2026 trade package #1: Chronicles of Fuji

Tonight let's party like it's 2026 since, you know, it is, by taking a look at my first trade package of the year before the calendar flips to February.

Sender #1 this year was one of the blogosphere's favorite people: Mark of the Chronicles of Fuji. Just after the start of the new year I got this envelope in my mailbox:

Oooooh, this is big enough to hold some interesting items! Side note: do yourself a favor and buy postage on a site like PirateShip so you don't have to pay nearly this much when you're already being very generous in sending cards and paying to ship stuff.

Ok, well this is a good sign--that's my name. This portends good things!

And good things were indeed within! That's the January 1991 issue of Beckett Baseball with that year's sensation Cecil Fielder grading the cover, not to mention 1990 World Series champ Barry Larkin on the back, a hell of a two-fer. There's also a very nice Christmas card from my "blogger buddy" that was a nice touch. And then we have a couple taped up things of cards to open up.

The old nine-pocket page: a tried and true method for shipping cards, especially in PWE format. Fuji picked some very nice stuff and also packaged these in expert fashion. Let's have a better look:

Baseball begins with Tigers old and new. Baez is a Sepia Refractor and the Miggy pair is quite nice: a Triple Threads base and manu-"medallion." Carp's Topps Holiday card is a Green Plaid parallel that still feels appropriate for the season. The two Clarks bring me back to when cards were more fun, especially the Black Diamond parallel numbered /1500 on the back. Evans is a box bottom card and you actually just saw the whole bottom in my TCDb recap post.  And there's Big Daddy again, on a playing card (naturally he's a king in that set).

Card #1 in this scan is great since I'd say I share Fuji's love for collecting Mr. Padre and 80s boxed sets. I wasn't familiar with Jimenez but see that he's the player Detroit flipped to Minnesota for pitchers Chris Paddack and Randy Dobnak during their lackluster trade deadline last year. Lipcius and Meadows are both good old regular Refractors, though given how briefly the former was with Detroit I have no idea why Topps bothered putting him in their sets. Finest isn't what it once was but I won't say no to a RC of Mize! Nunez has been out of affiliated ball for years now but is still kicking in a few indy and foreign leagues, which is very cool. Cal joins Miggy above with a gorgeous Triple Threads card. If I'm not turning down Mize RCs I'm definitely happily accepting any Skubal RCs that come my way! And that Tork is a very nice Bowman Draft Invicta insert I don't think I'd seen before.

And we've still got plenty of baseball items left. York, a '45 Series champ as the team's starting 1B (though as the card implies, he did catch more than 200 games early in his career) appears on a card from the fantastic Conlon product distributed in the 90s. We'll get to the hits in a minute but first we have some other interesting stuff including horizontal cards of Miggy (a Topps Golden Giveaway code card), Colt Keith, and a Heritage team checklist. Then there's a cool five-pack of minis. The first two are from 1993 Humpty Dumpty and both Jim Abbott's and Jack Morris' cards are still in the plastic wrap. Nice! The other Minis, meanwhile, are from 2006 A&G. World Series guys Bondo and Polanco are regular backs and Chris "Red Pop" Shelton is a Black Border.

Fuji also treated me to a trio of Chrome autographs. 2015 Tigers first-round pitcher Beau Burrows' signature is from '21 Topps Chrome, and it remains to be seen if he can work his way back to health and a spot with an MLB team. Kubitza, also a pitcher, was a 2013 4th-rounder out of Rice who apparently flamed out a couple years after his 2015 Bowman Chrome auto was packed out. Lastly, Lugo's name is probably the most infamous to Tigers fans as he was half of the deplorable return for JD Martinez in a 2017 deal with Arizona. Here you see Dawel's 2019 Topps Chrome autograph, signed by a guy I actually got to see play in single-A ball for Lansing way back in 2015 when he was still in Toronto's system.

The final baseball items, which you saw way back in the first image of all the stuff together, are these 1977 Dover reprints. I actually snagged the book they came in (as panels) at some point, but it's very nice to have the singles as well. Both of these are reprints of 1912 Hassan Triple Folders, also known as T202 cards. The top one is "Ty Cobb Steals Third" starring the Georgia Peach and manager Hughie Jennings while the bottom is "Jim Delahanty at Bat" which includes that former Tiger (among other teams) from a big baseball family, and OF Davy Jones (get your "locker" jokes out of your system now), who appeared in parts of eight seasons with the Tigers. This is the only way I'll ever be able to afford anything that looks like one of these cards so they were a fun inclusion here.

The basketball content included RCs of two very notable Michigan hoopers, Juwan Howard and Glen Rice. I hope this year's squad can repeat the latter's heroics and win it all to cap a season that's going extremely well so far! Joining them is another big name, literally and figuratively. The late Robert "Tractor" Traylor was another Detroiter that starred at the program and went on to the NBA, resulting in some cool cards around the end of the 90s. Besides a very of-its-time UD Ionix RC, the '98-'99 Fleer Brilliants Illuminators insert looks fantastic, and believe you me, this scan does not do it justice!

And we'll close things out with football. Corum's Rams put up a good fight, but Fuji's Seahawks prevailed with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. Not that I'm complaining since Seattle has a bunch of Michigan Football connections as well, and I'll be rooting for them in the Big Game in less than a couple weeks. As for the new card of Blake, it has a nice shot of him on his way to score again with the Wolverines so I love it.

He's joined by a guy Fuji knows quite well due to his time with the Packers: Charles Woodson. I believe Mark actually commented on a recent post of mine that he had some of these piled up with plans to send them my way, so that's likely what happened here, much to my benefit. I love the mix of designs and years, and of course that two of them (Panini Contenders Draft Picks) picture him with the '97 champs.

Fuji, thanks so much for this early year treat which I obviously enjoyed very much. I hope your return to the classroom has gone well and that you still manage to find some time to blog--you know I love those flea market recaps! And while we're at it, good luck to your Seahawks in the Super Bowl.

I should be back relatively soon with my second of three January trade posts. That's right, I received a third today just before the calendar flips! After that I'll cover my January show purchases, and then maybe I'll be caught up in time for next Friday's show. Wait, caught up? Is that even possible?

2025 trade package #27: Wes Moore

It's getting later on Christmas Eve but I'm still up for giving some thanks to another cool person who sent me cards in November (and getting a post up before the holiday official hits).

Tonight's cards came from Alabama native and former Pancake King, Wes Moore. I think most people who follow me here are aware of Wes's legendary trade war exploits and a sense of generosity that would put him in the Olympus of traders if one existed. In case anyone reading this hasn't heard of him (or the Pancake King story) before, just search his name on some of your favorite blogs to be amazed.

Anyway, it had been quite a while since either of us sent the other anything, I think, but his joy for giving certainly wasn't rusty when he sent me a nice bubble mailer last month. This one was filled with mostly Tigers, but also some football Wolverines--mighty kind of an Alabama fan towards one whose school was trying to poach the football coach from his!

Here's a look at what I found inside:

I have to say, the guy is still a pro, and the case these came in protected them perfectly.

Just in time for Christmas, this scan of Tigers includes silver and gold, and other colors too! There were enough Refractors in this envelope that I used the insert's name as a tag for this post. Former Tigers Avila and Castellanos fit the bill here while Bondo, Coke, and Big Daddy bring the gold. Fielder also represents silver, like the bells, with an Electric Diamond parallel from '94 UD.

Hey, more color! I still remember the hype around '90s Select Certified and its rare mirror parallels, which is somewhat similar to the more recent appreciation for that era's Precious Metal Gems. Fulmer and AJax bring more Refractor heat while All-Star Riley Greene bucks the Christmas colors trend with Sky Blue. No Refractors for Manning but the colorful effect is essentially the same on Prizm and Topps Rainbow Foil inserts. Nokes is a great throwback to one of my favorite 80s Tigers plus the fun stuff we got back then like stickers and boxed sets. And Magglio looks cool on a throwback Topps insert.

Will the Tigers stop pinching pennies long enough to give Skubal (and his fans) the gift of a new contract? I'm not holding my breath, but it's not impossible. Panini didn't have this festive season in mind when they made the parallel Tork appears on, which is more suited for another holiday. The Stadium Club Super Team card is my favorite in the package because I haven't found them easy to acquire and this one includes two of my Tigers favorites in Alan Trammell and Tony Phillips. Turley's another Refractor but I didn't recognize his name, which can happen as Bowman products sometimes include 16th round picks like the ex-Baylor P. And speaking of Refractors, how about a Negative version of a player who was fairly positive for Detroit, Justin Upton?

Last up tonight, the closest to gold these Michigan Football cards come is the maize they're wearing, but there's some silver to be had. And more importantly all nine cards feature college photos, which is very cool!

I'm not a big Leaf fan these days, but I have to say that Trinity Steel card of Blake Corum looks quite nice, partially because of the cool lava pattern in the background (in addition to the cool shot of him running hard as always). His '23 backup and lightning to Corum's thunder, Donovan Edwards, gets four cards added to his collection thanks to college stalwart SAGE. The fourth card is from their Artistry product, but I haven't found a checklist for that yet to get added on TCDb and will have to work on it when I have time.

Defensive backs Will Johnson and Makari Paige join the Don out of this year's SAGE product, and the latter represents my first card of Makari that isn't a Valiant Michigan issue. Ex-#1 WR Greg McMurtry, a five-year NFL vet, looks good on his '90 Score RC. And Colts LB Kwity Paye looks ready to bring the pain on a Wild Card Matte issue.

Wes, thanks for thinking of me once again, and I appreciate your trademark generosity and ability to get nice cards into the hands of others. I don't know if I can find anything you might need but if I do, rest assured I'll work on returning the favor. For now I'll happily thank you for this perfect Christmas present.

I'll be taking tomorrow off, of course, and then plan on returning with a couple show posts next on the docket. Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas, y'all!

2024 Facebook Marketplace purchase: Shoeboxin'

Tonight I get to wrap up the month of April 2024 in terms of my collecting with what was my third purchase via Facebook Marketplace.

A guy in Brighton, which is about a half hour-ish north of me, posted a shoebox of baseball stuff for sale, asking $100:

He estimated that there were around 500 cards in there, all fairly recent, including inserts, SPs, and some other stuff. Also, everything was sleeved.

This other image from the listing gives you a pretty good idea of the content, with a lot of it being what today's collectors tend to refer to as "color," especially parallels like Refractors.

We managed to settle on a $75 price and everything proceeded smoothly. As usual I had a blast flipping through everything and setting aside a few things for myself while mainly enjoying coming up with even more stuff to send my favorite trade partners (with most of the getting listed on TCDb).

A number of you have long since received your loot from this box but I think I may still have some to send out.

Anyway, here's what I held onto for myself:

I guess today's a rare day where I don't need or want to make fun of Baez since his three-run homer led Detroit to a win over Cleveland. Even if I eventually dump his base stuff in my trade boxes when he's inevitably jettisoned from the roster, I'm happy to keep fun parallels like Refractors. Cochrane is a favorite old-old school guy of mine whether he's shown with Philly or Detroit, and bordered parallels are elite. Kinsler makes two colorful appearances here (one below), both in Rangers uniforms, but that's fine because he was another short-term Detroit favorite of mine. Scherzer, seen here on a couple cool inserts from his brief tenure with the Mets, was also in the news today having eclipsed his former teammate Justin Verlander in career strikeouts to rank 10th all-time. Garcia, Rondon, and Travis never really did anything for Detroit, though I remain angry about the team dumping Travis to the Blue Jays even though injuries shortened his career, because the Tigers sure do love getting nothing for their talented young infielders.

Reyes, like a more recent Tiger in Akil Baddoo, is an example of a minor rule 5 success as he parlayed his December, 2017 selection from Arizona into parts of five seasons with Detroit. The gold foil is quite nice on the top card and the bottom is your standard quality Refractor. And then the oldest items in the box were a few 1990 Topps Stickers with PC guys Gwynn and Ripken starring on three fronts and one back. The flip side of Mr. Padre's sticker is fellow HOF OF Andre Dawson. Cal serves as the Superstar back for Devon White and Jeffrey Leonard while his foil and regular stickers include Mitch Williams and Gary Gaetti on the backs.

Overall I'm quite happy with how this purchase went: I got it for less than the purchase price, added a few fun cards, and picked up a bunch of fun recent-ish trade bait. It was basically the equivalent of a solid day of dime- and quarter-boxing at a show, and at $0.15 per card, that's essentially what it was, though with a bit of driving in place of the time spent digging.

Now that I'm caught up through April I should be back soon to start recapping five May trades (and more from the month) that brought me some very timely exciting items. Until then, I hope all of you are like me, basking in the time of year when baseball doesn't have to share the spotlight with the other major sports (though the Olympics may be good watching).

2023 trade package #27: Sport Card Collectors

It's the holiday season for sure--less than a week until Christmas--and I continue to receive cards from generous folks at a ridiculous pace. I may not (hell, I definitely won't) be caught up before the end of the year but that's a nice problem to have.

For now I'll make a small effort in support of that goal by covering the first of a few trade packages I received in November. That would be a pair of PWEs from Matt of several blogs that I may just continue to refer to collectively as "Sport Card Collectors" for my own convenience. Funny story: he sent the envelopes the same day but only one arrived to me a few days later. We both wondered if the other one got lost and then it just randomly showed up a few weeks later, even slipping past Informed Delivery as some mail is wont to do. Either way, they both got here safely, and inside them were these:

I'd certainly like Baez to be a star of the MLB considering what he's making and the amount of payroll he's eating up, but if he can even return to his level of performance from 2022 that would help. Cabrera played for so long that sometimes it feels like he debuted in 1987, when we both turned four. Up there you see one of a pair of dupes Matt sent which I was happy to have since I know plenty of people that could use something like that. The Sepia Refractor looks excellent and as always I love images of his outstanding swing, putting him in a club with guys like Junior Griffey.

Next, the foil parallel of Miggy and Riley Greene--a '23 Topps team checklist--is very cool since it shows what's now the past and future of the franchise, as tough as it is to refer to Cabrera in the past tense. If Greene can stay healthy he could be a franchise favorite for years to come! 

The rest of this scan is made up of pitchers still with the team. With a couple new rotation additions in Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty, there's much less pressure on guys like the super talented Manning, who could benefit from some veteran guidance. His Panini Mosaic and a Pink Chrome Refractor here put me just shy of 30 cards of the 25-year-old. Fellow first-rounder Mize is also a Pink Refractor, should also be part of the starting five next year, though a return from TJ surgery makes him a bit less of a sure thing. What's unquestionable is that my collection of his has grown even faster than Manning's as that's card #68 for me! Meanwhile, I'm happy to see Wentz in Purple Refractor form, though until he starts performing in a way that isn't detrimental to his team (3-13, 6.90 ERA in '23), the less we see of him the better. It's much less likely the team will need him next season, though, which is good news.

The last of the baseball stuff is, naturally, a new Verlander for me. JV's appeared in Heritage's Then and Now insert a bunch since 2010 and has been paired up with the following:

• Whitey Ford (2010)
• Sandy Koufax (2012)
• Juan Marichal (2012)
• Jim Bunning (2013)
• Bob Gibson (2013)
• Fergie Jenkins (2017)
• Jim Palmer (2019)
• Catfish Hunter (2020)
• Jim Palmer (2020)
• Gaylord Perry (2023)
• Catfish Hunter (2023)

This is the first time he joins "Garylord" (WTF are you even doing, Topps?) Perry in the set, though Marichal is his top comp of the group in Baseball Reference's Similarity Scores. Regardless, that's heady company when you're compared to a group like that!

Matt also included a bit of football content, and I'm glad it can be easier for some of you when guys I collect appear in their college unis in products like Bowman Chrome University. Colson's a LB who'll be appearing in at least 14 games for the third straight season, with game #14 once again being a playoff tilt. His stats are down a bit from some excellent numbers last season but he's still been very solid at the position for an outstanding defense that consistently puts the team in position to win. Once again I didn't mind the dupes here because I can think of at least one person who could use it.

Thanks again for these envelopes, Matt, and I hope you didn't stress too much when one of them disappeared off the face of the earth. I'm looking forward to showing off what you sent me for Christmas once I get a bit more caught up, and in the meantime may you enjoy the package you have sitting under your tree!

More trade recaps to come soon!

2022 trade package #19: Night Owl

Here we have just my third post in August, and one I should have gotten to much sooner to thank the nice person responsible for sending me a great trade package. I just get easily distracted by other card stuff and usually leave blogging low on the old priority list. But on this stormy late summer evening it's about time I got around to this.

A few weeks back Greg/Night Owl posted the results of a couple Topps breaks he did including the 2021 Chrome Platinum Anniversary product that came out earlier this year. I asked if he'd set aside a card for me and he was generous enough to do so, then I sent him a few things off his wantlist for that. Well that's what I thought anyway because there was much more than just a cool recent Tigers need:

When you think of Night Owl, if one of the first words you associate with him isn't "vintage" (the other for me would be "Dodgers"), you probably don't follow him, which you totally should. The top three cards here are evidence of that, and I really appreciate Greg helping me with my pre-80s collections as they're quite sparse. Bare ('77 Topps) was only a Tiger for two of his five MLB seasons, 1976-77, the final of his career, and Sutherland (NO's beloved '75 Topps) played three of 13 seasons in Motown, but they were definitely needs for me. So was Johnny Podres' '67 Topps base. Another guy I associate with the Dodgers (he did appear in 13 of 15 MLB campaigns and win four rings and the '55 Series MVP with Brooklyn/LA), he's the biggest name of the trio, traded to Detroit in '66 and staying there through the following season before a sunset year in '69 with his almost-namesakes the Padres. All three of these are nice vintage additions and I thank Greg for them!

Everything else is much more modern and that's great too. I immediately offered the '22 Home Run Challenge code to Paul even though Baez is a surprising longshot to hit anything out of the park, much less in play, this season. Lugo's golden even if his absence is a reminder of another garbage trade by the franchise. Morris's Prizm Refractor is the card that started this deal as I loved the look of the classic old photo of Jack on the even more classic and iconic Topps design. Being a variation on a Refractor sure didn't hurt either. Turnbull is a more recent Tiger and also threw a no-hitter before being lost to injury and then losing his brain to whatever made him think to celebrate the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

And lastly we have the surprise of the package, a number medallion manurelic from this year's Topps. Ever since I stopped buying boxes I haven't cared that these have sometimes replaced more traditional "hits" and I even enjoy some of their designs. Jersey numbers are a big thing in sports so this was a natural idea for such a card, and I'm happy to have Miggy's 24. It's a number worn by such icons as Willie Mays, Rickey Henderson, and Ken Griffey Jr., and before we all know it he'll join them in Cooperstown. When that happens I'll own at least two manurelic cards, both representing his time with the Tigers. Very cool.

Greg, thank you sincerely again for not only setting aside that cool Jack Morris for me, but also adding on some nice vintage and other Tigers here. I'll make sure to return the favor with some more vintage, Dodgers, vintage Dodgers, or other wants of yours as soon as I can!

The couple times I get off my butt to post you should be seeing trade packages from a couple blogger buddies that were facilitated through TCDB, but will be getting regular trade package coverage because that's how I do things. Watch for those soon-ish!

2022 trade package #16: The Collector

Well the draft came and went (and the Tigers actually took a hitter in the first round!) and now we're celebrating the Midsummer Classic. Tonight's a great night to cover the latest bunch of cards Chris of the Collector sent me while I kind of sort of pay attention to the All-Star Game.

Chris sent another PWE my way and it included a note that mentioned he'd found some of the following cards on my TCDB wantlist and hoped I still needed them (which I indeed did!). I always appreciate folks taking the time to do that no matter how many cards they send, so I applaud Chris' effort here:

Card #1 is a '94 Ultra Roberto Alomar (amateur FA 1985, 12x All-Star) that I needed for my second set build of Series 2. That's down to just two cards (and of course set #1 is already complete). Nice!

After him we have two current Tigers and a draft pick bust. Barnhart (10th round 2009, no ASG) has had his ups and downs this year but in a lost year like this I don't really care who they trot out there as we wait for Jake Rogers to return to health. Cale Iorg (6th round 2007, no MLB experience) is the son of Garth (and Cale is actually his middle name--he's also "Garth") and nephew of Dane, though he didn't pan out like they did--nine and 10 years of MLB service time, respectively. I do like the look of his TriStar card, though! And Jimenez was a Detroit amateur FA signing in 2013 who was named to the All-Star team back in 2018, and who's been better than his career numbers so far this year.

And then we have the perfect amount of Grandersons, namely two many! Curtis (3rd round 2002, 3x All-Star) can be seen here on a 2008 Bowman Chrome base plus a '16 Topps Chrome Pink Refractor, the latter of which looks awesome thanks to a great photo choice. Thanks to this PWE Chris upped my total to 232 many Grandersons.

The first two cards of the bottom row take us way back to the 80s and a pair of players I often think of together. Gwynn (3rd round 1981, 15x All-Star) and Ripken (2nd round 1978, 19x All-Star) pretty much played their entire careers at the same time, from 1982-2001 (except for Cal's 23 games in '81). Mr. Padre's card hails from Fleer's 1988 League Leaders box set while the Iron Man's card could be found in packs of 1989 Donruss All-Stars, a set that's very apropos of the evening!

And finally we have another multi-season All-Star who proceeded those two by about five years. Alan Trammell (2nd round 1976, 6x All-Star) often had to compete with Cal for a spot on the team but the Hall-of-Famer certainly held his own. I really like the card that Chris chose here: his 1996 Fleer Tiffany parallel. It's great that Fleer gave collectors the best of both worlds in 1996-97 with matte base cards and shiny parallels that in my opinion are way better than the cards of the same name that were produced by Fleer and Topps' brands in the 80s. For one thing, there's no mistaking these for base cards!

Many thanks to Chris for putting in the time and effort to send these my way. I love trading with him because it's often quite easy to find enough to send him a return package every one to two card shows, and then he's able to return the favor appreciably as you can see from above.

Speaking of trades I'm expecting some more cardboard in my mailbox from a couple sources so I'll show those off when everything's ready. Tonight I'll be chilling and rooting for big moments from a couple favorites, especially Jake Cronenworth, plus Miguel Cabrera. Stay cool!

2022 trade package #6 and 7: Sport Card Collectors and Cardboard Collections

I meant it when I said the break from trade posts would be short, and this evening I'm back with two small envelopes I thought I could cover in one recap. Once again, good things do come in small packages.

First up is my first 2022 PWE from multi-blog guy Matt whom I most associate with Sport Card Collectors, though as a reminder you can also find him at Big Blue Cardboard and Cards Over Coffee. Matt sent me a six-card mailer and before I get to the five for me I'm going to shout out his generosity for the sixth card which was quite a nice one that I snagged for a trade package going out in the near future. Not that the stuff below is chopped liver, but this is one of the nicest items I've gotten from him and he didn't even hesitate to include it. I'll try to make sure to give him another shout-out when that person receives it, at least on Twitter if not here.

Anyway, on to the PWE!:

Matt and I both love collecting inserts so I wasn't too surprised to see a few Detroit-related items of that variety. Card #1 is a 2021 Topps Update Gold parallel of pitcher Rony Garcia. His name rang a bell but I'll admit that I had to head over to Baseball Reference to recall that the Tigers grabbed him from the Yankees in the 2019 Rule 5 draft. He's appeared in 17 games over the past two seasons, mostly out of the pen, and we'll see if he ends up factoring in there or the rotation at some point, though the odds remain long for a guy like him.

Next up is a guy with a bit more fanfare in top prospect Casey Mize. After a pretty solid first full season last year I'm dying to see how he performs for what should be an improving Tigers squad. Short of the Ben Baller logo I'm a fan of the Refractor-y insert of the future star on an '86 Topps throwback design, or pretty much any card that features Mize at this point since my collection of him is still fairly limited.

And then we have a 2021 Topps Chrome Prizm Refractor of the man himself, Justin Verlander. JV re-signed with the Astros this offseason after a long injury layoff that saw him pitch just once in 2020 and not since. As much as a loathe the Astros, the current incarnation of which won't escape the stink of their cheating scandal, I'm glad to see Justin continuing to succeed as long as his health holds up.

On the football end of things it's a tale of two Michigan QBs: the NFL's GOAT and one of my favorite college field generals. Brady's back (tell a friend) for another shot at glory, and he's back on TMV as well in the form of the 2015 Certified Gold Team insert you see above. The gold plus the foil make for a pretty good looking card, and I've often been a fan of Certified throughout its existence, though of course nothing will ever compare to the pre-Panini heyday of Donruss.

He's joined by a 2008 Topps Rookie Progression RC of gunslinger Chad Henne, a guy who put up almost 10000 passing yards plus 87 TDs in his four years in Ann Arbor, then went out with a bang thanks to a dramatic bowl win against Tim Tebow's Gators. I've always thought the set name was a bit awkward but other than that I think Topps generally did pretty well with designs back when they had the license to use NCAA unis.

Once again thanks for thinking of me, Matt, and especially for that nice addition for someone else's trade package that I think might just make their day! I appreciate your generosity as always and look forward to hitting you back soon.

The other envelope I'm showing off this evening came from busy box breaker/blogger Colbey of Cardboard Collections. Every now and then I'm able to send a package with a few Braves/Panthers/other items he collects, and recently he sent something back up my way:

Along with a nice note, Colbey gifted me this 2021 Panini Chronicles card of JV. Honestly, Verlander's almost the gift card of players you can send me. Not sure who I collect? Verlander's name is in the blog title! Don't have anything else handy? You know I'll like a Verlander card! (I say all of this in the most positive of ways as I'm also a fan of gift cards!)

What you're looking at is the Holo Gold parallel of Verlander's appearance in the America's Pastime portion of Chronicles. Those of you who've seen these in-person know they're pretty thick--this one just about matches up the six card stack from Matt above--so you know I've gotta bust out the Milhouse GIF:

I think these are quite cool since besides the thickness they have an acetate-type layer on the front, along with an interesting background. I think these are considered the "base" set (at least on TCDB) and then you can find lots of other designs/products inserted as well. As I mentioned, the one Colbey sent my way is the Holo Gold parallel so his name is spelled out with that type of foil plus the card is numbered to 49, putting it somewhat in the middle of the seven parallels. I like numbered cards, acetate, cool designs, and any Verlanders I don't have so this one is definitely a winner.

Thanks again for thinking of me with this cool new JV, Colbey! I hope I can find more goodies to send your way, and in the meantime I hope you have fun keeping the breaking business going!

Looking over at my desk I currently have two more decently large packages to cover so I'll try to get to those next, one at a time. In the meantime, please check out the blogs of both of today's trade partners.

2022 trade package #4: It's Like Having My Own Card Shop

This evening I have another trade package from a well known blogger that happened with an assist from TCDB. I talk to a number of guys on the site who handle IRs (inaccuracy reports) and a few of them are really cool so I've also begun trading with them. While at a show late last year I came across a nice Robin Yount relic for $5 that I knew someone would like, and once I looked over this member's tradelist, we were able to make a quick deal around this card (future TCDB trade post to come).

That deal was mainly centered around a card I knew a certain someone might like: Paul Goldschmidt collector Daniel of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop. In December Daniel confirmed in a Twitter conversation that he'd like the manurelic seen in this post here and that he'd be able to send some stuff back that I could use. That was good enough for me since we've done some deals in the past I was plenty happy with.

He ended up coming up with "a few cards from [my] want lists and a couple of Tigers cards" which ended up being quite the understatement. Just check out all the cool stuff I got back:

The Miggy you see up top is a Pink Refractor from 2019 Topps Chrome, and with the owners finally done with preventing fans from seeing baseball in 2022 it's a great reminder that he's just 13 hits away from joining the exclusive 500 HR/3000 hits club! Right now the membership includes Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Albert Pujols, Eddie Murray, Rafael Palmeiro, and Alex Rodriguez. Pretty good company!

Daniel did promise "a couple Tigers" and ended up making good on that with two more Cabreras: relic cards from 2015 Topps Heritage and 2018 Topps. Score! I now own 15 relics of the future HOFer to go with a manurelic and three autographs. I really appreciate Daniel's generosity here.

A bit of the aforementioned wantlist help came in the form of a pair of J.J. Putz cards. J.J. played for Daniel's Diamondbacks for the last four seasons of his career, 2011-14, and saved 45 and 32 games for Arizona over his first two campaigns there. Daniel sent me his 2011 Diamondbacks Topps team issue card as well as the 2012 Target Red parallel from that year's flagship set. Two more down!

That wasn't nearly all when it came to my wantlists, though, as he also sent me these six from 2007 Ultra's Iron Man insert that focuses on one of my top PC guys, Cal Ripken Jr. The 50-card set has a design I can't help but like--black with Orioles orange accents and silver foil--and I hope to put the whole thing together eventually. For now it looks like I have 14 of them so I've got my work cut out for me.

Now if that had been everything Daniel had sent my way I would have already been very happy. He had other plans, though:

...in the form of three very nice vintage cards of Hammerin' Hank! I know Daniel's a pretty avid vintage collector but I most definitely didn't expect these and I'll be happy to add them to my paltry collection of classic cards. They include the well known 1968 Topps Game as well as two league leaders cards from 1972 Topps. In 1971, 37-year-old Hank put up a career high 47 homers (one less than league leader and fellow star Willie Stargell) plus 118 RBI--third behind Torre's 137 and Stargell's 125. That year was just one of seven campaigns where Aaron hit 40+ homers and yet he still managed to set the record with 755. He remains the game's career RBI leader with 2297 while only leading the league in that category four times as well, a testament to how great he was for such a long period of time. Just wow!

Daniel, once again I thank you for all the amazing cards you sent my way, all of which were surprises and better yet, new to my collection! I hope we can trade again relatively soon if I can find more harder to track down Goldschmidts (or other needs).

Looking over on my card desk I currently see five blog trade packages left to cover, plus a crazy 24 from TCDB that I'd like to show off in some way, shape, or form. That's in addition to two shows' worth of pickups. So look for lots more posts from me, if not in a timely fashion.

2022 trade package #1: Baseball Card Breakdown

That's right, it's February, but at least I'm done covering blogger trade packages from 2021! I still have to go back and recap my TCDB trades from the end of the year once I'm caught up on the other stuff but, hey, it's a start!

So my first trade package of 2022 arrived a few days after the new year from not-quite Christmas baby Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown. Because the anniversary of his birth falls right around that major holiday I try to make sure to include him in my annual Christmas cards mailings, and last year was no different (see his post here where what I sent is part of a roundup). As he often does at various points throughout the year, Gavin hit me back because he's a good dude.

Here's what the BMWT from Oregon contained this time:

Six many Verlanders! I mean, it's in the name of my blog so you can't go wrong sending me some and I'm always happy to add to his collection. He's so well represented in the envelopes I receive that I've put much less focus and money into collecting him because I don't have to.

With one exception these are all from the past 2-3 years so you mostly see him as an Astro, which I've pretty much gotten used to. Still, I'm happy there's one exception: a Tigers card in the form of his 2016 Bowman base. Looking at TCDB that was his final appearance in the brand with Detroit, and he wouldn't be back in the base set until 2019, which you can see as the third card in the scan.

These break up nicely into three pairs, and the second duo includes the fairly similar 2018 Topps Archives (#2 in the scan) and 2021 Topps Heritage (right below it). Maybe Topps will flip flop the designs on each product once again and I'll have two more similar cards!

Last up are two 2019 cards that have similar designs, which makes sense since Opening Day and flagship/Update don't really deviate from the main look. JV threw seven innings of one-run ball with 9 Ks in a 5-1 win over the Rays on Opening Day 2019. He also started the All-Star Game, his appearance of which is noted on his Update card, and struck out two of the batters he faced in his inning: Javier Baez and Freddie Freeman. Not bad!

Now we'll switch over from a former Tiger to Tigers parallels (of mostly former Tigers). Shelton and Urbina are Refractors from 2005 Topps Chrome. While the flagship version that year wasn't one of my favorites, it did lend itself nicely to the Chrome product, and I think these Refractors look terrific. Shelton was a Rule 5 pick from the Pirates who came out of nowhere to hit 34 HR between 2005 and 2006 (and what a difference between those two teams!), though that would end his run with the franchise.

Urbina was a pretty good closer in the early 2000s and won a ring with the '03 Marlins, then signed with Detroit before the '05 season. I fondly remember him only because he brought back 2B Placido Polanco in a deal with the Phillies, and I think even less fondly of him now that he's out of prison after 14 years for attempted murder. Yeesh.

Thompson's card from 2012 Bowman Draft didn't scan as nicely as its fellow Refractors but it is indeed that type of parallel. Jake was Detroit's 2nd-rounder that year as a high school pitcher out of Texas. He returned to his home state in a deal with the Rangers two years later that brought RP Joakim Soria to Detroit, and then a year later he was flipped to Philly in a deal headlined by Cole Hamels. He was considered a pretty good prospect for a while but appeared in just 42 games between 2016-18 and after bouncing around a bit more (including a return to the Tigers system) he hasn't been affiliated with a Major League team.

Last up in this group is a 2021 Topps Royal Blue parallel of former top prospect starter-turned-reliever Michael Fulmer. That color is blue enough for this Michigan fan to give it a nod of approval, and I still like collecting Fulmer, whom I hope has another good run out of the 'pen this season if we end up having one.

Those two scans include some nice new cards for me but would hardly justify a bubble mailer by themselves. It turns out they were just along for the ride with this:

Much to my surprise I'm now the owner of former Wolverine Clayton Richard's 2018 Topps Big League Topps Vault Blank Back 1/1! For those of you not in the know Topps will occasionally make these available to consumers, usually via eBay, and they come with a hologram sticker on the back and a separate certificate of authenticity. Above you see the cert and here's the (otherwise) blank back:

It's kind of a fun way to acquire a 1/1 if you don't feel like chasing down printing plates and similar items.

This actually isn't my first Topps Vault item as I have three similar cards that were sent to me by Matt (Bob Walk the Plank) a few years ago, along with a couple signed Topps contracts also sent to me by Matt.

Richard's card here came in a stickered magnetic one-touch which I opened to grab a scan for my collection and then reassembled so it'll be easier to tell apart as a special card. As you can see the other three came in Beckett slabs and I may crack the cards out of them to make storage simpler.

I tip my cap to Gavin for sending me such a nice card of a guy not everyone thinks of when they think of me (or in general, I guess). Others may consider him a forgettable low-end guy but I love acquiring new items of any of the former Wolverines I collect so this is great. By the way, it happens to be my 10th plate/1-of-1 and 15th hit overall (yep, two-thirds of them are 1/1s!). That 10-spot places him third behind J.J. Putz's 11 and Rich Hill's ~26 (with more to properly identify).

Gavin, thanks a lot of thinking of me and sending such a cool package of Verlanders, Tigers parallels, and a surprise big UM Baseball hit! As soon as I can get back to shows and other sources of cardboard acquisition I'll be working on another envelope to send to the other side of the country, hopefully filled with Gavins, Black Refractors, #12/24 cards, and other stuff you like.

Look for more trade recaps coming whenever I feel like it!

The "OMG what did I get myself into?" lot part 1: I love the 90s

Well I guess it's about damn time I got around to this. "What?" you ask, "Posting for the first time in a couple weeks?" Yeah, that too, I guess. But I'm talking about finally digging into that "OMG what did I get myself into?" lot I picked up on Facebook Marketplace. As a reminder, it looked something like this before and during loading it in my car:

I know I mentioned a number of times that I was putting lots of effort into sorting through everything, and while I'm technically not quite done, I'd say I'm finally in a good place to show off generally what I'm keeping, making available, and dumping.

I may go into a bit more detail as these posts go on about what I found, but basically in terms of what filled those monster boxes in my trunk, it was baseball base and inserts from the late 80s to the mid-to-late 90s. And better yet it skewed much more toward the latter than junk wax crap that I have more than enough of. There was a LOT of cards stored completely randomly for some reason so it took lots of time to arrange them by set, but that ended up proving to be a rewarding enterprise as you'll see in a future post or two.

However, today I'm starting with the easiest items to cover: the base and insert singles I'm keeping for myself, mostly from 1995-97 sets I decided not to collect since there weren't enough in the boxes to justify trying to complete them. I was pleased to hit a number of my favorite PCs from 90s Tigers to the Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken quartet to a few Michigan guys. The base portion is pretty solid but I think some of you will be pretty blown away by the inserts I added (which only scratch the surface of what I came away with!).

So please enjoy this bunch of cards I'm adding to my collection from the hobby's best non-vintage decade:

Like I said, lots of former Tigers! Big Daddy and Pudge are from the super busy '95 Fleer, a set I probably wouldn't have put together even if there were enough cards in the boxes to justify it. From '95 Score we have well-known '90s Tiger Fryman, '80s dude and the "Big Wheel" Lance Parrish on his second-to-last team, and Mr. Padre on a typically fun Score subset. Repping that year's Stadium Club are Pudge again plus one of the franchise's best closers in Henneman. And finishing up the year is a trio (continued in the next scan) of Cecil, Junior Griffey, and yet another Pudge. The stacks of Stadium Club and Ultra definitely weren't near enough for a set chase but I'll spoil the fact that I did end up with a complete set of Score Series I, just not the second series that included the trio above.

Most of what you see here is made up of '96 Bowman, a set I hadn't really prioritized. I found a pretty nice chunk of the vets portion of the set in those boxes but there were a lot of prospects missing, and I'm not really interested in the set anyway. Ripken and Maddux make their first appearances in this scan while Pudge, Gwynn, Fielder, and Fryman can be seen once again. One other newcomer is SS Carlos Guillen on one of his RCs. He appears with the Astros but of course was swapped to Seattle in the Randy Johnson deal, then flipped a few years later to Detroit where he was a fun and effective contributor for around eight seasons. And don't be too surprised to see Pudge once more out of '96 Fleer, a set I have a lot of singles from because I love the design. The stack of those from the boxes is one of the smaller ones but maybe someday I'll own all of it.

The last of the vertical base (sort of, you'll see...) are from '96 Select and Upper Deck. That the former are oriented that way is funny since only the checklists were made that way that year; As you'll see below, the rest of the base set is horizontal! It was pretty common for the decade's biggest stars to grace end-of-the-set checklists and that's what we have here in Griffey and Maddux. Big Daddy is the lone representative from another set I have a lot of but would love to own, 1996 Upper Deck. Moving on to the horizontals, corner guys Fryman and Fielder were the two I pulled from a somewhat small bunch of '95 Stadium Club. And Fryman pops up one more time thanks to the credit card-inspired '95 Studio product.

See what I mean about 1996 Select? Relative to the size of the set the pile of cards wasn't bad but once again wasn't enough for me to want to work on it, so here's eight more base cards I pulled for myself. Griffey, Maddux, and Ripken (twice!) get even more additions to their PCs while Pudge and Fielder, who started us off, represent the Tigers once more.

As I looked through the various boxes, most of which were filled with randomly assorted run-of-the-mill 90s products, I was floored to find one stuffed with Finest cards from 1994-97! While I'll have more to say about those in one or more future posts in this series, you'll get to see lots here, with even more exciting items in the next section. Here you're looking at cards from the 1995-97 versions, all of which have one thing in common: protective peels. What's great is that between this purchase and what I already had in my collection, I was able to set aside this group of 29 cards so I would have both unpeeled and peeled copies.

It took a bit for me to get the peels started on each--I mean, they have been in place for around 25 years! It's great having copies in both states since you get the "original" aspect with one and the better looking "freed" version with the other. I thought I'd include the pile of peels in the shot for fun.

And that leaves us with two more scans, which may be the best part of the series already in just the first post. A couple of the boxes had some groups of inserts bundled together, with others found randomly throughout the bunch, and I came away with a few very nice stacks of cards that serve as a great reminder of why I have a tag called "90s inserts rule" here. Just feast your eyes on these:

Sure, the '96 Bowman Foils of Gwynn, Fielder, Fryman, and Tony Clark (his first appearance today!), all of which came out of a pretty large stack of that parallel, aren't much to write home about, but obviously the big draw here is one of the OG must-have parallels: Refractors! Shiny, colorful, and originally much harder to find than the watered down versions of today, the ones you see above are from 1994 and '95, with the former being the second you could find without peels on them. I was more than happy to add a Fielder to my collection from '94, but the PC duo of shortstops Tram and Larkin had me over the moon! What beautiful looking cards. The '95s aren't exactly chopped liver either, and again I was glad to pair a former Tiger in Fryman with another PC I'm having fun building in Froot Loops himself, Mickey Tettleton.

The fun continued with more '96s and some '97s to boot. Though it's technically part of the base set I included Cal's '96 Finest silver card here because those were tougher pulls. '96 Score and its inserts were very, very well represented in these boxes (again, more to come) and I dug out two chase cards of today's star in Pudge: a Dugout Collection Artist's Proof (from the Series 2 set) and a Gold Stars card, whose name I associate more with Leaf.

And lastly we have one of my all-time favorite products in '97 Donruss, which is right up there with the 2001 version for me. I came away with quite a few from some of the inserts you see above and I'm happy to say lots will be available for trade, but more importantly for me I scored six outstanding cards from that product where pretty much every chase card was a winner. Barry's from the numbered Armed and Dangerous set (#0836/5000) and therefore knocks a card off of his wantlist. Maddux is the second PC guy I've found from the color appropriate Dominators set (Larkin is the other). I've been chasing the Cal Ripken Jr. "The Only Way I Know" insert since I bought his book of the same name, and card #9 above (#4439/5000) is my fourth of the 10 I need to acquire, including the one exclusive to the book. Griffey is the front man on possibly my favorite of the available inserts, the double-sided Franchise Features, with Andruw Jones joining him on the other side of this one numbered 1963/3000 (and slightly damaged from having to peel it apart from another, unfortunately). And lastly we have examples of both the Silver (limited to 2000 copies) and die-cut Gold (just 500) Press Proofs: Fryman and Griffey, respectively.

So holy crap, what a great bunch of cards on their own, and that doesn't include the complete and near-finished sets, potential trade bait, and other items that were part of this purchase which, as a reminder, set me back just $30! I look forward to sharing more with you once I can summon the energy to find a way to present and summarize it in a way that makes sense, and that includes letting everyone know what I'll be making available for trades/giveaways.

Before then, expect a show recap if I make it out to my usual monthly haunt tomorrow, plus my latest eBay pickup.