2025 trade package #1: Baseball Cards Come to Life

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

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

Here's the contents:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TCDB trade roundup: cards from C2Cigars and BKim

I haven't done much trading on TCDB at this point, having made just one deal with someone other than Paul, but in the last few weeks I got cards from a pair of members there anyway, which was a great development for me.

First up is Chuck, a.k.a. C2Cigars.  If you're not a TCDBer but the name sounds familiar, that's because he's the member Paul and I met at Paul's local show late last year.  An older school collector that looks for vintage Mets, Raiders, and Sabres, plus Syracuse alumni, he followed up the vintage Michigan Football item he brought to that show with a bigger bunch of the same, almost all of which I needed:

Though none of these guys are new to my collection, it's generally been limited to their RCs, so this is certainly a bunch I can appreciate.  WR Doughty (card #2) and OG Mack (4) are from 1975 Topps on a design that's miles away from the baseball version.  RB Lytle (a dupe), OG McKenzie (3), and TE Seymour (3) feature on the '78 design that I think has a bit more going for it.  TE Mandich's (4) second-year '76 Topps photo is very similar to the one seen on his RC.  McRae's '69 Topps probably looks familiar since Jon sent it to me first and I showed it off in my last post.  And LB Nunley (3) and CB Rowser (2) both make appearances in '73 Topps, which was their second-year set.

This next group begins with a card I don't really consider vintage, an '84 Topps USFL of WR Jim Smith (3), but that doesn't make me like it any less, especially since it's a cool piece of history.  Then we return to 1973 for OT Steve Smith's RC plus S Rick Volk (5).  I somehow missed Smith on my RC checklist so I'm glad Chuck alerted me to that, especially since he appears to have only one other card to his name.  By the way, the colors used for the '73 set confuse me, so maybe someone can tell me if there's a rhyme or reason to what was used or if they're just random.  Anyway, I was also treated to a second card of Volk, in this case from the '75 set you saw above.  That gives me Rick's cards from '71, '73, '75, and '76, which is pretty good!

This last scan shows the other two cards from Chuck's package.  On the left is a '91 Pro Set of former QB and current HC Jim Harbaugh, but it's not just any card.  Instead it's from the Spanish version of the set, as indicated by some of the text you can see up front.  That's a fun addition to his PC (142 cards).  He's joined by recent DB Channing Stribling from Topps' coverage of the defunct AAF, the final dupe in the package.

Chuck's a great guy to deal with, as is pretty obvious considering the above, so don't hesitate to trade with him if you're on the site!

The other envelope that arrived was what the site calls a PIF, or "pay it forward."  It's kind of the site's equivalent blog trading's blind trades with the idea that you pick someone and send them something they'd probably like.  Member Robert (BKim), who seems like a good dude from what I've seen on the site, was nice enough to surprise me with this:

As I'm now actively collecting HOFer Ted Simmons--it took me a while to confirm he's a Michigan alum, though he didn't actually play baseball for the school, though that doesn't disqualify him for my collection--I'd updated my wantlist for the catching great, and Robert picked one of those needs and sent it my way.  This is Ted's card from Fleer's 1981 debut, another appearance where he looks high but at least doesn't have long hair like a hippie.  I'm glad to add it as the first Simmons in my collection that isn't included in one of my complete sets, giving me 14 overall.

I made sure to thank BKim in the forum's PIF thread and I already know to whom I'll be paying it forward very soon.  Thanks to both him and Chuck for making TCDB a cooler place to be!

With lots of cards in-hand still to be covered and the likelihood of working from home starting next week you may actually see more of me!  Stay safe and healthy, everyone.