2026 trade package #2: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

So much for getting my next post done before the February show, but that's ok because I still haven't been overwhelmed with new stuff coming in this year...yet. Tonight I'm back with another January trade package: a bubble mailer from Canadian friend Doug over at Sports Cards From the Dollar Store. Speaking of his country, I hope they have a fantastic Winter Olympics as I root for the Americans as well!

Here's what he sent last month:

Baseball opens the proceedings with a current and former Tiger, Donruss style. The Topps Holiday of Verlander--the Metallic Snowflake version--arrived not long after the Christmas season, but I'm hoping people have finally put away their decorations as of the time I'm posting this. And we have our first hit in the form of a Bowman Sterling auto of OF prospect Daniel Cabrera. Not to be confused with the pitcher from the 2000s, this Daniel was a 2nd round pick by the Tigers out of LSU in 2020, but he hasn't played since 2024 and I couldn't find a reason why he's on the organization's restricted list.

Both baseball and basketball fit into one scan so I put them together here. The latter includes Jamal Crawford (whose son the team just offered) from the 2020 Topps Seattle Children's Heroes set, which was made to benefit that hospital and includes lots of area subjects. It uses the '84 Topps design but is much glossier and looks great. Next is the collection debut of Pollyanna Johns, a native of the Bahamas who was with Michigan in the late 90s and played for Charlotte, Cleveland, Miami, and Houston in the WNBA. Her 2001 Fleer Tradition WNBA card seen here is her RC and lone card listed on TCDb, so this was a great find by Doug. And lastly we have a '25-'26 Topps of Magic star Franz Wagner, whose collection has grown nicely thanks to trade packages like this one.

The football content could easily be labeled "numbered and new guys." Big Mo Hurst kicks off this section with a very bold blue Leaf Certified parallel that's numbered 46/50 up front and very on theme for a former Wolverine. Former WR DPJ is even more colorful--not a surprise when it comes to the Prizm brand--on a Red and Yellow Prizm parallel that's limited even more: #42/44 on the back.

Next we have the first of two new guys. DL/LB Josaiah Stewart put up great sack numbers during his 2021 freshman season with Coastal Carolina, then transferred to Michigan before the '23 season, helping the Wolverines to a national title. The Rams took him in the 2025 third round and he put up 3.0 sacks in 17 games. He's seen above on a Pink parallel from Donruss Elite, and I hope to add more of his cards--especially RCs and autographs--soon.

The other new guy is here thanks to the CFL-focused JOGO brand. He was also a DL who won a championship, in his case with the '97 team, and he was in Ann Arbor through the 2000 season before going undrafted. The Lions gave him a shot but it was in Canada that he would enjoy his pro football career. That included time with Winnipeg (with a couple year hiatus in the Dolphins org), Saskatchewan, and finally Montreal, with whom he won Grey Cups in 2009 and 2010. Thank you again to Doug for tracking this down and getting his name in my collection.

The last football item is a 2021 Leaf Flash autograph of former Wolverines RB Chris Evans. It's got the usual Leaf craziness going on, and this is the Platinum Blue version of a signed insert called Flash Photography Autographs. Naturally I love the combo of a signed card of a player in a Michigan uni, plus this one's numbered /35 on the back, and it's my fourth auto of a guy who didn't play Superman but who was quite good at times in college.

I mentioned the Olympics which means the NHL's on a break, but that doesn't mean we can't look at some hockey cards. We'll start with the non-Wolverines Red Wings, who are looking good for a playoff spot for the first time since 2016. D-man Ben Chiarot is the one guy in this scan who's currently with the team while Howe, Kozlov, Probert, and Sheppard are all players I know well from the team's history.

The Michigan Hockey stack starts off with defenseman Jack Johnson, who retired last year after 19 seasons, and that makes me feel super old. A pair of UD cards of WolverWing and Olympian Dylan Larkin is next, and I have to say that the first, a 2023-24 SPx Radiance FX Blue die-cut insert, is totally sick. What a great looking design that really calls back to the glory years of the SPx brand, plus it's blue and numbered to 299! D-man Zach Werenski joins Larkin here both from the UD base set and in this year's Olympics, and fellow Wolverines Kyle Connor and Quinn Hughes are also in Milan for Team USA. Go (red, white, and) blue!

The rest of the hockey content arrived in the form of these stickers, and there were lots! Most were made by Panini and released in the last 15-ish years, including those of Cammalleri, Cogliano, Johnson, Knuble, and Komisarek. The tiny Knuble is a bit of an exception as it's from 2003-04 Topps Mini Stickers, my first example of that product. I see other Wolverines in that set and will have to try to track down their minuscule counterparts. Jeff Norton, a much older Michigan/NHL alum, joins from the '91-'92 and '93-'94 Panini sticker sets.

Ordinarily we'd be done by now having covered hockey, but Doug had one more surprise in store for me. I do have a small collection of Michigan alumni from other sports (including Olympians) and non-sports, and that collection got a new member thanks to this card. Brandi Rhodes (born Brandi Reed) indeed graduated from my alma mater, chose to go into broadcasting and modeling, and eventually joined the WWE, mainly as a ring announcer. She spent time with a few pro wrestling organizations and also married fellow wrestler Cody Runnels, a.k.a. Cody Rhodes, son of Dusty Rhodes, a WWF wrestler from my time as a fan.

Doug found the above 2023 Leaf Heroes of Wrestling green autograph and sent it my way, and thanks to him she's now the sixth member of my other/non-sports Michigan collection. Cool!

Doug, many thanks for this great envelope, especially the thoughtful new additions to three sports! I'm still working on putting together a return for you and it may take a while, but in the meantime I wish good luck to your country's Olympic team as well as a great week leading up to your birthday!

I'll be back again soon-ish with my third and final January trade package, then you'll get a January show recap, first February trade package, and a show recap from yesterday.

2024 trade package #6: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

It's been a busy month for me with a lot of time taken up by sorting through yet another great Facebook collection pickup (via a garage sale) plus a trip down south to see friends. But today I'm ready to get back at it with another trade recap.

This absolutely stacked package came from prolific trading buddy Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store back in April. There's a ridiculous amount of stuff to look at, especially new hits, so let's get down to it:

The relatively small baseball portion was hugely impactful. Doug's a fan of Panini Chronicles and a few of the cards you see here came from those brands. Sutherland, a Tiger for parts of three seasons in the 70s, is a '75 Hostess, and the Tigers team card is from the (usually) celebrated '75 Topps Mini set. Mike's son Daz hasn't made good on his prospect status yet, but the former Tiger (currently with Oakland) is more than welcome to join my collection of his former team with a '21 Chronicles Black 1/1! Just as exciting is a not quite as rare autograph of Cecil Fielder from '23 Chronicles, numbered to just 25 copies. It's my first signature of "Big Daddy" and just the second hit to go with a bat relic, and I'm extremely grateful for Doug's generosity in sending it my way after pulling it from a box break last year. Finally, 2021 #3 overall pick Jackson Jobe, a high school pitcher out of Oklahoma, makes his debut in the Detroit hits collection with a large jersey swatch out of '23 select. Jobe's considered a top-20 pitching prospect and aside from a bit of injury trouble, he looks like he could become a future ace.

On the basketball front we'll start with Joey Baker, a four-year Duke F who finished up his collegiate career in Ann Arbor. Wagner's from the somewhat oddball Pro Picks Premier product (say that three times fast!) that unfortunately has to go the airbrush route. I'm once again thankful for Doug bolstering my collecting with my first autographs of two players straight from my TCDb "Michigan alumni I need certified autographs for" list. The first is Caleb Houston, a G for the 2021-22 Michigan squad who bailed for the draft and got taken in the second round by the NBA version of the Wolverines, the Orlando Magic. My first signature of him proved to be card #1 in his collection, a 2022-23 Panini Court Kings Fresh Paint Ruby auto (#d /99). He's joined by three-point sharpshooter Duncan Robinson out of a '21-22 Chronicles insert, Apprentice Signatures Red. This was one of a few cards that came out of Panini's Rewards exchange program, and it's also my first hit of the SF/SG who'll be going into his seventh NBA season in a few months.

Flipping over to the gridiron, QB Wally Gabler's '70 O-Pee-Chee card was of extra interest to me as it's the first I've owned of the transfer from the New Mexico Military Institute (alma mater of blog favorite Tony Phillips). He got to start a few games in 1965 and went on to play for seven seasons in the CFL, appearing with the Toronto Argonauts, Winnipeg Blue Bombers (seen here) and Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He has five total OPC CFL cards to chase and I may work on tracking down the rest, but for now he's a very welcome addition to the collection.

On the hits front, I was pleased to receive new autographs of Jake Butt (Leaf Valiant) and De'Veon Smith (Elite) along with signatures of a couple new guys. DT Chris Hinton, son of the former NFLer of the same name, appeared in 32 games for the Wolverines between 2019-21, went undrafted, and appeared in a few games in 2022 and '23 with the Chargers; we'll see how friendly his new coach is to the former Michigan D-lineman! He's seen here on the first card of him in my collection out of 2022 Pro Set Draft.

Meanwhile, former Dallas TE Sean McKeon, who just joined the Lions as a free agent last month, is a more familiar face, though I'd yet to land a hit of any kind of his until Doug sent me his 2020 Panini Contenders auto, one that also came courtesy of Panini Rewards. I hope he sticks with the team come fall!

With these additions my count of unique subjects in the football hits PC eclipsed 250, so hooray for that milestone (and Doug, who was a big help in getting there)! Also, Jake hit the 10-card mark (eight autos and two plates), so I get to say that I have 10 Butts and I cannot lie!

There was enough Red Wings content to split it off from the rest of the hockey items. Along with a few newer players I was happy to see old favorites like Franzen, Holmstrom, Hull, and Kozlov. Hull of course was part of that famed 2001-02 Cup-winning team that just added Pavel Datsyuk to its HOF group which is now at 10 players (Shanahan, Fedorov, Lidstrom, Robitaille, Yzerman, Larionov, Chelios, and Hasek are the others). What a team that was!

2007-08 Cup winner Henrik Zetterberg rounds out the group of old favorites with a card that celebrates him being a draft steal as I write this post on the second day of the 2024 NFL draft.

The next bunch of scans comprised the largest portion of the mailer: Michigan Hockey. On a weekend that saw some three future Wolverines get drafted, I get to show off lots of cards of former UM icers who made it to the NHL, past and present. This group definitely represents the former as Beniers and Bordeleau are early in their careers, Compher became a WolverWing this past season, and Connor continues to light the lamp for the Jets while nearing the 250-goal mark.

More Connor? More fun for me! Fantilli won the Hobey Baker Award before having a nice rookie season for the Wolverine-friendly Blue Jackets. Glendening was a longtime WolverWing before heading off to Dallas and Tampa. The super talented Hughes just won his first Norris Award after going off for 17 goals (first time in double-digits) and 75 assists, both career highs, with 10 postseason assists for his Canucks. Goalie Jack LaFontaine joins the collection after spending two years in Ann Arbor and three more with Minnesota. Larkin's a mainstay on this blog and I hope he retires as a career Wing with at least one Cup win on the way to a HOF career.

The last of the non-hits opens with the well-travelled Jon Merril (Devils, Wings, Canadians, Wild), and he gives way to a duo starring relatively young Senator (Doug's team!) Josh Norris. Another Wolverine/Blue Jacket in tonight's post is Zach Werenski, who gets three new additions to his collection here while also appearing below. And lastly, my Cam York collection doubled in size to two with the numbered UD Synergy card you see above. The purple looks hilarious with the orange and black of the Flyers' uni but hey, why not?

If you got this far expecting a plethora of Michigan Hockey hits, boy do I have good news for you, because that's exactly what you'll get to see via this scan and the next one!

The previously-seen Bordeleau is first with an autograph that knocks him off my list of players I collect that need such a card, thanks to a shiny offering from Parkhurst via UD. Former Avalanche winger JT Compher is next with an SPx jersey repping the team with which he won a Cup, and that's hit #3 for him. Scoremaster Kyle Connor adds a numbered dual jersey from Artifacts to his pile, now five cards strong. Fox is definitely the oldest player here having appeared in the 70s and 80s for Atlanta, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, and while he's not new to the collection, Doug gifted me an SP Signature autograph of his to knock another name off the list. Patch gets a fun pair in the form of two '21-'22 SP Game-Used relics: a jersey swatch plus a banner from a couple 2021 outdoor games at Lake Tahoe, and those push him into double digits with 11 hits. Porter, another former Hobey winner, appears on an AHL auto from UD that represents my second signature and fifth overall hit of a guy I enjoyed watching in college. And as promised, Blue Jacket Werenski adds to his own stash with relic card #4, an SP Game-Used jersey (though I still need to track down an auto of his).

And we'll finish up this evening's post with some horizontal hockey. Yet another new player joins the hits collection today in Blankenburg, a defenseman who suits up for--who else?--Columbus. This Upper Deck jersey allows him and the other newbies today to bump the hockey subject count up to 64, which is great! Upper Deck Ovation supplies my third auto (and overall hit) of Andrew Copp, the former Jet and Ranger who's been a WolverWing the past two seasons. The (new) Captain, Dylan Larkin, finally hits double-digits with a beautiful swatch of a Wings jersey found in an SP Game-Used product. Tyler Motte's just a card behind him as #9 is his fifth relic, courtesy of Upper Deck, though he's appeared on five other teams since being pictured with Chicago here. And lastly, we see another captain and (fingers crossed) possibly future Red Wing, Jacob Trouba on a nicely designed UD Game Jersey. He's on the upper end of my collection with a solid 18 hits.

Besides the previously mentioned milestones I was able to hit another fun little one thanks to Doug's hitsplosion: 2600+ hits in the UM collection! I crossed the 2500 mark at some point last year and I'm thrilled to have moved up more than 100 already since then.

Doug, thanks so much for this amazing package plus the one from May that I'll hopefully show off soon! I have a few things ready to head back your way to Kitchener once I can fill out a package a bit more, but I think you'll be quite pleased.

Next time I post here y'all should be getting one more April blog trade recap before I cover other stuff from that month.

2023 COMC purchases: check out my last post for 2023

That's right, this post will finally wrap up 2023 for me. At least it only took a third of 2024 to get there!

I'm going to take a quick run through the cards I picked up for myself so I can get ready to finally get started with 2024 stuff. Here's what I scored this time around the Black Friday weekend:

90s inserts rule! Three numbered Gwynns? Don't mind if I do! The first is "limited" to 3000 copies and you'll see the back in a bit. The other two had just 5000 copies made of each. As a reminder, that seems pretty high these days, but these were still pretty rare back then, way before today's era of "absolutely garbage boring insert or one of 200 parallels."

Tigers PCs Dean-o and Phillips each get a tougher parallel for their collections, and I splurged a little for the UD Amazing Greats Ripken, a definite top 10 insert for me since I pulled my first one way back then.

One insert I went all-in on was '97 Pinnacle Inside's Dueling Dugouts. You've seen at least one of these here, but basically the double-sided cards feature two players with a wheel you can spin that will show those players' stats in a given year. These four of some of my favorite player collection guys leave me short just Griffey's card (shared with Andruw Jones) in terms of what I want to collect.

And here's a few backs for you. Gwynn's paired up with the solid Brian Jordan. The other three are guys I really don't care for: Jeter (Ripken), Clemens (Maddux), and A-Rod (Ripken). One-time Pirates prospect Jose Guillen was on the flip side of Gwynn's "Great X-Pectations" insert, and the back of Cal's Amazing Greats (a fun pun of a title to go along with an elite design) is also worth a look.

They don't make 'em like they used to but there's still so much 90s greatness to chase that I may never have to worry about the absolute nosedive inserts took after the 2000s.

And now it's time for the (mostly) hits! I don't count manurelics as I consider those inserts for the purposes of my collection, but they're still fun to pick up on the cheap. My second Blomgren auto is another Michigan uni special and it's die-cut too. Brewer joins the hits collection with his first auto. I now have five signatures of Criswell after picking up a cheapie Heritage Minors auto. How could I pass up a large Granderson swatch? Framed Ginter cards still look miles better than the regular ones, and the signed cards are even better, so I scored my fifth sig of pitcher Tommy Henry. Kauffmann also gets his fifth auto on a great looking Elite Extra card. Larkin's manurelic is a reminder that he was a nine-time Silver Slugger as a SS, and that bat relic is pretty cool too.

No, I'm not going all-in on Rogers as Detroit's catcher of the future, but including the last card in the previous scan, I found three signatures of his that I really liked: Diamond Kings with a couple of swatches plus the top-notch Stadium Club design and the Chrome version. Stewart is also a newbie to the Michigan PC, a rare Michigan State-to-Michigan (grad) transfer drafted by the Angels in the 9th round in 2022

One of my two basketball pickups, which unfortunately didn't scan well, is my first autograph of "Sauce Castillo" himself, Nik Stauskas. While I owned 10 hits including a crazy five plates of the ex-Wolverine, I hadn't scored a signature until now.

And now it's time to talk about football stuff I picked up before the team beat Alabama and Washington to become National Champions. Anthony transferred to Oklahoma for the 2023 season but spent 2021 and '22 in Ann Arbor, highlighted by a six-catch, 155/2 TD performance against his hometown Spartans in the suspect '21 loss. The Darboh is my 49th hit, all but 15 of which are signed, but I wasn't passing up a cheap one! Eubanks was a fun TE who bounced around the NFL the past few years after going undrafted. Kinnel played DB from 2015-18 and appears to be out of the league now. LB Cam McGrone played in 2019 and '20 for Michigan and was drafted by the Pats, though so far he's only appeared in NFL games with the Colts.

Cade was the guy that somewhat rescued Michigan during that weird/hapless 2020 season, bringing the team back from the brink of a terrible loss to Rutgers. He transferred to Iowa and said some stupid stuff, and there are rumors he gave successor at QB JJ McCarthy the could shoulder while they were teammates, but he was a key part of the 2021 Big Ten champs who defeated Ohio State, so I'm happy to have him in my collection. Nordin was a huge big-legged kicking prospect and Jim Harbaugh famously slept over at his house during his recruitment. He could be as inconsistent as any other kicker, booming some and missing easy ones, and he kind of had a Rickey Vaughn vibe. I thought the multi-piece Toomer jersey looked badass even if I don't really have any love for the Giants these days. And I finally scored a certified auto of Vaughn, the RB/FB who bravely spoke out about the sexual assault he and many of his teammates suffered at the hands of team doctor Robert Anderson. I continue to commend his courage in coming forward despite his trauma to make people aware of this monster's horrible acts and how the athletic department did nothing.

Last up in this scan is a lone hockey player joining the collection, center Cooper Marody. A native of nearby Brighton, the three year Michigan icer was drafted by the Flyers in 2015 and got a couple very small cups of coffee with Edmonton, though he's mostly toiled in the AHL since leaving school.

And last up we have the horizontals. Like I said, if they're cheap enough, I'll pick up the occasional manurelic like the Larkin above. Mo Taylor is the other new basketball auto I added this time and it's from back when those cards could look really cool (no surprise it's from Bowman's Best). I don't know if two counts as this kind of volume, but I scored more bunches of Funchess in the form of a jersey auto and sick five-piece relic card. Those put him at the 25-card mark, so, not bad! My third hit of Buckeye-destroyer Hassan Haskins is a cool patch (or prime jersey) auto. And last up, I believe the last card I added before shipping everything was one of the best looking Jake Longs in his (currently) 97-card collection of hits: a true patch/auto.

And with these I'll call it a year on 2023. As always I had a blast trading with so many people, getting out to shows, buying elsewhere where I could, and sharing stuff for those of you who are nice enough to follow me here.

I'll also take a brief moment to celebrate a big milestone I hit at some point last year even with some reshuffling of categories: 2500 Michigan sports hits! My official count appears to stand at 2570 and includes

• 38 baseball subjects
• 32 from basketball
• 248 representing football
• 61 hockey folks
• 4 from other sports

You might be able to tell from how I described my haul above that I put more effort into guys I'm missing in my hits collection with a special focus on trying to get at least one certified autograph of as many as I can. Once again, thank you to all who've contributed to this chase, one I'll be happy to continue for however long I keep collecting, which I expect to be a long time!

I'll try to be back soon to get started on 2024, for which I believe I already have something like four blogger trades received (and a bunch from TCDb too), a few shows, one eBay purchase, and two cool Facebook Marketplace buys. Thanks to those who've stuck around while I've dragged my feet on posting, and I hope to be back with more soon to keep everyone interested.

2023 trade package #22: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

It's November, so I'd better get back to posting if I'd like to be caught up by the end of the year!

That means I'm back tonight with a new trade recap. This package came from my top all-time trade partner, Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store, back in August (yeah, I'm that far behind on some stuff!).

By my count this is the 50th time on this here blog I'm showing off a package from my favorite Canadian in the hobby, so thanks for 50 and here's to many more, Doug!

Let's dig into the contents:

These '88 OPCs, as the Canadian alternative to Topps, bring to mind Detroit's old rivalry with Doug's Blue Jays in the 80s. In fact, these cards carry stats from 1987, the year Toronto headed into the final week of the regular season with a 3.5 game lead but got swept in Detroit to end the season on an 0-7 run. The Tigers wouldn't be back in the playoffs until 2006.

More baseball content, including more Tigers, and Wolverines too! Elliott, an OF in Oakland's system, was a second-rounder in '22, putting him up there with a few recent Michigan Baseball draftees. Jobe was picked #3 overall in 2021 out of high school, and he's settled in as a top 100 prospect, so getting a numbered card of him early is great. I'm glad to have a guy like Rogers behind the plate as the position in Motown has been pretty iffy over the past few years.

Beers is a pitcher, also in Oakland's system, and was a 19th round pick out of Ann Arbor in '21, and here you see him on a Leaf Perfect Game signature card, allowing him to join the hits club. And then we come back to Elliott who also joins the club with an autograph on a sweet looking Elite card that includes some college uni action. I'm thrilled to add both of these guys to the collection!

On the basketball side of things, LeVert is starting to feel like a trade package stalwart, which is great, and so are the Wagner bros, in this case Franz. Webber was one of the most well known Wolverines on the court and I'm glad to see the HOFer in envelopes like these.

Not as excited as I am about the two hits, though! First up is one of the most exciting of the bunch as it's another Wolverine/local pro team guy to add to the collection. Livers is from Kalamazoo and after four seasons in Ann Arbor the Pistons took him in the second round two years ago. Burke, of course, has been in the league since he was a top 10 pick in 2013, and that Purple Donruss Optic auto of his looks great! It's just my third card of his with a signature out of eight hits.

All four major sports got represented this time, including my 9-0 Wolverines from the gridiron. Asiasi transferred but of course I'll take any cards of such players as long as they don't appear in a college uni other than Michigan's. I guess Brady's retired for good, eh? He'll still appear in products for years to come, I'm sure. Hill's been good for Cincy's defensive backfield as a rookie, notching a couple picks and 1.5 sacks while being near the team lead in tackles, and his Bengals actually face off against Doug's Bills in just a bit as I'm writing this. Rudock's Spectra card is die-cut and SUPER thick, and this Neon Green insert, which brings to mind the upcoming holidays in the form of a Christmas tree, is numbered just 12/15! Lastly, ex-Michigan RB Charbonnet, who like Asiasi transferred out west to UCLA, is seen in his Bruins uni on the two cards above so I won't count them towards his collection but until I can find pro uni issues of his, I'll be happy to own a couple of the talented Seahawks back.

We'll finish up with hockey, as is tradition (for Canada and therefore the world). I grouped the Wings with the Wolverines since it made sense to me to show off all the cards from one sport like I do with the others, so here you see a couple of my favorites in D-men Konstantinov and Lidstrom, plus a couple other recent Detroit icers.

On the Michigan side of things, this group reminds me I just enjoyed a 10-1 Wolverines pasting of Lindenwood at Yost Ice Arena last Saturday during the football team's bye week. That's a good indication that the program is still a talent factor capable of producing guys like the ones you see above.

I had to squeeze one last non-hit into this scan, a sticker of Wings captain Dylan Larkin, one of the best to come out of Ann Arbor in the past decade. He's continuing to produce points like a machine and seems to be benefitting from the signing of local guy Alex DeBrincat!

Let's end with a bang thanks to four especially nice hits that typify Doug's generosity. I mean, the first two are plates! Number one is Jets star Kyle Connor, a Yellow plate from 22-23 O-Pee-Chee. The base set has a design that's nice to look at as usual and of course I'm thrilled to add my first 1/1 of the sniper. 

He's joined by my first card of any type of ex-Wolverine Chad Kolarik, a talented four-year Michigan C from 2004-08 (meaning I saw a good number of his games live). His NHL career amounted to a cup of coffee with the Blue Jackets in 2009-10 and a few more games with the Rangers the following season. Card #1 in his collection is one of UD's outstanding framed plates inserted into their high-end The Cup product, and this magenta plate was used to produce his Artifacts cards in 2010-11. Welcome, Chad!

I'm no less hyped for the other two cards here. The first is just a flat-out amazing booklet of former Jet/current Rangers D-man Jacob Trouba out of Panini's Playbook. Booklets are very cool items to add during a period of lack of innovation, and I love the combo of jersey pieces and a signature plus the shadowbox effect. Not only all of that, but this one's numbered AND a RC! Trouba's collection has grown nicely especially thanks to the sender of this package and he's among the hockey hits leaders with 18 now.

Finally, we travel near the end of the alphabet to one last player joining my collection tonight. Defenseman Cam York was drafted #14 overall by the Flyers in 2019 and he went on to play two seasons in Ann Arbor. Since then he's spent a good amount of time manning the blue line for Philly, and will soon be suiting up for his 100th career game. He joins my collection tonight thanks to a Rookie Materials jersey from 2021-22 Upper Deck, and I look forward to finding more of his cardboard myself or in future envelopes from Doug.

Speaking of which, one thing that finally motivated me to get off my butt and post was receiving another envelope from Canada just last week. I still have a few other trades to get to before then but I'll try to put in more effort to get caught up soon.

Until then, thanks again for package #50, Mr. Corti, and I look forward to seeing what I can do by the end of the year to return the favor!

2019 Sportlots purchases: twelve for Tuesday

As I keep rolling along on these Sportlots posts I'm back today with one of the bigger ones you'll see in this latest series, covering all of the Michigan Baseball guys whose cards I nabbed this time.  Scanning/editing/captioning/cataloging/uploading everything took me a while, which is why I haven't posted in a couple days, and I'm really starting to lean closer to transitioning to use TCDB both for cataloging/checklisting and scans.  I've been meaning to overhaul my collection links here anyway, so maybe I'll put in some effort before the end of the year to make things easier on myself.

In the meantime, here's a fun deluge of new cards!

#1 today--and in pretty much any post where he features--is Jim Abbott.  I'm pretty happy with the mix I found here, opening with a Starting Lineup card, mixing in some inserts, and going a bit oddball with a Topps/Coke Commanders of the Hill card from '93 plus '94 Fleer Extra bases.  The bottom-left card represents the last of Jim's '94 Score issues I needed--the Gold Rush parallel of his highlights subset appearance in the base set, the one that honors his amazing no-hitter.

Also among pitchers getting in on the action today is #1 PC dude Rich Hill.  For fun I added his base card from the goofy 2017 Honus Bonus product, then knocked seven cards off his checklist.  The one outlier is a Upper Deck Rookie Foil Silver (#250/399) parallel while the rest hail from Topps products made in 2017-19.  In that pile you'll find two each of Limited Edition versions, All-Star Game-stamped cards, and ("On-Demand") Minis I needed.  I'm slowly marching toward hitting 300 of his checklist cards I'm chasing and am at around 63% of his total at the moment.  Here's hoping the free agent lefty finds a nice home with a legit contender (e.g. one that won't waste his talent) over the off-season!

For a relatively underappreciated HOFer, Barry Larkin's prices often tend toward those belonging to bigger stars, so I'm always glad when I can add quality stuff like this on the cheap.  Up top I have a couple early/mid-90s inserts along with a great double-dip from UD's 1995 Special Edition product.  You know I love me some Fleer/Sports Illustrated mashups like the one you see here from '97.  The trio of '98 Topps Stars cards--base, Bronze, and Silver--were cheaper than I expected considering they're all numbered.  So were the two '99 Flair Showcase cards that end this scan, and what a beautiful product that was!  The hobby is worse off without manufacturers like Fleer.

Here's a couple more Larkins that get their own scan.  I may be in the minority but I absolutely love 2001 Topps Fusion as it combines three of the best iterations Bowman's Best, Gallery (seen here), and Stadium Club, in those products' entire runs.  And I couldn't resist another UM uniform card, in this case the second of a pair of his variations from 2017 Contenders Draft.  I've now completed his runs of base cards in both products seen here.

Almost everyone else here is a supercollection of mine, including new Royals manager Mike Matheny.  TCDB helped me realize that the first card seen here, a checklist from '94 Ultra (which also includes Mike's RC) existed since Beckett ignores the player depicted.  Score another one for that excellent site!  The other four needs were from 2002 Topps Chrome and UD Victory, '04 Topps Total Silver, and '05 Bowman Heritage Mahogany.  A nice five-card day gives me exactly 100 of the 218 cards of him I'm currently chasing, with more possible now that he's managing again!

When it came to one William Harold Morris it was a tale of low end and high, with pretty much nothing in-between.  I knocked off his '93 Pacific Spanish base along with both Topps Inaugural factory set cards honoring the Marlins and Rockies that year, and Stadium Club Members Only parallels from '95 and '96.  After those I upped the ante with '97 Flair Showcase (Row 2) and asking price with a '97 Bowman Chrome International Refractor and 1999 Pacific Prism Holographic Purple (#215/320).  That effort paid off as I hit the 75% mark of his checklist on the nose with 270/360!

Here's one of three new PC guys you'll meet today.  Ray Ricken is another one of those guys whose name was unfamiliar to me, but thankfully he came up as I searched through TCDB for Wolverines I was missing.  The Yanks took him in the 5th round in '94, and he bounced between minor league levels with them as well as the Padres before ending his career in indy ball in 2002.  The pitcher appears on cards from '94 Stadium Club Draft Picks, '96 and '97 Bowman, and '96 Topps--the one base I already had.  The above haul got me to six of his 11 issues, plus I added a couple minors cards from Best and Fleer/Excel.  Three autographs from '97 Bowman will make him a bit difficult to chase, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually.

Hey, it's Spuds!  Here you can see I tracked down seven needs from Sabo's checklist plus a fun oddball--one of his 1990 Starting Lineup cards variations.  I also knocked off an early need in his '88 Topps Traded Tiffany, grabbed yet another appearance from '94 Fleer Extra Bases (I think this is the last one), and came up with a 2014 Topps Update World Series Heroes insert.  Hey, the dude went off in the '90 World Series!  To those I got a nice little 1993 run:  Pacific Spanish and Pinnacle (not sure how I didn't have that already) plus, like Morris above, the Topps Inaugural Marlins/Rockies cards.  And I almost matched the feat I did for Hal, getting Sabo to about 74%.  That's lots of Reds cardboard!

I bunched these four guys together because they formed a perfect nine card scan, and the first two players are today's other n00bs, players that also came up in my TCDB search.  Russ Brock was a pitcher drafted by Oakland in the second round in '91 while Flannelly, a 3B, was yet another Wolverine picked by the Yankees, in the third round the same year.  Neither made it to the pros but both were included in the '92 Stadium Club Dome set, which featured some of the same goofy photography of prospects found in that year's Bowman product.  Those are their only mainstream issues but each has some minors cards I might chase, like Brock's '93-'94 Fleer Excel card above.

For the sake of brevity I can also lump Putnam and Richard together.  As with Rich Hill, I found some recent Topps flagship versions of them I needed.  Zach's cards are the 2017 All-Star Game and Limited factory set versions while Clayton's hail from 2018 (All-Star Game and Gold /2018) and 2019 (base and All-Star Game).

We'll end this post with a HOFer in George Sisler, who's nearing the century mark.  I landed a second card of him but found out it was a dupe after it arrived, so for Gorgeous George it'll just be this 2011 GQ Framed Green parallel of his first of two cards in the base set.  In case you're curious, I have both of those base cards--the other depicts him with the Braves--plus three versions of card #2 including, nicely enough, the same green parallel.  Hopefully soon I can go on a nice little Sisler spree and cross the 100-card mark.

Next time I post you can probably look forward to something shorter with fewer items to gawk at.

2019 COMC purchases: non-PC football and hockey hits

A quite satisfying Michigan thumping of Rutgers (52-0) has me in the mood to post some cards from my most recent COMC shipment comprising purchases from earlier this year.  It looks like this will be a four-part series, and today's kickoff will cover hits I scored of guys who don't have their own PC albums and play(ed) football or hockey:

Two players dominate today's post, and that's cool since I often pair them up mentally the way I do with David Terrell and Anthony Thomas.  The first is WR Jehu Chesson (click his name to go to my TCDB gallery for him, plus the other players in today's post).  Considering his playing time in the NFL has been minimal it's been easy finding nice stuff of his at low prices, such as the four autographs you see above.  Jehu's got an interesting signature, with his name somewhat reasonable to make out, and he includes the "II" in his name, which is pretty cool.

In terms of what you see above, Leaf Metal Draft includes a Michigan uniform-ish picture (hey, what are you gonna do?) and Panini's Unparalleled is a super shiny design, plus it's #39/49.  The middle two are from Panini's Preferred (using the Crown Royale design) and Prizm.

Numbers-wise, Chesson's hit count nearly doubles from three to seven after these additions, and I'd surely be happy to land more when I can.

Chesson always brings to mind position pal Amara Darboh, and vice versa, so naturally I have a bunch of his cards to show off today as well.  As a matter of fact, this scan of four vertical designs is just the tip of the iceberg!

The relic in this group is a nice Mirror Orange jersey card from 2017 Certified and is numbered 122/399.  To its right is a jersey/auto/RC (#095/299) from 2017 Limited, and that interesting swatch has the slightest hint of green stitching, so it looks like it probably came from the jersey numbers on his chest.  Then there's autographs from Origins' Rookie Signatures and Playoff's Rookie Autographs (#107/199), also 2017 Panini products.  Like Chesson he has a pretty decent signature.

Yep, five more cards of the nomadic WR, all horizontal this time.  Relics from Panini Contenders Rookie Ticket Swatches, Origins Rookie Jumbo Jerseys (#026/199), and Vertex Startup Jerseys (#89/99) comprise a nice jersey trio, with the latter two being my favorites, especially the Vertex card and its enormous swatch.

Those are joined by the base (#04/99) and Orange (#15/25) versions of Amara's 2017 Panini XR Luminous Endorsements autos.  The super cool design here is kind of a thinner shadowbox idea, with the image framed by the border underneath a clear acetate cover that the player signs.  That makes it great to look at, plus it gives players a very large surface to cover with their signatures.  Too cool!

Darboh has been one of my more productive recent collections and this big haul jumps him all the way up to 29 hits (and 39 cards total), a number I'll look to increase soon.

This last football scan includes three miscellaneous players.  Funchess is well known around these parts, and here the former TE/WR stars on a 2015 Panini Contenders Rookie Ticket Swatches jersey.  As usual I find the Contenders design simple and appealing.  That's hit #11 and card #54 of the injured Colt.

Next is one of two new players debuting in the Michigan Football hits collection today.  Mike McCray was a two-year starter at LB in Ann Arbor who put up fairly similar numbers in 2016 and '17, though that's where his career ultimately ended as he retired last year.  That makes me grateful for a product like Contenders--in this case 2018 Draft Picks--that allows me to chase an autograph of a guy that wouldn't otherwise have one, even if that autograph is a bit on the "???" side.

Last up is QB Jake Rudock, the Iowa transfer that came to Ann Arbor in 2015 and led Jim Harbaugh's first team to a 10-3 record, including a thumping of Florida in the Citrus Bowl.  Harbaugh was able to elevate his play enough to get Rudock drafted by the Lions in the sixth round the following year, which I guess isn't exactly an ideal fate.  Fortunately he's escaped that vortex of suck, only to be encompassed by a worse one down in Miami!  Anyway, my first hit of his is this beautiful (if poorly scanned) 2016 Panini Black Gold Golden Prospects Signatures White Gold auto (#92/99).  Like the Darbohs above this one has a bit of a shadowbox effect, though the image of the player you see is on the top layer, and the autograph was on a sticker placed on the other acetate piece.

I'm happy to welcome McCray and Rudock as the 220th and 221st players in the football collection, and even happier that they contributed to today's big milestone:  1400 football hits and counting!  1402 to be exact, with more to be posted soon.  Right now I doubt I'll hit 1500 before the end of the year, but you never know.

With hockey season (both college and pro) starting up soon, today seemed as good of a day as any to post my lone pickup in that sport:

I love it when I can get 1/1s for cheap prices, and this plate of Steve Shields from 2017-18 Leaf Masked Men certainly qualifies:  I grabbed it for just $4.85 way back in April.  As you can see, it's the cyan plate from the goalie-centric product's Jumbo Goalie Patch insert, and I'd sure love to add one of those actual cards to my Shields collection as well!  For now this plate goes with the seven autographs I have of the former Michigan netminder, and it becomes 1/1 #122.  I don't have any more such cards from COMC to show off, but an upcoming eBay post may just blow your mind.

Here's hoping I'm in the mood for posting next weekend after another one, this time against Iowa.  In the meantime stay tuned for a few more COMC posts, plus another Sportlots run.