Showing posts with label Leaf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leaf. Show all posts

Sunday, June 11, 2023

2023 trade package #13: the Angels in Order


I know it's been a few weeks since I last posted but I've been busy with stuff like turning 40 and visiting a friend down south. Still, trade recaps await so I'm back to it!

It's been great for the blogosphere to have Tom from the Angels in Order back and writing very regularly (something I obviously can't manage!), and an even cooler development is the way he's taken to trading on TCDb. His exploits there (TCDb ID "calangels") where he's well on his way to the 100-transaction mark in just a few months led to our first trade in about three years. I was happy to tack on some extra stuff to his original proposal and off we went!

Here's my end of the deal:
We start with a trio of '87 Leaf Tigers. I took a look at the team checklist for the set and these sew up the players I actually collect from it, meaning I'm ignoring Bruce Fields' and Walt Terrell's entries. Next, I can't say no to more cards of Maggs and Pudge, a couple of key '06 Tigers, whether or not they're depicted with Detroit. That would explain why my collections of them are as large as 236 and 351 cards, respectively!
The last Tigers card was a '96 Collector's Choice Silver Signature parallel of the team checklist starring who else back then but Big Daddy himself, Cecil Fielder. The '96 set featured one of the product's better designs in my opinion.

And then we move on to cards of three guys that make up my big four PC group of non-Tigers/Wolverines. Ripken gets left out this time but he leads the pack by a mile so that's ok. I was happy to add four new Griffeys, three of them Reds cards, to keep marching him towards the next milestone of 1100. Mr. Padre Tony Gwynn adds to the Collector's Choice parade with one of the 836 items I own of him. And ex-Padre and Dodger (not his most well-known squads) Greg Maddux is a bit behind Gwynn with 817 including the '07 UD First Edition above.
Since this bunch was going to work out to be three images regardless, I bunched the three Wolverines together. It's great trading with an Angels collector like Tom because he happened to have a couple Jim Abbott dupes for me in the form of a couple oddball-ish items. The first is a 1991 team issue Smokey the Bear card while the other is from a 1992 Classic multi-sport product called World Class Athletes, a set that largely focuses on recent Olympians (Jim was one in the 80s, of course) but which also includes a smattering of other stars.

The '75 Topps of HOFer Ted Simmons was a late addition as a replacement for an '82 Fleer Stamp of Jack Morris that Tom couldn't find. Uh, yeah, that's a reasonable swap, dude! It apparently gives me 99 cards of the ex-UM C and a milestone celebration will surely follow soon. A fellow Wolverine from the gridiron closes us out tonight in the form of a '91 Classic base of Jarrod Bunch, a late 80s FB (remember that position?) who spent four years in the NFL with the Giants and Raiders.

Tom, thanks again for reaching out and working this deal via TCDb! It was great trading with you again and I look forward to the next time we can swap some cards. In fact, I may already have a decent pile going for you after this month's show.

Stay tuned for a couple more trades, a June show recap, and lots more!

Sunday, November 14, 2021

2021 trade package #25: the Lost Collector


A.J. may call himself the Lost Collector but this is a dude who's far from lost when it comes to sending great PWEs. The chaser of all things Tino Martinez had promised to send a few Michigan cards my way and then as usual I forgot all about that so the envelope that showed up this past Friday was a surprise to me.

After Michigan's satisfying win over Penn State yesterday afternoon I'm definitely in the mood to show off some Wolverines cards, so here's what A.J. sent my way:

Three players, two brands, and one scan, so this will be nice and easy to recap! McKeon ("Mc-KEWN") was a solid TE in Ann Arbor and went undrafted in 2020 before being selected by the Cowboys, for whom he recorded his first pro catches in this afternoon's demolishing of the Failcons. Patterson, of course, was Michigan's QB in 2018 and 2019 and had an up-and-down career that left him undrafted as well. He's now playing in the CFL where a few other Wolverines have found success, so that's cool. And DPJ is definitely the most successful of this trio, with at least one catch in each game this year, and three TD catches in his previous two games. The 2020 sixth-rounder (which is still ridiculous to me) could see his role increase with headache machine Odell Beckham Jr. gone.

2020 Score is the first of the two products that featured in this PWE, and it's one with a design I give a thumbs up to, in no small part thanks to college uni photos. Patterson's RC represents the lone base of the four while the other three are Black parallels covering all three players here. Score has traditionally put out quite a few unnumbered color parallels over the last decade and these may be among my first from last year's offering. More Michigan uniform cards are always welcome to join the PC!

The other product you see is 2020 Leaf Draft, which just includes just Patterson and Peoples-Jones in its 100-card checklist. A.J. sent me base and Gold parallels of both guys, which was super helpful in making sure I had my bases covered there. I'm not sure where Leaf gets off throwing a "RC" logo on their cards, but I haven't taken that tag seriously from other brands for years, so why not go nuts? The only real downside of brands like Leaf is that they have to airbrush parts of the uniforms so you get quasi-team looks. Still, I appreciate the product as it's sometimes responsible for cards and occasionally autographs of guys that might not otherwise get them.

The group you see above bumped my collection of McKeon to 5 plus 7 each for Shea and DPJ. Bonus points to A.J. for a 100% college uni PWE!
Here's the backs for completeness. I'm kind of curious why Leaf used gold accents on both the base cards and Gold inserts, but again, Leaf gonna Leaf.

A.J., thanks again for hitting me back just in time for me to celebrate my Wolverines being 9-1 and in the hunt for the playoff with two games left. I'll keep looking all over for cards you don't have, though I know how much of a challenge that is when you could easily rename your blog "Too Many Tinos"!