2026 trade package #6: Johnny's Trading Spot

I skipped going to my monthly show today in favor of going tomorrow, mostly out of laziness, but the weather's not exactly cooperating either (lots of fog and rain). Instead, I'll put that time towards showing off my final February trade package.

As it happens, that came to me courtesy of John of Johnny's Trading Spot. This was the first time we swapped cards, and that started when I threw some John Elways into a package Angus brought across the border for me to send John's way to make shipping easier. John was nice enough to return the favor with a package that looks pretty similar to others I've seen across some blogs (in a good way!), but with a distinctly Detroit flavor.

I'm starting off with these 1990 Panini Stickers since they're the oldest items from the mailer, and also because everything else comes from one manufacturer, making for a very nice sampler. I can still remember ripping packs of these stickers as a kid and filling up my album, hoping for the Tigers and nicer items, such as that foil helmet card. Henneman and Lemon are also PC guys and are most definitely welcome here.

Everything else you'll see here is a Fleer brand, largely from the 90s but with some aughts thrown in as well. This group represents all of the Ultra cards he sent my way. Fleer's first "premium" brand debuted in 1991 but started using its more typical full-bleed photo/foil combo the following year. The product's run from 1997-2001 has some of my favorite design elements I associate with the set, especially the neon lettering look.

This group includes single cards from 1995 (Fryman) and '96 (Williams), four from 2000, and a trio from 2006. Fryman, Palmer, Bondo, and BInge are all PC guys, plus like I said, I really favor a certain era of these, so those 2000s look amazing to me. 

A 90s Fleer product that was even higher-end than Ultra was Flair. These cards were released on thicker stock with even more gold foil elements, and they retained the full-bleed photo greatness of other products like Topps's Stadium Club.

The set made its debut in 1993 and is represented here by the complete first scan plus first two cards of the second image. It's awesome for me to see PC favorites like Fielder, Fryman, Gibby, Henneman, Phillips, Froot Loops, and Sweet Lou. Still, for as bad as that decade's teams were, I've deployed the "1990s Tickers SUCKED" tag tonight.

The remaining seven cards from the second scan represent the '94 set, one that was fairly similar in design to the previous year's, including dual front images, while adding lots more gold foil in the form of the larger player name plus team. Gibby and Phillips are the highlights of these for me, as is one of the inserts added in '94: Hot Gloves.

Up next is a quartet from 1995's E-Motion, a product under the SkyBox name. These are very 90s Fleer-coded with an experimental design that's kind of busy, one that's most noteworthy for the "emotion" on each card. I don't think anyone's ever associated the word "delighted" with the ultra-competitive Gibson, but I'm still happy to see guys like him and Whitaker in this set. It may be weird, but it's of its time.

Keeping that word "experimental" in mind, another fun 90s Fleer offering was Metal Universe. This fusion of metallic elements and comic books debuted in 1996, and the first five cards you see here were found in that set. There's a big emphasis on crazy foil backgrounds that highlight the crazy imagery. Fryman represents my PC guys from the '96 set while Tony Clark (who recently resigned as MLBPA chief) and malcontent Bobby Higginson's cards were inserted into the '98 version.

I kind of mashed up a bunch of products in these two images, and we'll start with 2000 Skybox Dominion. Those feel like fairly textbook examples of a a Skybox product from around then, and I recall busting a decent amount of packs of those chasing some fun inserts. E-X always looked great, including the 2000 product represented here by another malcontent, Juan Gonzalez. And Encarnacion's a huge creep who's a great candidate for Chris's "Bad Guys in Sports Tier List" post, but Gamers was a fun rip back in 2000 thanks to the chase for relics.

Leading off the second scan, I suppose I could have included Weaver's beautiful 2001 Flair Showcase card with the earlier Flair items, but I think Showcase was in a league of its own and really showed how nice cards could look. Then, a couple years after Fleer released a pretty nice product called "Focus," they put out a "Jersey Edition" of the same name, chasing the hot trend of relics. Dean-O highlights the group for me, and well-known collector Dmitri Young is also among the group. Lastly, a lone example of 2004's Sweet Sigs stars Pudge, a Tiger for parts of five seasons who made his debut with the team that same year and helped bring the franchise back to the playoffs on 2006. The base set looks great and the relic and autograph cards are top-notch as well.

And now we've come to the final pair of images, ones that feature some of Fleer's best efforts over its storied but relatively brief existence. The manufacturer did a fantastic job of highlighting some of the game's HOFs, legends, and fan favorites in a number of products, but I think the product most synonymous with the idea is Greats of the Game. These always had beautiful, artistic designs with classic photos, and like Topps's Fan Favorites, they didn't limit admission to HOFers, which I've always appreciated.

A few Greats products are represented in these two scans. The recently deceased Lolich plus Jack Morris, a couple World Series heroes, start us off with the debut 2000 set, one I love for its amazing aesthetics. HOFers Cobb and Kell show off the 2002 design, one with an even simpler retro look that suits the photography well. Cochrane (listed as a Tiger!) is our third Mickey of this post, and he joins Mr. Tiger from Flair Greats, released in 2003 as a great fusion between the two brands. And lastly, Cochrane makes a repeat (including photo) appearance in the 2004 Greats set along with the previously seen Morris, plus Wolverines/Tigers Freehan and Gehringer, as the product went back to a very cool framed look. What a great collection of, well, greats, on great designs!

John, thanks for sending these to complete our first trade, I really appreciate it! I'm sure anyone reading here knows your blog well so I'll just mention that they should also find you over on TCDb. Good luck to your Braves this year and also to you making some headway on your wants of your favorite team!

Tomorrow I plan on heading to my usual show and then I'll probably put in some work readying my next post which should cover last month's show.

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!

2014 COMC pickups #4: Tigers autos of yore (or the 1990s)

In honor of the Tigers' 4-0 start (which was fraught with plenty of danger), here's a couple autographs of players from...the 1990s when the Tigers were terrible?  Well, it's not the era I'm going for here so much as the players.  I didn't have hits of either guy, plus I was a fan of both of them during their stays in Motown, so when I found a couple nice deals on COMC, I grabbed them to add to my Tigers PC:

Tony Clark 1997 Donruss Signature Autographs auto

Clark is very well known among Tiger fans, and likely even many casual fans who watched baseball in the 90s and early 00s.  He was the second overall pick in 1990, right after Larry Wayne Jones, and was often the best offensive player on his team for the decade, not that that's saying much.  A California native, he debuted with the Tigers in '95, and stayed with the team through the 2001 season.  While his 1996-99 campaigns saw him hit .277 and average 31 HR and 98 RBI, his final two Detroit seasons were disappointments, and the team let the Red Sox grab him on waivers in late 2001.

After producing middling results with the Sox, Mets, and Yankees from 2002-2004, he experienced a resurgence, albeit brief (and fluky) with the 2005 Diamondbacks, hitting .304 with 30 HR and 97 RBI in just 130 games.  After two-plus seasons more in Arizona, he was sent to the Padres in 2008, then rejoined Arizona for his final season, 2009, although he played in just 144 games those last two seasons.

The Tigers had a lot of hope for Clark, who, for a couple seasons put up numbers that lived up to his draft status, but it was all for naught since the Tigers were downright awful during his tenure, going 471-644 (.422) and failing to surpass 79 wins.  His declining stats made letting him go a bit easier, though it was still sad to see a mainstay leave.  Fortunately, his post-playing career has been more positive, as he was recently named the permanent executive director for the MLBPA.  The highly-respected Clark was deputy to the previous occupant of that position, Michael Weiner, who passed away last year.  According to wikipedia, Tony is the first former Major League player in that role.  Based on that respect, plus many good memories from his playing days, I'm happy to add a beautiful on-card auto from the excellent '97 Donruss Signature set to my collection.

Mike Henneman 1996 Leaf Signature Extended Autographs auto

Henneman, a fourth-rounder in 1984, was a Tigers RP from 1987-1995, so unlike Clark, he at least got to experience playing on some GOOD teams, especially his 1987 rookie season when Detroit clawed its way to the playoffs before losing to the eventual champion Twins in the ALCS.  Mike was an incredible 11-3 with seven saves out of the bullpen that year, and he actually went 49-21 between '87 and '91, also tallying 80 saves.  With a few exceptions, he was pretty much the team's closer from '88 on, and do you remember when relievers used to pitch that many innings per game?

Detroit traded him to Houston late in '95 for 1992 #1 overall pick Phil Nevin, who wouldn't begin to live up to his potential for a couple more seasons, after he was gone from Detroit.  Henneman, meanwhile, finished 1995 with the Astros, then signed with the Rangers for the '96 season, piling up a career-best 31 saves, though he also went 0-7.  His only autograph would come in the form of the above card with Texas as he was included in 1996 Leaf Signature, along with like EVERYBODY else that year (but seriously, it's a landmark set, and one I still enjoy to this day), giving me a second on-card signature to enjoy today.

Mike also found his calling after he retired as he's now serving as the pitching coach for the West Michigan Whitecaps, Detroit's single-A team near Grand Rapids.  I attended a Lansing Lugnuts (Blue Jays affiliate) game last summer and caught a glimpse of the former bullpen ace.  I hope coaching suits him well and that he can work his way back up to the Majors, imparting advice from his 10-year career.

Stay tuned for more COMC Tigers pickups soon!

Complete sets: 1987 Donruss the Rookies

In the wake of the few completed sets I was showing off in my recent posts, I thought it would be fun to keep things going with a boxed completed set.  Today's is one of many that came to me in a ridiculously awesome trade package from BA Benny a few months ago.  It's one of the many gems of 80s junk wax:  Donruss' 1987 The Rookies boxed set.

Look at that shiny gold foil!  It almost makes up for the pattern of baseballs that hurts your eyes.  The Rookies set came into existence the previous year, and that also included 56 base cards and a HOF puzzle card, this one of Hank Aaron.  It featured some popular players such as Bonds, Bo Jackson, and Will Clark.  The powers that be at Beckett decreed at some point that cards hailing from boxed sets like these couldn't be considered true RCs, so the term "XRC" was born.  It's comforting to know that the definition of "RC" is still as nebulous today as it was then.

Not bad, Donruss, not bad:  McGwire, Seitzer, and Nokes were 1-2-3 in the AL Rookie-of-the-Year race.  In fact, the set includes cards of six of the top seven AL vote-getters--Toronto's Nelson Liriano tied Tigers pitcher Mike Henneman for sixth with one point.  On the NL side, four candidates, including eventual winner Benito Santiago are represented.

There's still time to turn back, the shrink-wrap is intact!  Considering this set was in my retirement plans (I'm rich!) I hope you all appreciate what I'm doing in ripping these open.  By the by, McGwire was on top and Bo Jackson was at the bottom.  The cards arrive out-of-order, but I always have fun sorting through them to put them in their proper order in cases like this.  As you can see, the differences between these and the regular base set include some sort of hue of green for the border instead of black, plus the signature "The Rookies" logo in the bottom-right corner.

Ok, let's get on to the cards themselves:

Sometimes when looking at rookie-themed sets I like to take an unscientific look at how well the manufacturer did picking players who'd have above-average careers.  To that end, of the 55 rookies profiled here, I count

• 1 HOFer:  Greg Maddux
• 2 borderline HOFers except, you know, steroids:  Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro
• 4 Hall of Very Good-ers:  David Cone, Fred McGriff, Benito Santiago, Matt Williams
• 13 fairly productive players:  Ellis Burks, Mike Greenwell, Mike Henneman, Bo Jackson, Mike Jackson, Mark McLemore, Matt Nokes, Luis Polonia, Kevin Seitzer, John Smiley, Terry Steinbach, B.J. Surhoff, Devon White

That's 20/55 right there, and there's still a decent handful of guys that played 10 or more seasons, meaning at least half the set is pretty good.  While no card in this set is especially drool-worthy, the Maddux is a nice addition to his collection, and some of the 80s/90s stars like McGwire, Seitzer, and Greenwell bring back great collecting memories for me.  As far as I'm concerned, that's the mark of a great set.

I still have a nice treasure trove of BA Benny boxed sets to get through, so it may not be long before you get to see another one right here!