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!

2023 trade package #6: Chronicles of Fuji

It may be April 1st but no foolin', I'm actually posting something! I have an absolute ton of stuff to catch up on so I'm going to try to rapid fire through some of it as best as I can.

Last month I was one of the lucky recipients of a package from Fuji (Chronicles of Fuji), who's sent me lots of great stuff in the past. This time I got a small flat rate box of all kinds of cool items that hit multiple spots in my collections:

It certainly makes sense to start off alphabetically with Jim Abbott. Those oddball Baseball Card Magazine cards are very cool and you'll see more of them a bit later. Retiring future HOFer Miggy featured heavily in this bunch with an excellent nine items (more below), all from Panini.

The remaining Miggy cards here look great too. The Dominators insert is numbered /999 and I love the callbacks to Preferred and the Gallery of Stars insert, plus the die-cut is a plus. Can't go wrong with a pair of DK-related Cobbs. Fielder's UD hologram card is a beaut. And The first of a run of Larkins is also a Topps throwback done by the previously-mentioned magazine.

More Larkins! I'll get to 1000 of his soon at this rate. The pair of numbered V-Marts get a big thumbs up from me as well, especially the Season Stat Line parallel numbered to his 2013 batting average. That "blank" spot is actually a blank front printing glitch issue of HOF P Jack Morris which I'll be happily keeping. Nokes was indeed exciting as a slugging C for a few years with the Tigers. And Palmer and Phillips are two recent favorite PCs.

Scherzer, Tanana, and Verlander combined for 361 wins (out of 686 for all teams) as Tigers, and I'm interested in seeing how the Mets teammates fare this year (as soon as JV is healthy again). And lastly we have should-be HOFer Lou Whitaker.

After one more Sweet Lou there's some fun oddball team logo items and then cool inserts of ex-Tigers I don't tend to collect, but I'll likely keep at least some of them because the cards are great!

Here's most of the rest of the baseball stuff--horizontals and oddball sizes--though there's still a bit more to go. I don't think I'd ever seen that Phillips/Jefferies insert before and it was a definite need for Tony's PC, so kudos to Fuji for finding that one for me! The JaCoby will likely find a better home with one of his bigger collectors soon. And how about all the insanely cool oddball stuff? Champ Summers and Steve Kemp are the stars of the Fleer Stamps on the right.

Paul Gibson is another ex-Tiger I don't collect but I'm not getting rid of what represents my first '91 Topps Desert Shield card! The auto is of Ann Arbor-born Tigers draftee Shannon Withem, a P whose entire MLB career consisted of 3 IP in a 1998 game for the Jays. Then you see the first of the largest items in the package, Donruss All-Star Standups of Jack Morris and Sweet Lou!

Joining those were the even larger regular All-Star cards. Here you see the team set sans Tram. What a great callback to the '84 team!

The basketball and football portions weren't as bountiful but were no less appreciated. Joining ex-Piston Grant Hill and current (for now, anyway!) UM coach Juwan Howard from his own playing days is my first autograph of fellow Fab Fiver Jimmy King. It's a Signature Rookies card so you get some nice college action in the photo, making it a Michigan uni card, besides the bonus of it being my first of King, the 31st different member of my basketball collection.

Over on the football side we have cool numbered cards of Brian Griese and Mike Hart, the latter of which is a "base" RC despite having the Refractor finish on it. Meanwhile, three of the four(!) autographs here are of the Michigan uni variety, a fun reminder of Michigan's spring game having been played earlier today. Breaston's from the fantastic 2009 Topps Magic set, and since I already had it but Jeff didn't, I brought that to him when I visited him at a recent show (more on that in a future post!). Former QB Todd Collins gets a new auto card from '95 Superior Pix, a very similar card to the King above, and that includes a college uni shot that also meets my approval. My favorite ex-Michigan RB Hart adds an autograph to his RC above, this one from a Topps set that shows him during his brief NFL career with the Colts. Fortunately he's doing great as UM's current RBs coach! And fellow legend Marquise Walker closes us out with a very, very nice Topps Finest auto/RC that includes a nicely done signature with bonus jersey number.

Fuji, thank you as always for the generosity and effort that went into you sending this package my way. I'm always thrilled to keep trading with you and this recap shows all the reasons why that's the case. I have a few cards I grabbed for you at a recent show and will try to hit you back once I have enough for an appropriate response. Until then, may the rest of your school year be uneventful!

2023 trade package #4: Dawg Day Cards

In the days since I last posted I've received even more amazing stuff from some very cool people, so it's about time I cover something else on my card desk.

This evening's envelope arrived earlier this month from Angus who I mostly think of as the writer of Dawg Day Cards, though he can also be found on TCDb (user ID armac). The Canadian fan of the Browns has been around for quite a while but we've only ever really interacted once, not quite four years ago when he and Night Owl met up at a show and they teamed up to send me some fun cards.

Angus may have had my address handy from that effort or he might have gotten it from someone I've dealt with on TCDb, but either way, he was very generous with the envelope he sent across the border:

In addition to a very nice note we'll start out with the baseball stuff. I love trading with Canadian folks because they have much easier access to stuff we don't down here, such as older Leaf cards (including the '85 Tram above) and the Canuck version of Panini's stickers. The trio of '90 stickers are as American as they team and players depicted, but the three '92s beneath them come straight from America's friendly northern neighbor. And boy do those crazy pixelated rainbow foil versions take me straight back to being a kid and ripping packs of these while trying to fill up my albums. Fielder was obviously an excellent choice for such a sticker that year.

On the football side, I suppose it would make a ton of sense that Angus would have some dupes of the guys who have been part of the Michigan-to-Cleveland pipeline. The four Braylon items are great, especially the trio from '05 Topps Heritage, including both variations of his RC, plus a foil (more like Chrome) parallel. Hoard was drafted by the Browns and spent his first six-plus seasons with the franchise, including their sneaky move to Baltimore. Long is a Michigan uni card and that made it a natural throw-in.

Here's where things got really impressive: this six-pack of autographs! Wait, let me be more specific: six Michigan uni autographs! Hell yeah! Angus did an amazing job picking them out so let's look at them one by one.

QB-turned-WR-turned-QB-again Devin Gardner earned himself a ton of respect on the field after gutting out wins (and losses) while often injured during some of the program's low years. He turned that resilience into a very respectable analyst career after the NFL didn't work out. But before that he made his way onto some very cool cards like the 2015 Upper Deck Inscriptions auto you see above. Though the super reflective foil doesn't lend itself to good scans, the in-hand item looks great with his signature and an all caps "GO WOLVERINES!" inscription atop a great college action shot. That's my 10th hit of DG and I'm happy to have hit that milestone, hopefully with more in my future.

Speaking of cards with tricky-to-scan reflections, next up is CB Marlin Jackson's 2005 SAGE Autographs Bronze auto. You can just barely see his very nice signature on the sticker, and this one is hand numbered 322/650. It's my 24th hit of the 2006 Super Bowl champ who picked off fellow Wolverine Tom Brady's pass to seal the Colts' win over the Pats in that season's AFC title game.

We'll proceed alphabetically with Mike McCray's 2018 Panini Elite Draft Picks auto. One of those products that's obviously geared toward collect collectors like me, it's a great one for finding hits of the less known guys like McCray, a LB that's made the transition from player to coach, joining former UM DC Don Brown at UMass. His autograph isn't much to look at but at least the card looks cool. I'll happily keep it with the other auto in his collection.

Guinea-born DE Kwity Paye is next, and he's the youngest player in this bunch, still playing for the Colts, who took him 21st overall in 2021. A force on the D-line (like a good number of guys the Wolverines have sent to the league recently), Paye put up some nice sack and TFL numbers in Ann Arbor. He certainly looks fearsome on the outstanding pair of autos Angus sent out of '21 Score, which I of course love thanks to the college action they capture here. The top card is the "base" version of the autograph while the one below it is the Gold Zone parallel. The pleasing pair jumps his collection up to three signed cards, and it was fun to receive them together in one envelope.

Heading back to the offensive side of the ball, we'll wrap up today's post with prolific #1 jersey-wearing WR David Terrell, whose three years in the Big House ended a year before I headed off to Ann Arbor myself. The 8th overall pick by Chicago in 2001, he was an NFL bust, but his college career meant the hype was off the charts when it came to cards. That's why you can see him on such items as the above 2001 Crown Royale Rookie Signatures auto, which is both signed on-card and numbered /250 (in that goofy but sort of endearing digital print way instead of foil stamping). He looks like he's about to run another route that finishes with him in the end zone, and the large signature goes nicely with the whole package. It's my 46th hit of Terrell, which along with the 56 I have of teammate and fellow '01 Bears draftee Anthony Thomas, gives me exactly 100 of a pair that will be forever linked in my mind.

Angus, once I again I want to thank you and say how much I appreciate the effort and generosity that went into sending this envelope over to me. And I'm happy to report that I'll be able to pay you back in kind relatively soon, though I'm thinking of waiting to hit up one more show in case I can sweeten the pot even more.

Everyone else, please stay tuned for some more excellent trades and PIFs, show pickups, eBay buys, and more, which I may actually get caught up on at some point!

2022 trade package #22: Scribbled Ink

I was set to show off my pickups from last weekend's show yesterday or today but then I got a special delivery from buddy of the blog Paul of Scribbled Ink (and way more often lately, Twitter). That was great timing since I needed something to do while waiting forever for Michigan's 8pm (moved to 9pm thanks to lightning delays) game against Hawaii.

After the great envelope he sent in May, this time Paul did a stellar job sending me cards of the players I PC and out of this bunch somehow included only two doubles despite the fact that he didn't even check to see if I had them! (Spoiler alert, I often don't either when sending blind packages to my fellow bloggers.) Impressive. Flipping through them and logging them into TCDB kept me busy for a while, which I definitely appreciated.

Here's all the cool stuff he sent in this package:

Former Wolverines really do look the best in Blue like Blomgren's Prizm parallel. I'm always happy to see Cronenworth cards I need in deals like this, and the Rated Rookie logo is a site for sore eyes. I also really appreciate Paul sending me Jake's Topps Living Set card since that's something I'd never buy myself.

Junior's a Royal Blue parallel from Topps Update and the photo is a great throwback to his sweet swing. I already completed the insert set starring the Gwynn above but do like that Paul remembered I collect him. Hajjar is another recent former Wolverine (a 2021 2nd round choice by the Twins, he was just sent to Cincy in a four-player deal that brought righty Tyler Mahle to Minnesota) and thanks to Paul I'm up to five of his cards with these two college uni beauties from Panini's Prizm.

And just like JC's card above, you wouldn't catch me ponying up for any Topps Now cards, but Paul was generous enough to include the one you see above of my favorite PC guy, Rich Hill!

Another former Wolverine leads off the second scan and it's a very nice duo of Barry Larkin, with the first being a Fleer Box Score base numbered /2950 and the second a retail version of a Panini Absolute insert.

The Trio of 2017 Topps High Tek Maddux cards was all new as well and I have to admit they took me a bit to ID because of the bevy of patterns available and general lack of images on TCDB so far. I believe I've correctly labeled them as Blackout (much more noticeable on the back), Pattern 2A/2B (Braids / Chainlink Hexagon), and Pattern  4A/4B (Hexagons and Circles/ Spiral Dots), respectively. Hope I got those right!

Fellow big four PC guy Ripken is next and his pair included an '86 Drake's Big Hitters food issue and Cal's appearance from Classic's 1992 version of its well known game. Sweet Lou (today's other dupe) is also the subject of a fun oddball from True Value's 1986 set. I was kind of surprised to find that I already had that because I didn't remember collecting it, but either way this was also very thoughtful of Paul since what I still need of Whitaker largely falls into the category of odd and harder-to-find stuff.

And last up today is the first autograph in yet another one of my collections of recent Michigan Baseball alumni: Jeff Criswell. I now have seven cards of the righty who was an Oakland second round choice a couple years ago (and who headed up 96 to Lansing in '21 and '22 for pro ball) and my first hit (making him the 32nd member of the baseball hits collection). This one hails from one of Leaf's many amateur-oriented sets, 2020 Valiant, and the one Paul sent me is the Green parallel of the New Dawn autographs set, numbered on the back 80/99. I hope to see Criswell move up the ladder more next year while I hopefully accumulate more of his cards, but in the meantime this first signature of his to add to my collection is much appreciated.

Paul, thanks for always finding great stuff to send my way including the contents of this package, all of which was perfectly targeted at some of my favorite PCs. I'm thrilled that the timing worked out so you also got my latest New Hampshire-bound salvo around the same time, which is awesome!

With this package covered I think next time you'll see my show recap but you never know what tomorrow's mail will bring.