2025 TCDb trade roundup: January through April

I recently hit the 200 transaction mark on TCDb which is pretty cool to me since I first started trading there way back in 2019. Today I'm showing off the goods from my 2025 deals made there before I took a hiatus to get my trade list updated a bit. All of these were completed between January and April:

deadhead11:

A couple former Tigers including a cool food issue of the versatile Tony Phillips, plus plenty of help for my Michigan Football RC project (and a sweet Michigan uni insert of Tai Streets!).

heattreat:

This one was all baseball with some great looking parallels, numbered cards, and combinations thereof. Of course I was super excited to add a new Rich Hill!

ILLRIMESAYA:

This deal saw two cards go in each direction but one of the two I got went to another one of my trade regulars. The one for me was this sweet die-cut Maddux insert. 90s inserts rule!

jasongerman9 (PIF):

Jason's one of my oldest friends on the site and he sent me some very cool stuff in early January. The ("Christan," not "Christan") Bullock is my first of the former Michigan Baseballer, a Leaf Perfect Game auto with a huge jersey swatch. His cards are limited to this product so I really appreciated him tracking one down for me.

 

Football-wise, the '60 Topps of Barr and '61 Fleer of Smith are both second-years of guys who appeared on very few cards, so not only are they great looking vintage pieces, but they're rare appearances of guys I collect!

 

Those are joined by my first signature of LB David Bowens, a two-year Wolverine who transferred to Western Illinois, then played in the NFL for 12 seasons. Just my second card of him, what you see above is a 2005 Topps Turkey Red auto. I love adding new players to my hits collection so this one's exciting too!

 

Last up is some sort of collectable coin of Tom Brady, one that was made around 2005 or so. It's certainly a cool item of the GOAT QB.

 

Thanks as always to Jason for the amazing stuff he sends me! 

Ymmat (PIF):

Joe's another good dude I love dealing with on the site, and besides trades we've sent a number of PIFs back and forth as well. He surprised me with this one back in April, a PWE that included some baseball and football from my wantlists.

I've since returned to active trading on the site and completed more than 20 trades with more likely on the way so I'll probably have another trade roundup to catch up on those sooner than the end of the year (unless I want to have a ton to cover in December!).

I should be back relatively soon with my eBay purchases for the first half of '25. Until then, just one week until Michigan Football kicks off its season. GO BLUE! 

2025 trade package #1: Baseball Cards Come to Life

When it came to the first blogger trade cards I received in 2025, it was a case of last in, first out. Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life was the sender of the last envelopes I received late in December and then the first that hit my mailbox this past January. As it turns out, there was a reason for this: the January envelope should have been delivered with the earlier ones, but it decided to go off on its own adventure.

That didn't bother me, though, since I still ended up with some very cool cards that pretty much held up the same themes as the post-Christmas ones: vintage, oddball, and Tigers. Oh, and also, Bo identified everything as a want from my TCDb lists. I highly, highly recommend getting yourself organized there for many reasons including this one.

Here's the contents:

"Big Daddy"'s last Studio card as a Tiger was in the fantastic '96 set with one of my favorite designs. Fryman was gone from Detroit before appearing on the Absolute card you see, but those look terrific and I collect him in any uniform anyway.

The run of vintage Lolich cards was especially nice for me as it brought four news from '73, '76 (x2) and '76 Traded. By the way, Lolich has since been surpassed in strikeouts by a lefty by Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton, CC Sabathia, and Clayton Kershaw. Also, he was flipped to the Mets in December of '75 in a deal that brought "Le Grand Orange" Rusty Staub to Motown.

Speaking of outstanding pitchers, Bo filled a couple Maddux needs with his '93 Fleer Final Edition and '94 Fleer Sunoco cards. And Mad Dog's fellow 80s/90s HOFer Jack Morris came along for the ride with Fleer boxed set issues from 1988: Exciting Stars and Record Setters (first card of next scan). I love that there are still so many of those 80s oddballs for me to chase that include my many PCs.

Gwynn and Griffey didn't make the trip this time but Junior Ripken sure did thanks to cards from '91 Classic and a '94 Donruss checklist. I can't remember for sure but I may have had one of the Classic games/trivia sets that included those cards at one point.

A couple other MLB HOFers close out the baseball content. The first is a '76 Topps NL batting leaders card that includes PC guy Ted Simmons in the #2 spot with #s 1 and 3 held by Bill Madlock and Manny Sanguillen. 1975 was the first of four seasons Madlock won the batting title, and his .354 clip beat an also excellent .332 that was a career best for Simba. Meanwhile, Tram joined HOF teammate Morris from the '88 Fleer Exciting Stars set after an insane '87 season in which he was jobbed out of the AL MVP by enough voters that preferred George Bell.

Former Wolverine Jim Smith is all by himself in terms of the football content this time, though combined with the other envelopes Bo sent he would have been one of four. The '79 Topps card you see above of the WR who played six seasons with the Steelers was essentially last regular issue I needed for his collection which is now short just some oddball-ish stuff. Very cool of Bo to find that and send it my way.

Bo, thanks again for the slightly delayed additional Christmas cards! You know I'll be keeping an eye out for cool stuff for you at upcoming shows, especially any help I can give you for your vintage set builds.

I'll be back with more January trades soon, but in the meantime, it's nice to be done with 2024 and finally covering 2025 pickups!

5/3 and 5/11/24 show reports: May the shows be with you

This past May was another two-show month for me--technically three if you count the first day of the June Taylor show being on Friday, the 31st of the year's fifth month.

First, as usual, I headed east to Taylor and dropped $80 mostly on some nice trade bait for packages that have since been sent out. I did snag a small handful to offer up here:

I'm pretty sure both jerseys were a buck and I'm relatively short on baseball trade bait compared to football, so I thought the jerseys repping the Texas teams were worth it. Claim 'em in the comments if you want 'em!

And now here are my May Taylor keepers, largely from the cheapo boxes like I like them:

Nothing crazy, just some of my usual favorites. Cronenworth is a natural when it comes to blue inserts. I was happy to find a high-end Larkin base for what I believe was either a quarter or a time. Three new Maddux cards? Not too shabby! A pair of fellow HOF pitcher Jack Morris was a nice find. And lastly there's one of two Ripkens I dug out this time.

That '96 Score Ripken you see above is specially numbered "2131" and had been on my wantlist for quite a while so I was happy to come up with it. A trio of Pudge closes out the baseball stuff.

When it comes to collecting basketball-playing Kobes, Bufkin's definitely my guy, and the lone basketball entrant here. But I did find a cool trio of non-UCLA cards of transfer RB Zach Charbonnet, including my first relic of him, making him member #252 of the football collection.

Here's some great looking football inserts including one of recent alum Ronnie Bell along with cool QB chase cards of Elvis Grbac and Jim Harbaugh. The former gets the Dufex treatment while the latter feels more like a Donruss insert to me than Pinnacle, though it looks great either way.

And here's the last of the football including dumbass LT Taylor Lewan and talented d-man Kwity Paye on parallels, a couple Absolute Retail RCs, and two more of GOAT DB Charles Woodson.

That was it for Taylor but I wasn't done for the month just yet!

Eight days later I made the 90-ish minute drive west to Kalamazoo so I could meet up with some great hobby friends. I knew Jeff and Kevin (Sluggo) would be at that big show selling, plus Jason from TCDb and John planned on attending as well. I got there in the early afternoon and met up with the Sluggo's guys, catching up with them first. Jason appeared a little later, and then John. As always it was great to catch up with everyone.

Here's a pic John got of the two of us, and clearly only one of us knows where to look when taking a picture. Anyway, I spent a total of $100 at this show between four or five sellers, I believe. Kevin gave me another outstanding deal and I snagged some quality stuff from a few others I may look for again the next time I head that way.

Once again most of my purchases were destined for mailers, but my combined haul looked like this:

Give me new Gwynns any day, horizontal or vertical. Haskins was let go by the Titans but just joined the Chargers and reunited with coach Jim Harbaugh. Higdon was another successful college back, just not in the NFL. Ruiz is one of a few recent talented centers the program has produced. And I found what ended up being my fifth auto of DB David Long Jr. (not to be confused with the LB from WVU) who was released by the Giants and doesn't appear to have joined their practice squad or another team just yet.

I also found this nice little six pack of Michigan Hockey guys in a dime box, of all things, which was a surprise given the star power here. Beniers just got paid big time by the Kraken and Fantilli, as I've mentioned a couple times, won the Hobey Baker after an outstanding '22-'23 campaign.

Many thanks again to Jeff and Kevin plus Jason and John for another quality show meet-up, and I hope we get to do it again soon, though not in September as that conflicts with Michigan Football's big matchup with Texas.

In the meantime I'll continue to play catchup as I now get to move on to June with still a TON of great pickups to cover.

A super 2023 TCDb trade roundup, part 1

Tonight I'm bringing you one of a two-part series covering all of the TCDb trades I haven't yet covered here. There's lots to go over so I'll likely be fairly brief in terms of my comments.

avsbruins65 (PIF):

Mark is known to be a generous member and I was the beneficiary of that generosity back in December.

Former Michigan P John Locker joins the collection thanks to the 1990 minors issue you see above. He was a reliever for UM in 1988 and '89, and Boston took him in the 40th round in the latter season. He pitched two years for the low-A Elmira Pioneers and appears to have left the game after that.

Also, I love all of these SLU cards!

The football and hockey items were great as well.

bkim (PIF):

Robert has PIFed me at least once before and I was thankful he sent me this trio of PC guys, including a vintage (and therefore pre-Tigers) Darrell Evans.

budler (PIF):

I swear these aren't all PIFs--I'm just going alphabetically, but as with the first couple envelopes, this one from Jim arrived in time for the holiday season and I appreciated it a lot.

capper14:

In return for a numbered football insert I received this Michigan Football pair, which I think I now own a few each of, not a problem at all!

Anthony transferred but Haitian LB Colson went out as a winner with the '23 team.

cjjt:

Fellow Michigan fan Chris and I made a nice three-for-three swap that brought me a new Chad Henne hit (#143!) plus numbered inserts of two of his favorite WRs in Edwards and Manningham (you know I can't have too many of him!).

Edwards is numbered /249, Mario is /500, and Henne is /250.

deadhead11:

John and I made a pair of deals late last year, and each time I sent him a trio of numbered football inserts for nine of my own wants. This first one brought a bunch of new football back.

#2 resulted in more great new gridiron PC cards plus a Gwynn to boot.

Drdirt:

A mix of some of my set-fillers brought back these eight cards I was very happy to get. Hell yeah, multiple Sparky cards! Two each of Cronenworth and Greene didn't hurt, and fellow '84 guy Morris joins Captain Hook from the '84 champs.

Kurt Albert:

Speaking of Sparky, I knocked off another of his managing days cards, this from '77 Topps, thanks to a one-for-one deal in return for a '90 Swell dupe. That feels heavily tilted in my favor but I think we were both satisfied with the deal.

As is often the case the card was well loved which means it has more character. Still, no pencil marks on the checklist is a plus!

Mjprigge:

I pinged Matt about a trade in late October, getting some very cool items in return for almost 90 of his '95 Finest needs. The Topps/LJN cards were a highlight for me for sure, but the other classic Tigers are great as well.

I'm not going to get myself one of the players but these are just cool to have anyway.

Here's a few more Tigers, some of them recent, plus a couple '91 Swell Greats needs as I continue working on that set, just 19 to go.

MMehler30:

For just a single dupe of a Justin Verlander insert I scored myself another Cronenworth plus '97 Mother's Cookies food issues of PC guys Dean Palmer and Mickey Tettleton. Sweet! (Pun intended and delicious.)

mudville9 (Secret Santa):

Last year was my first participating in the yearly Secret Santa exchange on the site and I was quite happy with what this member sent me: a numbered autograph of Devin Funchess. I believe he actually apologized for not sending more but I told him I was more than happy with this great card as my present, and I'm sure I'll be joining up again this year.

NJDevils (PIF):

Joe is another of the site's especially generous members who treated me to a surprise PWE around Christmas--close enough that I originally thought he was my secret Santa. This mix of oddball baseball and some older football was a joy to open up during the season of giving.

nozzlemaster:

Here's another one of those deals you're apt to make on the site where you just get an eclectic bunch of stuff you probably wouldn't find all at once anywhere else, especially give some of the oddballness.

This was another trade where I got some work done on '91 Swell.

Orry04:

I got a nice mix of Tigers guys in this one, with the highlights in the first image being the Conlon cards.

The Hajjar is yet another ridiculous Panini parallel but redeems itself with a college action photo so it's all good. It definitely feels good stocking up on Tork cards before a potential true breakout season in 2024.

SaintOrm (PIF):

Kurt is yet another member whose name you'll see quite often in the site's excellent "Pay it Forward" thread where folks thank others for surprising them with free or extra cards. The three scans' worth he sent me were very nice, and they start on a high note here thanks to a trio of Gibby cards I'm sure I couldn't have found easily otherwise plus a great mix of Griffeys.

More Griffey, cool oddball of Senor Smoke, a very interesting Kaline, a Cal insert need, and my first card of Michigan OF Miles Lewis, a transfer from North Dakota who played from 2017-19 in Ann Arbor. Before even heading to college he was captured in the 2013 Leaf Perfect Game amateur set, and his 17 cards found there are the only ones made of a guy who appears to be out of the game.

And how about finishing up what Kurt sent with this group? A few more of the killer "G"s, a mix of stickers, Topps Kids, and a shiny Pudge. I'm especially happy with the decent bump to my Gibson collection thanks to this PIF.

thesouthpaw:

This one brought me some more Michigan Football friends. The Collins leading off the scan is a retail Panini Illusions RC, and the Dax plus Kwity right down the middle are also first-years. The rest are all rookie-related except for DPJ's Mosaic parallel and the Red Score Peppers. How cool is it to see beastly defenders Hutch, Mazi, and Gary on the same card?

wvcabo:

This deal was mostly notable due to an item you'll see in the last images, but I have to say I was pretty happy with my baseball haul as well. Both UM guy Henry and breakout Tigers OF Carpenter are '23 Topps RCs here.

The football group included another card for my growing Bell collection plus the Bolts' new coach returning to one of his old teams.

Speaking of Harbaugh, I'd say that look on his face is familiar to many a ref. My coolest item in this deal was this '97 Pinnacle Inside (opened) can. I guess my trade partner was happy enough with his return to justify shipping it to me!

ymmat (PIF):

And this group ends this evening as close to the end of the alphabet as you can hit without getting to "Z." Joe is another another generous guy that I've traded with before and we've sent PIFs back and forth a couple times. It was great to see Riley leading off on this one but the playing card of UM P Ontiveros was a great addition as well.

And Owens is yet another new member of my Michigan Baseball PC. No matter how obscure you think something is, make sure to get it on your wantlist because you never know who might be able to send it to you! The Flint native is represented on his '82 TCMA Chattanooga Lookouts issue, which covers his second and final franchise (Seattle) after being Cleveland's 6th rounder in 1978.

As you can see, Joe hit up a number of my other player collections as well, just all over the place, really. The Chrome Platinum Skubal in the middle is quite a looker and I'm looking forward to what I hope is 100% health for him in 2024.

There was an embarrassment of (mostly 80s) stickers in this package starring some of my favorite players, mostly Gwynn, Maddux, and some '84 Tigers. Wow!

Football didn't get left out either and he even sent some vintage-y stuff of Wolverine NFLers that not everyone would know that well, so kudos to Joe for finding these!

That was obviously a huge bunch of trades and PIFs to cover, but I still have a few left in an upcoming post where I'll be highlighting the same courtesy of some of my closest friends on the site. Until then, thanks again to the great members represented here tonight for being great trade partners and gifters!