The TCDB Michigan Box part 1: basketball

Although my Cardbarrel order arrived today I knew it was going to be delayed a bit from its original ETA so I finally got to work on something I'd been putting off for a bit.

As some of you may remember, last May I completed a TCDB deal with fellow Wolverines collector Chris (cjjt) in which I flipped him some dupe Michigan Football hits and maybe a few other things for a 5000-count monster box of his UM football and basketball extras. The not-quite-full box added 1600+ football cards to my collection and more than 350 basketball items to boot! Plus I came into possession to a bunch of extras I could use as traders, some of which have long since made their way to mailboxes around the country. In short, it was a huge boon to my collection and a blast making my largest TCDB deal by far.

So this past weekend I finally decided to start making a bit of progress on covering the contents. This evening, in honor of the UM basketball team going dancing as a #1 seed(!), albeit with a key injury or two, here's a quick look at the basketball content:

I took this shot to give you an idea of the sizes of the stacks for all 23 guys represented here. Glen Rice's pile (124 cards) led the way by far, with Juwan Howard (46), Loy Vaught (39), Jalen Rose and Terry Mills (26), and Chris Webber (25), the next highest. Gary Grant (18) and Rumeal Robinson (14) were the other two to hit double-digits.

In this scan and the next two I decided to grab one card to represent each player in the bunch, and in all but five cases (where I only received a single new card of a player) I had a choice, so I often opted for Michigan uniform cards where I could. Bullock, Burke, Calip, and Hughes were four of the five single-card guys, and I can't say Calip's name was familiar to me. The long-tenured Crawford added four new cards, Green got six, and Higgins five. Given the wide range of years represented here you won't be surprised that I got to enjoy a huge variety of brands and designs!

Here we have Jimmy King (2 cards), Mills, and Rose from some college-themed sets. McCormick (three), Riley (four), and Tarpley and Taylor (eight each) are guys I hadn't mentioned yet. I was absolutely spoiled with choice for Rice (don't worry, you'll see more soon) but had to go with the E-X Century card here. Flair and UD's Black Diamond were a couple brands I was happy to see plenty of, especially the version graced by Taylor.

Rudy T.! I had a pair to pick from for him and skipped the boring junk wax item for an SP Authentic base featuring a cool college shot. Traylor's Focus base was one of three to choose from, and since I like the baseball and football iterations of that design, why not go with that? Vaught's Flair insert was a natural choice for me, a basketball-appropriate set called Hardwood Leaders. Wade's another guy I wasn't familiar with and the Wild Card you see above (more familiar to me on the football side of things) was it. And of Webber's nice stack I thought the mid-90s Ultra insert pairing him up with a Lion was fun.

As I said a good amount of the stuff was somewhat boring base from the early 90s so I didn't have any desire to show off everything (and therefore need to resort to my terrible card photography skills), but still managed to come up with some very cool items to highlight. Take this nine-spot of Sporting News coach of the year Juwan Howard. Because he had 46 cards to choose from I easily came up with a page worth, starring some fun inserts and interesting base from products such as Topps Finest and Chrome plus UD's Black Diamond and SPx.

And then there's '89 champ Rice and his 124 cards, meaning I couldn't stick to just nine! Chris had each player sorted by brand and then year, which was weird for me as I was flipping through everything to determine what was new, and that's why you see things sort of grouped that way here. It's kind of fun seeing a trio of Bowman's Best designs with a three-peat, though, or a couple Flair Showcases bringing the shininess.

Look at the Topps and Upper Deck greatness on display here! The former includes Stadium Club, Finest times three, and Gallery while the latter brings it with SP, flagship, Black Diamond, and Encore. And I didn't even include the E-X Century card you already saw! The 1997 and '98 Upper Deck flagship baseball products are among my favorites and the hoops version lives up to the hype with interesting game-dated photos.

These four guys combined for 116 new cards, fewer than Rice by himself, but I didn't want to give them the short end of the stick. Rose leads the way with another Stadium Club look I've always appreciated plus the usually cool Ultimate Victory. Platinum's throwback designs can be fun but not as much as Taylor's resting dunk face. Mystique was another shiny brand I liked to collect, as was Topps Chrome in its older iterations, and here Vaught brings his own intense dunk face. Lastly, I threw in a retro Webber (one of several from that set) and a very representative 90s insert.

As a result of all this craziness Rice became the leader in my basketball PC with 187 cards, making him the second to hit the century mark after Webber, now at 136. Howard (84), Rose (63), and Vaught (53) all eclipsed the 50-card mark, and I count 11 players with at least 20 items. Not bad at all!

And now I can enjoy putting them away before moving on to my Cardbarrel cards, then possibly returning with the massive football side of this deal, which will probably take several posts. Until then, good luck to my Wolverines in the NCAA tournament!

2020 trade package #38: the Collector

As is the case for many people right now I'm awaiting delivery of some stuff from DeJoy's woefully underprepared USPS--I appreciate the hard work being put in by everyone other than that corrupt cue ball--but there's no way that's gonna spoil my holiday. Why? Christmas cards!

This evening I'm covering the last of those I received (so far) this month, and today's envelope comes from a generous dude who's one of my most reliable commenters, and who runs a truly outstanding blog: Chris over at the Collector.

Chris, whose name comprises the first five letters of "Christmas" (whoa, conspiracy! Illuminati confirmed!) upped the ante by sending cards inside of a literal Christmas card:

Not only was this holiday-appropriate, but it also served as a great way to protect the trading cards:

That was a very nice gesture by Chris who, to my knowledge, has never been seen in the same room with Santa Claus, just sayin'. Anyway, my collecting will be very happy since he sent me this great trio:

A Tigers card, a PC addition, and a Wolverine base make for an outstanding not-so-secret Santa gift for me!

First up is a 2019 Panini Father's Day base (/199) of Casey Mize, one of Detroit's top pitching prospects. The 2018 #1 overall pick out of Auburn made seven starts last year and went 0-3 for another tanking Tigers squad, but his future looks very bright, just like this card. The scan doesn't remotely capture how nice it looks, with glittery rainbow dots and lines appearing all over. As indicated here, Mize pitched for the US Collegiate National Team in 2017 after his second college season, and was just as successful against other countries as he was here. I'm looking forward to a Tigers rotation staffed by guys like him, Matt Manning, Tarik Skubal, and other future stars!

Next is a card that may have some of you turning your heads sideways like confused dogs, but it's perfect for me. I PC former Tiger Dean Palmer and needed that 1994 Fleer base, which I confirmed after checking on my TCDB wantlist. While I've crossed the 150-card mark I still have a long way to go, so everything helps, even low-end base cards like this (though I do have reinforcements coming in from COMC at some point). Dean-o wouldn't head to Detroit until five years after this card was made, but the previous season, 1993, saw the slugging 3B smack what at the time was his career high of 33 HR. He'd go off for 38 in both '96 (still with Texas) and his '99 Debut in the Motor City. Kudos to Chris for remembering I collect him.

And double bonus points for including a Michigan card of some sort, in this case a '92-'93 Ultra base of Jamaican Wolverine G Rumeal Robinson. Seen here in some old-school Hawks duds, he's best known for making two foul shots to win the '89 NCAA title with Glen Rice's Wolverines. His subsequent NBA career wasn't much to speak of, and then he made some bad decisions that led to criminal charges, but he at least seems to have been out of the headlines for five years. His role in Michigan's basketball title gives him a special place in my UM collection so I was very happy to see him as I opened Chris's card.

And here's the backs for all you...uh...back-o-philes? Apparently I did a terrible cropping job since a good chunk of Mize's card is cut off. "2019 Panini - Father's D--"? Father's what?! Father's Donut? Father's D'Brickashaw Ferguson? We may never know.

Chris, thanks very much for thinking of me and putting some nice thought into this Christmas card filled with cards! Once the COMC order that includes items I purchased to send out my own versions arrives I'll happily be returning the favor.

With nothing else in-hand besides the massive UM box from TCDB that I'm still trying to figure out how to present, I may be taking a brief hiatus until after the holiday, but as always, you never know when more cards will materialize into your possession. In case that happens, I want to say Merry Christmas and thanks to everyone who traded with me and read/commented on TMV this year--you're all the gift that keeps on giving!