets left out this time but he leads the pack by a mile so that's ok. I was happy to add four new Griffeys, three of them Reds cards, to keep marching him towards the next milestone of 1100. Mr. Padre Tony Gwynn adds to the Collector's Choice parade with one of the 836 items I own of him. And ex-Padre and Dodger (not his most well-known squads) Greg Maddux is a bit behind Gwynn with 817 including the '07 UD First Edition above.

Since this bunch was going to work out to be three images regardless, I bunched the three Wolverines together. It's great trading with an Angels collector like Tom because he happened to have a couple Jim Abbott dupes for me in the form of a couple oddball-ish items. The first is a 1991 team issue Smokey the Bear card while the other is from a 1992 Classic multi-sport product called World Class Athletes, a set that largely focuses on recent Olympians (Jim was one in the 80s, of course) but which also includes a smattering of other stars.

The '75 Topps of HOFer Ted Simmons was a late addition as a replacement for an '82 Fleer Stamp of Jack Morris that Tom couldn't find. Uh, yeah, that's a reasonable swap, dude! It apparently gives me 99 cards of the ex-UM C and a milestone celebration will surely follow soon. A fellow Wolverine from the gridiron closes us out tonight in the form of a '91 Classic base of Jarrod Bunch, a late 80s FB (remember that position?) who spent four years in the NFL with the Giants and Raiders.

Tom, thanks again for reaching out and working this deal via TCDb! It was great trading with you again and I look forward to the next time we can swap some cards. In fact, I may already have a decent pile going for you after this month's show.

Stay tuned for a couple more trades, a June show recap, and lots more!

3/2023 and 5/2023 card show reports: talking about four shows on the weekend like it's TGIF

Why yes, I am an 80s/90s kid, why do you ask?

So one of the consequences of my slacking on posting more than usual this year is that I've fallen behind on covering the shows I've made it out to since March. That's why I'm taking a quick break this evening from trade packages to do a brief roundup of the four I attended in March and May (so far).

First up is the usual monthly show in Taylor for March. I made it over there on Saturday, the 4th, and I didn't come back with a whole lot, but did track down some stuff that made it into trade packages, a bit of random trade bait, and some items for myself. All of that set me back just $45. Here's the goods:

The trade bait that hasn't found a home yet, even after getting posted on TCDb a while ago: an Alge Crumpler jersey (not numbered), a jumbo swatch of Ardarius Stewart (two colors with stitching, #d /25), and a dual autograph of RBs Kenny Irons and Chris Henry (#d 50).

Please feel free to make an offer for anything mentioned as trade bait tonight here in the comments or over on TCDb, by the way.

I ended up with a lucky seven grouping of cards for myself. Juniors Griffey and Ripken appear on Triple Play's fold-out/scratch-off (unscratched) game cards and Kenny gets a second addition thanks to Stadium Club's 1999 Never Compromise insert. Maddux indeed took the Road to Cooperstown and that Fleer/SI insert looks great. Speaking of amazing inserts (the 90s ones especially rule!) how about an Orange Epix of Pudge? A Michigan uni RC of Josh Uche from '20 Prestige is one of two football additions with the other being an above average-sized jersey swatch of Denard Robinson from 2013 Rookies & Stars. It's numbered /299 and represents hit #55 of Shoelace, who's happily with the program assisting with the team's recruiting efforts (which are going quite well if you hadn't noticed!).

Next, I drove about 75 minutes on a cold, windy, rainy day up to Lansing--willingly! Why the hell would I do that? Well they have a pretty nice sized show at the mall up there, but I had no reason to make the trek until I found out that Jeff and his cousin Sluggo would be making the even longer drive up from Indiana to spread the good word of Sluggo's Sports Cards to Michiganders like myself.

Despite the shitty weather I'm very happy I made the trip because it was great to meet Sluggo, plus he and Jeff had a very impressively organized setup of fairly priced cards to look through. It also didn't hurt that Jeff gave me a very friendly discount, but I would have happily paid full sticker price for what I picked out of their $1/$3 boxes. Jeff and and I also got to swap cards in-person again, which was fun.

Again, this is long enough ago that a decent amount of what I bought went out in trade packages, but once again I have some loot to offer up to the masses plus a trio of cards for myself for an even $50:

The word of the day was "manurelics" and boy did I pick a bunch of them out of the $1 and $3 boxes! These five are all up for grabs. Arrieta's is one of those heavy MLB Debut medallions from 2016; Kemp's is a much lighter Players Weekend "patch" (plastic piece) from 2018; Kepler is a very chunky commemorative coin/medallion out of the 2020 product; Sano's is a plastic-y Jackie Robinson "patch" from 2017; and the Big Hurt's 2021 offering is also a plastic piece masquerading as a "patch," one that I guess Jeff didn't need since he's the first person I would have offered it to!

I didn't keep much for myself but that's totally fine. As you can see I ended up with Topps 70th manurelics of Gwynn and Scherzer from the same set as the Thomas above, and those join Kaline and Verlander in my collection. I'm no longer treating manufactured relics as "hits" but do still like to pick them up occasionally, and I've created an album for any I've kept in all sports.

The one non-manurelic card that went into my collection was a Barry Larkin that was new to me. The "90s inserts rule" tag is once again welcome this evening thanks to his 1995 SP Special FX insert you see there on the left. This is a tough-to-scan foil card that has a sky blue with clouds background (which didn't really come across in the image) plus an inset hologram, the latter of which was synonymous with UD over their first decade in the hobby. What a great looking card, even if you can't tell from the scan.

Many thanks to Sluggo (Kevin) and Jeff for a great experience, and I can't wait to meet up with them again the next time it's convenient for all of us.

Less than a week after seeing those guys I headed back to Taylor on Friday, March 31, for the April show, which happened to begin at the end of the previous month. I love getting there on Fridays when I can so the boxes are less picked through and the crowds are smaller since the autograph guests appear on Saturdays and Sundays.

I spent a high for the year of $75 on lots of good stuff, much of it of a higher quality than I usually get. Yep, once again some of the stuff got sent out. We'll start with available trade bait:

The Clemson sticker of Adams was a fun trade bait pickup for a buck, and it was something I don't recall seeing before. There are enough college collectors that I bet I find a taker before long. Böhringer is a jersey swatch /75; Cobbs is a Prizm auto /199; and the Smith manuhelmet auto goes for a crazy 899 copies.

Yet again, one scan covers my own pickups. I don't know what the future holds for Baddoo's spot on the team but couldn't pass up an acetate of him. Griffey was a dime or quarter and logo or no, that's a keeper as well. The Ricken Stadium Club Draft First Day parallel was possibly the most exciting pull for me that day because I'd never seen one before. That filled a hole in one of my more obscure Michigan Baseball PCs! Pudge shares a '92 Team Pinnacle insert with fellow star catcher Benito Santiago. A shiny Topps Tribute of JV was too nice looking to pass up. I found not one but a pair of Cronenworth minis from '21 Ginter.

And then there's a very nice pair of hits. I think both were priced around $10 but ended up being a bit less when bundled with other cards, plus I got my usual little discount. It feels like forever since I added a Griffey hit and then all of a sudden I have a great bat card from 2001 MVP. A piece of a HOFer's bat is always nice, and it's extra great when it's a guy with one of the sweetest swings in the game!

The other is just my second autograph of Fab Fiver Jalen Rose. Hailing from 2010-11 Panini Gold Standard, it looks to be a sticker auto (on a card with a signature window, which is interesting), and the back has a serial number /299. I obviously don't put much money into my basketball collection but I was happy to add a quality signature of the ESPN/ABC analyst and former Wolverine great for a reasonable price.

And now that catches us up to the day I'm writing this, May 6. Yesterday was my most recent show appearance and, you guessed it, it was time to head east to Taylor Town again on a Friday. My favorite seller had promised lots of discount stuff and he didn't disappoint. I spent $65 after a little discount on 50 dime cards, 50 $1 cards, and seven that were $2 apiece. I didn't even stay as long as I usually do because my patience ran out, but he'll apparently have more next month so I'm looking forward to it.

The trade bait not ticketed for future envelopes starts with a bunch of numbered football inserts out of the dime box:

Bruce and Holmes are /750; Lowery and Williams are /499; Muhammad is /600; and the four Prestige cards (three are Gold, Nash is Green) are /500.

Cartwright (/499) and Jackson (/1000) finish out the non-hits. From the baseball stuff, the Baez auto/manuball is /99 and LoCain's All-Star jersey isn't numbered. The Abdur-Rahim Game Floor card was too fun to leave for just a buck. And the football stuff includes jersey relics of Will Fuller (/25), Andre Johnson (/160), Laquon Treadwell (/199) and D'Wayne Eskridge (/249)

The pickings were slimmer when it came to my PCs this time, but I can't complain because I largely use shows to stock up on trade fodder. Miggy's a 2007 Turkey Red but is actually an SP with an ad back. Pudge is a nickname variation from '22 Donruss. Maddux is a 2006 UD insert I didn't have. And LeVert is a '19-'20 Mosaic insert. All came from the dime boxes.

It's a big relief to have all of these cataloged and posted so I can put them away and continue to chip at the piles of cards on my desk. Until June, unless I make an unexpected stop at another show, look forward to more trades of the blogger and TCDb variety!