2026 trade package #7: the Collector

This is not a drill: we have real actual regular season baseball coming up this week! My Tigers open up the '26 season on Thursday afternoon in San Diego (what's up, Fuji?) in a sign that we're almost over the utter bullshit that is winter.

So what better time to show off a diamond-heavy trade package from Sox fan Chris of the Collector? This is an envelope he sent me earlier this month after he finally got some new Tigers in over the holidays, according to his note.

Here's what he sent:

A few products dominated this envelope, starting with '25 Topps Holiday. In this scan alone you see three of the four cards Chris sent from that product, including slugger Kerry Carpenter, injured pitcher Jackson Jobe, and his fellow "JJ"in IF Jace Jung. Each of the latter two make multiple appearances too. Jobe can be seen on a '25 Topps Archives insert that reuses the 1987 Topps Boardwalk and Baseball design (hey, I remember those!) as well as a Chrome parallel from the same year's Heritage. Jung's other appearance is another '25 Heritage insert, this one called "1976 Redefined" that offers another take on the look of the now 50 year old set.

The bottom row starts with a '25 Update Diamante Foil of pitcher Chase Lee, which serves as a great reminder of how quickly transactions can happen (and how slowly cards are made)--the '25 rookie was flipped to Toronto in December. Speaker of pitchers that debuted for Detroit last season, that's Tyler Owens' '25 Update RC, and he's still with the team after re-signing (minors deal) last year. And then we have the best of the best Tigers pitchers in Tarik Skubal. His first of two issues today is done up in the style of a 1990 Topps base, and the two-time defending AL Cy Young winner wasn't even born until six years later! He also leads off the next scan with the final example of '25 Topps Holiday.

One of the more interesting cards of this mailing is that of IF Trey Sweeney. This is my first example of the '25 Topps Flagship Collection insert, one that apparently could be found in packs included only in Costco's Super Boxes. I find that design more appealing than the base set's for some reason.

Our last baseball item here stars--who else?--Justin Verlander, who thrilled many a Tigers fan upon returning to Detroit for 2026. I think he may even be lined up to start the team's home opener, though I could be wrong. Either way, you can see him above on a '25 Heritage Chrome Refractor that represents card #717 in my collection of this blog's namesake. I'm glad he's no longer with the pictured Giants and back where he belongs, with an outside shot to hit 300 wins if he sticks around beyond this season.

Just one football cards came along for the ride but it was much appreciated: a 2025 Panini Phoenix RC of Dolphins DL Kenneth Grant. It's my seventh total card of the national champ and fourth first-year.

Next, the Wings have scuffled a bit lately due to dropping some tough games and suffering injuries, but they're currently still clinging to a wild card spot. One guy who was no stranger to the playoffs during his time in Hockeytown is HOFer Pavel Datsyuk, who played postseason hockey in all 14 of his NHL seasons, winning two Cups (2001-02 and 2007-08). His 2013-14 Score card above was made when he was winding down his outstanding career.

Last up tonight is a pair of hockey Wolverines, whom I'm posting the day Michigan was officially named the #1 overall seed of the NCAA hockey tournament. Will this be the year they go all the way for the first time since the late 90s? Tonight they're represented by a couple former players, the first of whom is John Beecher (2019-20 to 2021-22). The C is pictured (2025-26 Upper Deck) with Boston, his drafting team, but he was grabbed off waivers by Calgary last November. He's joined by fellow C Luke Glendening, a former Wolverwing from 2013-14 to 2020-21. The four year Wolverine (2008-09 to 2011-12) has since bounced to Dallas, Tampa, New Jersey, and Philly, but was with Detroit when the above 2017-18 Upper Deck base card was released.

Chris, thanks very much for this great package that has me fired up for baseball season to start (not to mention the NCAA hockey tourney)! I'll see if I can't find a few new cards to fit in the increasingly small spaces of your collection, and in the meantime I look forward to new posts in your latest feature covering the top 10 at every position in each sport. Keep up the great work!

As for me, my expected upcoming posts include the March show, a Facebook Marketplace purchase, and some eBay pickups, if one of them ever arrives.

2024 trade package #15: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store part 1: everything but hockey

Tonight let's take a look at part of the latest big-ass shipment from Doug over at Sports Cards From the Dollar Store, received by me in August.

That's right--I said "part of" because he literally sent me this:

I split it into hockey and non-hockey, and you'll be getting the latter tonight. In true SCFtDS form, you'll get to see a large package broken up into multiple posts!

Baseball's up first and my Tigers PCs, some old and many new, were well represented. I don't know if Baez is long for a roster spot but that Bowman's Best is pretty cool. The '72 Gator would be cool enough on its own but this one is a Canadian special: O-Pee-Chee! Miggy makes a few recent-ish appearances here plus one more in the horizontals section. Campos is only 21 and a potential OF prospect to watch. Traded Tiger Canha joins a bunch of others in this post from this year's Heritage.

Cronenworth is of course a favorite. Flaherty is surely happy to be with the NL champion Dodgers while the Tigers got two solid prospects in the deal. Gold is 24 and still in high A while Graham will be that age early next year and seems to be hovering around A+ himself. The Riley Greene playing card is a cool one of a fun player I'm definitely growing to like on the team. And Griffey was pretty good in his day as well.

Jobe is pretty much the franchise's top prospect after going 3rd overall in 2021 and he was though of highly enough to make a late-season MLB debut followed by a couple appearances in the playoffs, which had to be thrilling for a young dude. Jung is another top-100 prospect for the team and while his '24 MLB debut wasn't amazing, it was cool to see the '22 first-rounder get some ABs with the big team. Keith is locked up for a few seasons and could be a key part of a rebuilt offense. Kemp is another OPC Tiger from my Canadian buddy, this one from 1979.

Kinsler's was a bit of a favorite of mine during his Motown tenure so I love the Refractor above. Larkin is of course a longtime personal favorite and PC guy. McGonigle is an intriguing middle IF prospect that the Tigers took 37th overall in '23. Austin didn't work out but his Tigers draftee bro Parker has shown a bit of hitting ability and a flair for web gems in the outfield so we'll probably see plenty more of him next year. Melton's a '22 4th-rounder out of San Diego State, Morris is a team legend and HOFer, and Olson is looking to be an excellent acquisition whose numbers were hampered by a sorry lack of run support (and bad health luck) this season.

I have to say, it's super cool to see a guy like Magglio in products like Panini's '23 Chronicles, including the card numbered /199 above! As with other players you saw today I'm always glad to see cards of Cal in trade packages. Skubal is largely responsible for taking what looked to be another below-average Tigers squad and making it a big story, with a Cy Young-worthy campaign that led his team to a very unlikely playoff berth! Tork recovered a bit after a dismal start and we'll likely get a better idea next year if he'll be part of the club's future. Tram is another team legend appearing courtesy of '23 Panini Select. And Papa Grande and JV had fans plenty excited back when they were starring on perennial playoff teams.

The versatile Vierling is our last standard vertical issue in the baseball group. Miggy gets another Heritage MLB pair card that looks quite cool as a throwback to past Topps designs. The two guys who led the '82 Tigers on the '83 Topps card had an especially good time in '84! A stray '85 OPC half sticker of Lou Whitaker was a very fun surprise. Jung makes a couple more appearances, including one with the also previously-seen Melton. And then we have a card of a former Tiger the likes of which I wouldn't tend to keep, but there's no way I could turn down the Leather & Lumber black gold signature you see here even if it features failed prospect Christin Stewart. Come on, how cool does that look?!

Switching over to basketball, I believe that every player seen here is currently active in the NBA. Injured Hawks G Kobe Bufkin leads all comers with three new cards. THJ had a solid 14 points in Detroit's season-opening loss last night, and the card you see above is numbered /165, which is cool. LeVert's Cavs are actually scheduled to face the Pistons tomorrow. I couldn't find any stats for Washington's Poole yet this season. And then we have the Wagner bros, Franz and Mo who combined for 30 points (23 and 7, respectively) in yesterday's season opener win against the Bulls.

Basketball got a couple new hits too! Brooks is a newcomer to both my basketball hits collection and UM basketball PC in general. He played as a G for five seasons in Ann Arbor, spanning 2017-18 to 2021-22, then went undrafted, so he's prime fodder for a product like Wild Card Alumination that gets signatures of players who probably wouldn't sniff a cardboard appearance otherwise. While he becomes the 36th subject in my basketball hits PC, Wilson gets his second: a Crown Royale jersey/auto (numbered /199). The 2017 Bucks first-rounder is pictured with the team that drafted him though he's since suited up for Houston, Doug's Raptors, and the 76ers.

As we switch over to the gridiron, transfer RB Thomas Rawls is the lone base card out of 10 items (hence splitting the remaining basketball and football into two scans). WR Amara Darboh gets a nice spotlight down the right side of the scan with three beautiful looking auto/relics. #1 is a dual jersey (you might call them "prime" as they aren't far off from patches) and football combo paired up with Darboh's signature, and the Absolute beauty is the Spectrum parallel of that product's RC, limited to "just" 99 copies. Next is Panini Phoenix's Orange parallel of his jersey/auto, clocking in at 150 copies. And finally we have a Rookies & Stars Dress for Success signature and memorabilia pairing that's also numbered /99. Fun news: these additions allowed Darboh to join the 50-hit club in the football PC! He's just the 11th player to reach that milestone.

The above three hits go quite well with this super sextet. Arrington is one of the 10 other 50-hit guys in my collection and the '09 Topps Magic autographs will always be a favorite of mine. Talented defender Devin Bush II joins the collection with his first hit, a Panini Luminance jersey that makes him football collection dude #254 and the fourth with that first name. I now have 11 Butts including the shiny one numbered /99 above, and I'll leave that there for all of you to get your best comments in. Chesson was a college teammate and position mate of Darboh's and he hit the double-digit mark with his 9th card including a signature (the other's a plate) thanks to 2017 Panini Spectra (#d /199). I would assume most of you who've followed me for long enough remember the namesake of my now-retired secondary blog, Mario Manningham, on a sweet Press Pass college uni signature. By the way, he's one hit away from joining Chad Henne in the 100-hit club while Jake Long needs three and Braylon Edwards needs six. Goals!

And last up is one of the biggest surprises in this mailing. Doug's certainly been generous enough to send me plates and other 1/1s before, but I didn't expect this Yellow 2020 Leaf Draft plate of former transfer QB Shea Patterson! The two-year Wolverine went 10-3 and 9-4 in 2018 and 2019, a few seasons before things really turned around for Jim Harbaugh's program. This appears to be my 56th 1/1 in my football PC with Shea being the 34th member to appear on at least one. I really enjoyed finding this among the rest of the loot which was already very high quality.

So as you can see I was quite pleased with the baseball, basketball, and football content. As for the hockey stuff, you'll have to wait until next time, but I promise it's worth a look as that stack was bigger than that of these three sports combined! I look forward to sharing that with you so y'all can get a feeling for just how much Doug stuffed into this box.

Until then, thanks so much for another fantastic package, Doug!

4/5/2024 show report: Christmas in April

Tonight's post is one of two I know of that I need to finish out the month of April. This one's a quick summary of the monthly Taylor show I got to on 4/5.

I spent a yearly low there of $45 (with the exception of the second show I got to in January to buy from Sluggo's Sports Cards at the event in Kalamazoo) but still came home with some cool stuff.

First up is some trade bait:

I love me some 90s inserts! The Akili Smith is spoken for but everything else is still up for grabs. McNown's Gridiron Kings card is actually the Canvas version as it's one of the first 500 printed (#0090/5000).

As for my keepers,

As far as I can remember it was mostly a dime/quarter box kind of day. I added a trio of cards featuring a couple of Detroit's recent top prospects, double-"Js" Jackson Jobe and Jace Jung, largely thanks to a prospect-heavy Donruss product. Next is a pair of classic Tigers, Kaline and Pesky, though of course the latter is much more famous for his eight seasons (and namesake Fenway Park feature) than the three with the Tigers. A couple Ginter Ripkens bump his total up as he nears the 1300-card mark in my collection. And former UM pitcher (on a Wolverine-ish airbrushed photo card) Steve Hajjar is the source of this post's title with a 2022 Leaf Holidays-related product and its Happy Holidays autograph set. That's my third signature of the left who's in Cleveland's system.

I also found a couple scans' worth of football stuff between the dime/quarter and dollar boxes. Bell would look better in a Blue parallel, of course, but Red works for his current team, the Niners, plus at least the card has a great college action photo. Transfer RB Charbonnet is one of three guys in these two scans (K Jake Moody and TE Luke Schoonmaker are the others) to pop up thanks to the Retail versions of their Panini Absolute RCs (you can tell as they lack serial numbers on the front as opposed to the hobby cards). The two shiny Funchess parallels are numbered /70 and /75 so I didn't mind throwing down a buck each. QB Grbac features on a pretty cool early Bowman Chrome insert. I may be slowly (and unintentionally) working on Ty Law's Mosaic rainbow, we'll see. And Paye would also benefit from an upgrade of Red to Blue on a Press Proof version of his Donruss RC.

The previously-mentioned Schoonmaker gets almost an entire scan to himself thanks to a rookie-related quartet, one of which is a Prizm Draft card with a great shot of him in action for the Wolverines. And joining my non-sport/misc. Wolverines category is broadcaster Rich Eisen. The New York native is a fan of the Jets (for some reason) but has done a great job over his career of lauding the Wolverines and celebrating the school where he earned his undergrad degree while being a co-editor for the sports section of the Michigan Daily.

I'll try to be back soonish with my last April post and maybe even post a bit more frequently so I can get caught up a bit more.