2025 trade package #26: the Collector

With Christmas just a couple days away let's have a look at the penultimate trade envelope I received in November. This one was actually a pair of PWEs from Chris, the Collector, who apologized for the lack of baseball but made up for it with some "Michigan" and "hoops and hockey" stuff. As always I was happy to receive anything, especially new stuff, from someone as generous as Chris.

Here's what he sent:

The lone baseball item was a '24 Heritage card that paired up 2012 MVPs Miggy and Buster Posey. Buster's Giants swept Cabrera's Tigers in the World Series, and both should have plaques in the HOF when all is said and done.

Hoops-wise, three players got boosts to their PCs while a fourth makes his debut tonight. A LeVert Prizm base puts him at 70, good for 6th in my collection. Poole's Topps Holiday base is perfect for this time of year. Franz has more cards in my collection than his older brother by a factor of almost three because he appears in trade packages so often, like the Prizm Monopoly card above.

And Yale transfer F Danny Wolf joins the collection thanks to a '25-'26 Topps 1980-81 insert that throws it back to that year's design. After playing his first two seasons for the Bulldogs, Wolf headed to Ann Arbor for the '24-'25 season and was productive enough to get selected #27 overall by Brooklyn earlier this year. Chris pulled this card himself and was nice enough to include it here when I asked if it was available.

As I mentioned, Chris did indeed include some football cards. GOAT QB Tom Brady stars on a 2017 Absolute base with a design that feels like a bit of an anomaly for the brand, though not at all in a bad way, especially since it wasn't split into hobby/retail versions that year. WR Steve Breaston's 2010 Panini Contenders is much more typical of that product's look, and one I tend to enjoy. Prestige has been pretty consistent too, like WR Devin Funchess' 2017 card above, especially when it comes to RCs with college photos that I like to collect. LB David Harris was in just his second season when the '08 Topps card above was made, and he'd go on to pile up over 1100 combined tackles in 11 years, all but one with the Jets (Patriots, his 2017 swan song). And you all know Henne as one of my absolute favorite QBs. The KC playoff hero can be seen above on his 2010 Panini Epix base that came out a couple years before he'd suit up for Jacksonville.

I'll get to Michigan Hockey stuff in a minute, but there was also a pair of non-Wolverwings in the envelopes. There was a group of five pretty cool UD inserts in this shipment and one of them is the UD Portraits card of young star defenseman Mo Seider, whose productive play has helped Detroit show vast improvement this season. He's joined by fellow D-man Jake Walman, a guy Steve Yzerman spent a second-rounder to dump on the Sharks last year, only to see San Jose flip him to Edmonton earlier in '25 for a first round pick. 

And lastly we have the hockey Wolverines, with a nice bit of red indicating a couple Wolverwings! That's the case for C Andrew Copp as seen on last year's UD design. The recently traded Quinn Hughes (Minnesota) and fellow traded defenseman Jacob Trouba (2024, to Anaheim) also hail from that set that offers superb photography. Hughes also appears on a '24-'25 UD insert called "Gaming XP" that notes how long its subjects have been in the league. I'll add that this appears to be a "Speckle" parallel of that insert, which is a tougher pull and therefore even better!

Along with the four portrait cards is a quartet of landscapes. Kyle Connor's Sizzle Reel insert from this year's UD looks fantastic, especially in-hand, and the rainbow foil brings to mind 90s inserts from brands like Select. Wings captain Dylan Larkin gets two very appreciated additions from this year's UD, the very shiny "Compositions," and last year's "Gaming FOV," (I inadvertently flipped them when scanning). As you can see, the '24 product liked the "gaming" theme, which surely was an appeal to a certain younger generation of collectors, and the FOV card has a cool look to it, if you ask me. By the way, I now have 77 cards of #71.

Last but certainly not least is another base card from Upper Deck's base set a year ago, starring third-year RW Mackie Samoskevich. The young Panther appeared in four playoff games last season and tallied an assist in Florida's successful quest to repeat their win over Edmonton. Oddly enough this card is also his debut in my collection, and he appears to be the 98th subject to join that PC.

Chris, as always I appreciate you thinking of me and sending me cards of my favorite players and teams. I'm glad you enjoyed your Christmas Cards as a quick break from the Topps advent calendar rip. I'm looking forward to more trading between us next year and reading more interesting features on your blog. May you and your family have a peaceful Christmas together.

I plan on being back tomorrow, Christmas Eve, with the final trade package of November '25. Season's greetings to you all!

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

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

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

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

and those are what we'll look at tonight!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned for another August trade package coming up soon!

2024 trade package #3: the Collector

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2020 trade package #22: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

It's been another good month or so for trade packages, as today's post (and at least one that's upcoming) will prove.

Tonight's mailer showed up this past Sunday, a pleasant surprise to find on my porch a few days ago. What was in it? Even more Canadian bakin' from Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store. Your friendly neighbourhood king of dollar store repacks had let me know about a few cards I could expect at some point, and happily it didn't take him very long to fill out another enjoyable envelope to send across the border:

No baseball this time so we'll get right into the hardwood stuff. Almost everything was from the glorious 90s so there's a huge variety of brands and designs to choose from. Coach Juwan Howard looks radical on one of Skybox's many era-appropriate looks. Brooklyn's LeVert gets a chance to put on a show as the NBA playoffs resume. I remember rooting for "Sugar" Mills as a Piston before knowing he was a Michigan alum. And Rice, Rumeal, and Tarpley are all pretty well known products of the program.

A trio of Loy Vaught and a lone C-Webb close out the basketball content, and then it's on to the gridiron. I needed all three cards of Brady in his old uniform, from 2020 Panini products Legacy and Score. I'm liking the Score base design as usual, and there's a good look at TB12's competitive nature on a Gold parallel of an insert called Game Face. Giants big back Jarrod Bunch also makes a couple appearances out of '93 Stadium Club and '94 Collector's Choice.

A cool horizontal UD Toomer is joined by the highlight of the football content for me: four more 2020 Score Wolverines. Gary's a second-year card so he's with the vets, then there's the trio of Wolverines from the set's rookie class. TE Sean McKeon ("Mc-KYOON") went undrafted but signed with the Cowboys after a solid career both blocking and catching at the position. Transfer QB Patterson's name was well known around the country as the signal-caller, but nobody was surprised when he went undrafted after a not-as-good-as-expected couple of seasons in Ann Arbor. Still, his name was big enough to get him into lots of products this year over others, such as first-round C Cesar Ruiz. Such is the hobby. Talented WR Peoples-Jones rounds out the group after he left for the draft a season early. He too failed to reach his vast potential in college but was explosive at times, and hard work and good coaching could make him a valuable wideout. I'm looking forward to snagging any other 2020 Wolverines as they show up in new products.

The start of the hockey content includes envelope stalwarts Cogliano and Knuble, whom I'm always happy to see, but young star D-Man Quinn Hughes, whom I got to see over his two years in Ann Arbor, is the big highlight here. The card on the left is a foil-y RC (/199) out of UD's high-end Buybacks product, one I saw broken a few times on Phil Hughes' Youtube channel. It's definitely got that super premium Upper Deck shine to it. The other is a cool horizontal insert called Rookie Science from UD Credentials, with the formula for "velocity vector" on the back. That's too much math for my English major brain, so instead I'll enjoy the colorful front. Colors are pretty!

This scan of the rest of the hockey starts out very strongly with two new Dylan Larkins. New WolverWing #1 is a sweet rainbow die-cut out of 2019-20 Allure called White Rainbow, which I know because the back literally tells you! Well done, UD. That's joined by his base card from the previously mentioned Credentials. Patch gets a textbook Ultra insert fro 2016-17 Fleer Showcase (made by UD) called Scoring Kings, which has a lightning background that didn't scan very well. I believe that SPA of Trouba is my first of him with the Rangers since he joined them, but I'll have to check. Werenski hails from the Rainbow parallel of OPC's Platinum product that I always enjoy seeing. Shiny!

And then we get to the three big hits of the package. If you thought I was excited about the two Hughes cards you saw earlier then you'll know I was geeked for Doug to send me my first auto of him as well! I'm fortunate to trade with someone like Doug who pulls so many ridiculously nice cards and is willing to trade them. I'll certainly be working on hard on trying to pay him back for this 19-20 Exquisite auto (/99). That alone would have made the envelope, but then there's also a sweet dual jersey of Patch, whom we also already saw, out of last year's Artifacts. This is basically a numbered (/165) relic version of the base card, and it looks great. And last up is the only non-Wolverine in the pile, but it's a card that looked great with the other hockey stuff. Like Larkin's card above, this one is from UD's Allure, and the back tells me you're looking at a Red Rainbow Jersey. You literally couldn't pick a better color for a Red Wings card, and I'd say the up-and-coming winger Zadina is a player to get excited about too!

Doug, thanks once again for another killer envelope! As I've told you in our usual back-and-forth I have a few things in-hand and elsewhere for you, and I'll keep adding to it until it's worthy of this greatness, and then send it back across the Detroit River. Until then, may your hot hand continue as your personal and group breaks go on!