TCDB trade: CraigM

With no other cards in-hand to cover at the moment I'm going to start recapping all of the TCDB deals I've made over the past few months since the last time I got caught up on them.

Today's will likely not be too wordy due to the large number of cards and images, so I'll mostly just let you enjoy some cardboard.

I proposed this transaction to member CraigM back at the end of July and he accepted it the next day without any counters, which was pretty cool. It probably helped that I offered to send him 200+ cards in return for closer to 100. It mainly involved a lot of lower end/common stuff going both ways which I was totally happy with as I've got plenty of gaps in my collection to fill and I'm glad to continue clearing out my set-fillers. The bulk of what I sent him came from '89 Bowman, '95 Stadium Club, and 2006 Topps, and in return I got the following, broken down over 14 images:

I said "mainly" low-end stuff because, I mean, come on--that '65 of the Gator is awesome! I don't even own double digits of the '68 champ and former PH star. I did add 10 of Cecil "Big Daddy" Fielder, though.

His teammate from the opposite corner of the diamond was well represented in this one too, also getting a 10-spot added to his collection. I crossed the 200-card mark for Fielder and Fryman's not far behind, thanks to deals like this one.

This packaged scored me five cards produced before 1980, which I currently categorize as "vintage", and the pre-Tigers '78 Topps base of Herndon was one of them. Craig helped me fill in a good number of cards of Morris with the Jays. And you'll see lots more of Nokes in the next couple images.

I think I've explained before that I don't really put much effort into chasing Nokes' cards--he was only briefly a star and wasn't a Tiger for very long either--but he's been a reasonable throw-in when working on some of these deals, so why not? As of this post I have 80 of his cards, or almost a quarter of the 331 he has to his name on TCDB.

I didn't do this on purpose but I love that this scan ended up being 100% catchers. Before Nokes there was the Big Wheel, who played for a few teams after leaving Detroit. I'm getting closer to 150 cards of Lance, and that's pretty cool. While those two guys were playing, Pudge was just getting his career started, and of course he eventually made his way to Detroit as well. I love the design of Score's 1993 Dream Team subset (not insert, though the insert that became was great as well!).

I wish Rogers had been healthy this year so Detroit fans didn't have to suffer through subpar play from Tucker Barhnart. Tanana is another nomad who suited up for a few different teams (six total), equaling his run with the Angels by spending eight seasons in Detroit. I now own 85 cards of the Michigan native who won 240 games over 21 seasons.

Here's the horizontal versions of the Tigers players in the package, with Petry's card the only one starring a player not seen above. 1981 was the second of six straight seasons Peaches would win 10+ games as he'd go 87-59 with 43 complete games from 1980-85.

Besides the usual PC guys, something that stood out to me on Craig's tradelist was a nice bunch of 1991-93 Conlon cards. It's great that legends like Cobb and Greenberg figure in, but so do many guys who make few other appearances, if any. At some point maybe I'll figure out how many I'm missing of the teams from the first half of the 20th century in those sets.

And another nine, with Jennings probably being the most notable, though I believe at least Veach and Walker have some name recognition too.

I was happy to tack on some earlier Tigers from '94 Topps Archives and UD All-Time Heroes as well. Chalk up another example for just how diverse this trade was!

The baseball items conclude with six non-Tigers PC cards. Former Michigan Baseball guy Kostro ties Gates Brown above for the oldest card in the bunch out of the '65 Topps set. That's just my third of his issues and the oldest I've found from his limited run. I believe the '95 Leaf of Bichette sewed up the Series I set for me, entirely built from the Facebook collection I bought last year and TCDB trades. And the '97 Score Hobby Reserve of Spiezio gets me one step closer to re-completing that set with cards that have the correct numbering (HR###), which is down to just two.

The first of two football scans offers this nice mix of cards from multiple decades. Hicks is the Wolverine repped on the Niners card, Higdon's a RC and McRae hails from Topps' 1970 football set.

And the second includes a pair of Fleer's oversized Gameday cards, of which I now own a solid number!

And lastly I came away with a pair of legendary Wings D-man Nick Lidstrom, including a RC, plus former UM icers Jeff Norton and Aaron Ward, a WolverWing I love to collect.

With this many cards to show off I think you'll all understand why I gave this deal its own post. But the quantity was part of the fun here and I couldn't have been happier with how things went overall. Many thanks to Craig for being a great member and making this deal with me--I highly recommend working with him myself.

Depending on what shows up in the mail you can likely expect another TCDB recap soon, probably covering multiple smaller trades as I once again work through my folder of scans.

TCDB trade: randylaw, part 2: Detroit Tigers 1980s-today

 

Welcome to part 2 of my recap of the large deal I made with randylaw on TCDB. Since I already explained how the trade was done in part 1, plus I have a LOT of stuff to show off today, let's get right to it!

Today's theme is Detroit Tigers players from the 1980s-today (obviously not including the '84 guys I showed off last time):

There are a few guys in today's post for whom I acquired under five cards, and four of those players bookend this photo. Miggy and Castellanos ('14 Topps RC) are two of only three active players I counted in this post, but that's because the sets lean 90s-heavy. Granderson (including an SI For Kids Card) is obviously a favorite of mine, and Guillen, on a shiny UD Spectrum base, was a fun and productive player not that long ago.

Next we have three stalwarts of some bad 90s Tigers teams, but ones I enjoyed watching growing up anyway. There's a quick five-spot of former 1B and current MLBPA chief Tony Clark. While he didn't exactly live up to his top prospect billing he did have a solid career. A couple creative late Pinnacle issues--Inside and X-Press--highlight the group.

I bet if you asked a bunch of people my age who their favorite Tiger for much of the 90s was, they'd say Cecil Fielder. His 51-homer season was a blast to watch, and blast was something he did often, compiling almost 250 bombs in parts of seven seasons in Motown in a successful homecoming from Japan. In his group here you'll find a mix of oddball, low-end, and some of my favorite brands that modernized design like Ultra and Stadium Club. The '96 Ultra brings back memories of busting packs searching for my Tigers and the many cool inserts that were available.

Playing on the opposite corner from Fielder was Travis Fryman, who also debuted with the Tigers in 1990. He put up consistently solid numbers in Detroit before departing a year after Cecil, heading to Cleveland by way of the expansion D-Backs. His haul starts with some low-end stuff as well but I was able to add some mid- and later 90s stuff too, with my favorite being the '96 Score Dugout parallel.

My Mike Henneman (also known as "Henne-butt-chin"!) collection got a very nice boost in this deal. Though the former reliever only spent 10 seasons in the Majors he was effective to the end, putting up 31 saves (against seven losses, granted) in '96 with Texas, his sunset campaign. Before that, though, he tallied 154 saves and 57 wins in eight-plus seasons with the Tigers (and then got flipped to Houston). I scored a couple of his 1987 XRCs, a few oddballs, and some other fun 90s items among 23 new items.

I wouldn't leave out Brandon Inge, whom I affectionately refer to as "BInge", if I had any chance of adding cards of his. I like that the five above show his positional versatility, a reminder that he went wherever he was needed on the diamond.

Austin Jackson ("A-Jax") was another somewhat recent favorite of mine who won me over as Granderson's replacement after the latter was dealt. All I could get of him here was a '17 Topps base of him with the White Sox, but it was worth an add for me.

Nokes was with Detroit for just four-plus seasons, but the former PTBNL in a deal with the Giants had a big '87 season and played during my early impressionable years of being a fan, so he immediately became one of my favorites along with Lou Whitaker. There's plenty of oddball stuff to enjoy there--Holsum Discs, what's up?!--but my favorite is no surprise to anyone: the Sportflics card.

Rounding out this scan is a guy who was a big contributor to the team's success around 10 years ago, Magglio Ordonez. I ended up with only Tigers cards, though I can't remember if I did that on purpose or if Randy didn't have any White Sox stuff I needed. In any case, that meant plenty of nice shiny stuff from the mid-2000s on like Bowman and Topps Chrome, and my favorite of the bunch: that beautiful 2007 Bowman's Best base.

This photo (which is a good example of why I prefer scans when they're feasible--just look at this mess!) includes just two players, meaning their hauls were among the largest of the trade. They also both happen to be PCs I've been focusing on more lately.

First is slugging 3B Dean Palmer and 14 new cards. Only three of them have him in a Detroit uniform, but that's down to what I needed and what years I could grab, meaning the rest are with the Rangers and Royals. I was glad to add some new Stadium Club items, including one with a cameo from future Tiger Ivan Rodriguez. Also, the Tigers trio is pretty solid with Finest and Fleer Showcase issues.

The other is the late Tony Phillips, who got an excellent bump of 36 items to get him over the century mark. The versatile IF/OF spent a good chunk of his career with the A's, winning a ring with the '89 team, but the five years he was with Detroit were his second longest tenure with a team. Here you can see I came up with one Oakland card, one after he joined the Angels, and 34 with my favorite team. They span 1989-95 so as you'd expect there's a ton of variety, with multiple Panini stickers, Stadium Club looks, and some Donruss, Leaf, and even a couple Triple Plays! You'd better believe I'm super excited for that Sportflix card, though.

We'll finish up today's post with more guys with few cards bookending larger groups. Polanco and Pudge joined Magglio in contributing to some of Detroit's playoff teams so I still like adding stuff of them when I can. Sheridan was a Tiger from 1986-89, again, when I was just starting to watch the team, so I rooted for the Ann Arbor native back then. I think a lot of us thought Thompson was going to be an ace, and I for one was pissed when Detroit sent him to Texas for Juan Gonzalez's stupid ass, but injuries meant he never pitched for the Rangers. And then there's the last guy from this post still playing (probably, since that's pending a return from surgery) in Verlander, popping up on a 2018 Heritage base.

As for the other two players, the first is Tanana, who pitched for 21 seasons, eight of those with his hometown team. He was such a fixture of the franchise in the 80s and early 90s that I accidentally included him in the photos for the previous post without thinking, before remembering that he didn't join the team until June of '85. I came out of the deal with 20 new cards of his, beginning with '86 Donruss and ending with '93 Score and his sunset season. Like a number of other players seen here today you'll notice I found some stickers and other oddballs of him, plus a number of brands I love like Studio and Stadium Club.

And last but definitely not least today--so say 20 new cards of his own--is Fruit Loops himself, Mickey Tettleton. I think I initiated this trade with Randy because he had so many needs out of the stuff I'd grabbed in that Facebook Marketplace lot, but what sealed the deal for me was that he had so many new cards I needed of guys like Palmer, Phillips, and Tettleton as well. Better yet, 16 of these were made depicting him with the Tigers, and a lot of them show him in action behind the plate. This haul also got him over the 100-card mark, putting me at about a quarter of his collection, which is pretty cool!

That's "all" I have for today but I hope you enjoyed this look at what was largely a throwback to 80s and 90s Tigers, with a few from the successful teams from the decade starting in 2006. If you liked these you won't want to miss the finale which has lots of interesting stuff you may not be expecting!

TCDB trade roundup: NetScans, mjprigge, and rustypetty

In the interest of keeping the posting momentum going at least a bit longer, tonight I'm covering three of my recent TCDB trades. These don't include the two larger ones that are making me figure out how I want to present them since those would hold things up a bit.

First up is NetScans, a.k.a. Moises, who hails from Kansas. He proposed a deal around just a few cards of mine and ended up flipping me a nice bunch in return:

Dean-o was a big part of this package representing 18/27 cards. This run represents 1992-95 so everything has him pictured with the team that drafted him, Texas. Ultra and Upper Deck each get a couple of appearances, and kudos to UD for the fun photo on the Fun Pack card!

A couple more Rangers cards bookend this scan that's otherwise 100% Detroit. There's quite a few designs I like, especially Sweet Spot, UD Authentics, Ultra, and UD Vintage. 1997 Pinnacle X-Press, which Colbey just did in a group break, was the lone horizontal card.

And the last group features three other guys whose collections I've been trying to build up recently. I got Tony Phillips in three different uniforms over his five cards, with a cool '93 SP debut photo that includes Tigers teammate Travis Fryman. And for a bit of nice synchronicity that Moises pointed out to me, guess who's on the back:

It's a Dean-o double up with Dean-o getting doubled up! Meanwhile, the Metal cards bring back fond memories of the 90s, and the Score card is a team set version.

Next is HOFer Ted Simmons on a pair of cards made late in his career:  1986 Fleer Update and '88 Score. I love how he's listed as a C/DH on the Fleer card since he's shown on an NL team, but to be fair he'd just come off five seasons in Milwaukee at a time where they were still in the AL! Fellow backstop Mickey Tettleton, repping Detroit on a '93 Select base, closes out the PC group. The final card wasn't a mistake as I needed the '93 Pinnacle base of Cal's less successful brother for my Series I set.

I was glad to work with Moises since this deal went so smoothly and would be happy to trade with him again.

My next deal was with Brewers fan mjprigge. Matt lives in Wisconsin--imagine that!--and I originally reached out to him on Twitter (@mjpmke) because he was selling/trading some dupe TTM/IP autos and I saw one that interested me. We had no problem working out a deal on TCDB where I got that plus a nice bunch of stuff of my choosing for some Brewers stuff and a '72 Topps McCovey for his set built. Here's what I grabbed:

Yep, this looks like a pretty typical group of stuff I'd choose. I'm not sure how I didn't have that '96 Flair base of Abbott, but now I do! Grandy's '09 Goudey card looks awesome, and I'm also a bit surprised I didn't have his 2012 Topps Update base either. I like how Misters Padre and Tiger landed next to each other in this bunch, with Gwynn a 2020 Topps insert and Kaline a '19 Archives issue. The scan finishes off with a Topps Traded trio: Maddux ('93) and Tigers catchers Nokes and Parrish ('87 Traded).

And the rest. The three-player '72 Topps card starring Tigers Lolich and Coleman was the result of Matt being unable to find a different card I picked out, which worked out nicely for me! Phillips makes another appearance courtesy of Pacific's '96 Crown Collection. And then we have the autograph I was interested in: former Wolverine (student but not athlete!) Tom Grieve on his '74 Topps base. Interestingly enough he's apparently another team's "Mister", specifically "Mr. Ranger" thanks to all the time he's spent with them. That factoid is thanks to Fuji's comment on this post where I showed off a couple Grieve signed photos generously sent to me by Tom (Angels, in Order). Anyway, this is a very cool piece to add, and trading with Matt was great, so reach out to him on Twitter and/or TCDB to make a deal.

Last up today is rustypetty. I reached out to Rusty, who's in nearby Illinois, because he had all eight cards needed to finish up Doug's 2019 Score football set. Lots of blog call-outs today! When I went searching for those I think he was one of about five members who had each card, and for whatever reason he was the first one I tried to make a deal with. I didn't have anything on his wantlist but we quickly made a deal where I got those plus the quartet you'll see below, and in return I flipped him all 34 2013 Prizm football base cards I had as he'd been out of the hobby for a while and was working on building some sets.

I wasn't actually asking for these in the original deal, but Rusty was nice enough to hit my wantlist and find that he had two new RCs each for ex-Wolverines Devin Bush and Rashan Gary. All are from their shared draft year of 2019, with both appearing on Panini's Absolute, Bush seen in Donruss (rated rookie!) and Rashan in Prestige. I now count four first-years of Bush and five of Gary, giving me about 20% of each of their runs.

I'll be back at some point to cover the aforementioned larger transactions but I'm glad to have gotten these posted so I can continue to show how I'm having a good time on the site. And also I love being able to put cards away! In the meantime, based on my experience, I'd gladly recommend all three of these guys if you're considering dealing on TCDB.

Complete sets: 1992 Denny's

A bit more than a year ago while I was at a show I made one of those fun oddball purchases you sometimes find yourself making at shows:  I grabbed a 1992 Denny's Holograms complete set, which even came with the little collectible binder, for less than a buck.

Here's a look inside at the four-card pages:

Like the original 1991 versions, this 26-card set highlighted grand-slam hitters in hologram form on cards produced by Upper Deck, and you had to get them by purchasing (but not necessarily consuming, I suppose) disgusting "food" at Denny's.  A number of the players are holdovers from the previous year's set and the player selection hasn't exactly aged well almost 25 years later, but that's fine because there's still plenty of fan favorites.

In terms of design, the fronts are 100% hologram, and to my surprise they actually scanned pretty nicely.  All photos show each player in some sort of hitting-related action, though Ripken appears to be running out a fly or foul ball and Daniels looks like he just walked.  The backgrounds represent the players' cities in some fashion.  Besides the Upper Deck and Denny's Grand Slam logos, plus the player and team names in tiny lettering, they have a horizontal "Limited Edition" banner and "Collector Series" running vertically down the right.  The former has always been funny to collectors who know how plentiful these could get, and the latter has always seemed pretty much redundant to me--of course people know you can collect these!

The backs are much more subdued as they start with the player and team names again in a horizontal blue bar that also includes the card number--and the total number of cards in the set, a feature I tend to like in my sets, though it's so rarely used.  The main focus here is grand slams so we're told in BOLD CAPS how many that player's hit, then given a write-up on him and why he's in the set.  This is all contained on a bright white back in between a couple red bars, making this a set Hulk Hogan and other Real Americans could be proud of.

Here's a look at the full set--fronts and backs!--plus I'll mention how many slams each player ended up with in his career--some of these guys hit a bunch more after they appeared in this set.

\

Marquis Grissom:  4

Ken Caminiti:  6

Fred McGriff:  9

Felix Jose:  2

Jack Clark:  9

Albert Belle:  13

Sid Bream:  3

Robin Ventura:  18  (Tied with Willie McCovey for fifth all-time!)

Cal Ripken Jr.:  8

Ryne Sandberg:  5

Paul O'Neill:  5

Luis Polonia:  1

Cecil Fielder:  11

Kal Daniels:  5

Brian McRae:  5

Howard Johnson:  7

Greg Vaughn:  6

Dale Murphy:  5

Kent Hrbek:  8

Barry Bonds:  11

Matt Nokes:  6

Jose Canseco:  6

Jay Buhner:  10

Will Clark:  5

Ruben Sierra:  9

Joe Carter:  10

Of this group, only three players never hit another grand slam after appearing in the set:

• Jack Clark, whose final season was 1992, in which he hit just 5 HR
• Luis Polonia, who hit 36 career HR and rarely came up to bat with ducks on the pond, meaning his lone slam was a happy fluke
• Dale Murphy, who hit 2 HR in 1992 and none in '93 before retiring

Meanwhile, a few of these guys bumped up their numbers nicely:

• Ventura:  +16
• Belle:  +12
• Bonds:  +10
• Buhner, Fielder, and Sierra:  +8

Ventura just went full beast mode, and it's no coincidence that he became the first player to hit a slam in each game of a double-header on the way to his spot at #5 overall on the career record board.

The most notable card in the set for me--and there aren't many since Fielder is the only Tiger, though Nokes is another former Detroit favorite--is Cal Ripken Jr. as it adds another card to his PC.

What other complete (and possibly oddball) sets will I be showing off in the future?  Who knows?