2024 trade package #23: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

My other trade package from November was the typical awesomeness from Doug at Sports Cards From the Dollar Store. He actually managed to get it out in time that it wasn't impacted by the Canada Post strike, which was definitely a stroke of luck considering how long that went on and the fact that we're still dealing with the repercussions of the stoppage. As a matter of fact, I've had a package ready to send back his way for a couple weeks now but unfortunately USPS still isn't accepting mail to send across the border, presumably while their Canadian counterparts get caught up. Oh well, it'll just have to wait.

As for what I got in my final mailing from Kitchener, Ontario for 2024:

We'll start with baseball as usual. I remember Damon's brief stint with the Tigers in 2010 and his decent bat but noodle arm. Larkin and Morris are former Wolverines that won baseball's Ultra best prize in 1990. Walewander seems to be a cult favorite of some Tigers fans.

Heading over to football, Tom Brady starts us off with Topps' return to the sport thanks to their Composite product, one that brings to mind its long lost Fusion set that combined multiple brands, and in this case that includes Chrome. DE Len Ford was one of the most accomplished players to come out of the program, winning an NCAA title and then three NFL rings in a HOF pro career. Harbaugh, of course, needs no introduction, but I hope his ability to quickly turn around the fortunes of teams he coaches becomes the narrative around him instead of the stupid "QB whisperer" crap. Jenkins and Wilson were both drafted this year and I happily added a card each to their RC totals, plus a Scorecard parallel for the Bengals DL. And we go all the way back to RB Hassan Haskins' pre-college days with a Team USA jersey that came out when he was a lower-rated recruit and not yet a Buckeye-killing back.

The non-UM Red Wings all fit into this scan and they also serve as a nice transition into the hockey stuff, giving you a bit of an idea of a couple of the brands that were prevalent in this package: UD flagship and MVP. I'm old enough to remember Ogrodnick's name (likely due to video games made late in his career), though he was gone from Detroit by the time I was really paying attention to the sport. It's very cool to add such a relatively old Wings card to my collection!

Now let's take a look at some Wolverines and WolverWings! Young Kraken star Beniers kicks off the group with another example of UD taking advantage of owning Fleer's brand names like Metal. Compher's having a relative down year with the Wings but then again, who isn't at this point? Connor is once again on a great scoring pace and isn't too far from equaling his '23-'24 numbers, actually. Luke Hughes' stats are also down a bit from last season while last season's Norris winner Quinn continues to stack up points.

WolverWing Dylan Larkin continues to be the heart of the team as its captain, and hopefully a new coach will inspire the team to play up to their potential. Norris suits up for Doug's Senators and is among the team leaders in goals in his sixth season (though two of those saw him appear in just 11 games). Rare Wolverine-in-Buffalo Power just played in his 200th NHL game and has a chance to improve on some decent stats from last season. Trouba, of course, finally got out of New York as he was flipped to Anaheim earlier this month. And not-remotely-rare Wolverine/Blue Jacket Werenski has a chance to finally return to the 20-goal mark, his career high from 2019-20, which would be pretty cool for the stud defenseman. While I'm happy with the various base cards here, he appears on one of the best non-hits, a 2019-20 SP Game Used Orange Rainbow parallel that's numbered to just 103(?) copies.

There are just two horizontal cards to look at this time, but they're both worth a look! Beniers is back with a sweet die-cut numbered issue from 2022-23 SPx, which is probably the best of him in my collection besides the Metal Universe RC above. Connor also makes another appearance thanks to a UD insert called Stars of the Rink that has a cool rainbow "dots" pattern.

And then we have the hits, and boy are they nice ones! Number one is my first autograph of yet another Blue Jacket, defenseman Nick Blankenburg. The two-year Wolverine played three seasons with Columbus before signing with Nashville this past July. I absolutely love the look of his uncirculated autographed acetate RC from UD's Clear Cut brand.

The next autograph is somewhat similar with former Jets/current Wings C Andrew Copp signing an SPx card from the previous year's Clear Cut offering. The holographic background makes it a true throwback to SPx's origins and I feel like UD went away from that design aspect to its detriment, so it's a sight for sore eyes here. That's my fourth auto of the WolverWing.

And last up is one more Werenski appearance (hey, there's a reason he's a top-10 guy in my Michigan Hockey PC!). Though I previously claimed four hits to his name, it took #5 here to add my first signature. That comes from the shiny 2022-23 UD Stature Autographs set, one which appears to parallel the base set, which is already fairly high-end itself. I like that his name is fairly legible and as a bonus he even throws in his jersey number, one he has in common with my top baseball PC guy. Needless to say I appreciate Doug chipping away at the list of Wolverines for whom I need certified autographs, one I'm somewhat maintaining over on TCDb.

Doug, thanks so much for this outstanding envelope to end our year of trading. Again, I'm frustrated that I couldn't send a return sooner due to the strike, but I promise it'll be worth the wait, plus at least I have it ready to go at the drop of a hat. In the meantime I'll work on starting a new stack for you at this weekend's show. I hope you and Mischief had a merry Christmas!

I'll be back soon (possibly very soon!) with more trades from December.

2024 trade package #15: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store part 2: hockey

It's been a nice sports weekend for me as Michigan Football beat a lesser rival plus the Yankees are down two games in the World Series. So with that positivity in mind, let's continue on with the mountain of cards sent to me by Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store back in August. (Reminder: part 1 is here.)

We're in one of the busiest sports months of the year as all four major sports are in action plus some of the college versions. Relevant tonight is that both the Red Wings and Michigan Hockey have dropped the pucks on their seasons. As a matter of fact, I got to enjoy the latter in person last weekend!

Doug sent me a big stack of cards of both teams in this box,

and those are what we'll look at tonight!

Let's start with the local pro team, one which features four players from my alma mater, all of whom appear in this post! But we'll get to the WolverWings later. Datsyuk and Fedorov are both team legends and I'm glad to bump up their collections a bit. Meahwhile, Edvinsson is a former #6 overall pick going into his third season in Motown as a good defenseman prospect.

Next, LaPointe and Lidstrom are the most familiar names here. Marty won a pair of Cups with the Wings after they took him 10th overall in 1991, and he went on to play for the Bruins, Hawks, and Sens before hanging 'em up. Plus his son currently plays for Michigan Hockey! Lidstrom, meanwhile, is a HOF defenseman who won four Stanleys with Detroit, playing his entire career in Hockeytown. He's definitely a top-five team player of mine in franchise history.

Ozzie is the biggest name here for me, another '91 draft pick who went on to success with the team. He backed up vet Mike Vernon in the playoffs in '96-'97 before getting his turn with the repeat champs the following year, then came back in 2007-08 and '08-'09, helping the team win another Cup and then coming up just short the year after. Primeau's also pretty well known as a former #3 overall pick who put up some good numbers for the team but was part of the trade that brought Brendan Shanahan to Detroit, which worked out quite well! Raymond's a much more recent guy, chosen #4 overall in 2020, and he's coming off a 31-goal campaign, so he looks to be a big part of the future. Rutherford's a goalie from way before my time--drafted by Detroit in 1969, he found his way to Pittsburgh before a trade back to Detroit (twice!) and appeared in goal in parts of 10 seasons as a Wing.

German D-man Mo Seider leads off this scan and he comes into his fourth season as a key player on the blue line. I already mentioned how Shanny joined the team, and he was a star on a team filled with them that won three Cups. Soderblom is a Swedish winger chosen in the sixth round back in 2019 who hasn't been up with the parent team since 2022-23 but remains a prospect. Veleno was a late first-rounder way back in 2018 that hasn't yet parlayed amateur success into NHL production just yet.

The last of the Wings are represented with these horizontals and one odd-sized issue. Draper's probably the best player $1 ever bought as he brought plenty of grit along with key goals to four Cup-winners. The previously seen Seider looks good on a shiny UD insert. The Captain's NHL career coincided with some great 90s stuff like Collector's Choice's Stick-Ums. And Shanny gets one more appearance courtesy of a Pacific mini.

Now we switch over to the guys in maize & blue. Boston center Johnny Beecher makes his collection debut here thanks to Doug, and the 2019 first-rounder is in his second year with that team. Beniers and Bordeleau are both relative newcomers to the NHL and it's nice to see their collections get a small bump. Cogliano (who's also seen in the next scan) won a cup with the 21-22 Avalanche and then retired after last season, his 17th in the NHL!

Three-year Wolverine Compher was a teammate of Cogliano's with Colorado and also part of that Cup team, and now I'm happy to say that he's one of four Wolverines on the Red Wings! Jets sniper Kyle Connor has been lighting the lamp since 2016 and looks primed to hit the 30-goal mark for for the seventh time in eight seasons. As for Copp...

...he's another WolverinWing, as seen in the first two cards here. It's fun when the former Ann Arbor guys head to Detroit but even better when it's captured on cardboard. Another Team Canada card of Hobey-winner Adam Fantilli gives me two of him with that team to go with a pair with Columbus. Hagelin, who won a pair of Cups with the Pens, nears the 40-card mark as well as the top-10 of my Michigan Hockey PCs. Sitting 10 cards behind him is

Canucks D-man and last year's Norris Trophy winner Quinn Hughes, whose six cards here include a very cool playing card-style item from OPC. Defenseman Matt Hunwick is next, and this trio shows him with two of his six career franchises. Then we have former Leafs winger Zach Hyman who

joined the Oilers after six seasons in Toronto and steadily put up career highs until reaching 54 goals last year plus another 16 in the playoffs for runner-up Edmonton (though he's yet to score this year). While there are no Wolverines named Jones in this package, Doug had me keeping up with the Johnsons. One is Jack, another '21-'22 Avalanche Cup-winner who's now back in his second go-round with Columbus in his 19th(!) NHL season. The other is his new teammate Kent, the 2021 fifth overall pick who's in his fourth season in the league, and has five cards to his name in my collection as opposed to almost 60 for his elder fellow Wolverine.

Wings captain Dylan Larkin was one of the most common names in this package and I loved to see that. I'm grateful that the team has his leadership as he's become somewhat similar to the guy currently in charge, Steve Yzerman, so you'll imagine how much I grinned when I noticed that my collection totals for both players are very close! He's posted 31, 32, and 33 goals the past three seasons so we'll see if his incremental improvement continues, though more importantly I'm hoping for a return to the playoffs--something he hasn't experienced since his debut in 2015-16. Madden, meanwhile, won trophies both in college and the NHL, and missed the playoffs just twice in his career, with one occasion being a cup of coffee in his league debut. Oklahoma City native Jon Merrill also played for the Devils like Madden, though their careers didn't overlap. He was a Red Wing for 36 games in 2020-21 and is now in his fourth season with Minnesota.

I don't think I need to say much about Morrison as he's long been a blog favorite and I've talked about him plenty, so I'll just mention that he's #2 in my UM hockey PCs and the only other player besides Marty Turco to hit the century mark. Next, it's fun to have a shared PC with Doug like Nystrom, who's both a Michigan alum and 2/14 baby! A guy that's not too far behind Morrison is Max Pacioretty, a well-traveled winger who's with his fourth different team in as many seasons. 

My collection of Max is what it is because of folks like Doug who send me so many of his cards, like the ones in the previous scan, the few you see here (two of which are numbered!) and even more below. Palushaj barely had an NHL career to speak of but I still happily collect him. '21 #1 overall pick Owen Power is still fairly new to my collection but, again, thanks to Doug my small collection is growing. Tambellini was a favorite of mine while I had student season tickets. And as you'll see between this scan and the next,

My collection of Trouba got a nice bump as well. The sometimes overly aggressive D-man rests comfortably in the top 10 with just shy of 50 cards, in large part thanks to the guy who sent me these. One of the two Turcos helping to keep him #1 by a large margin can be seen here while there's one more below. Next, we have three of six Werenski cards representing yet another ex-Michigan guy that headed down to Columbus as a pro.

The other three sit atop this scan, including a typically excellent UD base plus the usually very cool (no pun intended) UD Ice. Two of the best looking cards in the entire box aren't even hits, but instead super thick cards of young Flyer Cam York. Both are '21-'22 SPx issues, with the first being a Finite inserted #d /399 and the other being a gorgeous Shadow Box card that has to be seen in-person to be appreciated.

We'll close out this scan (but not the post, oddly enough) with some beautiful hits. First is a beautiful RC auto of J.T. Compher, who's had his named called today already and will have the honor one more time. That's out of 2017-18 Ultimate Collection and the signature /399 is my third autograph to go with one relic. Tyler Motte, meanwhile, represents WolverWing #4 in this post, and that SPx Blackhawks jersey (/235) is relic #5 out of nine total hits. The former Chicago center joined Detroit as his 8th NHL team. Well represented PC guy Max Pacioretty is next with an SPx jersey representing one of his four seasons with Vegas. He's up to 12 hits including nine relics like that above average jersey swatch. And last up is a Panini Rookie Anthology card of Travis Turnbull that I swore I already had until I realized Doug had sent me the Patch version that comes with two excellent pieces of a Sabres jersey to go with Turnbull's signature. Besides the swatch upgrade, the card is #d /99, and that becomes my third hit of a Buffalo player who scored a single goal in three NHL games.

Like I said above, we weren't quite done yet because we still have some horizontals and other oddities that I decided to scan after the hits. Compher, Jack Johnson, and Patch all get some cool X-axis cards, and once again I love UD's flagship look. David Oliver isn't as common of a name around here--that's just my fourth card of his--so I appreciate the deep cut. The trio of goalie cards starring two of Michigan's best--Shields and Turco--has me wishing Pacific and its die-cut Crown Royale were still around. I love that he sent a base and two different parallels to give a nice look at the range of colors that set offered. Compher makes one last appearance thanks to a Panini sticker. And then we have one last player: David Shand. Like Oliver, he's not a very common name and actually only has 12 cards catalogued on TCDb. I now own three of those thanks to this 1979 sticker also made by Panini which may be the oldest such issue in my collection.

Once again I hope the fact that I had to give in and split up this package into two posts goes a long way towards indicating just how generous Doug can be when it comes to trading. Not only did he bomb me with quantity, but there was an absolute ton of quality across these two posts, and rest assured that I don't take such effort for granted. Thanks for being one of my favorite trading partners, Doug, and I hope to close out the year with a Christmas package that shows my appreciation!

Stay tuned for another August trade package coming up soon!

2024 trade package #3: the Collector

The calendar may say May--one of my favorite months--but in terms of blog time I'm still back in February. Baseball's spring training was due to begin shortly when Chris, a.k.a. the Collector, hit my mailbox with one of his excellent PWEs. One thing I liked about it is that he themed it to the sports of the season at the time: basketball, football, and hockey. You all know I put very little time, money, or effort into my basketball collection, and not a whole lot more of each into hockey, so I appreciate it when some of my trading buddies are nice enough to include them like this.

Let's take a quick look over the cards he sent this time:

McGary didn't pan out as an NBA first-rounder but he did help Michigan get to the NCAA finals in 2013. "Sugar" Mills was a big part of UM's '89 champs and then spent 11 years in the NBA, six of those with his hometown Pistons. Rice was the star of the 1988-89 Wolverines, then enjoyed 15 NBA campaigns, winning it all with the 2000 Lakers. Riley turned a decent four-year Michigan career into a second round pick and five NBA seasons, each with a new team. And of course Fab-Fiver Rose went from a star-studded college roster to 13 years in the league, though he lost out in his lone finals appearance to Rice's Lakers.

The football side of things here is smaller, but that's ok because I can take care of that myself easily. Still, I appreciated the Mazi Smith RC out of Prizm and the Score base of GOAT DB Charles Woodson. Mazi definitely didn't have the season anyone wanted--a lone sack and 3 TFL--after Dallas took him in the first round, but we'll see what a difference a year makes.

And then we have the hockey content from hockeydude. Beniers, Hyman, and Powers all hail from the same UD set, and that's one super talented trio right there. Matty's numbers dipped a bit in his third season after Seattle made him 2021's #2 overall pick, but he's got a bright future ahead of him. Owen, the #1 choice just before Beniers, had a solid season on Buffalo's blue line. And perhaps no former Michigan icer has enjoyed a better season than Hyman, who ranked third in the league in regular season goals with a crazy 54, and has added seven more in the playoffs to tie for the lead with his Oilers into the second round.

Hughes is looking pretty Glossy this season too, putting together a ridiculous 17/75/92 line as a defenseman and putting himself in position to win the Norris Trophy. Kolarik was a low draft pick who appeared in all of six NHL games but had a very nice college career, and I love adding a numbered card to my small collection of him. Larkin had a tough season for a number of reasons off the ice, but he proved to be the most important player on the team he captains. He reached a new high in goals (33) and eclipsed 200 scores and 500 points this season on a team that sadly choked away its chances at the playoffs. And lastly, Werenski reached new heights in assists (46) and points (57) on a team that missed the postseason but gave playing time to four other Wolverines.

Thank you again to Chris for the lone blogger trade envelope I received in February (not a complaint), and of course, because he's a generous guy, I have yet another one to show off from last month once I catch up. Again, I appreciate you finding some great stuff for my collections, especially the ones I don't really focus on my myself.

Still to come from the month that was February: a show (at which I've spent the most so far this year through April), a super cool Facebook purchase, and a Twitter pickup from someone just about everyone should be familiar with.