2024 trade package #19: the Collector

Will I at least get all of my trade package recaps done before the calendar flips to a new year? Probably not, but I'll keep posting these as I feel like it.

Tonight's cool pile of stuff comes from Chris, the Collector, who was a longtime friend of mine here (and of many of you as well). Unfortunately I can no longer link to his blog since it's gone, plus he appears to have deactivated the email address I always used to contact him. Needless to say I'm plenty worried about how he and his family are doing, but for now I'll just wait and hope that everything's fine. Chris, if you're reading this, I'm always here for you!

Anyway, back in September he sent me a surprisingly large package of stuff, and I'll get to why it was so physically large at the end, but first we'll start with the cards:

Baseball part 1 starts of strong with a Jim Abbott and besides a RC of short-term star Brennan Boesch and a Miggy insert, the rest of the scan includes a bunch of '24 Topps Chromes of current Tigers Javy Baez and Kerry Carpenter. You'll see the same product and team pop up a few more times in this post so I have to imagine Chris was part of a group break at some point. I really appreciate him treating me to these as I haven't seen them at shows yet (not that I've looked, to be fair), and I'm liking having a good number of the base and parallels, which include Prism and standard Refractors. I'm also thankful for a trio of new Carpenter cards as my Kerry Bonds collection is still small for now.

"Wahoo" Sam Crawford is always welcome in trade packages sent my way. Davis was a Tiger for 60 games between 1993 and '94, as 1994 Fleer reminds us. 2017 first-rounder Faedo hasn't done much for Detroit but Flaherty worked out nicely in a win-win deal that brought the Tigers two very good players and the Dodgers another ring. And I hope to see Riley in HR celebration mode even more in 2025.

Greene and Higginson are former Tigers while Keith is a potentially exciting part of the future in the infield (and another '24 Chrome entry). Kinsler remains a short-time favorite of mine for his three-plus seasons in Detroit and helping the team dump Prince Fielder. Lipcius has 35 ABs to his name, all with the Tigers in '23, but was grabbed by the Dodgers before the '24 season, so I don't know what Topps was thinking (not that I mind another Refractor). Mikie's career was brief but Parker looks like he could be a mainstay in the outfield for years to come. And Olson could bolster a good young rotation if he can stay healthy.

Hey, it's blog favorite Dean Palmer! Peralta was very solid in Detroit and part of the 2012 AL Pennant winner. Multi ring-winner Scherzer is from one of Topps' All-Star Game-stamped sets, which are cards I don't generally seek out but do like to add. Check out make-or-break '25 guy Tork on three different Chrome cards: base, Prizm Refractor, and Refractor. More-than-0%-chance-'25-Tiger Verlander also appears on 2/3 of those. Worth proved to not be worth the 2nd round pick Detroit used on him in the 2007 draft, though at least guys like Giancarlo Stanton and Freddie Freeman were selected before him and not after.

The unfortunately recently injured Wagner is the only basketball representative here but despite his injury it's been quite a season for him. Former UM coach Harbaugh's done decently well leading the Chargers this year. The fact that Hutch could return for a hypothetical Lions Super Bowl appearance is still a crazy sentence to type. Another ex-UM QB, Patterson looks great on an appropriately blue Score Artist's Proof card that's numbered to just 35 copies! And lastly, Mazi and (also somewhat recently injured) Turner are draft picks from last year on some shiny Donruss Optic parallels, with the Bengals DB getting a second card in the form of a Green Hyper insert to go with his own Holo issue.

As you can see the cards hit a bunch of my collections and I would have been more than happy with this package if they made up the entire contents, but then Chris threw this in as well:

I was still buying Starting Lineups back in 2000 and already had this Classic Duos combo of Cal with Chipper, but then Chris sent it my way noting that it was a throw-in in a recent purchase of his, and I was excited to get it because not only is it in better condition than the one I already had (the packaging suffered wear and tear due to several house moves), but it also comes in a protective display case that should keep it that way! Oh, and as a bonus, I can pass on my extra to fellow Cal collector Jeff. Bonus!

Chris, thank you once again for your generosity a few months ago and all the great stuff you've sent me over the years. Again, I don't know if you're even reading blogs anymore, but if you are, please know I appreciate our friendship and I'm lucky to have been able to trade with you. According to tracking info, the Christmas cards I sent your way should have been delivered today and I hope you enjoy them and have a great holiday.

With some much-needed downtime coming up I'll work on finishing up trade recaps for this year as best as I can in the next couple weeks.

2024 Facebook Marketplace purchase: Shoeboxin'

Tonight I get to wrap up the month of April 2024 in terms of my collecting with what was my third purchase via Facebook Marketplace.

A guy in Brighton, which is about a half hour-ish north of me, posted a shoebox of baseball stuff for sale, asking $100:

He estimated that there were around 500 cards in there, all fairly recent, including inserts, SPs, and some other stuff. Also, everything was sleeved.

This other image from the listing gives you a pretty good idea of the content, with a lot of it being what today's collectors tend to refer to as "color," especially parallels like Refractors.

We managed to settle on a $75 price and everything proceeded smoothly. As usual I had a blast flipping through everything and setting aside a few things for myself while mainly enjoying coming up with even more stuff to send my favorite trade partners (with most of the getting listed on TCDb).

A number of you have long since received your loot from this box but I think I may still have some to send out.

Anyway, here's what I held onto for myself:

I guess today's a rare day where I don't need or want to make fun of Baez since his three-run homer led Detroit to a win over Cleveland. Even if I eventually dump his base stuff in my trade boxes when he's inevitably jettisoned from the roster, I'm happy to keep fun parallels like Refractors. Cochrane is a favorite old-old school guy of mine whether he's shown with Philly or Detroit, and bordered parallels are elite. Kinsler makes two colorful appearances here (one below), both in Rangers uniforms, but that's fine because he was another short-term Detroit favorite of mine. Scherzer, seen here on a couple cool inserts from his brief tenure with the Mets, was also in the news today having eclipsed his former teammate Justin Verlander in career strikeouts to rank 10th all-time. Garcia, Rondon, and Travis never really did anything for Detroit, though I remain angry about the team dumping Travis to the Blue Jays even though injuries shortened his career, because the Tigers sure do love getting nothing for their talented young infielders.

Reyes, like a more recent Tiger in Akil Baddoo, is an example of a minor rule 5 success as he parlayed his December, 2017 selection from Arizona into parts of five seasons with Detroit. The gold foil is quite nice on the top card and the bottom is your standard quality Refractor. And then the oldest items in the box were a few 1990 Topps Stickers with PC guys Gwynn and Ripken starring on three fronts and one back. The flip side of Mr. Padre's sticker is fellow HOF OF Andre Dawson. Cal serves as the Superstar back for Devon White and Jeffrey Leonard while his foil and regular stickers include Mitch Williams and Gary Gaetti on the backs.

Overall I'm quite happy with how this purchase went: I got it for less than the purchase price, added a few fun cards, and picked up a bunch of fun recent-ish trade bait. It was basically the equivalent of a solid day of dime- and quarter-boxing at a show, and at $0.15 per card, that's essentially what it was, though with a bit of driving in place of the time spent digging.

Now that I'm caught up through April I should be back soon to start recapping five May trades (and more from the month) that brought me some very timely exciting items. Until then, I hope all of you are like me, basking in the time of year when baseball doesn't have to share the spotlight with the other major sports (though the Olympics may be good watching).

2024 trade package #5: Night Owl

Moving on into April, here's a look at the first trade package I received that month, courtesy of Greg of Night Owl Cards:

As it was April, Greg was wishing me a happy baseball season with these cards, which was a very nice thought. It's largely been more of the same frustrations with a few highlights mixed in, but that's what happens when you're a fan sometimes. I still love this team and most of the players, just not the awful owners.

Anyway, a lot of the cards in the package were new additions to my Tigers collections and that's great! Baddoo is a classic flagship numbered Gold parallel that's pretty much been a mainstay since 2001, and I'm always happy to add more of those to my collection. Baez has been one of the frustrating parts of the club the past few years but I still enjoy the Purple Heritage cards. I'm looking forward to adding more cards celebrating Miggy's dual 3000 hit/500 HR accomplishments, and you can't go wrong with a Heritage insert to do that. Clemens got dumped to Philly but Carpenter's been a rare pleasant surprise on offense when healthy. Englert hasn't done much to get excited about but his card's a Refractor so it's worth celebrating. And Greene continues to mix flashes of tantalizing talent with the lingering effects of injuries. I'm still all-in on him for now as a franchise mainstay, though.

Greene was well represented here which certainly works for me! That Action Stars insert was odd enough in its design and photo that if I didn't see the Tigers logo I would have guessed it was something made by Panini or Leaf. The unrelated Shane Greene can be seen in Yellow form. Confused? Don't be! Pitcher Garrett Hill gets a two-fer on his Topps Chrome Update base plus one of several orange/black foil Halloween-related parallels from the regular Update product. And I always enjoy showing off cards of legends Kaline and Kell together as I remember listening to the pair call games.

Manning has yet to live up to his prospect billing, partly due to health issues, but there's still time, though it'll feel like a (Topps) holiday if he does! Maton's bat caught whatever disease is going around the Detroit clubhouse and was mercifully let go. Greg included a nice selection of Ripkens for me here, two of which are from the 90s with the other pair being more recent. Naturally I really like the earlier cards more, especially the one made by Panini, though I do sometimes like Panini's Donruss parallels. E-Rod bolted Motown because he could make more money and be on a potentially decent team, though he apparently needs some good health news to actually get back on the mound. He was a Tiger long enough to make it into this year's Topps Series 1 set and its various parallels. Speaking of those, his former catcher Rogers can be seen on his appearance in the Holiday insert.

The rest of the baseball including the horizontal cards makes for a fun scan full of variety. The most interesting vertical card to me here is Tresh's '70 Topps base, my first vintage item of the Central Michigan grad who appeared in about 8.5 seasons with the Yanks before being flipped to Detroit in June of '69, his sunset season. Leave it to Greg to treat me to a cool vintage Tiger I didn't have!

As for the X-axis cards, they start with a bang thanks to the fancy Heritage parallel starring three former Tigers pitching prospects in Burrows, Funkhouser, and Garcia. It looks like Burrows bounced around a few systems since departing Detroit and he's now in the Phillies system. Funkhouser was in AA with Texas last year and hasn't pitched since that I can see. Garcia was a Yankees MLFA that the Tigers took in the 2019 Rule 5 draft and he also hasn't pitched in 2024 that I know of after spending last year in AAA.

Topps' kid-oriented Big League sometimes results in fun looking cards and the graffiti card above gets a thumbs up from me. Ditto for the design on Mize's card with a very cool background going on. I have no idea who Michael Papierski and Cody Sedlock are but neither was in the Detroit system for very long and appeared on a dual prospect card anyway. And lastly, Vierling's been a fairly solid addition in the deal that also brought Maton to Detroit for, among others, Clemens above. His Heritage card also includes a terrific background on the action photo.

Baseball wasn't the only sport to be found in this envelope but I'm not shocked because Greg's a fan of the Bills so he probably didn't find it too difficult to dig up cards of a few of the guys I collect. In fact, two of them here, Collins and Riemersma, played for Buffalo! Robinson and Stribling, meanwhile, both bounced around the NFL a bit before spending a bit of time in the short-lived AAF. Stribling also dabbled in the XFL, CFL, and USFL while Shoelace went into coaching and other athletic roles, though of course he recently lost his Michigan job due to a very stupid OWI.

As far as I'm concerned the two Bills cards are the best here because Collins appears in a Michigan uni and Riemersma's Fleer base has a typically cool design from the brand. But as always I appreciate folks like Greg who include any former Wolverines when they trade with me like Greg did here.

And with that I have to give a hearty thanks to Night Owl for an excellent trade package to lead off the MLB season! I may have complaints about my team but I have nothing but praise for this great bunch of cards sent to me by a first-ballot blogging HOFer. Greg, I have a little stack I've been putting together for you and hope to have enough to send a return your way soon. Until then, thanks for the cards and all the great content you provide, and good luck to your Dodgers in 2024!

2024 Facebook Marketplace purchase: February Facebookin'

Since I'm still recapping February's pickups, today I'm going to give a quick look at my first Facebook Marketplace purchase of the year.

So later in that month I saw a seller that had a few different postings that included images like this one:

I asked him what he wanted for whatever he had left and that amounted to a total of three boxes and somewhere between 9000-10K cards.

He originally asked for $60 for that stuff, then quickly went down to $50 taking into account that I'd be driving over there (not far from my monthly show in Taylor). That sounded good to me!

I brought it all home and started flipping through it, and once again I most definitely got my money's worth of trade bait, keepers, and fun. The four major sports were well represented, plus soccer, WWE, MMA, and even other stuff. And I was very happy that a relatively small amount was junk with most of it being stuff from the past five-to-ten years. If I recall correctly I think the seller told me these were leftovers from a collection he acquired from a guy who busted a lot of boxes/packs, and that seems accurate.

I'm still sorting through everything and have started listing the set-fillers on TCDb, plus I think I got most of the better inserts up already, and that's led to some trades there, and a lot of you that got trade packages from me in the past couple months got anywhere from a few to a lot of the cards from this lot (so, again, mission accomplished!).

Right now the bulk of what I listed on TCDb was from the past few years of Heritage, Archives, and Donruss, but we'll see what else I list, including possibly a ton of Topps flagship (especially 2021) and some miscellaneous others, not to mention the other sports. I may make an announcement here when I have more listed in case anyone wants to match me there for trades, but for now my best advice if you trade there is just to keep your wantlists updated.

So with all that out of the way, here's everything I found for my own collections, which is great since it'll give you a good sense of some of the products that were well represented:

Avila's a former Tiger I still collect if not one I go after that hard. I was ready to dump all over Baez even more in this post until he (and the rest of the team) went off the past couple games. There's still a pretty high chance he'll be one of those former Tigers whose cards I flip over to my trade list, or at least most of them--I tend to keep the cooler looking inserts--but for now I'm holding onto them. He was one of two current/former Tigers that dominate tonight's post.

Seriously, there was a lot of el Mago and between this haul and some trades (especially a couple packages from Jeff) I went from not very many to 77!

Here's the last page of just Baez, though you'll see a bit more of him later. Are you getting a good sense of which sets were prominent here? I think '21 Heritage and that year's flagship Topps were the top two but either way there was a good mix of designs and inserts.

How about some inserts and base of Tigers legends Miggy, Cobb, and Goslin (1934-37 including the '35 champs)? When Cabrera gets elected on his first ballot he'll join those two as well as Griffey and Gwynn in the Hall. Mr. Padre reminds us here that Stadium is still amazing.

One Larkin parallel did manage to sneak into the bunch, and Maddux is the third of the big quartet, though Ripken isn't represented this time. Co-prospects Manning and Mize flank another former catcher I sometimes collect in James McCann.

Rogers' bat hasn't come back yet but I'm glad to see him back to health. Former Tiger Scherzer was the other guy whose totals got a nice bump thanks to this purchase as you'll see in this scan and a few others.

If I wasn't so lazy I could look at my TCDb history to see when his PC grew and by how much, but for now I just looked at the site and I have 125 of him, so these pickups definitely pushed him over the century mark. Simba's new card is from a small stack of Sport Kings cards I pulled out of the boxes.

Tigers ace Skubal leads off this scan and boy is it fun watching him pitch this year, just like seeing vintage Verlander. It's still a travesty Detroit never won a title with JV and Max, but I chalk that up to bad luck and questionable management. Speaking of the latter, Baez sneaks in one more time and is joined by former stars Fielder and Pudge.

More Scherzer, more JV, and a couple team cards I somehow didn't have. Verlander's last card warrants another "Stadium Club rules!" comment because, come on, look at that shot!

The basketball portion was also somewhat fruitful for me thanks to three players appearing at least once: THJ, Poole, and Duncan Robinson. Illusion, Mosaic, and Prizm were fairly well represented in that sport and I'll probably have a better idea how those look if/when I get them sorted and listed.

Brady and Bush kick off the gridiron content, and since I picked up these boxes the latter has signed with the Browns.

Gary is one of two players in the group who got a pair of cards added to his collection, joining Chase Winovich. Haskins, dumbass Lewan, Wheatley, and the GOAT Woodson each saw their PC increase by one.

The amount of hockey in the bunch was relatively small but I did snag one new card of stud Nucks D-man Quinn Hughes, whose team will go to a game 7 with Zach Hyman's Oilers tomorrow night.

Without taking a lot more time which would certainly make me even less motivated to post I don't think this gave you the best idea of the fun I had flipping through these cards and finding some great content to send out to some of my favorite folks, but if it only gives you a snapshot I guess that's not bad. I expect my spoils to continue to result in more trades with bloggers and on TCDb and that makes this purchase another unqualified success.

I actually have another Marketplace purchase I'm excited to show off eventually when I'm more caught up (you'll continue to see that phrase a lot) but first there's other stuff to cover from previous months.

2023 trade package #17: Sport Card Collectors (The Blogger National 2023)

It's August and the National has come and gone. No, I didn't go--that kind of thing would be wasted on me since I don't like to travel much and barely have patience to spend two hours at my favorite monthly show. I'm happy for everyone who made it out to Chicago this year and had a blast, though.

Anyway, that doesn't mean I can't have National-related fun. For one thing, I hit up said show this past Friday, and I'll get a recap up soon. Also, multi-blog guy Matt started up a blog bat-around called The Blogger National 2023 late last month, an idea where you "[show] off your coolest cards or your most favorite cards or a recent mail day you hadn't posted yet." Why don't I go ahead and participate by posting the great package I received from the Sport Card Collectors man himself back in late June?

I'm aware that Matt doesn't do a ton of blog trading these days and he mostly sends out PWEs, so trust me when I say I appreciate him sending me this big envelope of goodness that could have easily come from a quality table at the National:

Baez continues to do Baez things for better or for worse, but either way, these cards look great, especially the DK and Chrome Pink Refractor offerings. Miggy was the star of this package in more ways than one as you'll see additional cards of the future first-ballot HOFer below. I don't care if they aren't rare like they used to be, Artist Proofs are still cool, and so is Topps Gallery when Topps deigns to treat us to its most artistic set. Detroit sure could use a bat like Blastellanos right now, though nobody misses his glove. That's indeed a Refractor of his Topps Chrome RC from 2014, a fine card to add to his collection.

Topps still occasionally puts out shiny die-cuts that appeal to me, and I was happy to see the Cobb peeking through the rest of this stack. My Mize collection has grown to 65 cards thanks to envelopes like these, and Matt treated me to some very cool inserts like the Donruss parallels and Chrome/GQ chase cards. The Yankees' Domingo German recently joined Turnbull in the "worst human beings to throw a no-hitter" cub. Blog namesake guy JV's Gallery Private Issue parallel takes me back to one of the tougher inserts back in the 90s, and you know I'm thrilled to add a new numbered card (/250) of Mr. Kate Upton!

I grouped four guys together that I don't tend to collect much of these days, but they're all inserts that I like. Barnhart's a foil, Candyman is a shiny purple, and Brieske and Peralta are both Golds /2022. Then we have three more cards of Miggy, two of which are big highlights. The first is a Heritage base celebrating his 500th HR, the second anniversary of which is coming up in a couple weeks. The other is also courtesy of Heritage, and is a comic card celebrating a few of his biggest moments. He of course collected his 3000th hit last April, adding another amazing accomplishment to his storied career.

Matt not only sent a bunch of Tigers my way but gifted me a couple scans worth of Wolverines too! Brady is the oldest one you'll see in this post (his age, not the card's!) and in this scan he's joined by youngsters Chris Evans, Dax Hill, and Aidan Hutchinson. The pair of Michigan uni Dax cards was a fun surprise, especially the parallel numbered /299, and I'm grateful for the help chasing first-years of him and some of the others you see here. Hutchinson is probably the biggest star outside of Brady, and I'm sure a lot of Lions fans went wild when the local NFL team chose him #2 overall.

Matt sent a huge group of EIGHT cards of the top pick, half of which feature college shots, so I really liked the mix he sent. I currently own three of his RCs so I have a long way to go. Speaking of Michigan uni cards, all of the remainders are just that, including a numbered LeSueur (/1250) from 2004, a couple 2022s of future star David Ojabo, and a 2020 Absolute Retail of Pats LB Josh Uche. Now that's how you close out a trade package!

Matt, once again, thanks for your generosity, both in the quality and number of cards you sent and also packaging them up all at once! I have a few things set aside for you thanks to my recent show day and will try to add a bit more to it before firing back.

And that's my entry for the Blogger National 2023!

2022 trade package #19: Night Owl

Here we have just my third post in August, and one I should have gotten to much sooner to thank the nice person responsible for sending me a great trade package. I just get easily distracted by other card stuff and usually leave blogging low on the old priority list. But on this stormy late summer evening it's about time I got around to this.

A few weeks back Greg/Night Owl posted the results of a couple Topps breaks he did including the 2021 Chrome Platinum Anniversary product that came out earlier this year. I asked if he'd set aside a card for me and he was generous enough to do so, then I sent him a few things off his wantlist for that. Well that's what I thought anyway because there was much more than just a cool recent Tigers need:

When you think of Night Owl, if one of the first words you associate with him isn't "vintage" (the other for me would be "Dodgers"), you probably don't follow him, which you totally should. The top three cards here are evidence of that, and I really appreciate Greg helping me with my pre-80s collections as they're quite sparse. Bare ('77 Topps) was only a Tiger for two of his five MLB seasons, 1976-77, the final of his career, and Sutherland (NO's beloved '75 Topps) played three of 13 seasons in Motown, but they were definitely needs for me. So was Johnny Podres' '67 Topps base. Another guy I associate with the Dodgers (he did appear in 13 of 15 MLB campaigns and win four rings and the '55 Series MVP with Brooklyn/LA), he's the biggest name of the trio, traded to Detroit in '66 and staying there through the following season before a sunset year in '69 with his almost-namesakes the Padres. All three of these are nice vintage additions and I thank Greg for them!

Everything else is much more modern and that's great too. I immediately offered the '22 Home Run Challenge code to Paul even though Baez is a surprising longshot to hit anything out of the park, much less in play, this season. Lugo's golden even if his absence is a reminder of another garbage trade by the franchise. Morris's Prizm Refractor is the card that started this deal as I loved the look of the classic old photo of Jack on the even more classic and iconic Topps design. Being a variation on a Refractor sure didn't hurt either. Turnbull is a more recent Tiger and also threw a no-hitter before being lost to injury and then losing his brain to whatever made him think to celebrate the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

And lastly we have the surprise of the package, a number medallion manurelic from this year's Topps. Ever since I stopped buying boxes I haven't cared that these have sometimes replaced more traditional "hits" and I even enjoy some of their designs. Jersey numbers are a big thing in sports so this was a natural idea for such a card, and I'm happy to have Miggy's 24. It's a number worn by such icons as Willie Mays, Rickey Henderson, and Ken Griffey Jr., and before we all know it he'll join them in Cooperstown. When that happens I'll own at least two manurelic cards, both representing his time with the Tigers. Very cool.

Greg, thank you sincerely again for not only setting aside that cool Jack Morris for me, but also adding on some nice vintage and other Tigers here. I'll make sure to return the favor with some more vintage, Dodgers, vintage Dodgers, or other wants of yours as soon as I can!

The couple times I get off my butt to post you should be seeing trade packages from a couple blogger buddies that were facilitated through TCDB, but will be getting regular trade package coverage because that's how I do things. Watch for those soon-ish!

2022 trade package #13: Cards on Cards

Time to get back to some old fashioned blogger trades! Today's is from Kerry of Cards on Cards. I recently sent him a mix of stuff from shows and other sources and not long after I found a bubble mailer from him in my mailbox containing a great combination of Tigers and some of my PCs:

We'll look at the Tigers today first, and almost all of them are current players, even if some are injured or down in AAA. Baddoo's Chronicles Gold Standard base looks great but I can't say the same for the bland design of the Pinnacle version with the same photo. Baez has heated up of late and socked a grand slam in a win last night so maybe he's righted the ship? I like the numbered 2022 Donruss Red parallel here, and you'll see another shortly. There's four more Miggy cards to add to his large collection (350-plus!) and I'm a fan of both the Contenders and Elite Series insert (numbered /349!) to say nothing of the other two.

Cameron's been up and down a bit but Mike's son could still turn into a productive bench OF guy. Jeimer (who needs to take an example from Baez) looks good on his own Donruss Red /2022. Manning (Rated Rookie!) still has a shot to return this season from injury, but unfortunately that won't be the case for TJ subject Casey Mize. I'm grateful to Kerry for the six new Mize cards, though! The Chronicles Revolution and Donruss base DK card are very cool and I was also happy to score my first hit of the injured prospect, a Donruss jersey!

Paredes' Chronicles Elite card looks great but mainly it's just a reminder that awful GM Al Avila lost him to Tampa in a panic trade for Austin Meadows after Riley Greene got hurt before the season. I hope Rogers can return to health soon and bump Tucker Barnhart to a reserve role (and eventually off the team for good). Skubal's been roughed up lately since a strong start, not that it matters much in a lost season like 2022.

With the Tigers covered we can get into some other player collections. I was stoked to find the five Cronenworth cards you see above since I love to see his collection grow as he's the most notable Wolverine in the Majors right now, if not tied with Boston's Rich Hill. The Classics design is pretty boring but the Revolution cards bring to mind the heyday of Pacific. By the way, the version on the right is the Fractal parallel. Michigan alum Jesse Franklin looks smart on a (what else?) Blue Prizm from 2020 Prizm Draft, and I'm now up to six cards of his, with few looking better than this one that also comes with a great college action photo.

And today's last scan covers two of my most popular PCs. Cal is still #1 by a mile and with more than 1100 of his cards in my collection it's always a thrill to get new stuff of his. That was the case with all three cards you see along the top row featuring the Iron Man: 2021 Chronicles Revolution and Prizm and 2022 Diamond Kings. I wouldn't likely be chasing these down myself unless I found them at a show in dime/quarter boxes so I appreciate folks like Kerry that take the time and effort to send stuff from newer releases my way.

Finally, we have the co-star of the package who also got to add six new cards to his collection. You might even go so far as to say that's...too many? It's the guy whose name is at the top of every post you read here! Kerry sent me a great variety of Verlanders, all of which I needed. First you see a 2012 Heritage Chrome insert (#d /1963) and then we move all the way up to 2021 Prizm's Red/White/Blue Prizm parallel, which is a few weeks early for Independence Day but plenty welcome today. The four recent Topps cards you see are a 2021 Topps Update 1992 Topps Reflux--I mean Redux--insert along with base from the same year's Gallery (still looking nice!) and Holiday, plus 2022 Opening Day. JV's off to a string 9-3 start this year with a ridiculous 2.22 ERA and 84 strikeouts. In case any of you forgot, he pitched in a single game in 2020 and none last season before returning this year...at age 39. What can you say other than: legend.

Kerry, thanks so much for sending me some great cards like you always do! Hopefully next weekend I'll be back to the monthly show to start a new stack to send back your way.

Next up will be another envelope from a good friend and reliable trade partner, so watch out for that soon.