2/6/26 card show report: February fun

I did end up going to my monthly show yesterday (as opposed to Friday) which was kind of a nice change of pace. You'll get to hear all about that eventually, but before then I'll be giving you a look at what I brought home earlier in February.

My total spending on that Friday was $98, split almost down the middle between my usual seller ($50) and one I've checked out a few times lately for some more oddball stuff ($48), especially the 6/$5 tubs.

Speaking of the latter, I picked up a lot of 14 of the 1967 Topps Posters for $23:

This isn't all of them as I set a few aside for other collectors, but I do have these available for trade. If it isn't obvious, there are dupes of Campaneris and Wagner. If you'd like to claim these, please do so and we'll work out a trade!

Next up is the baseball bunch from the usual guy. I believe the Briceno came from his box of cards that are $1 each or 6 for $5, and though it's not a RC, I thought it might be a good time to pick up something of one of Detroit's better catching prospects. The Bunnings all came from the dime box, and I didn't mind that all four picture him with the Phillies instead of the Tigers. There's three great brands plus Gypsy Queen in the quartet. Speaking of HOF pitchers, the Red Prizm of Maddux is a bit of a color match for his Braves.

And then there's the biggest card I scored for myself this time: a Jack Morris auto from 2004 Upper Deck Etchings. Numbered to 375 up front, it's obviously a sticker-graph, but a cool one in my opinion since it's not the boring old clear sticker that often gets signed. The card itself looks great too, not that I'm surprised given UD's output of classic looking vintage-themed products during that decade. I'm also happy to keep up a streak of autos of Morris with the Tigers instead of his other well-known teams (Minnesota and Toronto), with that count now at five. This was a great way to round out my purchase at that seller's tables for a reasonable $10.

Before we go back to my loot from that seller in football form I'm going to show you my other keepers from the second seller. Once again I scored some of the previously mentioned 6/$5 bin items, and you'll get to see one in a minute, but in addition to that and the Topps Posters above, I grabbed these:

For a combined $20 I scored a trio of 7-11 Slurpee coin sets. These lenticular "coins" are among my favorite oddball collectibles and I couldn't pass them up! Also, I know I'll definitely be getting a comment from Fuji on this post!

Scan #1 shows off the complete 1984 Central Region set. Per TCDb, these have an "E" suffix for the card numbers (which are Roman numerals) as opposed to "H" for the East and "K" for the South. There are 24 total and you see each of those above, with plenty of stars mixed in with other favorites. Lou Whitaker and Ted Simmons are my PC guys here but I'm happy to have the whole set!

The second scan starts with 15 of the 16 coins from the 1986 set (also the Central Region, which you can tell since the fronts have blue borders and the backs are yellow). I didn't realize until I got home that while what I bought came with 16 coins, one of them was a dupe and I was missing probably the best one: Steve Carlton/Nolan Ryan/Tom Seaver. No biggie, I may be able to score that on eBay soon. Anyway, this set is even more reminiscent of the very similar Sportflics cards as it opts for trios (except for the Dwight Gooden that leads the set). Those obviously work well on this style of card and I like how they look. PC guys for me include Cal Ripken Jr. (on an MVPs coin with Keith Hernandez and Don Mattingly), Jack Morris ("Ace Pitchers" with Bert Blyleven and Rick Sutcliffe), Lance Parrish ("All-Star Catchers" with Carlton Fisk and Tony Pena), Chet Lemon ("Star Outfielders" with Brett Butler and Willie Wilson), Darrell Evans ("Home Run Hitters" with Tom Brunansky and Cecil Cooper), and Kirk Gibson ("Big Hitters" with Paul Molitor and Greg Walker).

The last set here is the Detroit Region version made in 1987. From what I can see, Detroit is the only area that had its own team represented by itself. Chicago got a 16-coin Cubs/Sox split, the East got Mets/Red Sox/Yankees, Mideast got Orioles/Red Sox/Cubs/Mets, and West got Angels/Dodgers. This set was made close enough to the '84 World Series team that the biggest stars are still present, and there are only two players (Darnell Coles and Dwight Lowry) that I don't collect. Gibby, Tram, Sweet Lou, and others are all there, plus relative newcomer Frank Tanana, in the 12-coin set. Cool!

Before getting to the final item from this seller I thought I'd grab an image of an example back of each coin.

Besides those, like I said, I kept one of the 6/$5 items for myself. That was the complete 12-card set of 2015 Topps Update's Pride and Perseverance. Thought it wasn't in the greatest of shape since its team bag got bounced around in the tub plenty, I thought it was worth it for less than a buck. While the design is typically fairly boring in the usual Topps way, the idea was a great one: examples of players who overcame adversity. It's inspiring to read about how these guys defeated obstacles that could have prevented them from playing. Former Detroit Tiger Curtis Pride and Jim Abbott feature in this set, and I'm glad to have it in my collection.

And now we'll close things out with some football, mostly from I believe the dime and quarter boxes. Score-A-Treat and Donruss feature heavily, but I did manage to find a colorful Absolute parallel of Corum, a Mosaic of Moody, and Topps Resurgence base of Woodson as well.

This could have been a decent trip if I'd stuck to my usual guy's tables, but the 7-11 coins definitely upped the experience to an excellent one. And I'm glad to say I had an enjoyable time yesterday as well, but like I said, you'll have to wait a bit for that. I still need to show off a couple TCDb PIFs, a pair of eBay purchases (with one on the way), and at least one March trade envelope. Until then, may the weather continue going in the right direction as we get deeper into spring training!

2026 trade package #6: Johnny's Trading Spot

I skipped going to my monthly show today in favor of going tomorrow, mostly out of laziness, but the weather's not exactly cooperating either (lots of fog and rain). Instead, I'll put that time towards showing off my final February trade package.

As it happens, that came to me courtesy of John of Johnny's Trading Spot. This was the first time we swapped cards, and that started when I threw some John Elways into a package Angus brought across the border for me to send John's way to make shipping easier. John was nice enough to return the favor with a package that looks pretty similar to others I've seen across some blogs (in a good way!), but with a distinctly Detroit flavor.

I'm starting off with these 1990 Panini Stickers since they're the oldest items from the mailer, and also because everything else comes from one manufacturer, making for a very nice sampler. I can still remember ripping packs of these stickers as a kid and filling up my album, hoping for the Tigers and nicer items, such as that foil helmet card. Henneman and Lemon are also PC guys and are most definitely welcome here.

Everything else you'll see here is a Fleer brand, largely from the 90s but with some aughts thrown in as well. This group represents all of the Ultra cards he sent my way. Fleer's first "premium" brand debuted in 1991 but started using its more typical full-bleed photo/foil combo the following year. The product's run from 1997-2001 has some of my favorite design elements I associate with the set, especially the neon lettering look.

This group includes single cards from 1995 (Fryman) and '96 (Williams), four from 2000, and a trio from 2006. Fryman, Palmer, Bondo, and BInge are all PC guys, plus like I said, I really favor a certain era of these, so those 2000s look amazing to me. 

A 90s Fleer product that was even higher-end than Ultra was Flair. These cards were released on thicker stock with even more gold foil elements, and they retained the full-bleed photo greatness of other products like Topps's Stadium Club.

The set made its debut in 1993 and is represented here by the complete first scan plus first two cards of the second image. It's awesome for me to see PC favorites like Fielder, Fryman, Gibby, Henneman, Phillips, Froot Loops, and Sweet Lou. Still, for as bad as that decade's teams were, I've deployed the "1990s Tickers SUCKED" tag tonight.

The remaining seven cards from the second scan represent the '94 set, one that was fairly similar in design to the previous year's, including dual front images, while adding lots more gold foil in the form of the larger player name plus team. Gibby and Phillips are the highlights of these for me, as is one of the inserts added in '94: Hot Gloves.

Up next is a quartet from 1995's E-Motion, a product under the SkyBox name. These are very 90s Fleer-coded with an experimental design that's kind of busy, one that's most noteworthy for the "emotion" on each card. I don't think anyone's ever associated the word "delighted" with the ultra-competitive Gibson, but I'm still happy to see guys like him and Whitaker in this set. It may be weird, but it's of its time.

Keeping that word "experimental" in mind, another fun 90s Fleer offering was Metal Universe. This fusion of metallic elements and comic books debuted in 1996, and the first five cards you see here were found in that set. There's a big emphasis on crazy foil backgrounds that highlight the crazy imagery. Fryman represents my PC guys from the '96 set while Tony Clark (who recently resigned as MLBPA chief) and malcontent Bobby Higginson's cards were inserted into the '98 version.

I kind of mashed up a bunch of products in these two images, and we'll start with 2000 Skybox Dominion. Those feel like fairly textbook examples of a a Skybox product from around then, and I recall busting a decent amount of packs of those chasing some fun inserts. E-X always looked great, including the 2000 product represented here by another malcontent, Juan Gonzalez. And Encarnacion's a huge creep who's a great candidate for Chris's "Bad Guys in Sports Tier List" post, but Gamers was a fun rip back in 2000 thanks to the chase for relics.

Leading off the second scan, I suppose I could have included Weaver's beautiful 2001 Flair Showcase card with the earlier Flair items, but I think Showcase was in a league of its own and really showed how nice cards could look. Then, a couple years after Fleer released a pretty nice product called "Focus," they put out a "Jersey Edition" of the same name, chasing the hot trend of relics. Dean-O highlights the group for me, and well-known collector Dmitri Young is also among the group. Lastly, a lone example of 2004's Sweet Sigs stars Pudge, a Tiger for parts of five seasons who made his debut with the team that same year and helped bring the franchise back to the playoffs on 2006. The base set looks great and the relic and autograph cards are top-notch as well.

And now we've come to the final pair of images, ones that feature some of Fleer's best efforts over its storied but relatively brief existence. The manufacturer did a fantastic job of highlighting some of the game's HOFs, legends, and fan favorites in a number of products, but I think the product most synonymous with the idea is Greats of the Game. These always had beautiful, artistic designs with classic photos, and like Topps's Fan Favorites, they didn't limit admission to HOFers, which I've always appreciated.

A few Greats products are represented in these two scans. The recently deceased Lolich plus Jack Morris, a couple World Series heroes, start us off with the debut 2000 set, one I love for its amazing aesthetics. HOFers Cobb and Kell show off the 2002 design, one with an even simpler retro look that suits the photography well. Cochrane (listed as a Tiger!) is our third Mickey of this post, and he joins Mr. Tiger from Flair Greats, released in 2003 as a great fusion between the two brands. And lastly, Cochrane makes a repeat (including photo) appearance in the 2004 Greats set along with the previously seen Morris, plus Wolverines/Tigers Freehan and Gehringer, as the product went back to a very cool framed look. What a great collection of, well, greats, on great designs!

John, thanks for sending these to complete our first trade, I really appreciate it! I'm sure anyone reading here knows your blog well so I'll just mention that they should also find you over on TCDb. Good luck to your Braves this year and also to you making some headway on your wants of your favorite team!

Tomorrow I plan on heading to my usual show and then I'll probably put in some work readying my next post which should cover last month's show.

1/3 and 1/31/25 Show Reports: Two-fer '25

Because I attended both January's and February's shows during the first month of this year (as you can see in the title, February's began on 1/31, and I like to go on Fridays), you get a two-fer post tonight!

#1 for the year was Friday, January 3, and my spending sheet says I threw down a year-high $120, which made for a strong start.

First, here's a scan of some pretty nice trade bait:

I've tried to swing back into getting baseball fodder since it seems that's what many folks prefer, but the football stuff just ends up being more plentiful much of the time, both in quantity and quality. The printing plate you see (scanned sideways, for some reason) stars Bears QB bust Mitchell Trubisky, and it hails from 2019 Panini Luminance (well, it was inserted into that year's Plates & Patches, but you know what I mean). I can't remember the exact price but I snagged it for less than $10.

As always, if you see anything you like, just ask and we'll see what we can work out!

As for my keepers,

It doesn't get much better than some "90s inserts rule" goodness! Junior Griffey features on the front of a '96 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle insert, Gwynn looks spiffy on a '97 Skybox E-X2000 base, Maddux is the face of a 2003 Fleer Tradition mini insert, and Pudge is the back half of the catching duo on Pinnacle's '97 Team Pinnacle version. Oh, and Ripken completes the quartet with a new relic card courtesy of '24 Ginter. Sweet!

The well-traveled Burke was a fun throw-in on the basketball side of things, and I'm always up for a cool Donruss numbered parallel, especially the Season Stat Line cards.

And it may not look it, but that '92 Pro Line football card was one of the most significant pickups for me this time. I'll explain why in a moment as we look at some backs.

The Reds' Sanders was a reasonable pick opposite Griffey to rep the NL OF in '95, his lone All-Star campaign. Maddux's Black & White mini card has a nice bonus of being numbered /1936 as a throwback to that year's Goudey design. I don't know why I included the back of Cal's Ginter relic here, but I did. Piazza was a natural counterpart to Rodriguez on the other Team Pinnacle insert.

And then we have my second example of a signature card from 1992 Pro Line Portraits' Autograph sets. OL Greg Skrepenak suited up for the Wolverines before being drafted by the Raiders, and he'd play 68 NFL games over five seasons between them and the Jaguars. His brief career combined with that era of the hobby means his certified auto selection is extremely limited, and this is one I was hot after since it's his only NFL version. I love adding signatures of new players to my collection and was happy for Skrepenak to join the club!

Four weeks later I headed back east down 94 for another Friday show. This time I spent a slightly odd (but even) $76, and I don't recall how I ended up at that number. Despite shelling out less cash, I brought home even MORE trade bait, if fewer PC additions:

Trade bait scan 1 of 2 is just the vertical cards, and most everything here was in the $1-$2 range, I believe.

And the other nine were of the horizontal variety. Lots more football, as you can see (and hopefully I'll get those sent out in TCDb deals at some point) with a pair of baseball relics. Want any? Please ask!

As for my keepers:

We'll start off this small assortment with another "90s inserts rule" reference. I don't know for sure if 1998 was my favorite year for Topps inserts, but after dragging their feet long enough to get way behind the likes of Pacific, Pinnacle, Fleer, and UD, Topps produced some bangers late in the decade. '98's Clout Nine, Focal Point, Mystery Finest, and Clemente Reprints were highlights, and to that group I'd add Hall Bound, a 15-card die-cut set honoring players who were practically shoo-ins for Cooperstown. Of that total, Clemens, McGwire, Bonds, and Juan Gonzalez were the only misses, for obvious reasons. Cal, of course, had no such problems. And here I added the Chrome version of his entry in that beautiful set!

Next I rewound the clock a decade while picking up the Whitaker/Trammell double-play combo in Starting Lineup card form. I've had (open) figure/card pairings of the two (plus Matt Nokes) since the year I turned six and was in retrospect lucky to find them at Meijer or Toys R Us, and now I have the inaugural iteration's cardboard issues. It was great finding them together and I think they were just a buck or two each. Cool!

Lastly, I think I paid about the same amount to add relic cards of a couple more Wolverines that are joining the hits collection tonight. QB Joe Milton III is the guy that transferred to Tennessee after the wacky 2020 "season," and then the hapless Patriots spent a pick on him. He was just flipped to Dallas where he'll try to be Dak's backup, I guess. Meanwhile, NCAA champ WR Roman Wilson joins him, and though his post-college year in football proved to be a bust due to injury, I'm hoping to see him making some plays for the Steelers in a few months.

The three football additions you saw tonight put me at 260 unique subjects in my football hits collection, and that's a number I've proudly increased quite a bit the past few years.

Posting these show pickups lets me put some more cards away and continue to chip at my backlog. Next I plan on showing off my lone February trade package, one that was plenty big enough to get its own month!

2024 eBay purchases: Six more from 24

I'm still slowly plugging away at the piles of 2024 stuff left to cover and after this post should have something like two to go (I think).

This one shouldn't take me too long to recap as it features just six cards, though they're all eBay purchases from last June through December and are pretty decently significant. I'll try not to get too wordy!

Win #1 was the most costly and I nabbed it back in early June:

My second certified auto of Sweet Lou hails from 2019 Donruss Optic and is the Red parallel that's limited to a scant seven copies! This one uses an action photo of Whitaker about to make some good contact, and while it lacks any MLB logos I do like the shot. It's also a fun throwback to the 1985 design used the year after Detroit last won it all, so that's a nice bonus.

Lou doesn't appear in a ton of autograph sets and of course this particular card is fairly rare, so I didn't mind spending a bit under $60 to get it. My favorite in my collection is still his 2001 Topps Archives rookie reprint auto, but I'm thrilled to add a second like this one to it. I also picked up a JSA-certified 1983 Fleer auto (apparently from 2011 Leaf Ink) a while ago to give me sort of a third signature.

This one is definitely sweet!

A few weeks later I scored another pricey high-end signature card, and if I recall correctly, Greg was the one that let me know it was available, so if that was the case, thank you to him for the assist.

Bill Freehan's autographs have naturally gone up in price a bit due to his passing a few years ago, although I would say not egregiously so. In any case, I wasn't shocked that this dual signature card of him and fellow Wolverine/Tiger Rick Leach wasn't super cheap since I'm assuming TK Legacy, one of my favorite products as the manufacturer focuses on individual colleges, was likely distributed regionally. I don't recall if I saw this one up for sale before, or at least at a price I could handle, but at this point in my life, a bit under $50 was money I was willing to spend.

Naturally I love it because Freehan's one of my Michigan favorites--he went on to play for the Tigers and is a franchise great there too--and Leach is also a pretty significant Wolverine. But the focus on the college careers of both players is especially cool, as is their link which the back goes into. What it also doesn't mention is that both also played football for the Wolverines. Leach's gridiron career is more notable than Freehan's since he was a touted QB, but Bill was a notable two-sport athlete as well.

Not only is this my 14th signature of Freehan, but as a bonus it's also my first certified signature of Leach, who joins the baseball hits collection as member #40!

Roughly a month later I threw in a low max bid on a basketball card and was surprised to win it:

You all know I love my cheap plates so I was glad to win this one of former Wolverine Nik Stauskas for a mere $6.50 ($4.25 bid plus $2.25 in tax and shipping). "Sauce Castillo"'s RCs were released in 2014-15 so this cyan plate was used to create his rookie in that year's National Treasures product. I believe these plates were actually inserted into a subsequent product like a later National Treasures offering, but we still have them listed under 2014-15 NT on TCDb so I'll leave it categorized as such for now.

Believe it or not this is my SIXTH plate of Stauskas, which isn't something that happened intentionally, and it's hilarious to me that half of my hits of his are of the 1/1 variety while I only just recently picked up an autograph.

At the end of August I continued the printing plate theme with a return to baseball:

As usual here's my disclaimer that the subject of this card is pitcher Matt Miller who was drafted by the Brewers, not the Rockies/Indians P from Mississippi or the Texas Tech lefty who appeared in a few games in the early 2000s for the Tigers. The one I collect was born in South Carolina, went to high school in Indiana, and of course played for Michigan.

It looks like this Miller was only in organized ball between 2010, his draft season, and 2014, all while in the Brewers org. He pitched parts of the 2011 and 2012 seasons with the pictured Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (who doesn't love minor league team nicknames?) and appeared on 31 total cards catalogued on TCDb, with a mix of minor league issues joining regular issues from 2010 Elite Extra and 2011 Topps Heritage Minors and Pro Debut. Oddly enough I now own the yellow plates from both of the latter, and my only needs include his for minor league issues plus the remaining seven 1/1s from the Topps products. As rare as it is to find cards of his I need, $10.60 wasn't an unreasonable price for this.

Once again just a couple weeks later I added one more plate to my collection courtesy of eBay:

I think I may have mentioned my proclivity for collecting Rich Hill around here before! Now I can make the crazy claim that I own more 1/1s of Dick Mountain than I do combined hits of any one other player in my baseball collection (Zach Putnam has 35 to his name)!

This is my first of his from the 2020 flagship set to go along with the same year's Chrome Update and an On-Demand Mini Silver 1/1 parallel. The lefty dwarfs all others in that collection with 152 hits, literally representing more than 1/3 of the 447-card total. It's a mountain of Hills! (That definitely sounds better in my head than a mountain of Dicks.) Sometimes it's not easy staying at the top and I definitely had to fight off a few other bids to land this one for a bit more than $16.

My final personal eBay purchase wouldn't be until early December, and the subject of the card (at least one of them) remained the same:

The "Chirography" name had been around for almost a decade as part of Upper Deck's SP Authentic product when this dual signature starring Hill and fellow lefty pitching prospect Sean Marshall was made in 2006. I believe I own nearly 100 cards that include Rich's autograph so you could say I've studied his handwriting quite a bit in my hobby career.

Out of that grouping, I have a few signature cards he shares with others but this is my first that includes his former teammate Marshall, who was drafted a year later than Hill in 2003. He lasted nine years in the Majors, pitching six in Chicago and three more with the Reds, mostly as a bullpen guy from mid-career on. Marshall's now 42 and has been out of the game since 2014 while Hill has a chance at 45 (in March) to pitch in his 21st season. Crazy! I hope he gets a shot at more than the four games he pitched for Boston last season and gets to go out on his terms when he's ready.

Once again, hooray for more cards that I can put away! I think my last two '24 posts should be a few more Facebook Marketplace buys and then my late-year COMC haul. Then I'll be glad to get reporting on 2025 trades, shows and more.

2024 trade package #12: Chronicles of Fuji

He might not be a Matt, but the sender of my final trade package of May was a Mark: Fuji of the Chronicles of Fuji. And just like the others he sent me some very cool stuff back when the (K-12) school year wasn't quite done yet, which is funny since I've since received another package from him, getting here just before the bell rings on another year of hard work for a very dedicated teacher.

Here's what Fuji sent my way this time:

Gladden and Gullickson hail from Leaf's excellent looking Black Gold parallel which, for the millionth time, should have been the base set look that year. Gladden's best know as a two-time World Series winner with the Twins after starting his career with the Giants, but he spent his final two years in Motown. Gullickson played out the last years (four) of his 14-season career in Detroit and somehow won 20 games in '91.

The next cards I'll group together look like 2019 Topps base issues of Miggy, Castellanos, and JV, but they're actually from a set produced to promote the Clear Travel service, billed as a shortcut through airport security. As Mark noted in his post about them, the fronts are the same but the backs of the 100 cards featuring numbering in the format of "CP-#." Score another win for Fuji's beloved flea market purchases!

And the last group in this scan comprises hits. First up is a two-color patch of former Detroit pitcher Jeremy Bonderman, a guy who saw action on some of the best and worst teams in franchise history in the 2000s. It's got some Tigers orange on it and the offering from 2008 SPx is numbered to 50, marking my 6th hit (all relics) of the Washington native. Next up is a 2019 Topps Chrome auto of one-time prospect Dawel Lugo, an infielder who came over in the universally panned trade of J.D. Martinez to the Diamondbacks in 2017. His signature may be mostly his initials but I like the big loopy autograph all the same, plus the card is a reminder I saw him play for Lansing, Toronto's A-ball team at the time, in 2015. And last up is the only Michigan alum in this post in the form of former Yankees prospect Michael O'Neill (the whiny Paul's nephew). The three-year Wolverine appears to have been out of affiliated ball since 2019 but made a nice number of card appearances while he could, like this 2013 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks Prospect Signatures Prizms auto (man, that's a mouthful!). I remain the #1 collector of this particular O'Neill on TCDb.

And getting his own scan, to end today's post we have an oversized card of damn-well-better-be-elected HOFer Lou Whitaker. "Sweet" Lou comes to us from Donruss's 1986 All-Stars set where each card measures in at 3x5. 1985 marked his third of five straight All-Star nods and he went 0-2 in that game as the AL's starting 2B in a 6-1 loss to the elder league.

Fuji, thanks so much for sending these all the way back in May, and for the subsequent package I'll show off as soon as I can! I hope the new school year treats you well, and before long I'll be treating you to a fun response to what you sent here.

And everyone who follows can look forward to a May show recap post coming up next.

TCDb trade roundup: vrooomed

Here's a great way to get another big staff of stuff off of my desk! Over the past few months I've made a few deals and received a couple PIFs from Dan (a.k.a. vrooomed), one of hardest working members of TCDb and one of my earliest friends there. I received so many cards from him that it made sense to just devote one post to what he sent in March, June, and whenever he sent other envelopes.

Check out all these great additions to my collections:

Lots and lots of Tigers today. Miggy and Pudge will feature quite a bit but it's fun seeing others too like  Heilmann and V-Mart. 

This isn't nearly what I was referring to with the Rodriguez cards, by the way. You'll see! Sweet Lou and the Iron Man are always welcome sites in trade packages. Did anyone ever refer to Cal as "the Ripper" at any point?

Lots of inserts/shiny/both here with a bit of numbering too. Funkhouser's from the higher-end Sapphire set. Seeing Cabrera being applauded by fans is always fun, especially in Refractor form. And Pudge's Ultra insert makes me miss Fleer once again.

Though Dan lives in New York he's got some pretty nice Red Wings PCs and I was glad to grab some of his dupes for my way-too-small Yzerman collection (currently just 66 cards). It's fun seeing this group of various years and designs from his long and storied career.

The next bunch of scans (including this one) represent my own haul of a large deal we made after Dan got a massive amount of extras added to his trade list from the 70s-90s. I grabbed a huge chunk of stuff to help Jeff with his 80s set wants plus some White Sox and other PCs as well. But I also filled in some PC and team gaps of my own. Northrup and Cochrane were fun vintage adds, and I also picked up the remaining '81 Topps Coke Tigers I needed to finish up that set (except for Alan Trammell, who I still need to find).

A couple of playing days cards of Evans get me near the century mark for his PC, just two shy. You'll find more of Fielder below as well to go with this pair, the highlight being a '96 Fleer Update base. It's not always easy finding Kirk Gibsons I need but it's no surprise when he pops up on an '88 World Series-related item. Talented player and broadcaster Curtis Granderson is another guy you'll see a bit more of as you scroll down, and this pair of inserts looks great. Speaking of chase cards, how about big four PC guy Griffey and his sweet swing?

After seeing the Juniors Ripken and Griffey already, we get a quartet of big four guy Mr. Padre, with that top row being 100% inserts. View to a Thrill combined a very cool name and design back when card manufacturers that cared about such things still existed. Herndon and Hernandez (out of order which I realized after scanning, as usual!) are two more key '84 Tigers you'll see here, and both get pre-Detroit additions to their PCs. Thanks again for the Hernandez deal, Phillies! (Oops, I shouldn't play that up too much, that's Dan's team!)

Lemon and Morris were of course teammates of those two guys in '84, and Lemon joins the group that gets pre-Tigers adds to their piles. There's more Morris goodness in a bit. Late 80s slugging catcher sensation Matt Nokes came along for the ride with a Sportflics base being a favorite of mine.

The catcher he took over for was the "Big Wheel" Lance Parrish, who was certainly a Diamond King, and then a cheap-ass owner caused him to leave for Philadelphia in '87 (and he was then traded to the Angels the following year). Peaches was a great #2 on that '84 squad, and he's actually signing at my monthly show next weekend, but I don't know if I'll make the extra trip out to get him on Saturday. Local boy Pat Sheridan (born in Ann Arbor, went to Eastern Michigan in nearby Ypsilanti) joined the Tigers in '86, too late to win a ring with a bunch of the guys I've mentioned today, but he did get his own with the Royals in '85.

A couple more Sheridans, Detroit-style, give way to a fun group of Frank Tanana, a well-travelled guy who had pitched in California, Boston, and Texas before heading to Detroit. The Angels aren't represented here because the earliest card is from '81 but I do have a few of him with California, plus all of his other teams besides the Yankees. Something like three different options exist for those and I'm sure I'll snag at least one at some point.

Here we have some horizontal stuff and a few odd-sized items. I'd say Big Daddy (RC) enjoyed a better career than fellow prospect Cory Snyder, who started out hot and fizzled out quickly. If I have to see Grandy with a NY team I'd rather it be with the Mets. Griffey's paired up on that Stadium Club insert with Darryl Strawberry, a cool combo at the time. Morris' sticker is a fun one, and if you like those you're going to love a particular pair of scans coming up shortly. And Kinsler and Maddux are from the 2010s Topps insert size of die-cut minis that replicate the '89 Topps look.

Closing out this group is a huge chunk of Pudge cards. Looks like I soared past 300 to 351 cards of him thanks in large part to this deal. Most of what you see is Texas stuff, which is to be expected, but there's a couple other teams mixed in there. As is the case whenever I get a bunch like this, I really enjoy looking through the various designs and getting a sense of what the style was each year. There's some pretty solid inserts mixed in there too! See if you can spot any you're a fan of.

The latest envelope was headlined by these two items: a Silver Slate parallel of Granderson and a Denny's Grand Slam hologram of Cal that I somehow didn't have.

At some point after he got everything else updated in terms of his trade list, Dan added a bunch of 80s Topps and OPC stickers, and he was nice enough to send me all that I needed, which amounted to a Ripken and a whole bunch of '84 Tigers, including a few Series-related stickers.

And here's the rest of them, all of which feature your 1984 champions.

Many thanks to Dan for our formal and blind trades/PIFs that have been lots of fun to keep going. A lot of these items were ones I was glad to get but wouldn't have wanted to pay for, especially the 80s stuff, so it was a perfect way for me to acquire them to fill in some gaps. And here's to our next deal, whenever that is!