1/6 and 1/20/24 card show reports: 2 shows 2 start 2024

That's right, it's show time once again! For this post we're traveling all the way back to the beginning of 2024 when I made it over to my first show of the year in Taylor, before heading to my second just two weeks later.

We'll get to that one in a bit, but first here's a quick recap of my usual monthly show.

Somewhat unusually I headed east to Taylor on the first Saturday of the month instead of Friday, I think because I didn't feel like taking that Friday off. Michigan had just earned a thrilling OT win against Alabama in the Rose Bowl a few days earlier and I was just biding my time until the following Monday's matchup with Washington, not realizing what was in store for my Wolverines.

While I was at the show I spent a pretty reasonable $70, and if you'd like me to break that down further I'm afraid I can't because it was literally almost four months ago now. Suffice to say I dug through my usual favorite boxes and was pretty happy with the results.

First up: a tiny amount of trade bait, I believe from the $1 and $2 boxes:

Reed is /500; Michael is #105/105(!); Durham is #03/10.

Claim 'em if you wanna trade for 'em!

Next up we have my keepers:

This is a great scan buoyed by some "90s inserts rule!" goodness. Junior is from an awesome '96 Stadium Club insert called Mega Heroes and the card has an excellent comic book vibe. Grandy's from an insert Donruss did much better under its original name than the Panini version: Career Stat Line. He had 1564 hits (before finishing with exactly 1800) but Panini numbered the card /500. Henry is a Michigan guy, nuff said. I don't remember if I paid $2 or $5 for Mad Dog's '97 Ultra Baseball Rules insert but I don't care because it's a sick die-cut chase card anyway. Mize has been solid in his return to the mound this year. Then Maddux is back with a numbered card (/799) from 2008 UD a Piece of History, and Pudge gets some love for winning the NLCS (and eventually the World Series) in '03 with the Marlins.

The basketball content is exactly one card: a '17-'18 Donruss Optic of ex-Wolverine and 2017 Bucks first-rounder D.J. Wilson, featuring that Rated Rookie logo that I can help preferring over Topps' rookie cup (it's ok, unfollow me if you have to!). Griese is a '99 Score Anniversary parallel numbered /1989 on the back while former teammate and GOAT DB Charles Woodson hails from '22 Classics' Premium Edition.

In terms of hits, the first is a SAGE HIT, oddly enough, starring former Michigan OL Ben Bredeson. A fairly successful lineman out of Wisconsin (maybe their top export?), he parlayed solid performance late in the 2010s into a 4th round draft choice by the Ravens in 2020. Since then he's suited up for the Giants and signed with Tampa. His only cardboard appearances are from SAGE brands but I'm happy to welcome him to the collection with a signature.

And lastly, I think I've had more luck buying Devin Funchess hits at this show than anywhere else, though I have no idea why. Anyway, I came home with the 2015 Certified and Crown Royale jersey/auto/RCs and a relatively low numbered sticker auto for just a few bucks each and was happy to do so. The trio pushed him up to 28 hits and 12 of those include a signature, so that number's growing nicely.

Two weeks later I was excited to be heading about an hour and a half west to Kalamazoo for an awesome meetup opportunity. Not only did I have the chance to see Jeff and his cousin Sluggo who were all set up again as sellers, and not only did John make the quick trip down from nearby Portage--a combo that's happened on a few fun occasions--but my buddy Jason a.k.a. jasongerman9 from TCDb, who lives an hour-ish away in Niles, stopped by as well with his girlfriend Sam. The two hung out at the show for a bit before taking in the hockey game at the Wings Event Center where the show was, and it was awesome to finally meet them in person.

Here's a quick look at all of us:

Me, Kevin, Jason (kickass t-shirt!), Jeff (kickass jersey that I got from Jason!), John, and Sam.

I had a blast hanging out with these folks and picking out some stuff for some of my favorite traders (a few of which were at this very show with me!). Between trading Kevin a few cards he could use and the very generous discount he gave me I spent $25 at his tables, all of it for trade bait (including some Red Sox for Boston/Alabama fan Sam!). I love in-person meetups like this and you just can't beat talking cards with friends for an hour or two.

So yeah, I'd say I started the year with two very successful shows. Thanks again to all the folks that made it to Kalamazoo, and I'm hoping to see some or all of the same friends in just a few weeks if we can all make it back there!

2022 trade package #21: Cardboard Collections

The other recent TCDB-aided trade post I have for you this evening is thanks to collector of Braves, Panthers, and toys, and Affordable Group Break-er Colbey of Cardboard Collections. This will be just the fifth trade I've done with him on this blog, but given how active he is on TCDB, with more than 300 deals in the books, we could easily increase that count but taking advantage of that site's trade-enhancing features.

Those of you who know Colbey are probably fairly familiar with his username on a number of sites, "flywheels", and that's exactly his alias on the DB. After I recently loaded up more cards to my trade list and ran a trade matching report he came up near the top, and we ended up with a deal in which we each got 70+ cards. Everything went great, and I was happy with my own haul, which included some fun trade items for others which have since gone out to them in the mail.

Here's what I landed for myself from my longtime blogging pal:

Up front we have some classy looking throwback looks at Tigers HOFer Tyrus Raymond Cobb. In all I ended up with six items (you'll see another below) made in roughly the last decade of the Georgia Peach, and I'd say the shiny 3000 Hits Club insert is my favorite here. Jake from St. Clair (think that nickname could stick like the State Farm guy?) is next with yet another RC for my growing collection of the young Padres star (and one of two appearances this evening as well). After him is a trio of a duo that manned the corners at Tiger Stadium in the 90s: Cecil Fielder and Travis Fryman. While I don't prioritize those guys in deals I'll always add them in to bulk up a trade when it makes sense.

Also sometimes guys like those two star on one of the best cards of the package, as is the case with Fryman and his '94 Select Skills insert. It's a beautiful looking rainbow foil card that reminds me how grateful I am that other brands made great looking cards and eventually forced Topps to up their game. The double-take of Grandy's 2015 GQ card with its White Bordered parallel makes it easier to appreciate how much better the latter version looks. Greenberg joins Cobb as a Detroit HOF blast from the past, and in Hank's case he arrives courtesy of Topps' 2011 CMG Reprints insert (and you'll see him one more time in a bit). I managed to sneak Griffey and Gwynn into the package thanks to their 2018 Donruss base appearances. And who could resist a Toys R Us/Topps collab of a young Henneman?

I won't be renaming this blog after Austin Jackson--I don't even have 100 of his cards yet--but I was glad to make him part of this deal with the pair above. Mr. Tiger makes a well deserved cameo with two cards here and one below, and did you know he was just the fourth AL player to hit two homers in an inning? Three more recent Larkins help me continue his march to 1K, and I'm over 900 so I'm happy with the progress I'm making. And Mize may be on the shelf (honestly, which pitcher for the Tigers isn't at this point?) but my pursuit of his cards isn't, so there's a nice pair of his items to round out this scan.

If I had to have the Toys R Us Henneman, why not 1987 AL ROY second runner up Matt Nokes? I don't think people realize just how many cards of Magglio--Tigers and White Sox--I have in my collection, but TCDB tells me it's 234 and when I look at his stack in my Tigers box I believe it! I really liked the nice mix I got of Pudge (with one still to go below) even with only one Tigers card in the bunch, and the Marlins card is a nice reminder that he helped Florida to the '03 World Series in his only season with them before helping bring Detroit back to respectability. Tork's been...not great this year, but I'm nowhere near ready to give up on a kid that just turned 23 and obviously gets zero good feedback from a failure of a coaching staff. And hey, how about the season JV is having? Dude's a few months older than I am and he's a ridiculous 16-3.

How about even more Verlanders? No such thing as too many, I always say! The Morris/Avery card is a fun French's food issue. Magglio looks even better with the Tigers on his '11 Topps Diamond Anniversary parallel. And THJ was the lone basketballer to appear here, but one more sport will feature in the final scan below.

All those "you'll see x more in a few" comments were about this scan full of minis. It's largely a Ginter party but there's a few other sets repped as well. Tram is the only baseball player that wasn't seen earlier, and I happily added something new of him. Clark is nobody's idea of a role model but I collect plenty of terrible people so here's a sticker of him to add to the pile.

And finally I enjoy when folks make up their own promotional stuff like business cards, for their blogs/breaks/other. In Colbey's case it's an extra great idea because he also left a spot to write down the TCDB transaction number, a great thing to include in one or more places when you package up your deals there.

One more reminder: not pictured are a few more very nice inserts and hits that went to some of my other favorite trade partners. I want to emphasize that because just the stuff you see above was a nice haul as far as I was concerned. Colbey continues to be a great guy to trade with and I'm glad we were able to complete such a large deal thanks to my current favorite card site. Thanks, Colbey!

Up next you'll probably see my spoils from the Labor Day weekend show featuring a cameo by someone I mention quite often around these parts. Until then, I have more TCDB deals in the works!

2022 trade package #20: Collector's Crack

The next couple trade packages you'll see came courtesy of a couple longtime blogger friends but with a bigtime assist thanks to TCDB.

The deal you'll see tonight was my first with Mark, a.k.a. CynicalBuddha, of Collector's Crack, since July of 2019. Obviously it had been far too long since we sent cards back and forth from Alaska and Michigan, so I was glad to see we had so many trade matches for each other. That made figuring out a deal a breeze, and then we even managed to make it a bit bigger by adding on some hits.

Everything went smoothly and I added the following items to my collection:

I don't know if they'll ever all be healthy at once, or all on the Tigers even if that works out, but for now I'm still enjoying collecting stuff of three of the team's best young pitchers. Right now Mize leads the trio in my collection with 45 cards (some of which I believe I'll be showing off in future TCDB roundups), with Manning second at 16, and Skubal #3 with 14.

Over here we have some Tigers and other PCs. The Miggy cards were fun throw-ins for me, and I'll continue to add nice Cochrane cards to his PC whenever I can get them, Tigers uniform or no. Remember when Kirk Gibson was managing the D-Backs?

Gwynn is a major PC for me and the three items here all looked great to me--a throwback to his college days, a colorful Diamond Kings insert, and another throwback to Topps' Doubleheaders product. The latter is in a much easier to manage format than the original's flimsy paper stored in a plastic stand, but other than that the concept is pretty much the same: one side is a reprint of the player's RC and the other is their card from that year (or in the case of the '21 insert, their final Topps card):

I'm always glad to see Jack Morris in a Tigers uni in newer products because despite his greatness with Detroit he's often lauded for his performances with the Twins and Blue Jays. And why not keep adding to my collection-leading PC of Ripken?

Three many Verlanders comprise half of this final scan, and while I was glad to add a new Tigers card thanks to the 2012 A&G insert, my favorite is the Stadium Club Chrome from a couple years ago as that brand looks so sharp.

On the relics side of things I scored a double of a Bowman Heritage bat of Magglio (I somehow missed that I already had it, but that's cool, I made it available back on TCDB) and a new similar card from 2005 Donruss Champions (one of his two appearances in the set). Mark also came up with a new JV relic for me out of 2013 GQ, my 32nd hit of his, 19 of them being relics like this one.

Mark, thanks again for a great trade! I was happy to be able to run it back after we let three years go by.

For those of you reading this who aren't familiar with Mark, please go check him out on TCDB under his cynicalbuddha account, add him as a friend, and get trading with him. I can promise you an easy deal where both sides are happy just like this one!

Still to come: another old blogging pal and I work out a pretty large deal on the site....

TCDB trade: mzentko

 

Call it a trade or a pair of "pay it forwards" or whatever else you'd like, but I enjoyed my first dealing with Mark (mzentko) on TCDB recently. I had contacted him in hopes of getting the copy of Jim Bouton's '88 Pacific Legends base he had available (which would complete my second set), but it turned out that it was in too rough shape to make it worth it. Still, I was happy to PWE him a dupe of Stan Musial's HOF postcard since he seemed like a good dude.

Flash forward a few weeks and I found a PWE from the Tennesseean (is Tennebelievin'!) in my own mailbox. He'd found a couple cards on my wantlist and was generous enough to get me back:

It's sad to be watching the first Detroit MLB season without Mr. Tiger in my lifetime but I'm always happy to see his name in a trade package. The Swell Greats cards are among my favorite oddball issues because, well, just look at Kaline's card here! From the 1991 set--the final of its three-year run--a very nice, bright red and yellow border surrounds a classic photo of Al. This addition gets me within spitting distance of 150 of his cards, which is excellent.

As for the other item today, some of you might be a bit confused as to why I'd want something featuring catcher Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker, such as the 1994 Ted Williams card you see above. Well, as it turns out, the Ohio native first starred at Oberlin College, located in his home state, but then my alma mater went hard after him and he joined Michigan for the 1882 season.

The following year he was signed by the Toledo Blue Stockings the following year, and then in 1884 that team joined the American Association, which was considered part of the majors at that time. His experience in the game was not unlike that of Jackie Robinson some 60+ years later, which is appropriate since he technically beat Jackie to the title of first black player in Major League Baseball (and inappropriate since racists are assholes).

See the back of his card below (or the linked Wikipedia entry above) for more.

I was grateful to learn more about Walker, including his time in Ann Arbor, and am honored to add him to the ex-Wolverines I collect.

Many thanks to Mark for the nice gesture, continuing my overall positive experience on TCDB!

12/28/19 card show report: 90s inserts rule at the end of 2019

As I mentioned in my last post covering my in-person trade with Paul, we hit up his (extremely) nearby show in Troy on the last Saturday in December, marking the second time in 2019 that I got to two shows in a month.  That ended up putting me over $200 in card spending for the month, the only time that happened last year, though I came within $1 on two other occasions.  There was plenty of good reason for that, though:  besides the two shows I finished up my COMC purchasing for my Christmas Cards.

Anyway, Paul made sure it was worth the trip for me in a few ways, starting with that trade.  Plus, as I also mentioned in that last post, we got to meet up with Chuck (C2Cigars) from TCDB, which was really cool.

He brought a nice little stack of TCDB customs I'd seen around the site, and I happily took an autographed version of the one you see above.  It's a nice reminder of getting to meet one of the nicer guys on the site, and I hope some of you on TCDB trade with him eventually.  He was nice enough to bring me something straight off my wantlist:  a 1957 Topps RC of former UM football player Lou Baldacci.  A terrific addition to my vintage and RC collections, it's my first of the FB/QB/HB/PK, which isn't surprising since he has all of three cards to his name--this one and a couple reprint versions Topps did in 1994.  It gives me a completed run on my Michigan Football RC project checklist from 1955-'94, a string of 78 players.  Thanks, Chuck!

After the meetup I hit up one of Paul's favorite sellers, a guy who's usually at Taylor, though I tend to spend my money there on my favorite dude's tables.  I believe I ended up with $10 worth of quarter cards, including a nice bunch of $0.25 hockey autos that might make for good trade bait.

Then we headed over to the table of a guy I hadn't met before.  Paul was nice enough to alert us to his crazy deals, and after talking to him he sounded like a guy having fun and just wanting to sell stuff at ridiculously low prices to people who'd appreciate it.  He didn't seem to be aware of the value of current stars and was checking a Beckett or some other price guide, generally in favor of the buyer.

I dropped $38 at his table on a few things for my self and some pretty nice trade bait, some of which will go out eventually, plus a few cards for Paul as well--call it a finder's fee!  Here's the stuff I took home with me:

The "90s inserts rule" tag portion of the post covers these two fun inserts from that era.  Mr. Padre's is a '96 Denny's Holograms Grand Slam Artist's Proof, which was fun since I didn't realize Pinnacle inserted those into the packs found at the restaurant known for its food being garbage.  It's Gwynn on a hologram insert made in the 90s so it's 100% gold to me.

Joining him is Ripken on a shiny (not that you can tell from the scan) chase card from '97 Circa called Icons.  In fact, it's funny looking at the image in this post and then down at the actual card with its reflective rainbow foil front.  Cal was indeed an icon of his era and the back of this surprisingly thin card lauds him for his professionalism during "the most celebrated baseball feat in recent history.  That's great, but I was already sold on 90s insert+Cal+shiny!

Next up we have a couple graded rookie year cards of Michigan QB Brian Griese.  Besides the fact that my opinion of grading couldn't get much lower, I just felt like it would be more fun to crack these and see them up-close, so that's exactly what I did, and grouped them with my other football pickup from the guy:

Fellow QB Todd Collins looks awesome on his own rookie year insert, an acetate die-cut 1995 Playoff Contenders chase card called Rookie Kickoff.  Reread that sentence and then try coming up with a scenario where that doesn't come home with me!  And now we get a better look at the Griese cards from '98.  Up top is a Finest Refractor from that year, and despite the lack of film it hasn't been peeled--it's the rarer No-Protectors version!  Fortunately I didn't have to take the grading company's word for it as these are easy to identify with one trait:  the No-Protectors have the same Refractory look on the back.  Please allow me to demonstrate with something that took enough effort that I'd better get a comment from Gavin:

Shiiiiiiny!  That pairs nicely with Griese's '98 SPx Finite RC (#1535/1998), which was a bit too reflectively to scan nicely.  With that one out of the way I'm short just six of his 39 first-years I'm chasing.  Plus I got to celebrate yet another milestone in 2019 by landing my 200th card of the '97 National Champ.  Woohoo!

This guy also had a binder full of completed and near done baseball and football insert and relic sets.  This Amani Toomer autograph is just my second signature of the former Giants WR, and it hails from 2000 Playoff Prestige's Team Checklists set.  It looks like the last 30 of them were signed, and that includes fellow Wolverines Elvis Grbac and Tyrone Wheatley, the latter of which I also own.  One of the reasons I spent a lot of time digging through this seller's cards is that I first asked him for a price on this one and he wanted $2.  Sir, you have my interest!

Last up from this seller was a very appropriate color for a parallel of a former Wolverine star.  Here's a beautiful Blue version of Marty Turco's 2003-04 O-Pee-Chee base, numbered up front 432/500.  As usual I'll happily laud Topps when they deserve it, and I'd argue that they knocked this one out of the park (though I'm not surprised since they were still putting effort into their releases back then).

On the way out I made sure to stop by the tables of a guy who always has a huge variety of BCW supplies and some miscellaneous other stuff, because he was asking $3 for opened factory sets of 1990 Topps.  That worked for me since the set definitely doesn't warrant paying shipping, which costs more than the worth of the set.

I had most of my PC guys' cards from this one (though not all, which I'll get to in a second!), but scoring the complete set filled a nice gap in my collection:  I now own complete Topps flagship sets from 1984-2010, a run I'm fairly proud of.  Plus I had plenty of fun getting this set all sorted and in order (they didn't ship that way, I believe) as that gave me a chance to take a closer look at all of the cards.

And, as I alluded to a minute ago, I did end up with a few new additions:  two of Tony Gwynn's issues--All-Star and regular--and one of Ripken, also the All-Star subset.

I'd call landing this much stuff at a show that hasn't had much for me in the past an unqualified success and definitely a great way to end 2019.  Many thanks to Chuck and Paul for a fun meetup!

As far as shows go I did get to Taylor this month but haven't decided what order I'm going to cover my in-hand stuff, so we'll see when I get to that.  In the meantime, here's to another great year of shows and trading!

Christmas cards, TCDB, and a completed PC!

Hooray, it's a post about something other than a trade package or cards I bought!  I'm covering three topics today:

1.  Christmas cards

I've had somewhat of a tradition of sending out Christmas card packages over the last few years--I found related posts from 2014, 2016, and last year, at least--and was happy to bring that back for this holiday season.  I put together a bunch of packages of stuff weeded out from my collection and purchased from COMC, eBay, and Sportlots, and thanks to my COMC stuff arriving yesterday was finally able to get them all in the mail.  It was too late (after 6pm) for them to go anywhere but at least they'll be on the move come Monday.

Here's another festive shot of the 19 packages (waiting on cards for #20 later this week):

That's one flat rate envelope (with a box in it), one PWE, and 17 bubble mailers.  I'm pretty sure most of you will be pretty excited with at least one thing in your packages.

While doing the Paypal shipping labels I used email addresses for everyone I could find so many of you may be aware these are coming, but just in case here's a list of ZIPs getting cards (hopefully) this week:

05866
07066
13601
16933
19390
23666
26505
29730
33323
46516
49002
66223
76013
76063
85338
91770
95119
97202
97213

Folks in those areas should be keeping an eye on their mailboxes this week!

2.  The Trading Card Database:

I'll probably have much more to say about the site in a future post, but for now I thought it would be worth announcing that I'm finally using it and would be happy to add anyone who wants to friend me.  I was able to find a few of you so far but I know there's a lot more of you I haven't, so please look me up and add me if you'd like.

Right now I'm spending a ton of my "card time" adding my collection to the site and uploading scans where I can; Trade bait will come later.  It's a very cool way to track things and there's definitely a certain amount of pride that goes into crowdsourcing the checklists and scans.  And that doesn't even take into account the trading aspect which I know many of you rave about.  So for now I'll just say that I'm really enjoying what's become an addictive pastime that's been another way to keep collecting interesting, and though I have a few gripes about the site I think both it and its community are amazing!

3.  Another PC bites the dust:

This one's somewhat related to #2.  I'd be chasing the seventh and final card in my PC for former Michigan pitcher Bobby Korecky--a 2008 SP Authentic Rookie Exclusives Autographs card--for long enough that I wasn't really sure it existed.  Though a checklist for that set appears on Beckett's OPG I'd never seen one of any player for sale or even posted at all.  Since they were allegedly redemption cards I figured they could be rare but not that rare.

So I threw up the question of their existence on TCDB and got a response or two that pretty much confirmed they didn't exist, which was good enough for me.  That means I'm considering my Korecky checklist complete at six cards, making him the 16th PC guy whose run I've completed.  Hooray for not going insane trying to track down a nonexistent card!

That's it for today but I'll probably be back before long with loot from COMC and Sportlots (of which you'll see way more on TMM in upcoming posts) in addition to my aforementioned look at TCDB.