2024 trade package #21: All Trade Bait, All the Time/Netchuc Arts

(First, one quick note: I may put up several posts over the next few days--as in more than one per day--as I try to close out trade recaps before the calendar flips. We'll see!)

Back in September I was happy to receive a couple envelopes from Oscar, former blogger at All Trade Bait, All the Time and current Twitterer. While he no longer blogs, you can still catch him on his Youtube channel NetChucArts where he discusses all manner of things: his art, record collection, music and concerts, his beloved Dodgers, and of course, cards. He even recently showed off the Christmas package I sent his way.

If I had any doubt it was from him based on the address, the note on the back confirmed it. Oscar has many hermanos in the hobby and I'm proud to be one of them.

One of the envelopes contained some very nice cards:

Though I'm sick to death of '89 Topps I never get tired of seeing former Wolverines pitcher Jim Abbott donning the maize & blue on his RC. Oscar hit a couple of my biggest PCs here, one of them being Griffey, and the cards you see above are from Donruss Signature and Pinnacle Inside. The former was the first follow-up to the landmark '96 Leaf Signature one auto-per-pack product, and it was a great one, while the latter is from the second and final year of Pinnacles cards-in-a-can concept.

Griffey's fellow Junior Ripken is next, and he was the winner of this package by comprising almost half of the contents himself. In addition to a base card from Fleer's fantastic 2001 Platinum set, he sent me representatives from three Cal-focused inserts from that same manufacturer: 1995 Flair's Ripken Enduring, 2000 Gamers' Cal to Greatness, and 2000 Tradition's Ripken Collection. I admire all of those sets and appreciate Oscar adding to my biggest player collection.

Last up in terms of the card stuff is a fun Tigers pair. The Miggy is a '23 Topps Team Logo manupatch starring the Olde English "D." I still happily collect manurelics, especially when they look fun like this one, and it's another card to add to my collection of the future HOFer, so, win-win! Joining him is former teammate Buck Farmer, a guy who spent most of his time in Detroit's bullpen for the first eight seasons of his career (2014-21). He can be seen on a 2015 Finest autograph that was released just a couple years after the Tigers took him in the 2013 draft's 5th round.

The nine-spot of cards, exactly one page worth, was great by itself, but then Oscar surprised me with a second envelope containing prints of some of his artwork, something I didn't previously have in my possession!

I'll preface this by saying that Oscar is one of the people in my life with whose politics I align most closely. I highly respect his views when it comes to things like both parties shamelessly ignoring the country's ills in favor of enriching themselves, the military's limitless budget that could be better spent on America's poor and homeless, and the country's shameful treatment of minorities and other nationalities.

With that important context covered, I can explain that if you haven't seen it, a few years ago Oscar, an accomplished artist, produced a series during Trump's first reign of terror called "Tromperia," a five panel series done in the Loteria art style.

I'm happy to share these to all of you who are interested here:

"La barrera," of course, is the famous wall along the US/Mexico border. Trump as a "cock" is a pretty apt image, I'd say.

Separating children, often literal babies, from their parents, whether or not they entered the country illegally, was pure evil, and portraying ICE as something as evil as the devil goes at least a bit of the way towards describing how truly despicable that group is.

Though certainly many of the stories of the families seeking a better life don't end so positively, I'm glad that Oscar finishes the series with the happy ending of this one being reunited. I also included the back of one of these to show that he included the title and numbering(!) of each piece to go along with his signature on the front of them.

Oscar, I'm honored to have received some of your artwork, and even more grateful that the subject is something I feel so strongly about. I'm happy to be able to tell you that I have a plan to frame these together, and was hoping to be able to show that all finished in this post, but it may involve a bit of trimming to get everything to fit, so I decided not to hold up getting this posted any longer. I'm also grateful for the excellent cards, and appreciate having an hermano like you to talk cards, music, politics, and more. ¡Gracias!

I now have five more trades to get through, all from November and December, and as mentioned earlier will see if I can cover each of them in their own posts by the end of the day Tuesday.

9/3/21 card show report: show 'nuff

This is going to be another quick show recap because once again I didn't bring home much, though this time it felt a bit more productive to me as I scored a few cards for upcoming trade packages.

After getting out of work early on Friday afternoon I headed east to Taylor, home of your 2021 Little League Baseball champions! My usual seller still didn't have any dime boxes out so I spent most of my time in the $1s and $2 looking for hits to trade.

My final breakdown was 20 $2s, eight $1s, and four $0.50s for a nice round $50 spent. Most of the cards will be getting dispersed around the country soon enough, but I did end up with eight trade bait items that I didn't immediately assign to any of my usual trade partners:
As you can see, my usual strategy is "get the best type of hit I can find for $1 or $2." In this case all were $2s, but I think they were worth it. Most are football because that's how things shook out--just about all the $2 baseball stuff featured scrubs--but I did end up with a Matt Holiday manupatch, so there's that. These are all up on TCDB but as always, send a comment/message/whatever my way if you'd like to make a deal for any of the above.

Other than that I scored one card for myself in the $0.50 boxes: this 2003 Flair RC of Huggy Bear's kid Justin Fargas, the former Michigan RB who transferred to USC after two seasons and a leg injury, and then appeared in 92 games over seven seasons with the Raiders.

Justin has 22 cards that meet my Michigan RC project requirements: nothing autographed or including relics, and no college photos where he appears with a team other than Michigan. This one is my 12th, so I'm making reasonable progress on his list.

Flair and its related brands had their ups and downs over the years, and in my opinion this design is decent but nothing too exciting. As with pretty much everything at the time the rookies are numbered, in this case to 500 on the back. Considering two of his first-years I have yet to track down are numbered /100 or lower, that's middle-of-the-road. And $0.50 isn't the worst asking price for it since I'd probably have to spend that much or more on, say, Sportlots. Hopefully I'll be able to find more stuff like this in that seller's quarter box in the future, though.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll be posting next but I may be getting close to finally recapping, likely over two or three posts, that huge Facebook haul. If I take a while longer to get to that, though, it's because I still have a bit of work to do there, mostly deciding what to keep and what to dump at this point. Rest assured you'll see lots of the great stuff I'm keeping and what's available, and then eventually some of it will be hitting mailboxes, maybe one near you!

2020 trade package #15: $30 a Week Habit

Today's trade is kind of a funny one because most of my deals with my fellow bloggers are blind trades, occasionally involving a card or two I've picked out. Not so today as I show off a bunch of great stuff I chose from the TCDB trade list of cool Floridian Robert of $30 a Week Habit.

I was browsing the site looking for a single card to finish up a set for Doug when I noticed that Robert (TCDB ID rmitchell6700) had one available. I happened to have an envelope for him that was just about ready so I asked him if I could get it from him, and of course he said sure, and suggested seeing if he had anything else that I wanted.

He had anything else I wanted, some 67 cards in total, all of which he generously sent my way:

(Mostly former) Tigers part 1: Boyd and Demeritte are still around, and we may actually get to see them play this year! Evans' third Topps appearance, from 1973, is my 60th of the '84 champ, and a great vintage addition to boot. And I didn't realize this until now, but there's a whole lot of Topps Heritage going on in this scan! Inge is bookended by two of my favorite Tigers OF--who were traded for each other--in Granderson and AJax. The latter even appears in three of his seven career uniforms.

More former Tigers. Kell's face is always a nice one to see in a trade envelope. I double-dipped on Nokes' 1990 Leaf cards, the second of which reflects a June trade to the Yankees that brought Lance McCullers (the elder) to Detroit in his sunset season. UD's OPC version included an interesting angle showing of Magglio's batting stance. And Parrish, who recently celebrated his birthday, also reps '90 Leaf and a new team himself as '89 was his first year with the Angels after a couple with the Phils.

I also came up with five many Verlanders, another former Tiger, and two of them are even Detroit cards. There's plenty of shiny to go around but my favorite is the '19 Donruss Career Stat Line parallel, numbered /204 for his win total through 2018. In case you're interested, Verlander won 183 as a Tiger, good for seventh in the franchise's history. Stat Line has always been a cool insert and I'm glad to see it continue in the latest releases.

The vertical cards repping Griffey, Gwynn, and Maddux added up to a perfect nine, so why not show them off together? There's a couple more examples of '90 Leaf--I'm up to 21 on the strength of guys I collect--and Mr. Padre and Mad Dog each get a Topps reprint of some kind. That second Griffey card interests me the most, though, as it's from '98 Collector's Choice, which is a set I know plenty about, but I'd never seen it!

Here's some horizontal cards of a couple guys we've already seen and a few we haven't. Two more inserts up the total to four many Grandersons, including a Gold /2012, and Junior adds a pair of his own giving me five new cards of him today. Earlier we had the late Mr. Padre and now we have Mr. Tiger thanks to a pair of Kaline inserts. Jack Morris gets one appearance courtesy of a five-player '82 Topps base--he was part of a four-player tie for wins in the AL in the shortened '81 season with 14. And a Sisler/Ichiro pairing makes sense since the latter topped the former's single-season hits record.

If you thought something was missing you were right: the highlight of this envelope was a crazy TEN new cards of the Iron Man. It's mostly a nice bunch of inserts, led by another one of those '07 Ultra Iron Man cards I needed, and a pair of Topps cards from an insert highlighting his streak. But the biggest get for me here is the 2015 Topps First Home Run medallion, a fun manurelic Robert was generous enough to include after reasoning that I would enjoy it (I will!). Cal hit the first of 431 bombs on April 5, 1982, opening day of his first full season, which would end with him winning the league's ROY award. A 1,000-card milestone post won't be long now!

A Mo Hurst insert was a fun find to rep the football collection, and then it was on to hockey. I'm not remotely surprised that I found so many of the guys I collect in Robert's trade bait since he's such a big collector of the sport. Hockey Mikes Cammalleri, Comrie, and Knuble all cameo, plus there's a rare appearance by Danny Felsner, and even a new Dylan Larkin insert, which I just realized scanned way darker than it should have.

And we'll finish this post with the rest of the hockey. I think I've said this a few times but Moss is one of a number of Wolverine icers born in my hometown of Livonia, and his college career from 2001-05 coincided with my time at the school. Muckalt doesn't pop up too often here so I was glad to find a shiny new insert of his. And I even added another Marty Turco jersey relic for good measure, this one from 2002-03 Pacific Quest for the Cup. That's the 39th hit in his collection, and he continues to lap the rest.

Many thanks again to Robert, a good guy of the blogging and trading communities, who exemplifies one of my favorite words, generosity, in deals like this. I'm exited to add all these great cards to my collections while advertising both his trading acumen and TCDB account, which you should totally hit up to make a deal of your own!

2020 trade package #10: Cards on Cards

With a bunch of stuff due to show up this coming week maybe I can put a little effort into what I haven't posted yet!

A couple weeks ago I was checking my Informed Delivery and noticed that I had a package on the way from Oregon. That pretty much meant a coin flip between the two guys I trade with most often out there, and as it turns out, this time it was from Kerry of Cards on Cards. As I probably say every time I cover an envelope from him, he's easy for me to trade with since he also collects an MLB team plus a college.

Today's bubble mailer included my local MLB squad, plus a few of my player collections to boot:

We'll start with those Tigers, and it was largely a 2013 Pinnacle affair this time (including another card you'll see below). Somehow these are my first from that base set to go into my collection despite my predilection for the brand name. Though the design doesn't bring to mind the product's glory years in the 90s, I'm glad Panini brought it back, including some of the inserts. Dufex rules, and you can see that feature on the Fielder Slugfest and Garcia Museum parallel.

Miggy's the only guy from the Pinnacle group still with the team--no surprise as we're almost 10 years on from the release--and he also popped up in the package on a 2020 Heritage Chrome parallel (#d /999), a perennial insert that still looks terrific. His young teammate, catcher Jake Rogers, is the other guy here, on a 2020 Topps Stickers card he shares with the Reds' Joey Votto.

When I tweeted out a thanks to Kerry for these when they showed up I teased that he sent me too many Grandersons, and four is certainly enough to warrant that! Curtis' Mets quartet includes 2015 Stadium Club and Opening Day, plus 2016-17 Bunt. I do love me some Stadium Club, and I'm glad to have more cards of Grandy, especially of the non-Yankee variety.

Then it's time for the Juniors, Griffey and Ripken. George Kenneth's appearance comes from 2019 Topps Chrome Update's Family Business Refractor-y insert. I guess you could say a son following in the footsteps of his dad's excellent career with a HOF run of his own that included the pair going back-to-back could be called "the Family Business."

Next you'll see four of the six Iron Man items Kerry sent. The very cool outlier is an oddball for sure out of 1988 Donruss Pop-Ups. I know I have various items similar to this from that decade, but this is my first from the '88 set as Cal's the only guy on the checklist I PC. Similar to the Griffey above is a 150 Years of Pro Baseball insert highlighting Ripken's most famous accomplishment. And then we have a couple 2020 Donruss parallels: a Baby Shark border of his variation photo plus a Holo Pink, the later of which scanned closer to its true color than pink cards usually do!

Now we go from too many Grandersons to slightly fewer Verlanders. JV was the other representative from '13 Pinnacle, and Kerry sent both his base and Museum Collection cards, which is awesome. Maybe I'll try to track down his Artist Proof as well! Those are joined by Topps' most famous parallel, a Refractor out of '15 Chrome. It feels like it's rare at this point for me to get multiple JVs in a package and all of them are Detroit cards.

Before we get to the biggest surprises of this package there's another fun, oddball-ish Ripken to show off: his '98 Sports Illustrated Mini Poster. These were a great combination of useful, informative, and fun--the kind of thing I could see kids wanting to collect at the time.

And then we have the items I really didn't see coming: 2020 Topps RC Logo Medallions of Cal and the recently passed Albert William Kaline. If you somehow hadn't seen these yet, they're super thick reprints that include a chunky little "RC" logo medallion embedded in them. Kaline's is a reprint of his true RC while Topps opted for Cal's '82 Topps Traded issue, his first solo appearance but second card from the brand overall (the RC logo rears its ugly head again!). I'm glad to add these to each player's collection, and it's especially nice to have something new of Kaline in light of his recent death.

Kerry, thanks again for the fun surprise envelope that contained a bunch of great stuff for my collections! I actually have a good quantity of stuff to send back to you pretty soon, so be on the lookout for a mailer headed out west before too much longer.

6/1/19 show report: dolla dolla bills, y'all

I'm back up to seven trade packages that need to be posted as I'm writing this, but instead I'm choosing to roll into June with a quick recap of this month's show from last Saturday.  After all, I don't wanna get two shows behind like I did last month!

I spent a couple hours sheltered from some big-time stormin' digging through my favorite seller's $1 and $2 boxes, all of which took enough time and patience that I was more than ready to head out without peeking at the quarter and dime cards.  The results:  18 $1 cards (six for $5) and 15 from the $2 box (three for $5), plus two more pickups that were $5 apiece.  That's a total of $50.

$40 of that went towards trade bait, all of which will be going into upcoming trade envelopes except for this fun bunch of seven.  I thought it would be cool to grab a bunch of manupatch autos, though only one of the six isn't a college card.  I hope someone's interested in those!  The Toon patch is a Rookie Premiere event-worn card but still looks awesome.  Here's a quick rundown on players and numbering for those interested:

• Cedric Peerman #1:  #218/250
• Jerrel Jernigan:  #044/100
• Greg Childs:  #12/35
• Jordan Todman:  unnumbered
• Nick Toon:  #45/49
• Knile Davis:  #005/100
• Cedric Peerman #2:  #011/100

Claim whatever you want in the comments or via email or Twitter, friends!

After I'd piled all of those up I looked in the guy's showcase and noticed this pair of Tigers autographs sitting together.  He wanted $5 each and that sounded fair to me.  After I came home I took a quick look at eBay prices and it sounds like I at least didn't overpay, so I'm happy.

On the left is 1B/DH Darrell Evans on a 2018 Donruss Retro '84 Retro Signatures Blue auto card (#28/99).  I love the throwback to a classic Donruss design that came out the year the Tigers won their last World Series, with Evans one of the finishing touches on that amazing team.  Though his numbers would be vastly better the next three years, Evans was a key veteran presence with power, and he proved to be a shrewd free agent signing.  What you're seeing here is my third auto of his, with the other two hailing from 2003 and 2004 Topps Retired Signature.

To his right is a key guy from the previous Detroit team to earn a ring, Willie Horton of the '68 Tigers.  Before Kirk Gibson was patrolling the Tiger Stadium outfield wearing #23 on his jersey, Horton was manning LF and putting up some big numbers for a championship team.  He was 25 in 1968 when he put up his career best 5.4 bWAR and 36 HR, then went on to hit .304 with a homer and three RBI in the seven-game World Series victory over the Cardinals.  Oh yeah, and he did this too:

That's Horton gunning down HOF speedster Lou Brock at the plate (hey, Bill Freehan!) in game five, a crucial 5-3 win for a Tigers team battling back from a 3-1 series deficit.  It's no wonder he remains a beloved figure in Detroit, with his jersey number retired, a statue among the team's greats beyond the outfield, and a street named after him.

So as you can imagine I was very excited that I finally scored my first signature of the '68 hero, the 2014 Donruss Signatures card you see above.  And now I'm inspired to look for more!

I'll be back soonish with a return to trade packages so I can show off some exciting eBay and COMC pickups.

2018 eBay purchase: brought to you by the letter "L"

It's been a busy last couple weeks for me--my birthday, friends visiting, Deadpool 2 and Solo, plus a Tigers game and card show in the same day!  I finally found some time to post again, though, and this evening I'm showing off one of my more exciting pickups from this year:

Setting me back $11 delivered at the tail end of May this is another of Rich Hill's 2008 SP Authentic manu-letter patch autos.  Take a good look because this is the last time I'll be posting one of these as a new pickup, catch my drift?

That's right, I finished up Hill's nameplate to go along with the "C-U-B-S" version I'd previously knocked off:

If that doesn't give you a

 "Shiiiiiiiirrrrrrre.........Baaaaaagginnnnnnssssss" kind of vibe, I don't know what to tell you.

Anyway, the two "L" cards--this one plus one I grabbed at the end of February--completed the project for me and I can now proudly display them whenever I figure out how I'd like to show off all of my completed nameplates.  As a reminder you can always see those (plus my finished rainbows and other related projects) right here or hit the tab with the same name up top.

That makes 132 different Hill hits in my Michigan Baseball PC and 291 total cards overall.  Hooray for another completed project!

Coming up soon I'll have a trade package, card show and Tigers game report, and more!

2018 ebay Purchases: Richard the Third

At long last I'm finally posting my eBay pickups from the first four months of 2018 (though I may be sneaking in a couple more pickups at the 11th hour).  I've got three cards for you today in addition to the ones I just posted on TMM the other day, and they all have one thing in common:  Rich Hill.

Hill started out his 2018 on a positive note with an April 1 win, then followed that up with a four-inning no-decision and five-inning dud of a loss, the latter of which were likely due to his signature blister issues.  He's currently on the DL for those but should be back soon, hopefully with a return to effectiveness (on a team that could really use it!).

Today's all about his original team--the Cubs--though as each card you see hails from a 2008 Upper Deck brand.  Here they are:

I'll start with what I consider the least interesting card, one I just purchased last week.  My opening bid of about $7.50 delivered was enough to gain me this 2008 Upper Deck Premier Silver (#1/5) parallel.  That's right, bitches:  eBay 1/1.  Of Hill's 22 non-1/1s in the product just three of them aren't hits:  the base card (/99), Blue parallel (/25), and this one.  The seven I still need range from 25 copies on down to three!

Fortunately for me one of those won't be this triple autograph from the same product, an Emerging Stars Autographs Trios (#03/25) that also includes former Phillies star Cole Hamels and ex-Pirate (among several other teams) Tom Gorzelanny.  Hamels leads the group with a career 53.1 bWAR, Hill comes in second with 10.7, and Gorzelanny brings up the rear at 5.4.  Hill, of course, is the star attraction for me on my first of the eight multiplayer autographs where he can be found.  You can also find cards pairing him up with one, two, or three players, and hopefully that'll be possible for me to do.  While I'm dreaming maybe I can find more of them as dirt cheap as this one was: just $6.60!

Last up is the new addition I'm most excited about:  the first of two "L" manupatch autos I need from Rich's SP Authentic By the Letter nameplate.  Not quite a year ago I was able to complete the "C-U-B-S" version,

and now I just need one more "L" to spell out his last name thanks to scoring this one (#05/25) for a pretty reasonable $9 in late February.

These additions continue a fun march towards 300 Hill cards overall.  I count 264 of the 411 I've checklisted, with more 2018 issues likely to appear in upcoming Topps products.  In all I have 289 unique Hills with his hit count continuing to lead my Michigan Baseball collection at 130.  While it wasn't a big start to the year in terms of quantity, the quality is unquestionable!

Speaking of quantity I have two more posts (one on each blog) covering a couple other eBay pickups coming up soon, plus at least one trade package to get to.  As the weather is finally warming up here so is my posting!

2017 eBay purchase: Go Cubs Go!

I'm not as big of a fan of the Cubs as I'm sure many of you are, since I have my own hometown team to root for.  But I was still excited to see them win it all last year--I mean, the Red Sox got to end their own curse, so why not the Cubbies?  They also happen to be a fun team with some great young talent, so there's that.

One other reason I've had a general rooting interest in the Baby Bears for a while is that a decent number of Michigan Baseball alumni have found their way to that team over the years.  One not-so-recent example:  Mr. Richard Joseph Hill, Chicago's fourth-rounder way back in 2002.

Hill is, of course, one of my favorite baseball PC guys, and one of those that I supercollect.  Not that a lack of checklist chasing would have prevented me from grabbing this beauty, though:

Rich Hill 2008 SP Authentic By the Letter 'B' letter patch auto (#19/50)

I love me some well done manupatches!  Upper Deck in my opinion is the best in the business when it comes to manuletters, though Panini isn't far behind.  The design is second-to-none and the letters look like they popped right off a jersey, with a quick detour to an appointment with Hill's Sharpie.

Picking up one of these is exciting enough but this one happens to be extra special as it completes one of Hill's two nameplates in the product for me:

This scan is heading straight to my "Completed nameplates and rainbows" gallery, which I somehow forgot to link to on this here blog until today.  Well, now it's up there with my other tabs for your viewing pleasure.

With "CUBS" out of the way I just need to track down two copies of the "L" to spell out Rich's last name.  I'd say that was about $7 well spent!

My newest Hill counts are 127 hits, 260/379 of his PC (updated to account for 2017 Archives), and 277 cards overall.

Please don't hesitate to head over to TMM this afternoon as well for a look at my Michigan Football PC's #1 guy!

2016 COMC purchases: Grandy and the Juniors

First, here's a quick notice to head over to TMM this evening for a celebration of James Earl Jones' birthday and a bunch of cards starring that blog's namesake!

With this year's Hall of Fame class less than a day away from being revealed, here's some more player collection cards I picked up on COMC.  I grouped these together and named them in the style of a 50s band so you know they'll be good!

Today's newest card is this 2010 Topps Update manu-bat of former namesake to this blog Curtis Granderson.  Topps has made some manufactured relics I've loved and loathed over the years and this one leans more towards the former.  It may not be a real bat barrel but then again it's not like I could afford one of those, much as I'd love to.  As I near 100 cards of Grandy this is just my third of him with the Yankees and fourth overall where he appears in a uniform other than Detroit's.

The good old "90s inserts rule" tag is back and happy as ever to be here with Mr. George Kenneth Griffey, Jr.  From one of my all-time favorite parallels (out of one of my top-five sets overall), 1995 Pinnacle Museum Collection, I dug up two of Junior's issues:  the Swing Men subset and his solo checklist.  Along with those I already own his other solo base card from this insert, and just need the multiplayer checklist to complete the run.  After showing off another of these in a post I may get to tomorrow, I'll have shown off 13 of these Dufexed cards of 10 different players I collect, with one more to come when I get around to it.

Besides those two I grabbed one more 90s insert favorite:  Griffey's entry in 1998 Topps Flashback.  This set combined a recent photo up front with a throwback photo on the flip side (which also includes a throwback Mariners logo!).  It's a fun look at baseball middle-aged Griffey and baseball kid Griffey, a.k.a. the Kid.  Hopefully I can track down Gwynn's card from this set as I already own Ripken's and Maddux doesn't appear.

Speaking of the Iron Man, here's a fun four-spot I found of him from my favorite card provider.  First is his 1997 base card from Fleer's Sports Illustrated product.  I've always enjoyed these card-sized reproductions of SI covers, such as this one from July 29, 1991 marking 1500 straight games played.

Meanwhile, the Behind the Numbers die-cut in the shape of Ripken's iconic #8 should look a bit familiar since I just showed off Tony Gwynn's version the other day.  I had to shell out more than I usually like to for inserts to grab this but happily did so as the feeling of nostalgia it brought me was priceless.  You'll be seeing one more card from this set in my next post and a final one when I finish scanning cards of my big four PCs.

Lastly I grabbed a pair of cards from the 2000 Fleer Gamers insert called "Cal to Greatness."  The set comprises 15 cards with the first five coming in at 1:9 packs, the next five at 1:25, and the final quintet at 1:144.  These are numbers 7 and 8, so they're the somewhat rarer versions to go along with the cards I already own, which I believe are numbers 1-5 (unscanned so far).  While the first bunch feature a more subtle design, these are of the reflective foil variety, and the rarest ones have more of a rainbow foil look to them.  I'll slowly try to complete this set as reasonable pricing allows.

Stay tuned (as soon as tomorrow) for my final COMC pickup post over here, though I'll have a few more yet over on TMM.  Also, I hope everyone's as excited as I am for the big Hall of Fame reveal tomorrow.

2016 trade package #22: not Chuck-ing out these Tigers

Well, I think I'm ready to call my recent giveaway/tradeapalooza a success.  Between the giveaway and some already scheduled trade packages, I believe I sent out a total of 28 bubble mailers/flat-rate envelopes/boxes to 27 folks (one person got two because I forgot to send something the first time!) and two PWEs.  From a combination of USPS tracking, with its Nuke LaLoosh-esque accuracy, and actually talking to people, I think about half of those shipments have arrived, and I've already seen some posts from a few that received them, which I totally enjoy.  Thanks for showing off your loot, guys!

I didn't get rid of all of the lots--more like a quarter of them--but I did free up some space, get some stuff in the hands of willing collectors, and I even got in touch with a few new trading partners.  These days I don't do the latter often enough considering the fact that working with new folks has led directly to establishing some of my favorite traders time and again.

One of those new-to-me traders was reader Chuck (if you have a blog that I'm missing, just let me know and I'll update this to link to you!), a Wisconsin-ite.  He wanted a Mike Piazza Starting Lineup I posted and we quickly and easily came to a trade I know I'm happy with.  Here's what headed back my way:

Former Tigers OF Torii Hunter knows that Topps Chipz are totally wake and on the flick, right, kidz?  RADICAL! (Do kids say "radical" anymore?)  While Topps had as much chance of making "fetch" happen as they did this goofy experiment, I'll happily add this to my little pile of Hunter's Tigers cards.  I should also point out that this was a fun throw-in from Chuck, by the way.

Mr. Manu-Tiger!  I just made fun of Topps (in a post where all three items were made by those guys) but for whatever reason I enjoy a number of their manurelics like this rookie reprint "patch" from 2013.  Reprint burnout aside, I can see this as a fun way to get kids interested in some older players and cards, and if they don't, well, I still have fun with them.  Now I just need to get me the real deal....

Joining Kaline is an actual relic:  an Ivan Rodriguez bat piece from 2008 A&G.  That's another product I don't care for in general yet I don't think I've seen a design for these framed mini relics I didn't like.  It's nice enough getting a new hit of the soon-to-be-HOFer, but it's even better that it's a card of him with the Tigers, a team he helped bring back to respectability in the mid 2000s.  This represents my fifth hit of the outstanding backstop in my Tigers PC.

Chuck, thanks again for participating in my giveaway and for such a productive trade.  I'm down to deal again anytime you're interested, and I highly recommend that others do the same!

2016 Blowout Forums purchase: High(-end) (twenty)five!

To say my card purchasing has diminished this year would be an understatement--I finally crossed the $1000 mark this month, putting me on pace to spend half as much as I did in 2015--or less!  That doesn't mean I haven't been able to score some fun pickups, though.

For instance, I recently made a relatively rare deal on the Blowoutcards forums--just the second such purchase I've made this year.  A Tigers collector decided to trim some of the fat from his collection by offering up a pretty nice Detroit lot.  Thing is, I already had a few of the cards he listed, plus there were others I didn't really care for.  So for the hell of it I asked him about the two I was hoping to get.  $33 delivered later I had a very nice envelope on the way.  And for what you could consider two cards for $15 each (plus $3 shipping), I'd argue that I did very well!

(Better yet, that seller noticed I was a Wolverines collector and tossed in a great surprise freebie!  Check that out over on TMM this evening.)

Have a look at what I got and decide for yourselves:

Al Kaline 2016 Immaculate Collection Immaculate Marks Red auto (#14/25)

An autograph of Mr. Tiger is a win; a Kaline signature numbered out of just 25 is a coup!  This is a beautifully executed autograph out of this year's Panini Immaculate product, and it's both super high-end and super thick.  Not only did Panini do a nice job of selecting a photo that minimizes the impact of the lack of logos--they paired that with a gorgeous on-card signature in all its bold blue Sharpie glory.  I like when card designs allow for a clearly-defined space for the 'graph, so I'd say Panini nailed it here.

I'm happy to say that I now own five total autographs of this legendary Tiger, and I sure wouldn't mind adding more before the end of 2016!

Justin Verlander 2007 SP Authentic By the Letter Signatures 'R' manupatch auto (#4a) (#09/25)

MOAR VERLANDERS!  I don't think there's such a thing as a bad JV autograph, but there sure are some nice ones, like this fun example of a letter patch/auto.  Without a doubt I'd crown Upper Deck as the champion of that genre, though Panini's done some nice ones as well.  The foil around the outside looks great in-person, the manupatch is executed well, and there's plenty of room for a solid signature.  I don't know how much I can expect to try to finish this nameplate, but it does give me hope that I was able to find this card for as reasonable of a price as I did.

I now count 228 Verlanders, 17 of which are hits, with four of those being of the autographed variety.

There's nothing like padding your favorite team's collection with stars from "A" to "V"!

2014 COMC purchase: Motown Mechanics

I do have one other COMC card to show off over here, though it also features in tonight's post over on TMM.  Since not many of you necessarily read both of my blogs, I thought I'd give it its own spotlight over here:

Charlie Gehringer 2004 Sweet Spot Classic Patch 300 manupatch (#216/300)

This sweet Gehringer manupatch is from 2004 Sweet Spot, and it proves UD was making some solid manufactured relics before Topps started up their own offerings.  COMC has another version that's a bit rarer and replaces the hat logo with a patch commemorating the '34 World Series.  I have a Frank Robinson patch similar to the Gehringer above, plus a Walter Johnson '24 Series patch along the lines of what I linked to above.  All of them look great and you really can't go wrong with the set.

As it's my first "hit" of the Mechanical Man, it mark's Charlie's first appearance in my Tigers PC, and it's a nice new addition to my PC of the HOF 2B, which stands at 22 cards right now.  Hopefully I'll have something even nicer of his to show off before long.