2024 trade package #25: My Sports Obsession

I'm fresh off watching Michigan's hilarious bowl victory over an Alabama team that claimed they belonged in the Playoff and then did that against basically the Wolverines bench. Now I've got three more December trade packages to cover this afternoon/evening to meet my goal of getting them all done before the new year.

Fortunately for me I'm able to front-load the work as the largest remaining package is the one that got to me next. This was a roughly 200+-count box from buddy of the blog and fellow Michigan fan Jeff of My Sports Obsession. Jeff, I hope you enjoy reading this post in the afterglow of one of our more unlikely bowl victories in team history!

This one took a whole bunch of scans to recap, so settle in for lots of cards to eyeball:

Well damn, a sweet Sparky trio is a great way to start out strong! I remain grateful that the most important manager of my lifetime still gets the odd cardboard appearance. Miggy's count climbs with a high-quality three-spot of his own. And a third franchise legend joins the scan in Ty Cobb, who you'll see in two more scans in this post, including the next one. Stadium Club and Diamond Kings are products with designs that will always appeal to me more than plainer fare such as flagship Topps.

Two more Cobbs to start this scan look Georgia peachy to me thanks to Topps Chrome Platinum and an era-appropriate Sepia parallel from Stadium Club. Cronenworth is one of a bunch of guys in this post that both Jeff and I collect and I'm happy we can keep sending them back and forth, especially when I get beauties like a Holo and another eye-popping Stadium Club look. Elliott, a 2022 2nd-rounder out of Michigan, is probably another guy I found out about thanks to following Jeff's posts as he's often better at catching the newer guys than I am. Griffey stars on one of a number of instances of the fantastic Topps Museum product. And my Gwynn PC got a very nice boost in this package--including one of my favorites in Stadium Club Chrome--with a bunch more in the next scan too!

See? Lots more Gwynn, lots of fantastic designs! Museum, Stadium Club, Chrome Platinum, Gold Label, and some inserts too. Lots of great additions to his collection. The crazy Prizm parallel represents another PC guy we share in P Steven Hajjar on a Michigan uni card. And he's followed by a Retail version of a Mr. Tiger Panini Absolute base.

No suspense here as the Griffey/Gwynn pairing above joins Maddux and Ripken in this scan to complete the big four PC group. Cal's probably the player we trade back and forth the most in terms of our shared PCs, though a few guys probably do come close. I loved seeing Tram join Sparky above from the Purple Donruss parallel. Then, counting the next scan, we have four many Verlanders, which is twice as good as two, especially when they're this shiny.

With those three Chrome parallels I'm starting to approach JV rainbow territory. Baez's second appearance also gets the Chrome treatment. Cobb (Black Foil parallel) gets in on the action one more time with a flat-out classic shot of his baserunning skills. One of two last Gwynns serves as a reminder of one of Topps' recent-ish gimmicks, and then baseball goes out on top with Stadium Club base of two of my favorites--who retired and also entered Cooperstown in the same seasons--getting feted in fantastic horizontal shots.

Jeff also sent me a huge group of basketball Wolverines which I always appreciate since I don't put much money towards the sport. There was a fun mix of brands and designs with a few that popped up multiple times. A Premium Iggy tips things off, and then in a fun twist, I just looked on TCDb and found out that I now own as many cards of Kobe Bufkin as his namesake Mr. Bryant! THJ's in my top five with the four above him all over the 100-card mark. Houstan's a bit newer to the collection but the college card and shiny parallel here are great additions.

Young Jett Howard plays for the NBA's version of the Columbus Blue Jackets, a.k.a. Ann Arbor South, and his dad's fourth in my PC with 123 cards. LeVert is #7 and one of eight players who've reached the 50-card milestone. Livers may not be with the Pistons anymore but Cracked Ice parallels often look cool. McGary's college and pro careers were both far too short.

With the number of Jordan Poole cards I've received this year I'm somewhat surprised he's not ranked higher, but he's still just one card shy of joining my top 10 cagers thanks to hauls like this one. Remember when that Prizm Monopoly product was a huge thing for a minute? Just one card for Rice but the NCAA champ remains top dog with 206 cards, still the only player to eclipse the double century mark.

If Robinson's parents had any foresight they would have named him "Three-Point" instead of Duncan since he was responsible for way more of the former than the latter. Rose is the last of my top four over the 100-card mark and grouped nicely with two of his Fab Five teammates. Sauce Castillo was a fun guy to watch in college and the pros, and as the UD card captures, he indeed helped Michigan to the NCAA tourney final in 2013, a six-point loss to champion Louisville. Wagner bro Franz closes out the basketball group, and the young star's card count has absolutely exploded in my collection, climbing up to 47 for the 9th spot.

Now we switch over to the sport of the day: football. Believe it or not, Brady's not my top football guy--that distinction belongs to his fellow QB Brian Griese--and Tom Terrific ranks only #7, the last guy in my football 300-club. That's probably because I really don't put money into a guy like him since his prices tend to be overinflated. Still, you can always count on the kindness of strangers friends, and I appreciate this six-pack from Jeff! He also sent me a nice bunch of five cards of transfer RB Zach Charbonnet, who's had his ups and downs with Seattle.

I'm not quite a quarter of the way through the RCs of Charbonnet I'm chasing but it does help when someone's nice enough to send them to me! Charlton was a fun player with a cool nickname. Collins is two TDs away from matching his career high of 8 set last year, and maybe he can come up with a big pair in Sunday's game. Speaking of a big pair, actually, let's make that a three-of-a-kind with RBs Corum, Edwards, and Haskins here. I need as many as I can get of the first two, with Corum in his first year and the Don headed for the draft.

Meanwhile, Hutch continues to climb the leaderboards thanks to days like this one, and I hope the former Hot Rookie gets a chance to return in a big way for a Lions playoff game. The Bowman Chrome U love continues in this scan with a pair of champs in Johnson, an upcoming first-rounder, and McCarthy, who was anything but unexpected to Michigan fans, but most definitely a delight thanks to his calm leadership. I don't wish transfer QB McNamara anything but good health (and maybe a better head) next season. The Prestige card of the former "Money" kicker is the highlight of two Moody cards, though he's going through a nightmare season for the Niners and clearly isn't right after an injury. And Ojabo has quietly put up a couple sacks this season for Baltimore, though I don't get the impression that his playing time has been growing.

If you could pick a color for a parallel on a DPJ Browns card, why would you go with anything other than orange? Schoonmaker has one game left to try to equal his rookie season total of 2 TDs while his teammate Mazi has been slightly better during his own sophomore campaign. I love Donruss' Rated Rookies cards and the Optic of defensive back DJ Turner looks sweet! WR Roman Wilson joins a few of his other title teammates in this post on another excellent card. And GOAT DB Charles Woodson gets three more for his own collection, enough to secure him the #3 spot by that many cards over Braylon Edwards.

We're not quite done yet because there were two cool Prizm relics of recent Wolverines in this package. Charbonnet makes his second hits PC appearance with a Neon Green Pulsar parallel of his jersey card, and that's joined by my first relic of Lions terrorizer Aidan Hutchinson: a beautiful Honolulu blue swatch!

And even then we're still not quite done because Jeff included a rare hockey card, though given the photo it was an obvious inclusion. Shields was an excellent netminder in the early 90s, winning 111 games before suiting up for the Sabres, Sharks, Ducks, Bruins, Panthers, and Thrashers in parts of 10 NHL seasons. The photo of him in action at what I'm guessing is Yost Ice Arena is as Classic as the card's brand.

Jeff, thank you once again for this absolutely ridiculous stack of cards that hit so many of my PCs! I hope you enjoyed your own Christmas package, and I can promise plenty more White Sox, Michigan, and other PC cards will be heading back your way in 2025, when I hope we can also meet up at a few shows.

Stay tuned this evening for two more (much shorter) trade recaps to close out the year!

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.

2024 trade package #9: My Sports Obsession

My next big old box o' cards in May came from buddy of the blog Jeff of My Sports Obsession. It's been long enough that I'm not 100% certain but I think he gave it to me when we met up at the Kalamazoo show that month (spoiler alert for an upcoming post!). Jeff, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Either way, it was absolutely stuffed with goodies, many of which I'm sure he generously set aside for me while sorting through boxes and boxes of stuff for his awesome side gig. Here's the goods:

Could you really have a set called "Classics" without a guy like Sparky? No, no you couldn't. Jeff's been one of the biggest contributors to my collection of Baez. And this time he made a HUGE contribution to my stack of Miggy cards with 18, or two full scans' worth! These five are a nice start but I prefer some of the ones below.

Diamond Kings and Gallery are brands that always look really nice as far as I'm concerned, and I was happy to get the Gallery parallel as well. I was also happy to see that Topps used one of my favorite designs, 2001's, for Archives. Miggy and Pujols were indeed the active HR leaders at the time that card was made, and with cheater Nelson Cruz having also retired after 2023, Giancarlo Stanton is your current #1 (420 at the time of posting this) and only player over 400, with Trout (378) and Goldschmidt (357) behind him.

I'm sure some of my fellow Midwesterners are begging for the snow we tend to get around the holidays, but I say let the heat stay as long as possible! Check out Cobb's crazy grip on that Archives base. Cronenworth and Elliott, both Michigan Baseball alumni, are among the PCs in this post that Jeff and I share and I'm always thankful when he's able to help me out. Meanwhile, Griffey's one of my biggest player collections, yet he found a way to gift me a nice bunch I needed.

It'll never not feel weird that Junior wore a White Sox jersey for 41 games in 2008, but at least order was restored when he finished his career in Seattle after that. Mr. Padre is another guy that got a nice bump from this stack, and plenty of those were interesting as well, starting with a wax box card and including a Fleer box set issue plus Stadium Club's even better Chrome version.

Archives, Gallery, SC Chrome again, and even a Pinnacle throwback? Sign me up! It's getting pretty late for Dick Mountain to join a team in time to chase the playoffs but you never know. Barry's another shared PC guy and I'd been wanting that cool Stadium Club base of him walking his dogs for a while. Now I don't have to track it down myself. Maddux looks professorly on a Chrome Ginter card and very distinguished on another Gallery appearance.

The suddenly depleted Tigers rotation could certainly use a healthy Mize right now. Jeff did a nice job sending me a Pudge pair where he's pictured as a Tiger on each. Turnbull's a dingus but the various black/orange Topps parallels do work well with the team's colors. And did Jeff send me too many Verlanders? Maybe not, but he did send me 22 many Verlanders!

Most of them depict him as an Astro (with a few Mets thrown in to show off) which makes sense since we're coming up on the seventh anniversary of the deal that sent him to his first ring with Houston, not to mention the Tigers to their perpetual mediocrity. Anyway, look at how shiny some of these are! There's a few excellent brands in there too.

A quintet of Verlanders (hey, a Tigers card!) close out the "regular" standard orientation stuff while a mini Baez joins two horizontals that start the x-axis run (including yet another excellent Stadium Club photo). But first, we have what's easily the biggest card in the bunch: my first autograph of my fellow Michigan alum and not-so-fellow HOFer Ted Simmons! This was a huge surprise to me as I'd been wanting an auto of Simba for quite a while but had yet to pull the trigger. Bonus points for it being on another Archives card honoring the 2001 Topps design, plus his signature is impeccable. Wow! This makes him the 39th Michigan Baseball guy in my hits collection for the sport. If I recall correctly, Jeff had picked that up for me at the show earlier that day, though again, I could totally be making that up.

And after all that goodness there's still some baseball left, of the horizontal variety. Topps and Stadium Club give us a couple more looks at Miggy finishing his classic swing. Griffey and Gwynn each get cool Archives base appearances, plus Tony's Denny's hologram has me feeling nostalgia for the 90s (but not Denny's--BARF!). And there you see the last three of the 22 many Verlanders.

One page of basketball cards made the trip as well. A pair of Jett Howards bookends his dad. Poole's first season in Washington was decent. Franz and his brother Mo have Germany undefeated thus far in Paris with the quarterfinals coming up on Tuesday. And Webber is yet another guy Jeff and I can help each other out with as he has a ton of cards out there.

Lastly, your National Champion Wolverines were well represented in this box, requiring three scans to cover all of them. I'll eventually land cards of Bell as a Niner but I'm happy to keep piling up college cards as well. I don't like Brady personally but do respect his college and NFL success. Star WR Nico's Red Cracked Ice card looks amazing, and bonus points for being a college uni photo! Blake "The Great" and "The Don" formed a championship duo in the backfield and I'm champing at the bit to add more of both of them as well. Grbac's a 90s insert and that's always a plus in my book. And Buckeye-killer Haskins is another of quite a few Michigan uni cards you'll see in these scans.

I wasn't kidding--look at all of these! There's a lot of defensive talent in this scan, too, between Hawkins, Hurst, Hutch, and Paye. Denard's actually a Ginter card but he was enough of a sensation to cross over into the product that occasionally dabbles in baseball. Schoonmaker is another Harbaugh era TE success story.

Mazi, Turner, and Thomas would have fit well with the above scan as they also starred on the defensive side of the ball. I'm still short on cards of transfer RB Charbonnet but I'm holding onto cards of him with UCLA even though I don't count them towards my UM collection. And finally, what a great way to end things with champion QB/RB duo Corum and McCarthy? I guess Jeff took "Go Blue" seriously this time!

Jeff, thanks again for this generous stack of cards that hit so many of my PCs, especially the surprise addition of the Simmons! I've got a pretty nice pile to get to you at some point plus a few other items to go with the cards, and I'll have to figure out if I'll be shipping everything to you or seeing you at an upcoming show (speaking of which, everyone should make sure they're following Sluggo's Sports Cards). And here's to another great season of Michigan Football coming up in just a few weeks. GO BLUE!

1/6 and 1/20/24 card show reports: 2 shows 2 start 2024

That's right, it's show time once again! For this post we're traveling all the way back to the beginning of 2024 when I made it over to my first show of the year in Taylor, before heading to my second just two weeks later.

We'll get to that one in a bit, but first here's a quick recap of my usual monthly show.

Somewhat unusually I headed east to Taylor on the first Saturday of the month instead of Friday, I think because I didn't feel like taking that Friday off. Michigan had just earned a thrilling OT win against Alabama in the Rose Bowl a few days earlier and I was just biding my time until the following Monday's matchup with Washington, not realizing what was in store for my Wolverines.

While I was at the show I spent a pretty reasonable $70, and if you'd like me to break that down further I'm afraid I can't because it was literally almost four months ago now. Suffice to say I dug through my usual favorite boxes and was pretty happy with the results.

First up: a tiny amount of trade bait, I believe from the $1 and $2 boxes:

Reed is /500; Michael is #105/105(!); Durham is #03/10.

Claim 'em if you wanna trade for 'em!

Next up we have my keepers:

This is a great scan buoyed by some "90s inserts rule!" goodness. Junior is from an awesome '96 Stadium Club insert called Mega Heroes and the card has an excellent comic book vibe. Grandy's from an insert Donruss did much better under its original name than the Panini version: Career Stat Line. He had 1564 hits (before finishing with exactly 1800) but Panini numbered the card /500. Henry is a Michigan guy, nuff said. I don't remember if I paid $2 or $5 for Mad Dog's '97 Ultra Baseball Rules insert but I don't care because it's a sick die-cut chase card anyway. Mize has been solid in his return to the mound this year. Then Maddux is back with a numbered card (/799) from 2008 UD a Piece of History, and Pudge gets some love for winning the NLCS (and eventually the World Series) in '03 with the Marlins.

The basketball content is exactly one card: a '17-'18 Donruss Optic of ex-Wolverine and 2017 Bucks first-rounder D.J. Wilson, featuring that Rated Rookie logo that I can help preferring over Topps' rookie cup (it's ok, unfollow me if you have to!). Griese is a '99 Score Anniversary parallel numbered /1989 on the back while former teammate and GOAT DB Charles Woodson hails from '22 Classics' Premium Edition.

In terms of hits, the first is a SAGE HIT, oddly enough, starring former Michigan OL Ben Bredeson. A fairly successful lineman out of Wisconsin (maybe their top export?), he parlayed solid performance late in the 2010s into a 4th round draft choice by the Ravens in 2020. Since then he's suited up for the Giants and signed with Tampa. His only cardboard appearances are from SAGE brands but I'm happy to welcome him to the collection with a signature.

And lastly, I think I've had more luck buying Devin Funchess hits at this show than anywhere else, though I have no idea why. Anyway, I came home with the 2015 Certified and Crown Royale jersey/auto/RCs and a relatively low numbered sticker auto for just a few bucks each and was happy to do so. The trio pushed him up to 28 hits and 12 of those include a signature, so that number's growing nicely.

Two weeks later I was excited to be heading about an hour and a half west to Kalamazoo for an awesome meetup opportunity. Not only did I have the chance to see Jeff and his cousin Sluggo who were all set up again as sellers, and not only did John make the quick trip down from nearby Portage--a combo that's happened on a few fun occasions--but my buddy Jason a.k.a. jasongerman9 from TCDb, who lives an hour-ish away in Niles, stopped by as well with his girlfriend Sam. The two hung out at the show for a bit before taking in the hockey game at the Wings Event Center where the show was, and it was awesome to finally meet them in person.

Here's a quick look at all of us:

Me, Kevin, Jason (kickass t-shirt!), Jeff (kickass jersey that I got from Jason!), John, and Sam.

I had a blast hanging out with these folks and picking out some stuff for some of my favorite traders (a few of which were at this very show with me!). Between trading Kevin a few cards he could use and the very generous discount he gave me I spent $25 at his tables, all of it for trade bait (including some Red Sox for Boston/Alabama fan Sam!). I love in-person meetups like this and you just can't beat talking cards with friends for an hour or two.

So yeah, I'd say I started the year with two very successful shows. Thanks again to all the folks that made it to Kalamazoo, and I'm hoping to see some or all of the same friends in just a few weeks if we can all make it back there!

2024 trade package #1: My Sports Obsession

Ok, I'm finally caught up on 2023 so let's look at new cards that joined my collections in 2024. To begin with, we'll go with a trade package I received way back in early January. Jeff of My Sports Obsession hit my mailbox with this mailer not too long before we met up in Kalamazoo for a show he and his cousin were doing (details in a future post). It was stuffed with Tigers, some of my favorite bigger PCs, a few Wolverines, and more!

Here's what trade package #1 of 2024 contained for me:

Baddoo started out hot and has actually had what I'd call above-average success for a rule 5 pick, put right now he's playing for a pretty stacked AAA squad in Toledo. Jeff also really boosted my collection of el Mago, and even cooler, everything has him in a Tigers uniform. His tenure in Detroit has been less than ideal and we'll find out eventually if he's one of the guys that gets booted out of my Tigers box, but for now, I appreciate the thought while I wait to see if he can still bring anything to the team.

I wasn't joking about the Baez boost! I also really appreciate the trio of chrome-y Cabreras. As a reminder, the Tigers legend played 16 of his 21 MLB seasons in Motown, so this is the first year since 2007 that fans won't see him at the plate wearing the olde English "D." Switching teams (and fandoms, over to Michigan), Cronenworth is a guy both Jeff and I collect, and I love having more than 100 cards of the St. Clair, Michigan product. After scuffling a bit last season he's had a pretty decent start for the Padres in '24, and I hope he can get his numbers back up to their All-Star levels of '21 and '22.

Speaking of scuffling a bit, Greene's bat could use a wake-up call, but he's far from the only Tiger you could say that about right now. At least he's still out there making highlight reel plays in left, and I know his bat will warm up as we (eventually) say goodbye to the snow. Jeff also treated me to some cool items of the first two guys in my big PC quartet, Griffey and Gwynn. Ginter and Topps Chrome Platinum pop up quite a bit in this post and I'm guessing he was generously thinking of me while sorting through card shop boxes as he does.

After a couple more Gwynn items we go back to a Wolverine in Hill. I can't tell you how many copies of that card I've received through blogger and TCDb trades but it's up there! Kaline and Kell are forever linked in my mind as Tigers legends and broadcasters so it's only natural they get paired up here. Another common collection for Jeff and me is Larkin, who also gets the multi-Chrome treatment on a cool pair. Maddux is the third of the "big four" PC guys and there's even more of him in the next scan! He also appears on a TCP card here and another in the next scan, plus one of the others below depicts him as a youngster with the Cubs.

Right down the middle here we have a cool present/near-ish past/distant past trio of Tigers pitchers. Mize looked a bit rusty in his first MLB game since '22, but the Tigers picked him up against the hapless Mets. Morris and Newhouser are both here courtesy of, yep, TCP! I don't know if Mize will join them in the Hall but he's one of a few talented hurlers the Tigers employ who could get there someday. I believe Cal is our final shared baseball PC guy of the post and was happy to see the fourth of the "big four" as I always am. And how about one more TCP for the road, Ted "Simba" Simmons? He's another ex-Wolverine for whom I've piled up 100+ cards since I started collecting him.

The baseball portion closes out with five many Verlanders, whose PC count continues to climb thanks to trades like this one. The Finest Throwbacks card is interesting to me because I'm such a fan of the '96 set it's honoring, though the border color is all wrong for bronze or gold. Either way, it's fun to get more cards of him as a Met considering his 16 game tenure with them last year, not unlike Mike Piazza's famous five games with the '98 Marlins before being flipped to, oddly enough, the Mets!

Flipping over to football, it's taken me a while to get my first UM or NFL card of transfer RB Zach Charbonnet (I just got one at a show this past weekend), but I'm hold onto others folks send me all the same, just not counting them towards his collection. Heisman winner Desmond Howard cleaned up nicely for a Classic Four Sport issue. And I love that two of the three cards Jeff sent me of recent star Aidan Hutchinson are college issues.

Nothing wrong with seeing him as a Lion since he's been a huge part of their turnaround, but you all know where my loyalties lie! And I continue to enjoy seeing past stars like Law, Toomer, and Woodson in more recent products like Mosaic, Prestige, and Select. Hutch, Law, and Toomer all played on teams just a year or two away from national titles but of course GOAT DB Charles Woodson won it all in '97, just like this past season's squad (if I hadn't mentioned it).

Jeff, thanks for such a great envelope to start the year! I have a pretty nice stack of stuff for you and will likely just hold onto it for now because if the likelihood that I'll see you at another show in just over a month.

I believe my next few posts will continue to be trade recaps but may also mix show summaries and other stuff in there if I feel like it. Lots more to come!