5-2-26 card show report: now THAT's more like it!

I've got July's monthly show coming up tomorrow so it's about time I covered the one from May!

I haven't had much interest in blogging lately, partly thanks to coming back from June show #2--a fantastic meetup with friends, more to come on that--with a ton of cards but also a cold. Also, I got a Switch 2 and Donkey Kong Bananza is amazing. Oh, and I picked up a pair of fun Facebook lots last weekend that have kept me busy.

But I need to cover these at some point, and with the calendar flipping to July, I think now's the time.

So I headed back to Taylor on Saturday, May 2 (instead of my usual Friday), coming off an April where I dropped just $25. However, this time I really made up for it! I spent a whopping $140 at my favorite seller's tables, scoring a lot of nicer mid- and high-end stuff for myself and friends, in addition to paying $30 for an item that will be going out in a trade package. That adds up to my biggest show spending this year, and it was at that point the only time I eclipsed $100 (until Kalamazoo a couple weekends ago).

You'll have to stay tuned to some other blogs to see some of the items I grabbed for others, but here are my keepers for this show:

Baseball. The single non-hit was a '95 Ultra All-Star Gold Medallion of Ripken. I like that Fleer paralleled some of their inserts back then (with a single parallel, Fanatics and Panini!), and this was an easy add. The Pudge relics were fun additions to my collection of the HOF catcher, hailing from an Upper Deck Legends product I bought a decent amount of, plus Donruss's 2005 Leather & Lumber product. I'm pretty sure that the relic combo you see above is a bat plus batting glove. That's a reasonable guess based on the feel of the material, but for whatever reason, Donruss didn't differentiate the serial numbering for the batting glove and fielding glove plus bat combos--they're both SN25. Either way, cool card! While I was at it I grabbed a Tork Heritage bat relic for what I think came out to $4 (one of five cards I got for $20). It's probably a bit of an overpay for a guy who may not be long for the team, but why not?

I found some fun, cheap basketball color in the cheaper boxes, not that I can recall the prices here (likelier 5/$1 than dimes). There's just so many parallels of cards these days that it's pretty likely I need these when I find them, and at worst I can put them up for trade.

Football also got to join in the rainbow fun a few weeks before pride month. Some of these look especially nice, including Nico's and Gary's color match-ish parallels, plus Schoonmaker with a college photo.

A couple more cheapies open the last football scan. Former Cowboy Mazi's blue looks great there, and I was happy to snag another RC of national champ WR1 Roman Wilson.

When it came to the hits, I was quite pleased too. Corum's Contenders relic is somewhat plain, but it's a nice blue Rams swatch, and I think I paid $2 or less for it to make it Blake relic #3. I was especially excited to find a new Henne hit since it's been a while. Donruss' 2008 Gridiron Gear product produced endless variations of relics and autos for the players featured, and I lucked out with what I think I've correctly IDed as a Next Generation Jerseys Combos Prime card, numbered /50. Chad still holds a dominant football collection lead with his new total of 147, 59 of which are relics like this one.

And then there's my most unorthodox card of the day: Ty Wheatley's appearance in 2001 Fleer Hot Prospects' TD Fever insert. The tiny relic included is a piece of goal post cover. It's a bit weird, but it counts! Ty was no stranger to the end zone, going for 40 rush scores and six more through the air in college, plus a nearly identical 40 and 7 with the Giants and Raiders. This was a fun pickup to mark his seventh overall hit, four of which are now relics.

I now have two more shows to cover from last month in addition to July's that I'll be attending tomorrow, but first I'm planning on recapping two trade packages I received in June, one of which was delivered to me at that second show. Stay tuned!

4/3/26 card show report: $25, no foolin'

Well this should be a pretty quick one, even if it took me too long as usual to get to.

I headed over to my usual monthly show in early April only to find that my favorite seller hadn't had much time to sort stuff into his sale boxes, meaning there wasn't much new for me to flip through. I ended up spending a year-low $25 because I'm not the type to throw down cash just for the sake of it. And it worked out well because I certainly made up for it this month. More on that in a few posts.

Anyway, that $25 was easily split between 100 dime cards and a trio for which he wanted $15. Here's a look at the loot:

The juniors Griffey and Ripken came from the dime boxes and those cards hail from last year's Topps Archives. Griffey's is from the '64 Topps portion while Cal's is done up in the style of the then-20-year-old '05 Topps set; '96's design can also be found in this product.

And then we come to the day's biggest pickups that account for the three-for-$15 portion: a trio of beautiful 90s Pacific die-cut inserts of Ivan Rodriguez! I noticed these in the guy's showcase and happily accepted the price. In order, above you can see 1999 Pacific Crown Collection's In the Cage followed by 1999 and 2000 Paramount's Fielder's Choice.

Both of these insert sets are among my favorites from the decade--one whose chase cards obviously rule--and are part of the fantastic history of the Pacific brand. The In the Cage cards simulated batting cages, though other versions also replicated foul poles in more examples of the manufacturer's ingenuity. Better yet are the glove-themed Fielder's Choice die-cuts, which are not only cut to conform to the shape of a fielder's most important equipment, but even simulate the webbing! Pudge is a natural fit in these sets as won 13 gold gloves, good for first place among catchers and three better than second-place star Johnny Bench.

The Cage card is my first from that set while the '99 glove joins Greg Maddux and the 2000 card gets added to the Ripken and Gwynn I previously snagged. I can't wait to add more of these, especially if I can find them at these outstanding prices.

We'll finish up with some basketball and football dime cards. Bufkin, LeVert, Robinson, and Wagner are all examples of some colorful inserts of hoopers I was glad to snag for 10 cents each. LeVert's Pistons are actually battling his former team, the Cavs, as I write this, and that's because they managed to overcome a big deficit against Mo's Magic.

As for football stuff, I turned up last year's Score base of former Packer/new Cowboy Rashan Gary to go with a pair of '25 base of national champion QB JJ McCarthy out of Donruss and Panini's Mosaic.

This could have been a bit of a downer of a show but I was able to turn that around with some "90s inserts rule!" goodness, plus I didn't regret having a bigger budget available this month, so once again, it was a good show.

I'm anticipating that my next three posts will be blogger trade packages, followed by the May show recap, a May trade, and my first TCDb deals of the year. I certainly have plenty to recap, even if I'm slow and lazy about doing so. I'll try to get motivated to at least show off the trades soon to thank the senders for their generosity.

2024 trade package #7: the Collector

Happy July, y'all! With the NBA and NHL done for a bit, it's the time of year when baseball gets to shine before the return of college football next month. Let's celebrate by looking at some cards from all four major sports sent to me by Chris, the Collector, back in April.

Miggy most certainly was a star of the MLB over his 21 seasons, and it's bittersweet to see the back of his final Topps Chrome base card packed with his career numbers. Faedo, Manning, and Mize are all trying to bring some Mojo back to the Tigers' rotation (though it's mostly been the bats plus Kenta Maeda letting them down), and Faedo could potentially find himself back in a starting role soon while Manning tries to get right at AAA Toledo. The Verlander /75 is probably the best (and at least my favorite) card in this package, and I'm glad he got to celebrate two World Series titles because the villainous Astros are so easy to root against.

Flipping over to basketball, Chris did a nice job IDing a few former Wolverines I collect, mostly in colorful/shiny form. Iggy's been out of the league but was fun in college. It's crazy to me that THJ will be in his 12th NBA season later this year, and it's possible he'll be suiting up for the Pistons which is even cooler.

Finishing up with basketball we have a Crown Royale insert that evokes the heyday of Pacific, and this one stars another Wolverine/Piston combo, Isiah Livers, though he's not longer with the team. The card is numbered /75 just like Verlander's above and the blue goes well both with the Pistons' colors and those of his college team.

Repping the reigning NCAA champs of football, we begin with a Prizm base of stud defender Rashan Gary, a pass-rushing terror who's earned a good amount of respect in the NFL. Speaking of champs, we all know Griese led a team of them back in 1997-98 before a solid journeyman pro career. McKeon is yet another Michigan alum to have latched on with a Detroit team this offseason, signing with the Lions after four seasons with the team that drafted him, the Cowboys (and that card looks awesome thanks to its college action photo, though it would be even better if the border was something less Ohio-ish!). And lastly, a current Cowboy, Mazi Smith (seen on a Panini Mosaic RC) has a lot of work to do to live up to his first-round billing.

Would it really be an envelope of cards from Chris without some hockey content? No ex-Wolverines this time, but no problem there because I have plenty of love for the Wings too, especially the guys from the teams that were super successful for a good chunk of my life. The late Petr Klima, the first Czech player to defect directly to a team in the US (as opposed to Canada), is seen on his 1988-89 Topps base, and I remember him a bit from his early career in Detroit before wandering the league a bit and then returning briefly in 1998/99. And of course I'll always remember the Captain (1992-93 Stadium Club) for his 22 years and three Stanley Cups in Hockeytown, none bigger than 1996-97 when the Cup finally, finally returned to Detroit.

Chris, thanks again for thinking of me and sending some great new stuff my way! I'm slowly building up some interesting (and not entirely cardboard-based) stuff for you so I can return the favor in the near future. Until then, I hope things are going well with your wife's health situation, and I want to remind you that you've got a bunch of friends pulling for you and willing to help.

That does it for my April trades so next up will either be a quick Facebook Marketplace purchase recap or a look at my haul from that month's Taylor show.

2024 Facebook Marketplace purchase: February Facebookin'

Since I'm still recapping February's pickups, today I'm going to give a quick look at my first Facebook Marketplace purchase of the year.

So later in that month I saw a seller that had a few different postings that included images like this one:

I asked him what he wanted for whatever he had left and that amounted to a total of three boxes and somewhere between 9000-10K cards.

He originally asked for $60 for that stuff, then quickly went down to $50 taking into account that I'd be driving over there (not far from my monthly show in Taylor). That sounded good to me!

I brought it all home and started flipping through it, and once again I most definitely got my money's worth of trade bait, keepers, and fun. The four major sports were well represented, plus soccer, WWE, MMA, and even other stuff. And I was very happy that a relatively small amount was junk with most of it being stuff from the past five-to-ten years. If I recall correctly I think the seller told me these were leftovers from a collection he acquired from a guy who busted a lot of boxes/packs, and that seems accurate.

I'm still sorting through everything and have started listing the set-fillers on TCDb, plus I think I got most of the better inserts up already, and that's led to some trades there, and a lot of you that got trade packages from me in the past couple months got anywhere from a few to a lot of the cards from this lot (so, again, mission accomplished!).

Right now the bulk of what I listed on TCDb was from the past few years of Heritage, Archives, and Donruss, but we'll see what else I list, including possibly a ton of Topps flagship (especially 2021) and some miscellaneous others, not to mention the other sports. I may make an announcement here when I have more listed in case anyone wants to match me there for trades, but for now my best advice if you trade there is just to keep your wantlists updated.

So with all that out of the way, here's everything I found for my own collections, which is great since it'll give you a good sense of some of the products that were well represented:

Avila's a former Tiger I still collect if not one I go after that hard. I was ready to dump all over Baez even more in this post until he (and the rest of the team) went off the past couple games. There's still a pretty high chance he'll be one of those former Tigers whose cards I flip over to my trade list, or at least most of them--I tend to keep the cooler looking inserts--but for now I'm holding onto them. He was one of two current/former Tigers that dominate tonight's post.

Seriously, there was a lot of el Mago and between this haul and some trades (especially a couple packages from Jeff) I went from not very many to 77!

Here's the last page of just Baez, though you'll see a bit more of him later. Are you getting a good sense of which sets were prominent here? I think '21 Heritage and that year's flagship Topps were the top two but either way there was a good mix of designs and inserts.

How about some inserts and base of Tigers legends Miggy, Cobb, and Goslin (1934-37 including the '35 champs)? When Cabrera gets elected on his first ballot he'll join those two as well as Griffey and Gwynn in the Hall. Mr. Padre reminds us here that Stadium is still amazing.

One Larkin parallel did manage to sneak into the bunch, and Maddux is the third of the big quartet, though Ripken isn't represented this time. Co-prospects Manning and Mize flank another former catcher I sometimes collect in James McCann.

Rogers' bat hasn't come back yet but I'm glad to see him back to health. Former Tiger Scherzer was the other guy whose totals got a nice bump thanks to this purchase as you'll see in this scan and a few others.

If I wasn't so lazy I could look at my TCDb history to see when his PC grew and by how much, but for now I just looked at the site and I have 125 of him, so these pickups definitely pushed him over the century mark. Simba's new card is from a small stack of Sport Kings cards I pulled out of the boxes.

Tigers ace Skubal leads off this scan and boy is it fun watching him pitch this year, just like seeing vintage Verlander. It's still a travesty Detroit never won a title with JV and Max, but I chalk that up to bad luck and questionable management. Speaking of the latter, Baez sneaks in one more time and is joined by former stars Fielder and Pudge.

More Scherzer, more JV, and a couple team cards I somehow didn't have. Verlander's last card warrants another "Stadium Club rules!" comment because, come on, look at that shot!

The basketball portion was also somewhat fruitful for me thanks to three players appearing at least once: THJ, Poole, and Duncan Robinson. Illusion, Mosaic, and Prizm were fairly well represented in that sport and I'll probably have a better idea how those look if/when I get them sorted and listed.

Brady and Bush kick off the gridiron content, and since I picked up these boxes the latter has signed with the Browns.

Gary is one of two players in the group who got a pair of cards added to his collection, joining Chase Winovich. Haskins, dumbass Lewan, Wheatley, and the GOAT Woodson each saw their PC increase by one.

The amount of hockey in the bunch was relatively small but I did snag one new card of stud Nucks D-man Quinn Hughes, whose team will go to a game 7 with Zach Hyman's Oilers tomorrow night.

Without taking a lot more time which would certainly make me even less motivated to post I don't think this gave you the best idea of the fun I had flipping through these cards and finding some great content to send out to some of my favorite folks, but if it only gives you a snapshot I guess that's not bad. I expect my spoils to continue to result in more trades with bloggers and on TCDb and that makes this purchase another unqualified success.

I actually have another Marketplace purchase I'm excited to show off eventually when I'm more caught up (you'll continue to see that phrase a lot) but first there's other stuff to cover from previous months.

11/4/22 card show report: November big spender

A couple Fridays ago I once again made it back east to Taylor for the monthly show after missing October's, and because of that I was willing to spend a bit more than I usually do if the opportunity arose.

I spent about my average of two hours flipping through my favorite seller's boxes and came up with the following totals:

• 60 quarter cards
• 55 dollar cards
• 7 $2 cards

All of that came out to $84 and the guy asked for $80, which was plenty reasonable. I was quite happy with the amount of trade bait I grabbed, especially out of the dollar boxes, and I suspect that he moved some stuff I would have skipped from the $2s into that. Anyway, I once again came home with a good amount of trade bait for some of my favorite folks plus plenty to list on TCDB. Speaking of the site, I also stopped by a vintage dealer that's often there and grabbed a couple cards for buddies I trade with there for just $5, so that was a successful stop as well.

In terms of what I'll show off tonight, as always I'll lead off with the unassigned trade bait:

Former Wolverine Bourque is a dupe for both myself and Jeff though I didn't realize it at the time. We'll get to the Caldwell in a minute. Cobb is SN149; Ervin, Prosise, and Reynolds are SN199; Robiskie is SN50; and Stewart (a cleat piece!) is SN15. As for the Caldwell, how great could it be seeing as it's the only card here out of the quarter box?

Wait, does that say "1/1" on the right?! It sure does! I have no idea how that snuck into the pile of quarter boxes, and even then how nobody grabbed it before me, but either way it's an exciting score! It's definitely not in mint condition having bounced around in at least that box for a bit, but I'm sure it'll make someone happy.

Trade bait #2: as you can see I like getting my money's worth on the $1 and $2 cards with autographed relics, and I've always liked those Topps Strata cards with the acetate windows. Funchess is another dupe for both Jeff and me but seemed worth a grab just in case. Hardy and Mayle are both SN799 as is the Palmer manuhelmet. Prosise card #2 is SN499 and the Walton cards are SN399 and SN99, respectively.

Just shout if you want anything you see above and we can try to work out a deal!

Now we'll move on to my keepers:

On the baseball side, out of the quarter box we have a Griffey from this year's Gallery that looks classy plus a Maddux from 2008 Topps Moments & Milestones (for his 300 career wins). I believe both basketball hits were in the $2 box and those are of former Laker (among other teams) Mo Wagner (Franz's brother!) and former lots-of-teams GRIII (numbered /199). Wagner moves up to three hits while Robinson III gets his sixth. Last up in this scan is one football item that didn't fit in the next one: a Panini Unparalleled RC of Packers defensive star Rashan Gary, who's sadly out for the season with a knee injury. According to my list I now have a third of Gary's 21 RCs I'm tracking.

The rest of the football also came out of the quarter box. The Nico insert is timely since the WR actually caught a TD today despite the Texans' garbage QB situation. Darboh's shiny SAGE insert would look cooler if it wasn't partially airbrushed. Braylon's insert is from back in the 2000s when serial numbered inserts were still awesome (this one is SN1000). Former Lion Graham Glasgow, who escaped the tire fire here (for Denver, so take that for what it's worth) had eluded my collection up to this point so I was thrilled to track down his lone RC (2018 Panini Unparalleled) plus what I believe to be a "Flight" parallel.

On a day that was good to my Michigan RC collection I also picked up my very first first-year of last year's stud Wolverine back Hassan Haskins out of this year's Prestige. It's a Michigan uni card that's sure to give Ohio State collectors nightmares for years to come! Then we go back to the Panini Unparalleled well for the last time, though this isn't actually a RC but, oddly enough, a parallel, for my first card of former FB Joe Kerridge (from 2018, just like Glasgow's card). Just one of 12 issues of him made, this is the Superplaid version numbered /150, starring a guy who played in 12 games over two seasons with the Pack (not bad for a fullback!). I wasn't gonna skip a Prizm parallel of transfer RB Rawls out of the quarter box. And lastly we have one more RC, and a college uni card at that, of Pats LB Josh Uche, who just picked up three sacks in last Sunday's win over the Colts.

Well, I set out to spend more than usual to make up for the last show, plus to start re-stocking my trade package coffers and bring home some items for myself, and I'd say that I succeeded on all fronts. I'm looking forward to what will likely be my last show of the year in a few weeks in hopes of having enough fodder to allow me to do one of my favorite holiday traditions of sending out Christmas cards, maybe with an assist from COMC thanks to their seeming return to competence this year? We'll have to see, but after feasting on turkey on Thanksgiving I may be going back for seconds from a couple sources for some holiday shopping.

2022 trade package #10: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

Today is (or was, depending on when you're reading this) my birthday, and I'm mentioning that mostly because, one, I turned a year old in the weeks between posts, and two, this evening's cards come from a guy who loves collecting people born on his own birthday, February 14. That would be Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store.

I don't collect anyone specifically because they were born on my birthday (though I think that's an awesome sub-collection), but if I did, some of the top choices would include:

• Baseball: Bartolo Colon, Martin Dihigo, Brad Penny
• Basketball: Joe Dumars, Tracy McGrady
• Football: Nelson Agholor, Pete Metzelaars
• Hockey: Kris Draper, Pat Verbeek
• Other/non-sport: Tommy Chong, Bob Dylan, Patti LaBelle, Alfred Molina, John C. Reilly, Kristin Scott Thomas

Anyway, once again Doug hit my mailbox with a beefy envelope, one this time that was probably 75% toploaders by weight! There was also a ton of fun cardboard goodness and that's exactly what you'll get to see this evening:

Baseball 1 of 3: current and former Tigers. Most of these aside from Avila are from pretty recent products that I wouldn't have opened myself, such as this year's Heritage (which you'll see more of in a minute). Remember when Baddoo was a rookie instead of a guy in a sophomore slump? There's some nice designs here to look at, though!

Baseball 2 of 3: starts with more Heritage Tigers, though Niko's long gone. It's nice to add to my minuscule Haase collection, though. And hey, there's a brand new Rich Hill for one of my favorite PCs! They even got him back with his current team, Boston. Also, how about that trio of slick Mize cards? (There's a few more in the next scan too!) The Chrome card is a 2019 National Convention Orange Refractor numbered to just 25, so I'd have to call that one the best in his growing collection. The Chronicles Clear Vision and Clearly Donruss (both acetate but somewhat difficult to tell from the scan) look amazing for "base" cards too.

Baseball 3 of 3: includes the rest of the Mize, including two more Chronicles versions, showing off that product's versatility. Two many Verlanders proves to be just right for base/inserts of the ageless wonder.

And then there's some top-notch hits! Demeritte bounced back to Atlanta after flunking out with the Tigers but his 2020 Select auto (#d /199) looks great. There was no way that would overshadow a  colorful Michigan uni signature of Jesse Franklin, numbered to just 50, though--that's a beaut! And one last hit sees a pairing of the previously mentioned Chronicles and Verlander in jersey form. Noice!

Red Wings 1 of 2: guys like Lidstrom and Yzerman will always be the top draw for me when it comes to Detroit hockey cards in trade packages, but the numbered Mantha and Rasmussen items are great as well.

Red Wings 2 of 2: it's a Turgeon two-fer! Turegon was a 2014 third-rounder that appeared in just nine games over two seasons with the Wings, and since then he's signed with the Wild. You couldn't ask for better with these two relic cards that feature bold red jersey swatches, though!

Basketball 1 of 1: That Hoops parallel of Caris LeVert (Teal Explosion) is something to look at! Rice and Rose are Michigan royalty at this point. And another Michigan uni auto is more than welcome to join in the fun! This time it's new basketball PC member Mike Smith out of last year's Panini Chronicles Draft. Smith was a grad transfer who started at Columbia before playing the 2020-21 season in Ann Arbor, one that saw Michigan get to the Elite 8. He's the 31st different subject in my basketball collection and this was a great card to start his PC.

Football 1 of 1: base cards of two football royalty as well are certainly welcome, but I'm sure your eyes went right for the big guns like mine did! He may only use about 40% of the sticker but Rashan Gary's still a draw for me, especially when it's a new autograph of his, and a college uni card to boot! That's auto #5 to go with a plate in his collection. And speaking of plates, the next card was probably the biggest surprise of the package for me. That's former Michigan DL Chris Wormley with the team that drafted him, the Ravens, on a 2017 Panini Unparalleled Black Plate that would have been inserted in that year's Plates & Patches product. Would you believe it's already my second 1/1 out of just four hits of the current Steeler? That's crazy but certainly worthy of its surprise appearance here!

Michigan Hockey 1/3: and as always we end with the sport of honor, hockey. Doug treated me to a good number (if not all) of the Wolverines from 21-22 OPC which looks nice as always. Connor had an excellent season and Copp chipped in a goal and two helpers in the Rangers' win this evening as I was writing this post. I'm mainly pulling for them to win it all this year since two other UMers--Tyler Motte and Jacob Trouba--also play for New York. Colorado with Andrew Cogliano and Jack Johnson (both seen here) would be #2 but they're still Colorado and what self-respecting Wings fan wants to root for them? Speaking of Wings and Wolverines, Dylan Larkin is another of the players Doug included from OPC.

Michigan Hockey 2/3: hey, there's Tyler Motte, whom I just mentioned! There's some other familiar players here as well but it's very clear that Josh Norris is the highlight. A rising star for Doug's beloved Sens, he was a 2017 first-rounder for San Jose but traded to Ottawa the following year. After two solid seasons in Ann Arbor he got a cup of coffee in the NHL in 2019-20, jumped to a 17/18/35 line the following season, and this past year he doubled his goal total to 35! Those are some great looking cards Doug sent me, especially the coveted Young Guns, which I'm sure was a double because nobody just throws those around.

Michigan Hockey 2/3: Werenski is the last of our non-hits here, including that MVP card that LOOKS like an auto but is just the latest version of UD's "Script" parallel that used to look more obviously like something else, e.g. foil. Still a fun card, though.

And then we have some fun hits for the icers as well. Like I said, Connor had a hell of a season, tying for fifth in the league in goals with 47. I'm sure he was much happier about that than he looked on his 2018-19 UD Rookie Photoshoot Flashback Materials jersey card, just my second hit of his.

Wolverwing Dylan Larkin almost equaled his career high in goals and points with 31 and 69, respectively, despite playing on a bad Wings team I hope improves at some point. The hockey stick theme is a fun design on his 2020-21 UD Game Jersey, already hit #9 for me. 

And lastly, Motte isn't listed among the playoff leaders in scoring this season but he's no stranger to the playoffs after a run with the 2019-20 Canucks, so who knows if he might be a hero if the Rangers make it all the way to the finals? His signature looks especially sharp on a 2016-17 Ultimate Collection autograph done in the style of 2006-07 Ultimate Collection's auto RCs. Numbered of 199 it shows him pictured with the Blackhawks, the team that drafted him and his first of four franchises to-date. It's my third auto and seventh hit of a guy who put up huge numbers in his junior season at Michigan.

Doug, thanks so much for sending such a large quantity of great cards, especially the hits as usual, that'll be great additions to my collections! I promise not to wait until I age another year to recap the next package you send, but before that I hope I'll be hitting you back. And at least I have plenty of time to try to stock up on 2/14 cards before next February....

Next up should be another blogger trade package, then depending on how things go I would think I'll be getting back to TCDB trade recaps. Until then, I hope the weather continues to warm up and improve in your area and that you're getting some sun and fresh air like I am--you're never too old for that!

2020 COMC purchases: look at these 'graphs (and more!)

Time to finish up a look at my late-year purchases from COMC so I can close the book on cards I bought in 2020, a year that often felt as bad as a Nickelback song.

I decided to throw all of the football content in one post and just try not to get too verbose about it. That way I can get this stuff put away and move on to other incoming items and stuff I want to post about. I'm showing off 35 cards tonight and the vast majority include signatures, hence today's title and the meme above. Let's get down to business:

The other 34 cards fit nicely into two scans each of nine (vertical cards) and eight (horizontal), so I'll give the only non-hit its own spot here to start. Old Ty joins Amani Toomer (back-to-back in the set, in fact) in my collection of the amazing 2000 Bowman's Best Acetate parallel, which is so cool I scanned both sides for this post!

Ok, on to the (mostly) 'graphs! Many of the cards you'll see were excellent deals that fortified some of my better football PCs. Avant's from the era of shiny stickergraphs and is numbered /125. Breaston did play a couple seasons for the Chiefs, who could repeat as champs tomorrow evening. J-Booty's auto comes on an Optic card, making it shiny in a different way than Avant's. Taco (Michigan uni!) was drafted by Dallas but is now potentially in line for a ring as a bit player for the Chiefs. I continued to bolster Darboh's collection with the three autos you see here (and more in a bit), and Jeff and I have lots of those in common which I noticed while adding them on TCDB. Braylon's huge Browns swatch (/150) was a nice value. And I scored another, uh, signature? of Gary, who had a solid sophomore campaign with the Pack.

Now this is a top three I can get down with: a trio of college uni cards! Gentry's tiny John Hancock graces a Prizm card, Big Mo is one of those acetate cards from Leaf Trinity's Clear line, and I tracked down auto number two of former lineman Trezelle Jenkins. Then it's on to just four out of an absolute bounty of Jake Longs, including a quad jersey/auto, autograph, and not one but two plates (2008 Topps Mayo and 2010 Topps), the first I've acquired of the former #1 overall pick. It's been a while since I've posted a new pickup of former college star DL Mike Martin so why not celebrate his return with a beautiful UD Black signature (/199)? And I enjoy seeing former stars like Toomer get recognized after their careers in Panini's various products, like this Certified jersey (/49) of Amani "It's Not A" Toomer.

Not everything was autographed in this bunch but most was. One of the exceptions was a cool rookie year Avant jersey (/499) where the shininess of the card is better than the swatch. Leaf's cards are fantastic values for college collectors like this sick giant patch/auto of WR Jehu Chesson that cost me less than $3. The three other Darboh cards I found were jersey/autos, two of which came with nice pieces of what's becoming a familiar Seahawks jersey for me as a collector of his cards. Braylon's Topps "patch" isn't terribly impressive but was a cool find for under a buck, and the large jersey number relic card (/25) is even better. Panini's Contenders/Draft products are also outstanding for those pursuing cards of their favorite schools, and here I was glad to find my third signature of former DB David Long.

And the last grouping allows me to end the post with a bang. I was very pleased with my Long haul (pun intended), nine cards for about $33 that also included four jersey/autos and an auto/manupatch. The Gridiron Gear card is one of those where the signed swatch can be pulled out, similar to the Denard that follows the group, though I think in Shoelace's case the signed piece isn't from a jersey. I was thrilled to add another of A-Train's beautiful signatures to my collection. And we'll end on a non-auto, a dual relic of WR Marquise Walker, representing Tom Brady's Bucs in this post.

Once again I had a great time landing some amazing pieces for my collection at pretty nice prices, even if my trade bait purchasing was less than ideal this time around. Just a few quick collection notes: Long zoomed past Braylon thanks to his big day, with the OT hitting 97 to the WR's 93 (Manningham's in between at 95), and threatening to become the second member of my 100-hit club (Henne). Despite his cards being relatively recent, Darboh's already over the 40-mark to 41. And Avant gets to 65 hits, good for sixth overall. Michigan's former WRs feature heavily at the top of my collection with #s 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 16, and 17.

With these finally able to be put away in their boxes I'm not sure where I'll go next: possibly my first Baseballcardstore.ca order, or perhaps an interesting purchase from a new vendor, not to mention an incoming trade envelope. If I manage to get myself to put up a Super Bowl-related post tomorrow I know which one it'll be, and I'm curious to see reactions to it.

2020 trade package #13: My Sports Obsession

I think I've said this once or twice already, but despite my lack of spending this year--only around $250--for multiple reasons, I've had lots of great new cards come into my collection. You can chalk that up to the word that used to come before "cards" in this hobby: trading. TCDB has been a great new source for that, and I really do plan to show off more of my deals that came from the site.

But first, I always like to give top billing to my bread and butter, which is trades with other bloggers. Buddy of the blog Jeff of My Sports Obsession is one of those fine folks, and we keep a nice stream of the many collections we have in common going back and forth.

Jeff sent me a nice mailer that arrived at the end of May, and I was thrilled not just at the excellent content, but also that every single card was new to my collection--quite a feat when you'll see who was involved:

I mean, the baseball end of things involved my #1 and #3 overall PCs in Larkin and Ripken. Barry comes to us on a 2020 Donruss card whose design honors the '86 set. released a year before his RC. The back gives him credit for playing his entire career with the Reds and ranking with Pete Rose at the top in several team stats, though I think Barry deserves extra credit for not betting on baseball or being a shitbag in general. With Jeff's help his collection gets a bit closer to 800.

While I wasn't surprised that I needed a 2020 Larkin card I was shocked to find that two 1991 Donruss base offerings and a '92 Fleer issue were new to me. I'm not shocked that I didn't find it worth buying junk wax-era stuff like those but you would think I'd have had them long ago one way or another. Great job by Jeff to fill in those gaps and add another cool pair in a 2018 Donruss variation and '93 UD Then & Now hologram insert. UD's holograms always get a thumbs up from me. With five additions Cal's within spitting distance of being my first 1000-card PC!

Closing out the scan is a basketball pair--my second and third cards of one-and-done Wolverine Ignas Brazdeikis, who was a lot of fun to watch while he was here. Both are rookies, which is great by itself, but the Prizm card also features a college uniform, so it's my pick of the duo. Jeff's focused on collecting UM basketball alumni from roughly the past decade and I'm grateful that he thought of me during his search.

Now here's some maize & blue fireworks! I'm not sure the last time I could post a 100% Michigan uni scan like this in a trade recap, but regardless, this is flat-out awesome. Jeff provided my first taste of 2020 Michigan RCs out of 2020 Prizm Draft by including QB Patterson and WR DPJ. Shea's senior year ended up being disappointing for his draft stock and it wasn't a shock that he didn't get chosen, but I guess Panini included him here (and likely will in other products) figuring the fan base will be hot after his cards regardless.

Anyway, those look great, and I'm looking forward to adding first-years of whichever other draftees make the cut in subsequent sets. Meanwhile, those two are joined in the set by a pair of Tom Brady base cards, each of which sticks with the college theme, much to my approval.

Next is a pair of non-Panini 2017 cards: a Leaf Gold parallel of RB De'Veon Smith and SAGE HIT base of DE Chris Wormley. I don't think Smith lasted very long in the league after going undrafted, but Wormley got flipped from the Ravens to the Steelers a few months ago, so hopefully he'll make a difference there. Side note for anybody who's curious: I do count pre-draft all-star game photos that include UM helmets as "Michigan uniform" cards.

Finally, we've come to the big hit of the envelope, one that happens to star a big hitter. Rashan Gary may have worn #3 during his time in Ann Arbor but everyone will always remember the way he came in as the #1 overall recruit. That makes getting this college-themed Prizm Draft auto that much sweeter! As I mentioned when discussing my two other autos of the DE, I wish he put a bit more effort into his signature, or at least used more of the sticker, but it is what it is. And what it is is another Rashan Gary auto, and I'm excited!

Jeff, thanks again for sending me some great new additions to my collections, especially those of the UM variety. On that subject, I have a LOT to send back your way soon, so get ready for some work updating your collections on TCDB!

2020 eBay purchases: plates a-plenty and more!

I need to post some cards so I can put them away, so here's what I purchased for myself on eBay over the first third of the year!

Card #1 is a 2007 Fleer magenta plate of blog favorite pitcher Rich Hill. I snagged this way back in January as my only non-show pickup for the month. I'm always up for a new 1/1 for my favorite PC, and a bit under $8 shipped was enough to get my first of this plate set, though it's my seventh 1/1 from that year. I still have some investigating to do regarding my 2008 Triple Threads 1/1s of Rich before I can get an accurate total, but for now he still rules the roost with 137 hits, 24 of the ultimate rarity.

I grabbed three more plates in February--two for myself--and one more the following month, giving me a fun run of five straight 1/1 purchases on eBay. The first was this J.J. Putz yellow version from Topps' flagship set, also out of 2007. Setting me back a little less than the Hill, this is my second oldest Putz plate, with one from 2006 Upper Deck taking the crown. That one is the only non-Topps card, oddly enough. While Hill has a commanding first place lead in 1/1s, Putz enjoys a smaller gap as his 11 in my collection have Clayton Richard's nine close behind.

The other card I grabbed for myself in February was a surprising win for me: I plunked down just $7.26 for my first plate of former Wolverine defensive beast Rashan Gary. This black plate was used to make his 2019 Donruss RC, but Panini's not the type to make things easy and actually inserted it as a hit in their Plates & Patches product last year. Both Panini and Upper Deck are known for doing this in some of their high-end products, which gives them a nice boost, though at the cost of the original sets that lose those potential pulls. Anyway, I was excited to get such a nice piece to add to the two autographs I own in his small collection, and I look forward to seeing what he could do in his sophomore NFL campaign (if there is one).

The last plate today stars former UM pitcher Matt Miller, one of many former baseball players of that name. This one was in the Brewers system for a while, plus he only appears on cards from 2010 Donruss Elite Extra and 2011 Topps Heritage Minors and Pro Debut, so he's easy enough for my to identify. I'm not even sure the last time I posted cards of him here (or on TMV) since I completed his 17-card run quite a while ago. Happily I now have my first plate to go with those, and the 1/1 Donruss EEE autograph I bought a while back, so I can lay claim to 20% of his 1/1s! By the way, at a bit over $5 delivered this one kept up my trend of declining final prices of cards I'd been buying on eBay, which was temporarily interrupted by a trade bait 1/1 I grabbed earlier this month.

Fortunately this non-1/1 got me back on track. My most recent purchase, made about two weeks ago, is a new Ryan LaMarre auto from 2012's unlicensed Onyx Platinum Prospects product. An Autographs Inscribed version hand-numbered on the back /5, this cost me a paltry $2.73 as I won it from my favorite eBayer, markaguirre22, from whom I've bought a bunch of very cool Michigan-related items. It also doesn't hurt that he offers free shipping! The design is about on par for the type of product, but I do love the gold ink, and the "Go Reds!" inscription is great. I'm glad to make it my 12th LaMarre hit, 10 of which include his signature.

In total I've spent under $50 on eBay over the first four months of this year and have scored six plates, one other trade bait item, and the LaMarre you just saw, meaning I'm still getting some good value despite my buying being way down.

Speaking of throwing money at cards, I think my next couple posts should cover some very cool Facebook Marketplace purchases, and I should be following those up with a huge TCDB trade. Should any trade packages show up in the interim, though, I'll happily give them priority. I hope everyone continues to stay safe and healthy while they continue collecting as much as possible during these crazy times!