2024 COMC purchases: Nine from November

With the finish line now in sight I'm even more motivated to get this post done and call 2024 a wrap! Here's a look at the cards I bought for myself during COMC's Black Friday sale:

First up is hit #1 of another UM WR to wear #8 (besides another guy in this post), Ronnie Bell. The receiver/returner outplayed his practically anonymous recruiting rankings and was a key contributor as the Wolverines marched back to respectability under Jim Harbaugh. The Bowman's Best University card pictures him with the Wolverines (instead of the 49ers who'd eventually draft and then release him) and that's a great start for his hits collection! Sure, it's a sticker auto and he signed with his initials, but at least he added an inscription with his jersey number.

The day's other "first" is my second hit but first signature of LB Devin Bush II, a three-year Wolverine who did some nice work in 2017 and 2018 in Ann Arbor. The Steelers took him in the first round in 2019 and he's since bounced to Seattle and Cleveland, but was good enough to appear in an autograph insert (#d /299) in 2020 Panini Legacy.

In spot #3 is the other WR #8, the sure-handed Jason Avant, who was able to rescue the planted Michigan flag in Columbus this past season after Buckeye Jack Sawyer threw his hissy fit once his OSU team lost to Michigan again. Avant never won a Super Bowl with the Eagles but did have a solid 10-year career mostly spent with them, and I was thrilled to add another Triple Threads jersey/auto of his from his 2006 rookie year. The one you see above is the Sepia version /75 and is hit #66 of #8.

Next, RB Chris Evans appears to be out of the league at this point, but that wasn't going to stop me from picking up a third Michigan uni autograph of his. I may have passed on other brands but usually tend to like the simplicity of Score's rookie autos, so I had no problem ponying up a couple bucks for this one.

Sure, we've already had Devin, but what about second Devin? I paid less than $6.50 total for the cool pair starring former Panthers WR Funchess and I think that was a steal. The card on the left is a 2015 Panini Black Gold Sizeable Signatures Rookie Jerseys prime version, and I'm thinking you'll agree that it lives up to its "sizeable" and "prime" descriptors with ease. The other is a 2015 Panini National Convention VIP manupatch auto, which isn't the kind of thing I'd pay a premium for, but I do like seeing athletes sign things other than stickers. Funch moves up to 34 hits thanks to the pair.

I'll move down one spot horizontally to discuss the next card, a Jake Long 2008 Topps Triple Threads Sepia parallel. This one came with three really nice multi-color Dolphins swatches to go along with his signature (and numbering /75, like the Avant above). It's a great looking card to add to a collection that now stands at a very nice 98 hits, though he remains in third place behind our next two players.

Forever #1 guy Chad Henne continues to outpace the rest by a mile with his 146th hit, which happens to be one of the higher-end items in his collection. The 12th 1/1 I've landed for him, the card you see above is his 2008 Finest Yellow Plate (the non-auto version). It set me back a reasonable $14 which I don't mind paying for a top PC guy like Henne, whose hit collection isn't too far off of that from all-sports leader Rich Hill. As always, I'm a fan of when manufacturers do the border thing with their plates to make it obvious which color you have, especially in this case where the back is otherwise normal.

And last but not least is former blog namesake guy Mario Manningham. The 2008 Leaf Certified Materials auto you see above (#d /100) is everything I love about 2000s-era cards of some of my favorites, but it may be the most significant from this post for an entirely different reason: it puts Super Mario at exactly 100 hits, making him just the second player behind Henne in the football collection (and third overall including Rich Hill) to reach that mark! It actually wasn't 100% intentional as I would have been happy for Jake Long (again, 98) or Braylon Edwards (95) to make it first, but I only found one of the former I liked and none of the latter this time. So it looks like I get to celebrate Too Many Manninghams as my 2024 year of collecting comes to a close! (The football hits collection also surpassed the 1700-mark before the calendar turned, basketball went over 150, and hockey moved up to 350, with baseball very close to 450.)

Once again, thanks to everyone for making 2024 a great year of trading, blogging, reading, comments, shows, and more! I'm looking forward to treating you to recaps of the cards I've picked up since 2025 started including (at this point) seven blogger-related trade packages, two shows, and four TCDb deals. Look for a post covering the first blogger trade of January soon!

TCDB trade roundup: baseball bounty and football fun

I'm back today with most of the rest of my recent TCDB deals (one will get its own post for reasons that will make more sense when I get to that one). This time I have six transactions to cover including the most recent ones that just hit my mailbox today.

I have lots of cards to show off so let's get down to it!

I sent a small mix of 90s and 2000s base cards to d7lane (a fellow member named Dennis!) and got a PWE with these four in earlier this afternoon:

Card #1 is my first (though he only has three to his name) of former Michigan P Dave Kopf, a Cubs draftee who never made it above AAA. That means no MLB cards but thankfully Minors sets like 1986 ProCards exist! Lance Parrish is the draw for me on the second card, from the excellent 1986 Sportflics Decade Greats set, which takes advantage of lenticular technology to show off all three players (Gary Carter and Tony Pena are the other members of "Best 80s Catchers). Junior is from The '95 Sportflix (with an 'X") UC3 Cyclone Squad insert. And my favorite of the bunch is a '96 Pinnacle Starburst Artist's Proof of Tram.

The next PWE I'll recap also just arrived today in plenty of time to include it in this post. It came to me from Mike in PA, a.k.a. MDog23. He's a Yankees collector who sent me the following older cards for some stuff of his team (which was bounced from the playoffs last night, ha!):

I'm always happy to see more '84 Tigers in deals like these, whether or not they appear in Detroit unis. The late Bergman plus Herndon were briefly teammates with the Giants in 1981, with Larry arriving in Motown in a December '81 trade and Bergman joining him (via Philly) in March of '84.

On the Michigan Football side of things I grabbed vintage/-ish cards of S Thom Darden, HOF OT Dan Dierdorf, WR Glenn Doughty, DE Curtis Greer, and LG Reggie McKenzie. The sets they're from include '79, '80, and '82 Topps.

The biggest deal you'll see tonight in terms of the number of items I added came from Texan T206. I sent him a mix of 40+ cards, many of which came from the set-fillers from my Facebook collection purchase, and got the following 30+ back:

Abbott's from 2005 Donruss Greats' Silver HoloFoil parallel. The three Grandersons plus the Morris were all bonus cards which was very generous of Wayne and much appreciated. The artwork on Larkin's 2020 Gallery insert leaves a lot to be desired but it's still a new card for his collection. Another '84 Tiger, Chester, hails from 2005 Topps Rookie Cup, which has popped up a bit in this series. And I happily added a new piece for my PC of ex-Wolverine Fleet Walker out of 2011 TriStar Obak.

Switching over to football I enjoyed a bounty of my undefeated Wolverines in this deal. The first two cards of Branch and Breaston are numbered and my Braylon collection is nearing 350 thanks to this bunch.

I grabbed the two cards you see of transfer RB Fargas (the first being numbered /750) not realizing that the latter was a manupatch, meaning I wouldn't count it in my chase of RCs, though I'll happily keep it otherwise. The three new Grieses are highlighted by a '98 Score Showcase Series parallel of his RC. Hall's also a rookie year parallel, a Refractor version of his '07 Topps Chrome RC, and so is Henne's 2008 Topps Gold Foil. Joppru's 2003 Donruss Elite Status die-cut parallel is probably the coolest card in the package, numbered to just 48 copies (plus it's a college uni photo, even with the Senior Bowl jersey). I don't get that many opportunities to add cards of June so the '06 Topps Total was a nice inclusion.

Former #1 overall pick Long and DT Terrance Taylor get the Michigan uni treatment as well on a pair of inserts. The 2001 Leaf R&S card is a RC of former UM CB Will Peterson (who's since changed his last name to "James"), who transferred to Youngstown State and then Western Illinois before a 10-year NFL career. I also scored three cards of the A-Train (two seen here), one with the team that drafted him along with his final pro squad, the Bills.

Last up in this deal is a five-pack of horizontal cards. Braylon gets two more added to his pile and Long gets a second, also from 2008 UD Draft, though this time it's from the Silver parallel numbered /100. Former OT Jon Runyan is the former Michigan guy on the three-player 2007 Topps Total card. And one more A-Train insert closes out this group.

The uniquely named theduckmanz was my next trade partner, and I was able to flip him a mix of almost 20 cards, mostly from the '90s, for these:

It was a blast seeing Cronenworth playing meaningful games into late October, and now that I'm covering this trade that includes a '21 Chrome Refractor and Stadium Club RC I believe I'm all caught up on what I've added of him through the site. Though their 2023 statuses are up in the air I'm happy to continue adding RCs and other nice stuff of Mize and Skubal. Here you see RCs of both of them, a '21 Heritage of Mize, and a '21 Heritage Chrome Purple Refractor of the duo. The Iron Man is the last of the baseball bunch with the second half of a '98 Pinnacle Inside Stand Up Guys insert (which includes Ken Caminiti, Chipper Jones, and Scott Rolen) plus his '21 A&G base.

Here's the back of the Stand Up Guys card. For those of you who were curious I do have the A-B version and can therefore complete the piece, but didn't feel like taking a photo of that.

Switching back to football, former TE Riemersma gets a great action shot on his '04 Ultra base, and he's joined by former QB Elvis Grbac on his '98 SPx Finite base (#d /7600). To those I added an '04 Press Pass Autographs Bronze auto of another ex-QB, John Navarre, but apparently I already had one (and so does Jeff). Oops and oh well, but that's fine because I don't mind throwing that back on my trade list on the site, and I didn't give up anything I'd miss for it, plus I was pretty happy with the rest of the deal anyway.

The smallish deal I made with Wisconsinite James, a.k.a. tullyelly, is one of the oldest I hadn't posted yet as it was completed back at the end of June. I sent him a few basketball cards I didn't care about and got the following in return:

Just like the Verlander you saw a couple posts ago the Kaline manurelic above was kind of a fun addition to the trade, and I can always use more of him anyway. Football dominated this deal too, starting with Touchdown Timmy on a '96 Collector's Choice You Crash the Game Silver contest card (which apparently ended up being a loser). WR Chris Calloway gets a new pair for his collection. Stadium Club issues of  former OL Elliott and Kenn, both of whom had nice NFL careers, sandwich a new card of WR Mercury Hayes, who did not. And who doesn't start grinning when they see Denard and his megawatt smile? He appears courtesy of a 2019 Topps set devoted to the blink-and-you-missed-it AAF.

And finally tonight I have three oddball-packed scans worth of cards from Minnesota fan in Florida twinscollector34:

Almost half of my end was made up of these 1988 Pepsi/Kroger team cards of the Tigers. These are all guys I still enjoy collecting, and out of the 25-card set the only ones I still need to track down are Tram and Brookens, plus maybe some of my lesser PCs like Pat Sheridan, Frank Tanana, and Matt Nokes. These oversized oddball issues are a fun relic from the 80s and will all have places of honor in their players' collections, though they'll certainly be stored somewhere more appropriate for their size.

We get a bit more mainstream in this final scan but there's still lots of fun oddball pieces too! Three of the Big Daddy cards are pretty standard, with the UD Iooss Collection and DK cards looking especially nice, but I also love the '92 Score 7-Eleven Coin in the bottom-right corner. Larkin gets a trio of additions as well, two of which are from '89 and '90 Baseball Card Magazine's reprints series, and the last of which is a 2003 Topps 205 Polar Bear mini. A '94 Collector's Choice Silver Signature parallel is the newest addition to the Dean-o collection. Ripken shows off his glove on a '98 Pacific Invincible Gems of the Diamond insert. And finally, we end on one last oddball, another Tram, out of 1990 Jumbo California Sunflower Seeds.

Once again my collection grows with some great additions thanks to the excellent traders on the site!

Stay tuned for at least one more post in this series, which I alluded to above. Besides that I have a bit of eBay loot to cover, and then next week should bring a return to the monthly show after circumstances caused me to miss this one. In the meantime, since there are still remnants of the cheaters on the current squad, I'll be rooting for Philadelphia over the Astros. Go Phillies!

2021 trade package #27 and 28: Sport Card Collectors

As if I didn't already have enough to be thankful for today--a day off, sleeping in, hanging with my family, and some great food--Matt of Sport Card Collectors (and Big Blue Cardboard and Cards Over Coffee) recently decided to treat me to a PWE and then seconds, with both arriving on Tuesday. This evening seems like a perfect time to share them so I'm going to do just that, changing things up a bit and covering them one at a time!

PWE #1:

Tigers and Wolverines: two teams I'm thankful to root for even if it's been a while since either has been at the top of their sport. We'll start on the diamond with a pair of AL ROY pitchers. Fulmer came back from TJ surgery to be fairly effective as a closer, though I don't know if that's his expected role in 2022. He appears here on a 2020 Topps Update Gold parallel (#0080/2020). A decade earlier some clean shaven kid named Verlander took the league by storm and was the top rookie, and Justin's seen here on a cool 2021 Diamond Kings insert I wasn't aware of called "The Club." The back notes a cool feat of his from 2019 when he joined the club (hey, that's the name of this set!) of pitchers with 3000 strikeouts while also going over the 300 mark for the season. Not bad!

The football side of things was all college unis all the time, so bonus points to Matt! First up is a 2021 Score insert called Collegiate Champions, and yes, Brady had a small role on the last title-winning Michigan Football squad, and then went on to contribute a bit to seven Super Bowl champs. Hart is my favorite all-time Michigan RB and I love how he's guiding the current players while coaching the position. You could call him the gold standard and that would be appropriate as he's seen here on a 2008 SAGE HIT Gold parallel. 2021 first-round monster Kwity Paye, as seen from this year's Prizm Draft set, has gotten better as the season's gone on, picking up a sack in each of his las two games to go with a forced fumble (and a pair of fumble recoveries earlier this year). And Hart's 2008 draft mate and #1 overall pick Jake Long was also a gold standard while manning LT for Dolphins teammate Chad Henne in Ann Arbor and Miami. He shares a 2008 UD Draft Edition Franchise Foundations subset offering with USC/Falcons T Sam Baker, a guy also highly regarded at the position who joined Jake as an '08 first rounder.

That was a high quality group of cards, so how about envelope #2?:

Look who's back--Michael Fulmer! He was the only landscape card so I scanned him at the end of the first row but I'll start with him here. Though the image doesn't completely capture the reflectivity going on here, that's a 2019 Topps Rainbow Foil parallel of a nice action shot. After missing 2019 and a chunk of 2020, he came back this season to appear in 52 games, just four of which were starts, and ended up with 14 saves. I don't get the impression the rotation will have room for him unless a young guy really falters in spring training, but he could still be a valuable bullpen arm, swing starter, or trade piece.

And now we head back to college football, the sport on my mind as Michigan prepares to face football factory/school optional juggernaut OSU. Brady is our second of three repeat players here and his is the only card with an NFL action shot. That's from 2020 Score's In the Zone insert and as you can tell from two of the corners it's the Gold parallel version. Speed-in-space receiving back Chris Evans of the Bengals gets half this envelope to himself thanks to 2021 Panini Chronicles cards repping Prestige and XR along with the previously seen Prizm Draft. XR hasn't been around long and I don't know if I'm a huge fan yet but Prestige has long been good to collectors like myself. And Paye also makes his triumphant return here in a product I don't believe I'd set my eyes on before, 2021 Wild Card Matte White. It brings back the well known name from a few decades ago if not the design or a license, but Paye's Wolverines uni didn't need to get airbrushed so that's a big plus for me. Also, the Stripe parallels are back and some might chase those for the nostalgia kick.

Matt, thanks as always for your trademark generosity in PWE form. At some point before the next holiday I'll be rewarding you with a larger envelope filled with your favorite blue team and lots more.

And most definitely before then I'll be showing off the substantial trade box that arrived the other day, a couple high-end eBay pickups, and then hopefully more of the Facebook lot. But I'm ready to succumb to turkey coma, so Happy Thanksgiving, all!

2020 COMC purchases: look at these 'graphs (and more!)

Time to finish up a look at my late-year purchases from COMC so I can close the book on cards I bought in 2020, a year that often felt as bad as a Nickelback song.

I decided to throw all of the football content in one post and just try not to get too verbose about it. That way I can get this stuff put away and move on to other incoming items and stuff I want to post about. I'm showing off 35 cards tonight and the vast majority include signatures, hence today's title and the meme above. Let's get down to business:

The other 34 cards fit nicely into two scans each of nine (vertical cards) and eight (horizontal), so I'll give the only non-hit its own spot here to start. Old Ty joins Amani Toomer (back-to-back in the set, in fact) in my collection of the amazing 2000 Bowman's Best Acetate parallel, which is so cool I scanned both sides for this post!

Ok, on to the (mostly) 'graphs! Many of the cards you'll see were excellent deals that fortified some of my better football PCs. Avant's from the era of shiny stickergraphs and is numbered /125. Breaston did play a couple seasons for the Chiefs, who could repeat as champs tomorrow evening. J-Booty's auto comes on an Optic card, making it shiny in a different way than Avant's. Taco (Michigan uni!) was drafted by Dallas but is now potentially in line for a ring as a bit player for the Chiefs. I continued to bolster Darboh's collection with the three autos you see here (and more in a bit), and Jeff and I have lots of those in common which I noticed while adding them on TCDB. Braylon's huge Browns swatch (/150) was a nice value. And I scored another, uh, signature? of Gary, who had a solid sophomore campaign with the Pack.

Now this is a top three I can get down with: a trio of college uni cards! Gentry's tiny John Hancock graces a Prizm card, Big Mo is one of those acetate cards from Leaf Trinity's Clear line, and I tracked down auto number two of former lineman Trezelle Jenkins. Then it's on to just four out of an absolute bounty of Jake Longs, including a quad jersey/auto, autograph, and not one but two plates (2008 Topps Mayo and 2010 Topps), the first I've acquired of the former #1 overall pick. It's been a while since I've posted a new pickup of former college star DL Mike Martin so why not celebrate his return with a beautiful UD Black signature (/199)? And I enjoy seeing former stars like Toomer get recognized after their careers in Panini's various products, like this Certified jersey (/49) of Amani "It's Not A" Toomer.

Not everything was autographed in this bunch but most was. One of the exceptions was a cool rookie year Avant jersey (/499) where the shininess of the card is better than the swatch. Leaf's cards are fantastic values for college collectors like this sick giant patch/auto of WR Jehu Chesson that cost me less than $3. The three other Darboh cards I found were jersey/autos, two of which came with nice pieces of what's becoming a familiar Seahawks jersey for me as a collector of his cards. Braylon's Topps "patch" isn't terribly impressive but was a cool find for under a buck, and the large jersey number relic card (/25) is even better. Panini's Contenders/Draft products are also outstanding for those pursuing cards of their favorite schools, and here I was glad to find my third signature of former DB David Long.

And the last grouping allows me to end the post with a bang. I was very pleased with my Long haul (pun intended), nine cards for about $33 that also included four jersey/autos and an auto/manupatch. The Gridiron Gear card is one of those where the signed swatch can be pulled out, similar to the Denard that follows the group, though I think in Shoelace's case the signed piece isn't from a jersey. I was thrilled to add another of A-Train's beautiful signatures to my collection. And we'll end on a non-auto, a dual relic of WR Marquise Walker, representing Tom Brady's Bucs in this post.

Once again I had a great time landing some amazing pieces for my collection at pretty nice prices, even if my trade bait purchasing was less than ideal this time around. Just a few quick collection notes: Long zoomed past Braylon thanks to his big day, with the OT hitting 97 to the WR's 93 (Manningham's in between at 95), and threatening to become the second member of my 100-hit club (Henne). Despite his cards being relatively recent, Darboh's already over the 40-mark to 41. And Avant gets to 65 hits, good for sixth overall. Michigan's former WRs feature heavily at the top of my collection with #s 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 16, and 17.

With these finally able to be put away in their boxes I'm not sure where I'll go next: possibly my first Baseballcardstore.ca order, or perhaps an interesting purchase from a new vendor, not to mention an incoming trade envelope. If I manage to get myself to put up a Super Bowl-related post tomorrow I know which one it'll be, and I'm curious to see reactions to it.

2020 trade package #3: Chronicles of Fuji

I count myself among the people lucky enough to trade with Fuji and I'm always glad to hear when he's sending something my way since I know it'll be great.  That was mostly definitely the case when Mark played Santa last month and sent out a fleet of envelopes all over the country.  Even with my expectations high Fuji's generosity always manages to surprise me.  Check out this latest mailer:

Make no mistake, this package was a hit parade, and this isn't even half of it!  We'll start with Michigan pitching great Jim Abbott on a signature from UD's Goodwin champions.  As usual with the brand the artwork is suspect but the auto is top notch!  Then there's a whole mess of Tigers.  The first of two Miggy relics from 2019 Topps is a jersey from the set done up in the '84 design, which reminds me of the Tigers '84 set I grabbed at Comerica Park last year.  Next is a 2017 Topps Holiday jersey of Michael Fulmer which is somehow my first hit of the former ROY whom I continue to hope returns to full health.

Going a bit older school we have what I considered a pleasant surprise:  a 2000 Topps Traded autograph of former catcher/infielder Brandon Inge.  He could be streaky but put together a few nice seasons in the mid-aughts with his best year coinciding with Detroit's return to the Fall Classic.  That's my first auto of BInge and only my second hit overall along with a jersey, so this was a great inclusion!

Last up in this scan is a trio of nice jersey relics of Trashtro pitcher Justin Verlander.  I may cover this more in a future post but for now to answer what may become a FAQ:  yes I still collect JV, though I've soured on him as a player given his lackluster reaction to his team cheating its way to a title.  Anyway, these relics are quite nice and hail from 2017 Ginter and Heritage and '19 Donruss.

And the bevy of Tigers doesn't end there!  Up top is a very cool acetate auto out of 2002 Topps Pristine of '01 first-round bust P Kenny Baugh.  In a round one short on quality regulars (Joe Mauer, Mark Prior for a minute, Gavin Floyd, Mark Teixeira) Baugh was still a bad miss as he never made it out of the minors, plus he was selected ahead of, among others, David Wright!  That see through auto card is super cool, though, and I'm planning on keeping it for now despite the fact that I rarely hold onto cards of such players.

The other two here are somewhat similarly designed jersey relics of former teammates Miggy and V-Mart.  Cabrera's is from 2019 while Victor's was made the previous year.  I may have looked this up and mentioned it before, but as teammates from 2011-18 they combined for 454 HR while seeing their production fall off a cliff after 2016.  By the way, this is just my second hit of Victor and first of him as a Tiger, so again, nice job by Mark!

And now we're on to the "other sports" portion of the package.  I thought the Jimmy King/Ty Wheatley duo card made for a nice segue between the two games seen her, and naturally I enjoyed the college photos out of the terrific looking '95 Classic Five Sport set.  Biakabutuka's card is also very interesting:  a $20 phone card inserted into packs of '96 Press Pass.  They apparently also could be found in values of $5, $10, and $1996.  Remember phone cards?  That's so 90s.

And I'll give the best card of this bunch its own paragraph.  Glen Rice is probably the best player from the '89 champs and I'm always happy to get new stuff of his, especially when I don't have to buy it myself!  This 2016-17 Panini Excalibur Calligraphy card is a textbook example of how nice his signature can look, and he clearly lives up to the set's name here.  This is my fifth auto of Rice and of course I want to keep adding more.

Last up is the football hits portion, or what I'm going to refer to as the "Long haul" for obvious reasons.  I wonder if any of you can picture my face after I pulled card after card out of this package and thought, "How much great stuff did Fuji just send me?!"  I mean, take a look at the previous three scans and keep them in mind when you look at this bonanza.  Yowza!

Let's start with Touchdown Tim in the upper-left corner.  You wouldn't know it from the looks of it but that card was made by Fleer during his rookie year of '96, and despite the plain look it's nice to have since he doesn't have a ton of signed cards.  Then we have what's just my second auto of DL Ryan Glasgow of the Michigan walk-on Glasgows.  The reason it's difficult to see his name in that scan is the color of the foil--blue, appropriately enough--since it's a parallel version of his regular auto in the set.  As usual with Contenders/Draft I think it looks awesome and love the college action photo they went with.

Before we get to the guy who had the biggest day I can cover two of his teammates and fellow '08 draftees.  #1 PC guy Chad Henne is first with a jersey relic out of that year's UD product and then we jump forward two years for a sweet dual jersey out of Sweet Spot of another top guy in Mario Manningham, a.k.a. the namesake of my defunct sister blog.  The latter looks especially cool with, yep, a great college photo.

And now to the man of the hour, Jake Long, who represents a quarter of today's hits, with all of them being autographed!  Two of them--'08 Stadium Club and '09 Topps Mayo--include "just" signatures while the other three--'08 Leaf Certified Materials, Bowman Sterling, and UD Premier--come with relic bonuses.  Again, pulling these out one at a time was a crazy experience, and I'm humbled once again by Fuji's trademark generosity, not to mention the effort I like to credit when people go above and beyond to hit my preferred college collections.

Mark, thanks once again for this stunner of an envelope!  I'm not sure when or how I'll hit you back, but regardless of what you say I intend to do so one way or another.  And in the meantime I'm enjoying seeing the similarly amazing packages popping up on other blogs.  It's good to be a friend of Mr. Fuji!

2019 COMC purchases: 2019 was an a-maize-ing year!

It's the second Sunday in February, 2020, and I'm finally ready to close out my 2019 pickups so I can move on to this year!

Today's post will cover Michigan Football guys that I consider PCs in the sense that they have their own albums, though I may change how I present those soon to make things a bit easier for everybody.

Let's get to the cards:

QB #7 Chad Henne had himself a day (or a sale weekend, as the case may be) with this seven spot of new hits.  I scored a new auto out of the 2008 UD Icons product I'm not exactly in love with (but a signature's a signature!) and two relics from 2011 Panini brands:  a Gridiron Gear "prime" piece and a normal Dolphins green swatch from Limited.  Those photos look preeeetty similar....

On the horizontal end I came up with three more 2008 SPx cards from the Rookie/Winning Materials sets that have multiple configurations.  The first two are /75 and the last is /50 but all three are dual swatch versions.  A quick check tells me I have 15 different cards featuring Henne from this product, 11 of which are from the two inserts I mentioned.  They're joined by my third example of a 2008 UD Premier issue, all of which include four swatches and an autograph.  This is the Silver and is #d /60.

These additions are fun on their own but they also happen to bump my Henne collection over 300 to 306 total cards, second only to Charles Woodson, not to mention 136 hits, tying him with baseball leader Rich Hill!  I look forward to adding more of his stuff this year.

I think I promised a good showing in my posts leading up to this one, and maybe you'll agree that I delivered between the Hennes, these vertically oriented offerings, and the horizontals in the next scan.  Here we start with my second "A" and third letter overall in Jason Avant's 2006 Donruss Threads nameplate.  I'll keep looking for the "V" and "T" I need so I can have another completed project to show off.  His former teammate Alan Br--

--ANCH KILLS QBs!

Branch, gets a 17th auto to his collection, and we'll see him again shortly.  The final 1/1 this time is a 2011 Inception Yellow plate of Braylon Edwards, and I love the border that makes it abundantly obvious which version it is.  Leon Hall and David Harris help maintain the offense/defense balance in this scan with signatures from 2007 Bowman Sterling and 2011 Prime Signatures.  I was able to sneak in a fairly cheap Manningham in the form of a dual signature with Marcus Monk from UD's 2009 sticker dump SP Signature, which works for me!  That's hit #94 of my former blog namesake.  Denard, who we'll see again in the next scan, can be seen on a rookie year 2013 Topps Triple Threads Purple parallel /27, with cutouts for the swatches spelling out his various positions.  I wish he'd been given a shot to play QB in the NFL just for fun.  Last up is Gabe Watson, who I forgot isn't one of my PC guys since he's only at 30 cards.  Oh well, that 2006 Absolute auto (his 8th) is still pretty cool!

The horizontals start with a cheap Avant relic and then a 2007 UD Premier dual auto that pairs another couple guys we've already seen in Branch and Hall, who were fellow rookies in the stacked '07 class.  Jake Long gets his own 2008 SPx appearance, joining fellow '08 Dolphins draftee Henne, and this dual jersey /99 is my 10th of Long from the set and 8th from the Rookie/Winning Materials versions.

Then come three new 2013 Denard autographs.  His prices are low enough that I can pretty much pick up stuff like the ones you see above for under $3.  The Prominence card includes a helmet thing but I don't think I filed it as a manurelic; Panini's Totally Certified came with a nice jersey swatch; and Topps Platinum called the third card a patch auto, so that's what I'll go with.  Those additions plus the Triple Threads above were enough to put Shoelace right at 50 hits, making him just the 10th player in my collection to hit that mark!

The last card of the last post for 2019 is a cool rookie auto of yet another star defensive guy from 2007, LaMarr Woodley.  It's funny to end with this card because it's the very first one I bought toward this last shipment, way back on September 8, or almost three months before the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales responsible for the rest of my purchases.  I couldn't let this Ultimate Collection signature slip away after it went on sale for just $1.75.

2019 was yet another great year of collection for me, and maybe I'll go back to that well one more time with a summary post soon (or maybe not!).  Either way, I finished it with fewer than 25 hits to go for 1500 in the football collection, and I'm fairly close to fun milestones in the other sports as well.  Although I may revise my definition of "hits" for those collections, for now I can say that I began the year with more than 2200 such cards of former Wolverines, which is a great place to build from in 2020.

Whew!  With those finally done I'm excited to show you my first trade package of 2020, eBay pickup #1 of the year, and recaps of both card shows I hit in January, plus I have a couple other interesting ideas in mind.  It may be February, but happy new collecting year!

2019 trade package #39: Cards on Cards

In the end the Citrus Bowl went about as expected, even if it took longer than I thought for Alabama to put it away.  Still, I loved watching my Wolverines and am looking forward to the 2020 season as eagerly as usual.

Speaking of 2020 let's open up the year with a trade post as I continue to catch up on 2019 acquisitions.  I'm going chronologically--in the order these envelopes arrived--and I love that I get to start 2020 off with a bang.  Kerry of Cards on Cards sent me one of the finest packages I've ever received, which is saying something considering some of the gems that made their way to me from some of the greats of blogging.

As Kerry celebrates Oregon's thrilling Rose Bowl win, enjoy this celebration of some of my favorite collections!

We'll open things today with an eight pack of future Tigers.  These hail from 2019 Topps Pro Debut and pretty much every guy is in the team's 20 prospect rankings.  Pitchers Manning and Mize are the jewels of the organization and could form a killer 1-2 in the rotation if both beat the odds and reach their potential.  It's also nice that a few offensive prospects are rated highly since the team could use them ASAP, such as outfielders Cameron and Meadows.

And some more Tigers of the near future and/or now.  Boyd may not be long for Detroit if they can get a good haul for him (sorry, John!), and Greiner hasn't shown much, but we should see a good amount of the others, such as Paul's dude JaCoby Jones.  Kerry tossed in another Mize to bolster his tiny collection.

Speaking of current Tigers, here's a nice five-pack of LF Christin Stewart, who hopefully has a better season this year because he could be a mainstay here for years.  Between what Kerry sent me and what I already had I finally felt like I had enough Stewarts to enter them on TCDB and came up with a total of 15 thus far.  Not bad!  My favorite is the Panini Chronicles card that reuses an older Certified look that I've always loved.

I was able to pair up most of Miggy's cards with those of free agent Nicholas Castellanos in one scan, and that made me think I should look up how well they did as teammates.  From 2013 until Nick was traded last season, they combined for 260 HR, 995 RBI, and 27.9 bWAR.  This bunch of (mostly) 2019 cards is a great reminder of how much fun they were together.  The Cabreras also pushed him past the 300-card mark, which is awesome.  Donruss' Optic is a highlight here multiple times.

I challenge you to find one boring scan in this post, just one.  Can't do it, can you?  This one includes some nice base of some important Tigers from the aughts, Ty Cobb, a numbered Torii Hunter, and two fun McLain inserts.  2013 Hometown Heroes is one of Panini's best products of the last decade and I liked both cards you see here:  the stamped States parallel, and even more so, the round Sportdiscs lenticular insert.  I've had my eye on Jim Abbott's card from the latter and now I really want it having seen this McLain in-hand.

Here we'll finish up with the non-PC Tigers.  The Miggy is from 2015 Prizm and is numbered /100 which is pretty sweet.  I also checked J.D.'s and V-Mart's combined Tigers stats and came up with 214 HR, 825 RBI, and 21 bWAR (though as opposed to Miggy and Nick, I combined their entire Tigers careers, not just the years they coincided).  Soto is another potential future piece and I'm not sure why I didn't include him in one of the earlier scans.  And lastly, Kerry surprised me with a pair of Miggy jersey relics from 2017 Topps flagship--one from each series.  It looks like these give me 15 hits of one of the greats of the past decade, broken down into three autos, 10 relics, and a manurelic.  Not bad at all!

The Tigers half was outstanding but where things got really interesting for me was how well Kerry hit my player collections.  I'm not sure if he took the time to check my wants via my PCs page, or on TCDB, or what, but he managed to hit a ton of players with new stuff, and I needed every last card you'll see, starting with this bunch.

The Abbott is the same Hometown Heroes States parallel you saw above, and I really like it, though it would have been fun, as I usually say, for "hometown" to refer to that player's birthplace, meaning Abbott could have had a Michigan stamp himself.  All three cards of Astros pitching prospect Adcock from 2016 Bowman Draft/Chrome are new--Refractor, Sky Blue Refractor, and Silver (/499)--and give him a nice bump.  Granderson and Griffey appear on 2019 Topps-branded base, with Junior a single card away from 900!  I claimed the 2019 Topps Walgreens Yellow parallel of Hill after Kerry pulled one back in November because I'm your friendly neighborhood Hill supercollector!  And the LaMarre 2016 Topps Gold parallel is the first of his I've added in a long, long time, getting me up to 30 of 54 cards I've got checklisted for now.

I can't emphasize enough how impressed I am with what Kerry picked out here because not only did I need everything in these scans, but they're also not just a handful of common base cards I can check off of a list.  This group is a great example, beginning with a trio of Hal Morris issues:  an '89 minors card, '95 Pinnacle Nth Degree parallel, and an oddly named '98 Pacific variation called Red Threatt (the extra "T" is for "threat!").  Putnam finally gets a new addition thanks to the beautiful 2017 Topps Chrome Sapphire Edition and its beautiful blue background.  Putz gets an insanely nice triple play of 2005 Prestige Xtra Bases Red (/150), 2006 Upper Deck Gold (/299), and 2007 Upper Deck Predictor Blue (the last of the Predictor versions I needed!).  And lastly in this scan is a 2009 Topps 206 base of George Sisler that I thought I had until I found out this was a short print--wow!

With this scan we're almost done with the baseball stuff in the package.  The first six star PC leader Cal Ripken Jr., who stands alone in consecutive games played and cards in my collection (the latter number:  946).  I have to say that the Gallery Preview up top looks quite nice, even if much of the artwork in the final product wasn't really up to par.  The other three cards here are of blog namesake guy Justin Verlander-Upton.  While the 2019 issues are nice enough I'm oddly a fan of the 2009 Topps card since it's the Target parallel with the cool retro back texture.  I don't like the idea of retail exclusives at all but at least once in a while the execution is good.  Justin gets up to an almost milestone-worth 396 items.

I saved the best of the baseball stuff for last because I was floored to find these two cards in the package.  On the left is a 2009 Topps 206 Mini Framed auto of former blog namesake guy Curtis Granderson.  As I always say, these mini framed cards look terrific and Grandy's is no exception.  The artwork does a great job of capturing his enthusiasm and joy for the game, and I would love to see him return to Motown to mentor some of the young players on the team.  Anyway, well done by Kerry to surprise me with my 10th Granderson hit and third auto.  In case you were wondering, I still don't have too many!

The other card is one I'm also very excited about as it's just my second of Michigan pitcher Karl Kauffmann, and this one's even cooler as it's a Wolverines uni shot.  A few different Michigan draftees made it into several Panini-branded products in 2019 and I'm looking forward to capitalizing on those, though fortunately I didn't have to wait thanks to Kerry's generosity.  This 2019 Prizm Draft auto looks great, and if it's a sign of things to come then I think I'm going to enjoy chasing more of the 2019 College World Series runners-up!

That's right, we're still not done because there's still football stuff to get to!  The '95 Finest Everitt is the other card in this post that I asked Kerry about and again he was nice enough to send it my way.  Few Michigan fans can top his level of intensity in supporting the maize & blue, I'll tell you that much.  As for Jake Ryan's card, the 2015 Crown Royale base is his lone RC that qualifies for my Rookie Blue project (his other rookie is an autograph), so I can cross his name off the list and continue hoping that he can stay healthy long enough to earn himself a good shot in the league.

Everything else in the scan features one of my larger football PCs, especially in terms of hits, Jake Long.  The first two are 2008 Panini brand inserts from Rookies & Stars and Contenders, and they both bring that signature Panini shininess (and numbering-- /1000 and /500, respectively) from the late aughts that gets me every time.  Blue is a great color for a parallel version of an insert, such as the Icons card, also numbered (/250).  And my favorite Oregon fan even threw in a relic I could have sworn I had (but didn't) out of 2008 Bowman, highlighting that year's #1 overall pick.  That brings him up to 84 hits, good for fourth behind Henne, Manningham, and Braylon.

I was able to give our last subject of the day his own scan, even if I noticed later that I didn't remotely put these on the scanner in any sort of order (and didn't feel like fixing it).  WR Amani Toomer's career spanned a good run in the hobby meaning he earned a ton of cardboard appearances, and Kerry didn't disappoint with these six.  There's Ultra Gold Medallion parallels from 2006 (the die-cut one) and 2006, plus numbered parallels in the form of a 2001 Pacific Impressions Hobby Red Backs (/280) and 2008 Bowman Blue (/500).  Yep, the former is pretty much as described with all text and effects on the back in red.  And after a 2006 Turkey Red base we get to the day's final surprise, a 2004 Prestige Game Day jersey of the Super Bowl-winning wideout.  It's pretty much right in my wheelhouse in terms of the kind of thing I'd be chasing on COMC and it marks his 25th hit, making him the 16th football player to reach that mark.

Kerry, I can't thank you enough for the obvious effort you put into such an incredible trade package other than to say that you more than earned the last couple envelopes I sent your way!  Enjoy the afterglow of your guys' Rose Bowl win as you await St. Louis' Spring Training date and I'll work on putting together a return when I can.

The rest of you can stay tuned for two more trade packages (one in-person!) plus a larger than expected show haul from the end of last month, and possibly another show report from my usual monthly location I'll likely hit up on Saturday.

2019 trade package #36: Sport Card Collectors

As I mentioned yesterday I had a terrific Christmas, and now I'm finally back to get started on thanking people for some especially generous Christmas cards!

Today I'm celebrating envelope #20 from a particular trader, one who first sent me cards about three years ago.  Back in January of 2017, Matt of Sport Card Collectors became one of my new trade partners after claiming some giveaway lots I'd done a couple months earlier, and then he was nice enough to send a Miggy relic my way.

From there it was a parade of PWEs stuffed with Tigers and many new additions to my Griffey collection (a PC we happen to share) among others, until earlier this month when he let me know I had something a bit more substantial heading for my mailbox.  Dude wasn't kidding--this thing was packed with great content that hit the collections I just mentioned, then went all Santa Claus on my Michigan Football PC!

Without further ado, here's the contents of a package fit to be found under the nicest tree:

First up is the Tigers content.  Scherzer is a Diamond Kings subset card from 2019 Donruss that takes me back to some fun 80s designs.  Pitching prospect Spencer Turnbull and two of the Verlanders are from this year's Topps Walmart Holiday product, and Turnbull's card plus the JV below are the Metallic version where the white-ish decorations are a bit raised and glittery.  Verlander also pops up on a 2017 Topps insert called Bowman Then & Now.  Why was it inserted into Topps, then?  I dunno, but it reminds me that I should try to find his '05 Bowman RC at some point.  Last up is a pair-a Cabrera:  a 2015 Heritage Now and Then insert highlighting his 400th HR hit in 2015, and 2019 Topps Historic Through-Lines insert pairing him up with Mr. Tiger himself, Al Kaline, who also won a batting title.  Miggy crushed #400 on 5/16/2015, and has gone off for 77 more since, but is still short of the big milestone due to injury and decline.  His pace is still 31 bombs per 162 games played over the past three years, though, so I see him getting there within the next couple seasons.

Here's a group of Griffey cards that could have easily been another PWE from Matt, but I'm glad they were included here.  Only two (card #2, '08 UD, and the second horizontal issue, UD Masterpieces from the same year) were dupes, so I got a nice chunk of cardboard for his collection.  The portrait ones are from 2008 SP Authentic (love that swing!), 2016 Topps Tribute to the Kid, and 2017 Topps Fire.  The Tribute card is my 13th of the set so it was nice making more progress here.  Meanwhile, the landscapers are from 2000 Upper Deck Victory's Junior Circuit subset (my fifth of that group) and 2008 Upper Deck X's Xponential 2 variation (I already had the "regular' version).  These look fantastic and the red & white cards are very season-appropriate.  I now have a crazy 898 Griffeys, so he's catching up on Cal Jr. a bit.

Now with the bowl game coming up, let's switch to Michigan Football content.  There's a pretty nice maize & blue theme going on here with inserts of Adrian Arrington, Devin Funchess, and Jourdan Lewis in their college unis.  The latter is just my fourth of the talented DB, a Blue Back parallel #d 174/175, and as you might imagine, some of the features on the back are done up in (light) blue.  GOAT QB Tom Brady also gets in on the action with a Blue parallel of his 2019 Absolute base card.  Looks pretty nice to me!

Now here's where things take a turn for the insanely generous.  Everything you've seen so far could have been split up into a few PWEs, but not this bounty:

And this isn't even everything!  More on that in a minute, we'll look at this bunch first.

When Matt asked me for a list of guys I collected, I in no way expected eye-popping hits like what you see above.  Like PC guy Jason Avant on a 2006 Absolute jersey/ball/jersey card.  Or WR Amara Darboh starring on an autographed issue with a sick Seattle patch, hit #31 of his 42 cards(!).  PC leader Chad Henne (129 hits) gets a nice boost with two rookie-year jerseys ('08 Topps Rookie Progression and Upper Deck) and a double swatch from 2010 Sweet Spot.  Bonus points for two of them being Michigan uni images and swatches!  Henne is nearing a milestone of his own as I now own 299 of his cards.  The guy Miami took #1 overall before selecting Henne, Jake Long, adds to his own crazy count with hit #83 thanks to a Gold (#234/350) version of the '08 jersey you just saw of Chad.

RB Thomas Rawls (who transferred out, but I still collect) is another guy whose name I recall mentioning to Matt, which ended up being a good idea since he included my first auto of Rawls (3rd hit), a Capstones card from 2017 Panini Vertex (#63/99) that comes with four nice Seahawks swatches.  And last up in this group we have former highly-rated CB recruit Donovan Warren on one of his few issues, a 2010 SAGE HIT Silver auto.  Once again I love the #collegecontent.

Now we'll flip things a bit and look at four more(!) relics to round out the package.  Underachieving All-Star and WR Ronald Bellamy pops up for a rare appearance in what's just his 6th hit (and first relic) in my collection, a swatch from the East-West college all-star game for seniors/upcoming draftees.  It's not 100% a college uni card but he is wearing the most iconic helmet in the sport so that's a big plus.  Speaking of WRs, Matt sent me lucky hit #13 of the oft-injured Devin Funchess, a 2015 Topps Valor Courage patch, with just a hint of Panthers teal (or whatever you call it).  I believe the different versions correspond to the numbering, and this one is #17/50.

Last up today is another blog favorite, former QB Denard Robinson.  A PC I got over the 100-card mark not long ago, he gets two new hits for a total of 46 as he remains a popular passenger of trade envelopes and a target of my purchases too.  On the left is a large Jags swatch out of 2013 Panini Momentum (#004/299), and to the right is a Topps Strata offering from the same year, a Gold Patch relic (#39/90).  This one has less patchiness than the Funchess but I know such swatches happen from time to time, and I'm just happy to see more new Shoelaces I get to keep.

This incredibly generous mailer from Matt jumps my football hits PC all the way up to 1443 items, and while it's extremely unlikely I'll finish the year with 1500, that milestone is tantalizingly close, and I may pass it early next year.

Thanks again for a wonderful Christmas surprise, Matt, and I look forward to trading with you more in 2020!  I'll be back at it soon chasing down some Griffeys and Giants for you, and with any luck, some Rodney Hamptons and Kerry Collins stuff too!