2025 Facebook Marketplace purchases: July spree

Hello, friends! It's now November and I'm still working on covering stuff I got in July. Let's get down to it with my three Facebook purchases from that month.

Numbers 1 and 2 were nearby each other so I scored them on the same day. First up is a big three-row box that was advertised as being mostly Chrome cards. Figuring I could at least use those for trade bait, I drove to Westland, which isn't that far from me, and spent $30 on that box. As advertised, it was mostly Chrome-type cards, with a bit of recent regular cardboard mixed in, and I'd say the majority was 2024 Bowman Chrome Prospects and 2023 Topps Chrome.

I'll have nice stacks of each to add to TCDb eventually, but for now, here are my keepers:

A new card of Michigan alum Tommy Henry was quite exciting for me, and that one above is also a good reminder to mention that there were a couple stacks of Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary cards in the bunch as well. Tigers IF prospect Lee hails from the huge stack of '24 Bowman Chrome Prospects. McKinstry and Vierling are recent Tigers that represented some of the non-Chrome stuff while Scherzer of the pennant-winning Jays makes a couple appearances on other products.

All in all it was a very reasonable pickup for the price, and a number of cards from this box made it into trade packages that have gone out or will do so by the end of the year.

That same day I headed back to Livonia for I think my third purchase from a guy who sounds like he buys collections and then clears out parts of them (here's my most recent post of cards I bought from him from earlier this year). This time I ended up with a pair of four-row boxes filled with a bit of everything (but mostly the bigger sports) for $70. These have been a great source of keepers and trade items for me recently, especially more recent stuff that I haven't found at shows or had sent to me in trades. They've boosted my inventory of '20s baseball and football inserts for TCDb which has been a big help.

I found a ton of keepers from these so I'll keep my comments short.

Last year's Donruss showed up in force in this purchase, much to the benefit of a number of my PCs. Hatfield and Pesky hail from a 90s Topps Archives product, and interestingly enough, both are '50s Tigers who'd previously played for the Red Sox. The Donruss EEE of Michigan alum O'Halloran, college uni and all, was a super fun gem in this big pile of stuff.

Rose was the lone basketball keeper for me, which is fine. My football PCs, especially for some recent rookies, really got some nice bumps, with 2024 first-years especially well represented. That includes Michigan-to-Iowa transfer TE Erick All, plus Indiana-to-Michigan transfer TE AJ Barner, who won a title with Michigan and has gone on to be fairly productive for the Seahawks.

Griese and Harbaugh are all well-known past NFL Wolverines while Collins and Gary continue to be stars for their teams. I love the Michigan uni RCs of a couple more champs, Colson and Corum.

EDGE Jaylen Harrell is a guy who didn't get a ton of hype (or many cardboard appearances), but he led the '23 champs in sacks and was taken in the 7th round by Tennessee, making the NFL just like his dad. Jenkins, another NFL legacy, also made some noise on defense for the title-winning team, and he's one of a bunch of Wolverines playing for the Bengals. Law was fantastic in college, as pictured, before his HOF NFL career. And Milton may have transferred to Tennessee but I'm still collecting any of his non-Volunteers RCs.

The Halloween-themed Score-a-Treat product popped up a bit in this purchase and I was glad to add a couple Wolverines out of the '24 version. Speaking of "treat" it was fun to find three RCs of kicker Jake Moody, the erstwhile Niners PK. Wilson was one of my RCs from '24 Rookies & Stars, plus the previously mentioned Score-a-Treat. Woodson was maize & blue through and through but does look good there in red.

Lastly for football, Brady and Victor Hobson join in the fun on horizontal multiplayer cards.

Then we move on to a huge stack of Steve Yzerman cards I didn't have, many of which are from the 90s. It's not like I ever got rid of any of his cards--I just didn't really collect hockey as a kid, and most of what I have of him has come to me through trades.

There's not much to say other than there's some pretty cool stuff here on a huge mix of products and designs.

And here's the last of the cards of the Captain. He's apparently a single card short of becoming the third hockey player to hit 100 different cards in my collection, joining Wolverines Marty Turco and Brendan Morrison. Wolverwing Dylan Larkin is next at 75, and the next closest Motown guy that didn't play for Michigan is Sergei Fedorov at 59, so obviously this was a great boost to Stevie Y's collection.

Speaking of Larkin, he's one of three Michigan icers represented in this purchase thanks to UD MVP, joining Seattle's Matty Benier's and young goalie Jack LaFontaine.

Last up is definitely something of an oddball. Back in 1993 a set called Metallic Impressions Cooperstown Collection was released, apparently aiming to be the first of more releases. That didn't happen, but at least we got to enjoy this crazy swing at the fences. It's a tin of 20 metallic cards featuring HOFers and stars. I found one for sale nearby for $10 and happily went to pick it up a few days after I nabbed the stuff you see above.

Here's a few looks at the tin:

I like boxed sets like this that include the checklist right on the packaging.

"Strictly limited" to just 49,900 sets! The bottom also helpfully describes the way the cards are made better than I can.

Very nicely packaged thanks to plastic inserts that keep the cards from flying around and causing wear and tear.

Not everyone's a HOFer here but you get a nice mix of legends and other guys that some people appreciate collecting.

The backs somewhat give you an idea of how the metal edges are sort of crimped over the backs, so they aren't as thick and heavy as they could be.

Like I said, not everybody here's a HOFer so I even got to add a new Mickey Lolich to my collection.

I wonder who else we might have seen had more of these been made?

Pops and El Tiante get their own scan since 20/9 leaves a pair left over.

This was a very cool oddball addition to my collection for just $10, and now I'm curious if any of you still reading this post own this set or anything similar you'd like to brag about in the comments down below.

Happily I still have at least one more Facebook Marketplace pickup to cover before the end of the year, but first I have lots more to cover. I'll see you all soon!

2025 trade package #1: Baseball Cards Come to Life

When it came to the first blogger trade cards I received in 2025, it was a case of last in, first out. Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life was the sender of the last envelopes I received late in December and then the first that hit my mailbox this past January. As it turns out, there was a reason for this: the January envelope should have been delivered with the earlier ones, but it decided to go off on its own adventure.

That didn't bother me, though, since I still ended up with some very cool cards that pretty much held up the same themes as the post-Christmas ones: vintage, oddball, and Tigers. Oh, and also, Bo identified everything as a want from my TCDb lists. I highly, highly recommend getting yourself organized there for many reasons including this one.

Here's the contents:

"Big Daddy"'s last Studio card as a Tiger was in the fantastic '96 set with one of my favorite designs. Fryman was gone from Detroit before appearing on the Absolute card you see, but those look terrific and I collect him in any uniform anyway.

The run of vintage Lolich cards was especially nice for me as it brought four news from '73, '76 (x2) and '76 Traded. By the way, Lolich has since been surpassed in strikeouts by a lefty by Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton, CC Sabathia, and Clayton Kershaw. Also, he was flipped to the Mets in December of '75 in a deal that brought "Le Grand Orange" Rusty Staub to Motown.

Speaking of outstanding pitchers, Bo filled a couple Maddux needs with his '93 Fleer Final Edition and '94 Fleer Sunoco cards. And Mad Dog's fellow 80s/90s HOFer Jack Morris came along for the ride with Fleer boxed set issues from 1988: Exciting Stars and Record Setters (first card of next scan). I love that there are still so many of those 80s oddballs for me to chase that include my many PCs.

Gwynn and Griffey didn't make the trip this time but Junior Ripken sure did thanks to cards from '91 Classic and a '94 Donruss checklist. I can't remember for sure but I may have had one of the Classic games/trivia sets that included those cards at one point.

A couple other MLB HOFers close out the baseball content. The first is a '76 Topps NL batting leaders card that includes PC guy Ted Simmons in the #2 spot with #s 1 and 3 held by Bill Madlock and Manny Sanguillen. 1975 was the first of four seasons Madlock won the batting title, and his .354 clip beat an also excellent .332 that was a career best for Simba. Meanwhile, Tram joined HOF teammate Morris from the '88 Fleer Exciting Stars set after an insane '87 season in which he was jobbed out of the AL MVP by enough voters that preferred George Bell.

Former Wolverine Jim Smith is all by himself in terms of the football content this time, though combined with the other envelopes Bo sent he would have been one of four. The '79 Topps card you see above of the WR who played six seasons with the Steelers was essentially last regular issue I needed for his collection which is now short just some oddball-ish stuff. Very cool of Bo to find that and send it my way.

Bo, thanks again for the slightly delayed additional Christmas cards! You know I'll be keeping an eye out for cool stuff for you at upcoming shows, especially any help I can give you for your vintage set builds.

I'll be back with more January trades soon, but in the meantime, it's nice to be done with 2024 and finally covering 2025 pickups!

2023 trade package #24: My Sports Obsession

Well I don't know how quickly I'll get to everything else that needs to be posted but at least I'm back tonight with another blogger trade that deserves recognition.

This one came to me back in September from buddy of the blog Jeff who writes as My Sports Obsession (and also handles PR for Sluggo's Sports Cards). Jeff continues to have access to some really nice stuff while selling cards with his cousin, and that includes buying from some other friendly dealers at shows. He's certainly been super generous sharing those benefits with me, I'll say that much!

Here's the greatness he sent this time:

Is there any chance Javy can regain enough of his batting eye to stop swinging at balls closer to the on-deck circle than the plate? I don't know, but I guess we'll find out next season!

And of course I'm going to miss Miggy. While it's good he's no longer out there playing as a shell of his former self, I'm going to miss him and all that he did over his 16 seasons in Motown. He was a major force right off the bat, and his run from 2008-2016 was one of the best the franchise has ever seen. All the dude did was hit .325/.405/.573 and average 34 HR and 114 RBI per season while earning consecutive MVPs and leading his team to a World Series berth. Cabrera stayed around with the team the Marlins traded him to and rewarded fans with 500 HR and 3000 hit milestones. He'll forever be a team legend and it's impossible to overstate how important he was to the success the Tigers enjoyed over about a decade in the 2000s and 2010s.

Speaking of big numbers there's a whole second PAGE that's just the future HOFer here. Definitely some classy looking stuff and pretty much everything is new to me. TCDb tells me I have more than 450 cards of him, and that ranks him in the top 10 of players of any sport in my PC. Thank you for all the new additions, Jeff!

Here's where we get a bit of variety. Cisnero is shiny, and the Greenberg is too, in a way, as a Chrome Ginter card. Greene may have finished last season hurt but was a spark plug for the offense and a guy I'm hoping to see a full season of health from in 2024. If he can manage that, watch out!

Next is a quartet that starts a huge run of Griffeys, which would be cool enough, but lots of these are total oddballs I've never seen before. Classic is of course familiar to me but I can't claim to have ever seen the others.

If Cabrera gets a page-plus, why not Junior? This one features even more oddness, with none more unorthodox than the one right down the middle. And the ones I do recognize are fun, especially food issues like Jimmy Dean and Post.

Somehow Jeff managed to locate enough Griffey cards for one MORE page plus the beginning of the next scan too. Gobs of Griffeys! Two more food issues, also from Jimmy Dean, kick this one off, and notable 90s UD product Fun Packs makes an appearance too. A few more from within a decade of those give way to a trio of newer items, two of which bookend the bottom row with shots of Ken's beautiful follow-through.

Listen, guys, we're done with Junior when Jeff says we're done with Junior, ok? The remaining quartet here also feature cool designs, but that's not a surprise when Diamond Kings, Stadium Club, and Archives are in the mix. With this many new Griffeys it's no wonder he's #2 in my PC with over 1100 cards, though still more than 100 behind leader Cal Ripken Jr.

Next we have the second of my big four non-Tigers/Wolverines PC guys, Tony Gwynn. Mr. Padre may not appear in the volume that his fellow HOF OF did, but these are no less appreciated. Besides a needed '87 Leaf, the other five are from Topps brands, and I believe they were all new to me. Thanks to these and some others I've since acquired I count almost 900 cards in his collection.

After the final Gwynn, this group starts with a much-needed new Rich Hill card, which reminds me, I wonder where he'll be pitching next season if he comes back for a 20th campaign (and possible 14th team)?

If you include Mr. Padre, why not Mr. Tiger? These are some classy looking Kalines and I think I give a small edge to the Stadium Club, but it's always better when you don't have to choose.

Meanwhile, Larkin's a PC guy we share so I understand Jeff not having more than a couple to send my way, and I'm glad that he did. I'm now fewer than 50 away from Barry joining my 1000-card PC club!

Maddux, who starts this scan, makes big four PC guy #3, and a lone oddball Ripken at the bottom is a spoiler that confirms Jeff hit all four. Mad Dog gets a nice trio worth of designs here picturing him with his two most well known franchises. I put Mize before former Tiger Austin Meadows (best wishes to him, of course!) because I'm dumb and didn't notice this mistake until I was posting this. And Black Jack makes a token appearance as a Blue Jay.

Cal is another of our shared player collections and as I mentioned earlier he's my number 1 at over 1200 cards and counting. The playing card oddballs are quite cool aside from the eyeball-twitch-inducing spelling error, and the Stadium Club Chrome/Gallery duo at the end of the group looks mighty fine.

Three of four new Torks end this scan, and I'm glad to be in possession of more of his cards. While I think Riley Greene is likely to be the more exciting player for the Tigers, Torkelson's power potential could have a huge impact on an offensive that's been short on big hitters. I just looked it up and the Tigers haven't been out of the bottom 10 in homers since 2016! The former top overall pick put 31 over the wall last season and a perennial total in that neighborhood would be huge.

One more Tork gives way to a classy looking Tram. Then we get to the namesake of this here blog and top Tigers-related player in my collection: Justin Verlander. And boy is he well represented in this package!

Everything here of JV is from the past few years so there's no Tigers cards, but to be fair he left Detroit in 2017. There's still a lot to like whether it's classic base, shiny, or Chrome-style. Stadium Club and Gallery continue to be winners as usual.

Of my 600+ Verlanders (STILL not too many!), I own three of him pictured during his brief tenure with the Mets, and they're all in this one post.

And now we get to the best part of tonight's post: the hits! Jeff delivered bigtime here with six big-hitters I flipped through one after the other with my jaw continuing to drop. First is an autograph of one more shared PC of ours, Jake Cronenworth. It's a Ginter framed card and those always look great, plus of course I love new signatures. I own just three JC autos now so this one was a very nice surprise.

Next, I was even more surprised to see a new relic card of Gibby because they often aren't easy to find at reasonable prices. Of course it's a huge plus that he's pictured with the Tigers on that UD Classics card because many fans know him better for his big moment with the Dodgers. Not me, though--I'll always associate him with his 1984 Series performance. It appears to be my 11th hit of Gibson, comprising eight relics and three autos.

Now we'll temporarily jump back to the present (and hopefully future) of the team with pitcher Matt Manning. The #9 overall pick in 2016 has appeared in just 45 games for Detroit over the past few seasons but has been trending in the right direction. It feels great having a nice hit of his before a potential blow-up, in this case a 2020 Bowman purple auto numbered /250.

Let's go back to another champ, '68 star Mickey Lolich. He's seen here on a jersey card from 2004 SP Legendary Cuts, and that represents just my third hit (and second relic, also from an '04 UD brand) of the Series hero. Very cool!

And why not one more Tiger with a ring for good measure, '84 slugging catcher Lance Parrish. He joins Gibby and Lolich as guys I definitely didn't expect to be talking about in this portion meaning they were all more than just pleasant surprises. The Big Wheel was fantastic in the 80s and I wish the cheapskate owners didn't cause him to leave before I was old enough to appreciate his game. At least I can enjoy a brand new signature of his from 2015 Donruss. It's a great looking piece that goes well with the one other auto I have of Lance.

We'll finish up the hits with one more appearance by a guy with a couple rings of his own (just not with Detroit) in Verlander. JV hit #31 for me is a 2019 Topps relic card that uses the Topps design from the last time the Tigers won the Series, 1984. He may be an Astro now but he'll always be a Tiger!

We're not quite done, though, because there's a couple sports left to go over. On the basketball side of things we have three guys both Jeff and I collect: Poole, Franz Wagner, and Webber. The latter is a more recent addition to his player collections as he tends to collect players closer to the beginning of his fandom. All are happily welcomed here in Ann Arbor!

And I'm happy to close out a post filled with cards from a fellow Michigan fan who saw the Wolverines vanquish the Buckeyes for the third straight year(!) in-person, then joined the school's fans celebrating a third consecutive conference championship, with a 100% Michigan uni scan! The guys represented in the first five cards all went out in style in '21 with the firsts of those recent accomplishments. And Streets and Tuman accounted for all three Michigan TDs in the '98 Rose Bowl victory that resulted in the Wolverines' most recent national title. Oddly enough, their cards are supposed to be autographed and even have congratulatory messages on the back saying as much, but maybe they were replacements that found their way out of Press Pass by non-standard means. I still need an actual signed card for Streets but do possess the Tuman, so it's fun having both in his case.

That was a ridiculous amount of quality stuff to recap and appreciate and I have nothing but thanks once again for Jeff's generosity. I recently sent him a Christmas cards package that I'm betting he'll show off reasonably soon since he's much better about posting than I am. Thanks, Jeff, and I hope we get a belated present on January 1, 2024 in the Rose Bowl!

Back soon with more trades that deserve some screen time.

10/6/23 card show report: cheap boxtober

I'm encouraged by the fact that I was able to get that Facebook Marketplace purchase post up last night so I'm back this evening to see if I can zip my way through another one. Because I'd like to give folks at least a couple days to look over that one and pick out potential trade bait, tonight I'm going to do the same with my show pickups from last Friday.

I continued my standard practice of taking the first Friday of the show off from work despite Michigan not playing until Saturday evening, largely because I feel like I might miss out on some good stuff if I wait a day. So early Friday afternoon I headed out to Taylor and spent around two or two and a half hours digging through lots of boxes. It was certainly worth the effort with the deals available that day. Dime cards were 100/$7 (and even better deals were there if you bought larger quantities but I'd had enough by then) and the next level up was quarter-ish cards at five/$1.

Here's a quick spending breakdown before I get to the scans:

• 100 @ $0.10 each = $10
• 125 @ 5/$1 = $25
• 10 @ 2/$1 = $5
• 7 @ 2$ = $14
• 5 @ 5/$20 = $20

That's $74 and he asked for $70.

Before I left I hit up the vintage guy I check out once in a while and grabbed eight of his $3 cards that go eight for $20. That means I left having spent $90 on some 255 cards--not bad!

Here we go with some trade bait. Please make your requests via comment/email/TCDb offer as always.

UD Finite rookies /1299; Moments & Milestones /150.

More M&Ms /150.

The rest of the /150 M&Ms, plus a Black parallel /25. The Studio Stars inserts aren't SNed but look awesome.

Bonds /10,000; Brown /2000; Ensberg /2006; Giles /150; King /3499; Reynolds /500. 
Ayanbadejo /1000; Denson, Huard, and King /2999; Graham /399; Hali /999; Mason /2009; McNown /2500; Moore /2010.

Moreau /2000; Redman /2500; Stith /1500; Westbrook is a Promo; Williams /500.

Pettis, Schaub, and Shiancoe /999; Stith /1500; Williams /999.

And now we get to my keepers:

These six items are among the eight I snagged from the vintage guy for $20. I'm very short on Bunning Tigers cards (and Yankee Killer Lary as well), Cash is always a winner, and the quartet of '74 Topps Stamps was too cool to pass up, especially since it added a new Freehan to my collection.

The dimes and $0.20 cards were as good to my collection as they were to the piles of trade bait I'm building. A numbered Bondo, a new Grandy, another Griffey for the set from which his card hails, Mr. Padre, the Professor, a sweet acetate Manning, and three of the four new Cals I added that day.

A numbered Pudge for under a buck? Yes, please! Not only did I hit all four of Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken, but I also got both blog namesakes too in Grandy and JV. Cecil looks cool in UD holo form. Ripken and Ozzie were All-Star stalwarts. And my first relic of Skubal, who put on an ace-like performance to end the 2023 campaign, is a 2021 jersey from A&G for just $2!

I didn't skip the other sports either, coming up with a sweet acetate Iggy plus a $2 signature of former star Trey Burke. That was such a nice deal I added a second one to send Jeff's way (since that's exactly what he would have done for me). It's just my second autograph of his among seven hits so I thought it was a particularly good score.

As for football, I came up with a couple more of those Donruss Premium Press Proofs, and I'll have to see how close I am to a team set at this point, but it was cool that they were RC parallels of Haskins and Ojabo. Law is a 2000s Ultra Gold Medallion, Funchess represents yet another sweet acetate insert, and we finish up with a final parallel, an Elite Pink, to add to Ojabo's growing collection.

I don't know how often my favorite seller will have those dime and $0.20 boxes but I've really been enjoying the time I've spent digging through them for gems so I hope to see them at upcoming shows.

Anyway, as usual, I hope you enjoyed a recap of my show experience, and I'll remind y'all one more time to please feel free to stake claims to some of the trade bait above!

As for me, besides packing up some envelopes soon, I think I may go back to the blogger trades I need to cover, then sprinkle in some eBay pickups and more TCDb transactions.