3/7/26 card show report: NIRvana

Happy April, friends! Baseball's back, even if warmer temps aren't (at least consistently), and Michigan Basketball is in the NCAA tournament final for the eighth time, six of which have been during my lifetime. It's also Easter, and I hope some of you enjoyed some related treats!

I made it out to my monthly show a couple days ago, but before I cover that we're going to have to go back to early March since I still have some catching up to do.

I actually went on a Saturday for the first time in a while for a couple reasons, but it worked out nicely. Because my usual seller hasn't had much time to add newer stuff, I didn't spend much on items from the boxes I usually buy from. I think it came out to $20 or so worth of dimes, $1s, $2s, and $5s. However, besides grabbing a couple more $5 cards from his showcases, I had a blast looking through one or two of his unsorted/unpriced boxes, as I do from time to time. He takes a bit of time to figure out his asking price, and it's always been very fair as far as what I'm willing to pay, so we both end up happy.

In this case I grabbed a handful of pretty nice stuff, most of which you'll see in this post, and much of which falls under the category of the greatest thing in sports cards: 90s inserts (which, of course, rule). Hence, the title of tonight's post: #NinetiesInsertsRule!

For that stack he wanted just $40, which I was more than willing to throw down, especially considering how much other sellers seem to love to jack up the price of increasingly scarce '90s cards, if not everything. That put me at a solid $70 total with lots to enjoy.

Here are my keepers:

The cheapest cards in scan #1 were the '25 A&G base of Tigers HOFers Cobb and Kell, both of which I believe were in the dime boxes. That's pretty cool since Kell's actually an SP! I can't remember if the Ginter insert of Gibby was in the $1 boxes or the misc. ones, but either way I love seeing a World Series celebration card of my favorite postseason homer celebration of Kirk's; We had him first, Dodgers! And Liranzo's Topps Pro Debut base is my first card of the top-100 catching prospect.

Besides those, let's celebrate some 90s inserts! #1 is a Tony Gwynn 1998 Leaf Fractal Matrix parallel, a set limited to 1600 copies which I think was the inspiration for Leaf's crazy Fractal Materials product. Mr. Padre also appears on one of this post's top cards: a 2000 Paramount Fielder's Choice insert. These die-cut chase cards done up in the style of a glove illustrate the greatness of Pacific, and I love grabbing these when I can.

Going back to "matrix" for a minute, we have HOF Wolverines SS Barry Larkin flying high on 1997 Stadium Club parallel called "TSC Matrix," so named for it's crazy cool background. Then we're back to another of my absolute favorite inserts (and brands): 1996 Studio's Masterstrokes, in this case featuring HOF P Greg Maddux. Like Pacific, Donruss/Leaf cranked out some beauties, like the artistic chase card above, numbered /5000 on the back. And lastly in this scan, the newest Dean Palmer to join my collection is a 2000 Stadium Club Chrome Refractor. SCC was even cooler back then than it is now, and the Refractors still look amazing today. (Also, 2000 is an honorary member of the #90sinsertsrule club.) I'm nearing 500 cards of Palmer, which is crazy to me.

I've got one more baseball scan with some heavy hitters before we get to lower-end stuff from other sports. No Griffey this time, but Gwynn and Maddux were joined by Ripken thanks to my 21st card of the 2007 Ultra Iron Man insert. This one celebrates his first AL MVP in 1983. Next to him is a cheapie 2020 Absolute Spectrum Blue parallel of future HOFer Max Scherzer that I thought looked very cool.

We'll get to the biggest card in this group momentarily, but first I'll cover the horizontal cards. All four of these guys actually appeared in the first scan. Gwynn's third pickup is a '98 Leaf Statistical Standouts insert, a chase set with a bit of a matte texture that was numbered /2500 on the back (and the first 250 were die-cut). Larkin #2 is a shiny 1995 Score Summit Nth Degree parallel with cool rainbow foil line/dot patterns on it. Maddux's second is a Chrome parallel inserted into 1999 Stadium Club, a year before it became its own product, as seen on the Palmer above. And another of my fun gets from the random box was a manurelic of Cobb from 2015 Topps. These "medallions" celebrate each subject's first HR, and for the Georgia Peach that was September 23, 1905, the lone run in a loss at Washington.

And now we have my co-favorite card of the show (that Fielder's Choice Gwynn, tho!) in my newest Gibby relic. Also part of the $40 assortment of cards, this is a 2005 Donruss Prime Patches Portraits Quad Swatch that comes with two jersey swatches plus pieces of a bat and hat. It's numbered /150 on the back and offers a design typical of Donruss/Leaf/Playoff back in the day, one I still miss. The presentation here is great, with an 80s photo of Kirk atop the four relic pieces, which are arranged nicely (even if they aren't terribly large). I now count 13 Gibby hits in my collection, including four autographs to go with this, my ninth relic.

And we'll close things out with some Wolverines. As I mentioned, men's basketball will be playing for a second title tomorrow night, plus the women's team also made it to the Elite 8 over the course of a fantastic season of their own. (AND Michigan Hockey's in the Frozen Four this weekend, but I've got no hockey cards to talk about this time.)

Basketball is represented by some colorful parallels of Trey Burke along with Pistons teammates Caris LeVert and Duncan Robinson. Detroit's show quite the improvement this year to rocket to the top of the Eastern Conference, and maybe they can throw it back to the late 80s (and the Bad Boys teams) like Michigan's doing. Meanwhile, I scored some cool football inserts as well, starting with a die-cut Prizm of David Ojabo (now of the Dolphins). DPJ and Nico Collins are WRs depicted in chase cards from Mozaic and Prizm, which are so similar I often don't notice a difference. And last up is LB Josh Uche on a blue(!) Donruss Optic parallel, another brand that falls into the Panini version of Chrome cards. As it turns out, Uche just signed with Miami as well so he'll be joining Ojabo as a Dolphin.

This was obviously a fantastic show and I'm excited to add even more cool 90s chase cards to my collection. I know I can count on comments from at least a couple of my regular readers who'll appreciate some of these!

Next time I think I'll be doing a recap of a few eBay purchases I made in the first quarter of 2026, then it should be Facebook Marketplace purchase #1 followed by this month's show. Go Tigers, go Blue, and go spring!

10/3/25 card show report: scary cheap October cards

Catching up on these posts has gone decently well since I've actually put some effort into writing more often! Here we are with the last post I have planned for October.

Tonight we'll take a look at what I picked up at that month's show. I spent a paltry $50 that day, my low for the year by $5 (April), but that's ok because I definitely made up for it over the final two months. Plus I brought home some fun stuff for myself:

The baseball scan includes a fun mix of 90s/ish inserts and relics-ish. Gwynn's card is a 2002 Topps Gold, back when you could tell it was that parallel (and not "gold toile redgold waveblue"). It's numbered /2002 on the back and represents just the second year Topps printed that parallel after it began with the excellent 2001 set. I really like how these look, especially compared to the doldrums of the 2010s and 20s designs.

Next is Pudge on a 2000 UD Ultimate Victory Lasting Impressions insert. UV was the higher-end Chrome-like version of the budget Victory brand, and Rodriguez was one of 10 superstars found in this set. He'd just won the '99 AL MVP as well as his 7th straight Gold Glove (out of 10 in a row and 13 overall) and 6th straight Silver Slugger (of 7) and made his 8th of 10 consecutive All-Star appearances, with four more yet to come. So yeah, he made a lasting impression and fits right in with this set!

The unfolded Maddux card is the reason for the "90s inserts rule" tag tonight, though the others are close enough to be honored too. He's seen here on a 1998 Circa Thunder chase card called Limited Access, which includes a typical front and back but folds out so you get even more content inside. That includes another image and some stats in various situations from his first five seasons with the Braves:

(It took me a minute to figure how what these numbers represented until I checked just his Atlanta stats!) Pretty cool, eh?

As for the other interesting cards, first up there's a manupatch of Griffey from 2003 UD Patch Collection's MVPs insert. This one represents his '97 AL MVP win. It's a fun manufactured relic and came to me relatively cheap, so I'm quite happy with it.

Next is a 2005 Bazooka Blasts Relics bat of former Tigers SS Carlos Guillen. Don't ask me why he's listed with the Angels there since he only ever suited up for Seattle and Detroit. This looks to be my second relic (first bat) of the three-time All-Star who was quite productive for some 2000s Tigers teams.

And going alphabetically saves the best for last: a Greg Maddux 2003 Fleer Tradition Milestones Game Used Gold jersey (numbered /100 on the back). I snagged this with a few other cards in this scan and one or two in the next one for a very good total price. Mad Dog's 15 seasons of 15+ wins was a very impressive feat, and he achieved that in consecutive seasons (actually 17, in the end), plus an 18th in 2006 (and missed by one in '07). From 1988-2007 his average record was 17-10, and that's how you get to 355 career wins! This cool relic marks my 20th such card of Maddux and 21st hit overall.

With most of the attention on the baseball stuff, we'll quickly switch over to basketball and football to close things out. The former includes some nice color of Trey Burke, Caris LeVert, and Jordan Poole, and I continue to be able to find stuff like this in the dime and quarter boxes decently often. They grab my attention enough even though they're from my least favorite sport, and I'm happy to add them, plus cool stuff like Juwan Howard's '98-'99 Bowman's Best base.

As for football, RCs of Seattle RB Zach Charbonnet and Washington DB Mike Sainristil were nice finds for my chase of first-years. Harbaugh's a '97 Collector's Edge Extreme Foil insert, though there's not much of that feature on the card besides the swoosh running along the left and curving around to the bottom. And last up is one of my favorites from this month: my second of what amounts to three Charles Woodson entries from a 1998 Press Pass insert called Triple Thread. The '98 Heisman winner as well as QBs Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf each got a trio of cards in this set, naturally, and the versatile Woodson was the one true player who could claim the set's name. The three cards fit together kind of like Stadium Club's Triumverate, and I'll show those off once I nail down his card #7.

That's it for the month of October, at least for now. I may show off a non-card Facebook purchase from then if I feel motivated enough, but I'm really more interested in finalizing my blogger trades, shows, eBay pickups, and eventually, TCDb deals from the second half of the year. So I would expect my next post to dip back into trades, in this case from November. Maybe even soon!

3/2023 and 5/2023 card show reports: talking about four shows on the weekend like it's TGIF

Why yes, I am an 80s/90s kid, why do you ask?

So one of the consequences of my slacking on posting more than usual this year is that I've fallen behind on covering the shows I've made it out to since March. That's why I'm taking a quick break this evening from trade packages to do a brief roundup of the four I attended in March and May (so far).

First up is the usual monthly show in Taylor for March. I made it over there on Saturday, the 4th, and I didn't come back with a whole lot, but did track down some stuff that made it into trade packages, a bit of random trade bait, and some items for myself. All of that set me back just $45. Here's the goods:

The trade bait that hasn't found a home yet, even after getting posted on TCDb a while ago: an Alge Crumpler jersey (not numbered), a jumbo swatch of Ardarius Stewart (two colors with stitching, #d /25), and a dual autograph of RBs Kenny Irons and Chris Henry (#d 50).

Please feel free to make an offer for anything mentioned as trade bait tonight here in the comments or over on TCDb, by the way.

I ended up with a lucky seven grouping of cards for myself. Juniors Griffey and Ripken appear on Triple Play's fold-out/scratch-off (unscratched) game cards and Kenny gets a second addition thanks to Stadium Club's 1999 Never Compromise insert. Maddux indeed took the Road to Cooperstown and that Fleer/SI insert looks great. Speaking of amazing inserts (the 90s ones especially rule!) how about an Orange Epix of Pudge? A Michigan uni RC of Josh Uche from '20 Prestige is one of two football additions with the other being an above average-sized jersey swatch of Denard Robinson from 2013 Rookies & Stars. It's numbered /299 and represents hit #55 of Shoelace, who's happily with the program assisting with the team's recruiting efforts (which are going quite well if you hadn't noticed!).

Next, I drove about 75 minutes on a cold, windy, rainy day up to Lansing--willingly! Why the hell would I do that? Well they have a pretty nice sized show at the mall up there, but I had no reason to make the trek until I found out that Jeff and his cousin Sluggo would be making the even longer drive up from Indiana to spread the good word of Sluggo's Sports Cards to Michiganders like myself.

Despite the shitty weather I'm very happy I made the trip because it was great to meet Sluggo, plus he and Jeff had a very impressively organized setup of fairly priced cards to look through. It also didn't hurt that Jeff gave me a very friendly discount, but I would have happily paid full sticker price for what I picked out of their $1/$3 boxes. Jeff and and I also got to swap cards in-person again, which was fun.

Again, this is long enough ago that a decent amount of what I bought went out in trade packages, but once again I have some loot to offer up to the masses plus a trio of cards for myself for an even $50:

The word of the day was "manurelics" and boy did I pick a bunch of them out of the $1 and $3 boxes! These five are all up for grabs. Arrieta's is one of those heavy MLB Debut medallions from 2016; Kemp's is a much lighter Players Weekend "patch" (plastic piece) from 2018; Kepler is a very chunky commemorative coin/medallion out of the 2020 product; Sano's is a plastic-y Jackie Robinson "patch" from 2017; and the Big Hurt's 2021 offering is also a plastic piece masquerading as a "patch," one that I guess Jeff didn't need since he's the first person I would have offered it to!

I didn't keep much for myself but that's totally fine. As you can see I ended up with Topps 70th manurelics of Gwynn and Scherzer from the same set as the Thomas above, and those join Kaline and Verlander in my collection. I'm no longer treating manufactured relics as "hits" but do still like to pick them up occasionally, and I've created an album for any I've kept in all sports.

The one non-manurelic card that went into my collection was a Barry Larkin that was new to me. The "90s inserts rule" tag is once again welcome this evening thanks to his 1995 SP Special FX insert you see there on the left. This is a tough-to-scan foil card that has a sky blue with clouds background (which didn't really come across in the image) plus an inset hologram, the latter of which was synonymous with UD over their first decade in the hobby. What a great looking card, even if you can't tell from the scan.

Many thanks to Sluggo (Kevin) and Jeff for a great experience, and I can't wait to meet up with them again the next time it's convenient for all of us.

Less than a week after seeing those guys I headed back to Taylor on Friday, March 31, for the April show, which happened to begin at the end of the previous month. I love getting there on Fridays when I can so the boxes are less picked through and the crowds are smaller since the autograph guests appear on Saturdays and Sundays.

I spent a high for the year of $75 on lots of good stuff, much of it of a higher quality than I usually get. Yep, once again some of the stuff got sent out. We'll start with available trade bait:

The Clemson sticker of Adams was a fun trade bait pickup for a buck, and it was something I don't recall seeing before. There are enough college collectors that I bet I find a taker before long. Böhringer is a jersey swatch /75; Cobbs is a Prizm auto /199; and the Smith manuhelmet auto goes for a crazy 899 copies.

Yet again, one scan covers my own pickups. I don't know what the future holds for Baddoo's spot on the team but couldn't pass up an acetate of him. Griffey was a dime or quarter and logo or no, that's a keeper as well. The Ricken Stadium Club Draft First Day parallel was possibly the most exciting pull for me that day because I'd never seen one before. That filled a hole in one of my more obscure Michigan Baseball PCs! Pudge shares a '92 Team Pinnacle insert with fellow star catcher Benito Santiago. A shiny Topps Tribute of JV was too nice looking to pass up. I found not one but a pair of Cronenworth minis from '21 Ginter.

And then there's a very nice pair of hits. I think both were priced around $10 but ended up being a bit less when bundled with other cards, plus I got my usual little discount. It feels like forever since I added a Griffey hit and then all of a sudden I have a great bat card from 2001 MVP. A piece of a HOFer's bat is always nice, and it's extra great when it's a guy with one of the sweetest swings in the game!

The other is just my second autograph of Fab Fiver Jalen Rose. Hailing from 2010-11 Panini Gold Standard, it looks to be a sticker auto (on a card with a signature window, which is interesting), and the back has a serial number /299. I obviously don't put much money into my basketball collection but I was happy to add a quality signature of the ESPN/ABC analyst and former Wolverine great for a reasonable price.

And now that catches us up to the day I'm writing this, May 6. Yesterday was my most recent show appearance and, you guessed it, it was time to head east to Taylor Town again on a Friday. My favorite seller had promised lots of discount stuff and he didn't disappoint. I spent $65 after a little discount on 50 dime cards, 50 $1 cards, and seven that were $2 apiece. I didn't even stay as long as I usually do because my patience ran out, but he'll apparently have more next month so I'm looking forward to it.

The trade bait not ticketed for future envelopes starts with a bunch of numbered football inserts out of the dime box:

Bruce and Holmes are /750; Lowery and Williams are /499; Muhammad is /600; and the four Prestige cards (three are Gold, Nash is Green) are /500.

Cartwright (/499) and Jackson (/1000) finish out the non-hits. From the baseball stuff, the Baez auto/manuball is /99 and LoCain's All-Star jersey isn't numbered. The Abdur-Rahim Game Floor card was too fun to leave for just a buck. And the football stuff includes jersey relics of Will Fuller (/25), Andre Johnson (/160), Laquon Treadwell (/199) and D'Wayne Eskridge (/249)

The pickings were slimmer when it came to my PCs this time, but I can't complain because I largely use shows to stock up on trade fodder. Miggy's a 2007 Turkey Red but is actually an SP with an ad back. Pudge is a nickname variation from '22 Donruss. Maddux is a 2006 UD insert I didn't have. And LeVert is a '19-'20 Mosaic insert. All came from the dime boxes.

It's a big relief to have all of these cataloged and posted so I can put them away and continue to chip at the piles of cards on my desk. Until June, unless I make an unexpected stop at another show, look forward to more trades of the blogger and TCDb variety!

2022 trade package #19: Night Owl

Here we have just my third post in August, and one I should have gotten to much sooner to thank the nice person responsible for sending me a great trade package. I just get easily distracted by other card stuff and usually leave blogging low on the old priority list. But on this stormy late summer evening it's about time I got around to this.

A few weeks back Greg/Night Owl posted the results of a couple Topps breaks he did including the 2021 Chrome Platinum Anniversary product that came out earlier this year. I asked if he'd set aside a card for me and he was generous enough to do so, then I sent him a few things off his wantlist for that. Well that's what I thought anyway because there was much more than just a cool recent Tigers need:

When you think of Night Owl, if one of the first words you associate with him isn't "vintage" (the other for me would be "Dodgers"), you probably don't follow him, which you totally should. The top three cards here are evidence of that, and I really appreciate Greg helping me with my pre-80s collections as they're quite sparse. Bare ('77 Topps) was only a Tiger for two of his five MLB seasons, 1976-77, the final of his career, and Sutherland (NO's beloved '75 Topps) played three of 13 seasons in Motown, but they were definitely needs for me. So was Johnny Podres' '67 Topps base. Another guy I associate with the Dodgers (he did appear in 13 of 15 MLB campaigns and win four rings and the '55 Series MVP with Brooklyn/LA), he's the biggest name of the trio, traded to Detroit in '66 and staying there through the following season before a sunset year in '69 with his almost-namesakes the Padres. All three of these are nice vintage additions and I thank Greg for them!

Everything else is much more modern and that's great too. I immediately offered the '22 Home Run Challenge code to Paul even though Baez is a surprising longshot to hit anything out of the park, much less in play, this season. Lugo's golden even if his absence is a reminder of another garbage trade by the franchise. Morris's Prizm Refractor is the card that started this deal as I loved the look of the classic old photo of Jack on the even more classic and iconic Topps design. Being a variation on a Refractor sure didn't hurt either. Turnbull is a more recent Tiger and also threw a no-hitter before being lost to injury and then losing his brain to whatever made him think to celebrate the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

And lastly we have the surprise of the package, a number medallion manurelic from this year's Topps. Ever since I stopped buying boxes I haven't cared that these have sometimes replaced more traditional "hits" and I even enjoy some of their designs. Jersey numbers are a big thing in sports so this was a natural idea for such a card, and I'm happy to have Miggy's 24. It's a number worn by such icons as Willie Mays, Rickey Henderson, and Ken Griffey Jr., and before we all know it he'll join them in Cooperstown. When that happens I'll own at least two manurelic cards, both representing his time with the Tigers. Very cool.

Greg, thank you sincerely again for not only setting aside that cool Jack Morris for me, but also adding on some nice vintage and other Tigers here. I'll make sure to return the favor with some more vintage, Dodgers, vintage Dodgers, or other wants of yours as soon as I can!

The couple times I get off my butt to post you should be seeing trade packages from a couple blogger buddies that were facilitated through TCDB, but will be getting regular trade package coverage because that's how I do things. Watch for those soon-ish!