3/23/19 show report: show-pening day

It might have taken a bit longer than expected but the Tigers came away victorious on Opening Day in Toronto behind strong pitching from Jordan Zimmermann (of all people!) and the bat of young OF Christin Stewart.  The pitcher needed just 70 pitches to get through 7 innings while allowing just one hit (a tough grounder up the middle) to mar his stat sheet while the slugging LF bashed a no-doubt 2-run shot to right for the game's only runs.  In a season that will likely be light on wins it was a fun way to kick off the season!

Let's celebrate said occasions with some cards from the second show I made it to this month.  As I mentioned last time I headed up to Troy this past Saturday mainly to meet up with Paul of Scribbled Ink.  It was just the second time I'd been up there after having previously been around a year prior, and I had the same general lack of luck due to my overall dislike of the sellers' offerings and prices, but that's because I'm so picky and obviously prefer my guy in Taylor.

I still managed to dig up a few things for me (as well as trade bait) in spending $11.50:

• 4 $1 cards and 10 dimes from one seller for $5
• 6 cards from a 6/$5 box, 2 from a $0.50 box, and 20 $0.05 cards from the other for $6.50

You know the drill:  check out a few fun things I scored over on TMM and peep the rest right here:

These five of Griffey came from the dime box of the first seller I mentioned, a pretty reasonable guy who also sets up in Taylor.  I remarked to Paul that it was fun finding stuff like this for even less than the $0.18 minimum on Sportlots.  The quintet of 1998-99 cards is right in my wheelhouse and I was glad to officially hit the 800-card mark for Junior.

I can't remember which seller was responsible for the 2000 Topps Gwynn variation (my third) you see above, but I can definitely thank person #2--who I always skip at Taylor for a few reasons--for the '98 Topps Flashback insert pictured first.  Out of the 6/$5 came the last PC guy I needed from this fantastic chase set (back when Topps put effort into inserts) and he now happily joins Griffey and Ripken:

Maddux joined Griffey at the top of the heap this time with five new cards of his own.  #s 3 and 4 came from the cheapie boxes and represent 2018 Stadium Club and '96 Pinnacle Aficionado.  Meanwhile the other three were the rest of my personal take from the 6/$5 and can be described by one of the best phrases in collecting:  serial numbered inserts!

#1 is the super cool 1997 Donruss Armed and Dangerous (#1609/5000) and takes me all the way back to when I enjoyed breaking boxes of another excellent Donruss product.  The second is a League Leaders insert from the otherwise unnecessary 2002 Donruss Best of Fan Club (#047/300).  It's difficult to tell thanks to the reflective foil in the scan but this one notes his 17 wins in 2001, good for 5th in the NL.  Speaking of that stat, we complete the numbered Donruss-branded trio with 2004's Elite Career Best (#0963/1000), which highlights his 20 wins in 1993, which was the second year in a row he reached that mark--a feat he never repeated.

We'll finish up with the last of the cheapies.  Cal shows off the fun of Score's '94 Select product with two fun fielding shots paired up on the front.  And my best $0.05 might have been George Sisler's 2011 Topps Marquee base, which I can finally add to the numbered Blue and Copper parallels I own.

I'll be glad to get back to more familiar territory next month but am glad that I found a few things at this show I could enjoy, while meeting up with Paul and swapping cards in-person once more was definitely the highlight!

3/2/19 show report: 9 is Barry fine

Well would you look at that?  It's just a day after the latest card show and I'm already posting my pickups.  Maybe I'm getting into better blogging habits again?  Probably not, but I'm still glad to be getting more content out there instead of letting TMV sit idle.

This time my wallet came away $20 lighter so it ended up being another low-key show for me, but you'll see no signs of disappointment here.  The breakdown was:

• Dime boxes:  10 cards = $1
• Quarter boxes:  36 cards = $9
• $0.50 boxes:  2 cards = $1
• $1 boxes:  3 cards = $3
• $2 boxes:  3 cards = $6

If you'd like a complete picture of what I got, please head over to TMM after you're done here.  As for the rest:

We'll start with unassigned trade bait again.  This is something I stopped doing for a while since I was bringing stuff home that nobody was claiming, but between COMC and TCDB that should no longer be a problem.  Beltran is from '04 Diamond Kings and is #069/100, and the USA Whitson jersey came out of '09 UD Signature Stars.  Please claim them via a comment or email if you're interested!

First up from my take-home is Junior Griffey.  I found a nice little handful of his cards in the dime and quarter boxes including this trio for me.  The '93 Score Dream Team subset still looks cool more than 25 years later.  2001 Upper Deck MVP's Super Tools insert shows off my favorite of Griffey's skills:  that trademark swing.  And a Defining Moments insert from 2013 Hometown Heroes recounts 1995 ALDS game 5, which will forever live on in Seattle Mariners lore.

Technically these bumped me up to 800 unique Griffeys but after a bit of consultation on TCDB I've eliminated a card from his PC:  the 1991 UD Griffey Sr. base on which Junior cameos.  So I'll wait to add another item before celebrating.

I could still do without Gypsy Queen but once in a while something grabs my interest like this Framed parallel of Tony Gwynn from 2012.  When I picked it up I thought the brown border went well with San Diego's colors, then found out that's not one of the colors used as a framed parallel that year.  Apparently Topps calls this "Gold".  You do you, Topps....

Of course the day's winner was titular guy Barry Larkin.  I brought home more than 10 cards of the HOF SS and these nine went to his PC.  The first five are definitely my favorites, starting with a pair of '96s:  a Score sample (of the Dugout Collection parallel) and UD Hobby Predictor.  I already have the Exchange Card version of the latter so I'll just need to find the Retail variants at some point.

The next pair come from Pinnacle's multi-product Epix insert from 1998 and here you see Orange parallels of the Game and All-Star Moment versions.  Last up in this group is a 2013 Panini Cooperstown Induction insert that celebrates one of Larkin's career highlights.

After that is a trio of 2017 Topps-produced cards that aren't too exciting, though at least the Bowman insert is Chromed and the GQ Hand-Drawn Art card (the second of two made) looks nice enough.  However, that Salute insert is about as mailed-in as it gets, and I wouldn't have picked it up if not for the low price of a dime.

Finally we go all oddball with a '94 King B Disc.  I've heard of these and I think I have a couple in my collection at this point but didn't realize they were still being made in 1994, so that was a fun surprise.

Larkin's PC is celebrating a mini milestone of its own:  more than 750 cards!

That leaves a fun insert quartet starring mound maestro Greg Maddux.  Fleer's Golden Memories set from 1996 still looks amazing, and I was already a fan of it thanks to a Trammell/Whitaker card before I dug Greg's card out of the box.  I flipped a pair of 2001 Topps chase cards--Ring Masters and Own the Game--because I erroneously thought the former was "Hobby Masters", another Topps insert from around that time.  These remind me of one of my favorite Topps products, one made back when they put a bit of thought into those designs.  And last up is a 2018 Diamond Kings Portraits insert of the HOF pitcher.  You just can't go wrong with DK's artsy design!

That's all for this month's show so stay tuned for COMC loot as soon as I get around to it.

2018 Sportlots purchases: Gwynning streak

I don't know if I'll get two more posts on each blog for this series done by the end of Thursday (to be done by the end of February) but at least I can say I'll have gotten two up this evening!  One of those is another RB special over on TMM and you can find the other right here.

The star of today's post is Mr. Padre, the second of my four big non-Tigers/Wolverines PCs, so let's check out some new Tony Gwynn cardboard:

We'll start with quite the range in years here:  1992-98.  Leaf's shoulda/coulda/woulda Black Gold parallel from '92, the one that should have been the base design, is a fun way to lead things off.  Then we go super shiny with Pinnacle's '94 the Naturals boxed set that was totally on-brand back then.  Sportflix's UC3 product from 1995 was redundant, plus the regular version was much better, yet the two you see above, including a Cyclone Squad insert, are still interesting relics of the time.  Everything else is fairly standard base card fare from 1995-98, though I always love seeing that Ultra design!

I'd say things get a bit more interesting here as we move on to 1999-2001.  The base cards are from shiny and/or interesting products like Finest, Bowman's Best, Ultimate Victory, Absolute Memorabilia, and the underrated Upper Deck Gold Glove.  2000 Bowman's Best is one of my favorites in that product's run, other than the fact that they're already Refractor-ized.  A trio of Upper Deck inserts from 2000 make me fondly remember ripping some of those products back then.

Scan #3 is where class meets flash.  I was excited to land a mix of UD's Sweet Spot and SP Legendary Cuts issues along with an '06 Greats of the Game base.  Each of those look amazing and offer a nice variety of design.  Compare those to 2005 Leaf Certified Materials and the first bunch of horizontal cards, ranging from '93-'06, and bask in the fun of the variety we used to enjoy.  I think the Upper Deck Diamond Gallery hologram card from '93 is a particular highlight here, and the type of card I bet used to draw in younger collectors at the time.  Pinnacle's 1996 Aficionado is a pretty solid mix of style and substance, though.

And at last we reach the end with a few more horizontals.  While I have the '97 Bronze Coin from Pinnacle Mint I'll have to track down the '98 version to go with the die-cut base card above.  I also came up with both versions of Tony's 1999 Pacific Invincible Sandlot Heroes cards, and while I'm not sure why Pacific made multiple versions for each player I'm glad they're at least easy to tell apart.  The back of his 2000 UD Statitude insert notes that he compiled a career-high 220 hits in 1997 before picking up #3000 in 1999.  And I'm happy to end on a high note with one more classy offering from 2005 SP Legendary Cuts, another beautiful example of the quality that product brought year after year.

That all amounts to a very solid 33 new Gwynns for a new PC total of 629, making him another player to cross off a milestone during this series.

Stay tuned for two more posts in this series before I finally get to some very nice COMC loot!

2019 trade package #3: Baseball Card Breakdown

This week I felt a bit like I was back in elementary school in that I received some Valentine's Day cards.  Ok, they weren't really for that occasion, but the important thing is that they were the best type of cards, and that's what matters to me.  A couple of my favorite traders hit my mailbox just in time for the 14th, so here I am on the 16th posting trade packages from Sports Cards From the Dollar Store on TMM plus a surprise PWE from Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown right here!

The king of custom cards didn't need to send any of his handiwork this time thanks to quality like this.  Zim is probably a lost cause for the Tigers at this point but his 2017 Stadium Club Sepia parallel looks terrific.  Better yet, he's joined by PC guy Cal on something I somehow didn't have: a 2001 Topps Archives Reserve Future Rookie Reprint.  While I'm not immune to the Topps reprint fatigue many have complained of, I love getting new Ripken stuff, and 2001 Archives Reserve is one of the manufacturer's best products period.

And how about Gavin filling out the mailer with TOO MANY VALENTINE VERLANDERS?!  That's the way you do it, folks, just textbook excellence (not unlike the Upper Deck insert of the same name).  I needed all six of these 2018 Topps-branded offerings starring JV as an Astro.  My favorites bookend the top row:  a Blue Finest Refractor (#056/150) and that year's version of Gallery, which continues to look amazing.  Fire and GQ are two products I could definitely do without, but I still appreciate new items for one of my favorite PCs.  All of those are joined by Mr. Kate Upton's two appearances in '18's Topps Update.  The first is a checklist that highlights his 2500th career strikeout while the other notes his All-Star selection.

That's six brand new cards for a new total of 357 Verlanders.  Let's see if we can keep adding to that total this year, fellow traders!

Thanks again for the fun surprise, Gavin.  I have next to nothing set aside for you for now but will try to remedy that at a few upcoming shows so I can hit you back!

2/2/19 show report: a Hall of a show

A couple Saturdays ago (the one before the Super Bowl) I headed east to Taylor for my favorite monthly show and had a fun time as usual.  This time I spent a bit less than usual and came home with fewer cards than I tend to, but still ended up with the usual mix of PC stuff and trade bait (including a quartet viewable on TMM tonight).  $15 of the $30 I paid went towards dime, quarter, dollar, and $2 cards while the other half covered one bigger pickup.

This isn't that big hitter--you'll have to wait until the end for that--but instead a rare trade bait item I picked up without anyone specific in mind.  If you're a fan of the Twins, Glen Perkins, or manupatch autos, please feel free to claim this 2007 SP Authentic piece in the comments!

As today's title alludes to, everything else was Hall-worthy:

Ah, the golden age of choice that was the mid-90s and early 2000s!  Three of my big four are seen here on a trio of brands from different years.  Junior stars on a Diamond Pearls insert from possibly my favorite Stadium Club version, 2001.  Gwynn may have had Pennant Fever like that 2000 Aurora insert, but he only hit paydirt twice, then ran into brick walls named the '84 Tigers and '98 Yanks.  And finally Maddux was card #1 in one of Upper Deck's greatest debuts, '96 SPx.  I had his Bound For Glory insert but not this base card somehow!

The Iron Man was my only twofer this time but it was a productive one thanks to the card on the left.  I was amazed to find card #4 in the '97 Donruss Ripken the Only Way I Know insert set I'm chasing, and for just a quarter!  Each one is numbered /5000 and usually goes for a few bucks so I was glad to knock one off so cheap.  That's joined by a shiny subset card from one of Fleer's many, many 2000s products, 2000 Gamers.  The design brings a film-like motif plus raised letters (the name of the subset), though my favorite part is the cool photo of Rip in the field.

My rare big pickup was the kind of thing I don't usually splurge for at shows, but my favorite seller cut me a reasonable deal and I was happy to continue supporting him being there, so it was a mutually beneficial purchase:

From all the way back in 2002 this is a beautiful Sweet Spot Classics Signatures auto of new HOFer Alan Trammell.  I saw this in the seller's showcase and was immediately drawn to it even though I already have a similar Tram signature, because it took me back to the hype of when these first came out.  It was cool to see one in such great shape considering the many examples of faded autographs over the years.  No such trouble here, though, and it's a perfect way to celebrate the iconic Tigers SS entering the Hall this summer.

Until next month's show, stay tuned for more Sportlots stuff.  Will I get them posted before March?  We'll find out!

2019 trade package #2: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

I know what it's like to worry whether or not I sent a good enough trade package to Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store considering the amazing stuff he always sends me, but I'm not sure why he'd ever have to fret about that.  Once again he's termed the latest envelope he sent my way as "quantity over quality" but in typical Doug fashion there was both.  To the great benefit of my favorite collections a good amount of the quality tilted towards what I'm showing off on TMM this evening, but there's also plenty of great stuff you get to see right here:

Soon-to-be former Tiger, probably-not-for-a-while former Tiger, and recent former Tiger.  I'm curious to see if the Tigers get smart and put Castellanos at DH where his bat can do plenty of harm to opposing teams and his glove won't do the same to his own.  A full return to health could portend a return to form for Fulmer this year.  And JV is always welcome back to these here parts!

Here's a very good group of quality prospects as all but Gibby's son Cam can be found in the team's top 30 according to mlb.com.  As has been the case for a system that's struggled to produce quality hitters for a long time, the pitchers lead the way here with Alexander (24), Burrows (5), Hall (23), and Manning (2).  Burrows (86) and Manning (53) both also crack the site's top 100 prospects list.  Those two were Detroit's first-rounders in 2016 and '15, respectively.

As for the hitters, Lugo checks in at #15 for the organization and Paredes is the next best hitter at 13.  The former came over in the correctly maligned J.D. Martinez Deal while the latter was paired with fellow infielder Jeimer Candelario in return for Alex Avila and Justin Wilson at the deadline in 2017.  The Heritage Minors cards look especially nice here!

Doug also sent me a pile of Red Wings to rival or even outpace the Michigan Hockey cards he included this time.  I decided to start things off with the nine Hockeytown stars from 2018-19 O-Pee-Chee that I found in this envelope.  Glendening is a favorite since he's a Michigan guy, and I'll always remember Zetterberg fondly even though he's career is pretty much over at this point.

Cleary and Draper both played roles on Cup-winning teams as the former enjoyed the success of the 2008 champs while the latter was part of all four recent titles.  Hall of Famer Alex Delvecchio was a nice find here after his amazing 24-year career in Hockeytown that produced three Cups.

Plenty more winners to see here.  Fedorov scored exactly 400 goals for the Wings over his 14 years in Motown and was a blast to watch as one of the most talented of the Russian Five.  The recent HOFer was part of all of the Cup-winners except for the 2008 squad.  Holmstrom was an absolute pest in front of the net and joins Draper in the four-Cup club.  Mr. Hockey enjoyed both accomplishments:  the Hockey Hall and four Cups himself.  And so did another recent star:  my all-time favorite D-man, Nick Lidstrom.

I don't know that Osgood will ever be enshrined in Toronto but I sure am glad he spent 14 years with the Wings in his two stints and won three of those Cups.  So did franchise icon Steve Yzerman, who'll hopefully get a chance to right the sinking ship in Detroit as GM at some point.  Zetterberg "only" won with the '08 team but had a great 15-year run here.  And for some reason I remember being a big fan of Sheppard, though he was gone before the team turned things around in the late 90s.

As always Doug, thanks!  This huge bunch of Tigers and Wings and Wolverines was a great start to 2019 for another year of trading with my most prolific partner and I'm looking forward to hitting you back before that notable birthday of yours.

2019 trade package #1: Nachos Grande

Chris from Nachos Grande was nice enough to be the first person to send me cards in 2019.  He was one of the many folks who received some Christmas Cards from me, and then he returned the favor after I claimed a couple things from his Trade Bait Blowout.  Naturally he threw in a bunch more stuff because he's a great guy to trade with.

Here's what I got this time:

Group 1 here is guys I have sorted by player in my Tigers box.  Miggy and Sanchez are the only ones that are still playing, but Clark is the head of the MLBPA and Henneman is still coaching in the Tigers organization (I think).  Peralta was quite good in his four years in Motown, but it looks like 2017 may have been his last year in the Majors.

And some other Tigers from the past 25-ish years.  Alvarez came to Detroit from Arizona by way of San Diego during the expansion draft in a deal for former star Travis Fryman, but he never got his bat going enough to last.  Anderson was a #1 overall pick as a closer but blew his arm out.  Benoit was a very effective arm out of the pen but his performance priced him out of Motown.  Fick was somehow an All-Star during the awful 2002 season.  Pena is back with the organization as a coach after retiring last year.  Rondon is the White Sox's problem now!  And Young just had a hell of a Winter League in Venezuela.

Chris's note mentioned that he thought I may have asked him for some Chris Sabos at some point and sent this five-pack my way.  That was awesome of him as three were new to me:  1990 Classic Update and Starline Long John Silver (#25, one of his two appearances), plus 1994 Pacific.  I'm especially glad he sent the latter because I'd included that set on the checklist of another player but not for Spuds.  That's all fixed now, and I'm happy to have even more cardboard of the notable 3B!

Also:  three many Verlanders!  The 2017 Topps Bunt card in the middle was a new one for me as was the A&G relic from the same year.  The latter was one of the two cards I claimed from Chris's piles of trade bait and I thought it would be fun to grab as I have his other version from the same set:

By their powers combined these give me 350 total Verlanders, which is not Too Many but is definitely a lot!

Last up is a very shiny Thomas Rawls insert, a Yellow parallel of 2016 Panini Phoenix's Adrenaline Rush (#49/99).  I claimed this one as well since Rawls is a former Wolverine (who blew up in his senior year after a transfer to Central Michigan).  While I usually post this kind of thing over on TMM I didn't feel like it was worth it for just one card.  Besides, the sport is especially relevant today, the NFL conference champ games, plus I have another Sportlots post I hope you'll all check out over there.

Thanks again for a great return package, Chris.  May your eight not be so elusive and your Larkins be plentiful in 2019!

2018 Sportlots purchases: the (mostly) new guys

Here we are in the middle of January 19 and I still have lots of 2018 purchases to show off!  Get ready for a bunch of Sportlots posts as I catch up on those over the next week or two, both here and on TMM (there's even one of those already up this evening).

Today I'll be looking at a bunch of guys who are making their debut among my PCs, with the exception of two I added late last year.  These are all guys that I eventually found out were Michigan Baseball alumni and therefore started chasing.  If that's not interesting enough for you, well, you might like the fact that just about every card in this post is of the vintage variety.

We'll start off with pitcher Jim Burton.  A Rochester Hills, Michigan, native, Burton was originally drafted by Detroit in '67 but headed to Ann Arbor, then went to the Red Sox in the first round four years later.  Good choice.  He appeared in just 30 games over the 1975 and '77 seasons and was out of pro ball after spending 1978 in the Mets' system.  I was able to find both of his regular issues from OPC and Topps produced in 1976 so he's done as far as those are concerned, though I have a couple optional SSPC issues I can chase.

John Herrnstein was one of a number of multi-sport athletes to star for the Wolverines.  In his case football was a family affair, and he did quite well for the team as a FB and LB in the late 50s before a knee injury steered him towards the diamond full time.  He spent most of his five-year Major League career with the Phillies before being traded twice in 1966 (Cubs, then Braves), once as part of the deal that brought HOFer Fergie Jenkins to the Cubs.  You can see his final issue from 1966 Topps above, and he appeared in that set the three previous years as well.  It'll be tough to track down his first two and final two cards, though:  the former are multi-player RCs with Willie Stargell and Dick Allen and the latter are 2015 Topps Heritage Real One autographs!

Here comes a player to spur Jeff's interest:  a Wolverine/White Sox combo.  Pitcher Mike Joyce is a Detroit native from around the same time as Herrnstein that signed with the South-siders after his college career.  And like Burton he pitched in just 31 games over a couple seasons (1962-63).  Card-wise you can find him on his 1963 Topps RC, seen above, another from that brand the following year, then once again, a couple versions of Topps Heritage's Real One autos, this time out of the 2013 product.

Meanwhile, Frank Kostro actually debuted here last month when I found a buyback of the very card you see above, his '68 Topps base.  I have four others of his to track down, including a '63 Topps multi-player RC, though fortunately that won't be quite as expensive as Hernnstein's.

Catcher Tom Lundstedt is the player of interest here on the four-player RC you see from '74 Topps, though the Brewers' Charlie Moore definitely had the best career of the bunch.  Like Foote to his left, Lundstedt was a first round choice in 1970, selected by the Cubs.  The Iowa native saw his career fizzle out after spending 1973 and '74 on the North Side and 1975 with the Twins.  Like Burton above his cards are limited to OPC and Topps issues from the same year, 1974, so I'm a card away from completing his "run".

If Bob Reed's name sounds familiar that's because the Topps version of the 1970 OPC card you see up there was included in a Fuji trade package that made me realize there were way more Michigan guys for me to collect.  Yet another Wolverine/Tiger, he was a Detroit second-rounder in 1966 and would pitch in 24 games for the team between 1969 and '70.  Aside from the two 1970 cards I now own he also appears in both sets made the following year, and I plan to track those down before long.

Getting back to the newbies, Dick Wakefield, who can be seen on oddballs from '79 TCMA and '89 Score Rookies to Remember (the mini hologram) was apparently quite a character.  After just a year with the Wolverines he eventually signed with the Tigers (!) in 1941.  In the years before the draft you could garner a huge bonus if you were good enough, and Wakefield had plenty of interest, becoming a "bonus baby", a title bestowed upon others such as Sandy Koufax.  He got to play a bit that year, came back up in '43 with an excellent campaign, served in the military, and spent 1944 and 1946-49 with Detroit.  His wartime bet that he'd beat Ted Williams in multiple batting categories...didn't go well at all for him.  Three games each for the Yankees (1950) and Giants ('52) concluded his career.  I have an interesting challenge on my hands as I need to chase his 1949 RCs from Bowman and Leaf!

Here's the back of the hologram card in case you're interested.

This comprehensive post goes from "B" to "Z", as in pitcher Bill Zepp.  Another Detroit-born guy, Zepp didn't sign after he was taken by Boston in 1967 (7th round), plus Detroit failed to sign him in '66, and he landed with Minnesota the following year.  After pitching in just four contests in 1969 he went a solid 9-4 in 1970, then was included in a deal that found him in Detroit for the final 16 games of his career in '71.  As you can see above I landed his Topps base from that year, and once I buy his OPC version plus his '70 Topps three-player RC I'll own his run.

I hope you enjoyed this vintage-y look at a bunch of new baseball PCs I'm chasing, and I'll be back to more familiar territory soon so stay tuned!

1/5/19 show report: lots of hits for two bits

If last Saturday's show is any indication, I'm gonna have another great year of pickups from my usual guy at Taylor Town Trade Center!  It was a nice day all around with the sun shining as I headed east and then spent a couple hours digging through quarter boxes.  Also, props to Tigers legend Willie Horton who was there signing autographs when apparently a gas leak caused an evacuation (after I left, I guess?).  Horton ended up continuing to sign for folks in the parking lot.  What a guy!  (HT to Paul for letting me know about this)

Anyway, my efforts once again paid off handsomely as I headed home with 175 total cards for $47.  170 of those were $0.25 per and the other five were a buck apiece.  Not much of a discount this time, but it all evens out.

I'd say the personal keepers vs. trade bait percentage was around 40%/60%, but regardless I ended up with a ton of new stuff to enjoy.  That includes a pair over on TMM this evening, plus this bevy of stars:

My take-home largely comprised the big guys, starting here with Junior Griffey.  This first bunch includes his '94 Finest base, a quartet of '97 inserts, and a shiny offering from 2000 UD.  I still remember pulling some of those Pitcher Perfect cards from packs of '97 Score!

Griffey part 2/3 here.  I guessed a bit when sorting these and got the years wrong because like Donruss/Leaf, UD didn't always use the actual year as the copyright date.  So you get to see, out of order, Ovation Curtain Calls inserts from 1999 and 2001, then a 2000 PowerDeck Magical Moments CD (no, I'm not gonna try to play it), and a cool Superior Sluggers insert from the 2003 flagship set.  Now that I'm looking at all of these and the next scan, I realize I grabbed a lot of UD stuff, but that makes sense since they made a ton of great inserts during their run while Topps mostly opted for boring stuff.

And the horizontals.  The SI Covers insert is my favorite here because I've always loved those, but four UD inserts spanning 1994-2000 and a 2000 Fleer Gamers subset aren't bad either.  Black Diamond was a favorite of mine one year, and we get another appearance by PowerDeck.

This little haul of Gwynns has me pretty close to a total of 600, which (spoiler) I'll be achieving soon thanks to Sportlots cards.  You'll also see a few more starring Gwynn in a later scan in this post.

A Diamond King and Sportflix insert from '95 have me pining for the good old days of the 90s, while there's plenty more cool chase cards like 2000 Fleer Gamers' Change the Game and '99 Pacific's Team Checklists.  Pacific sure knew how to make checklists anything but boring.

By the way, that '96 Circa Access insert was new to me, and I had fun scanning all facets of the booklet-like card:

He's right, too--I bet Tony would have hit .400 given the chance in '94.

I went three-for-four on the Larkins I pulled out of these boxes so a certain Jeff will be getting the dupe of the group in a future trade package.  As for me, I scored a pretty interesting mix, including a 1994 Score Dream Team Sample (samples are fun!), a Century Stars insert from 2004 Throwback Threads (#d /1500...for a quarter!), and an example of one of my favorite chase cards, Select's 1996 Team Nucleus.  These acetate cards look badass and the trios are pretty interesting.  Here the '95 NL MVP is matched up with Reggie Sanders and Bret Boone.  The former would play eight seasons in Cincy, putting up an All-Star '95 in which he recorded a career-high bWAR of 6.6, while the latter spent most of his solid career with the Reds and Mariners.

It was another good day for my Maddux collection thanks to this lucky seven (plus one!).  Most of what you see here is from my favorite cardboard era--the mid-90s through the mid-aughts.  Respect was a cool insert from '96 Ultra, and next to that is a successfully exchanged UD Predictor from '95 (again, guessing on the years when scanning).  Those are followed up by a '99 Skybox Molten Metal "Don't Call Me Leaf Preferred Steel" Xplosion card and a much more recent Topps Gallery Insert from 2017.

The horizontals feature my second copy (one that hasn't been peeled) of Donruss's '95 Dominators insert, another from Leaf All-Star Game MVP Contenders Gold, a 2000 Pacific team insert, and one of a couple Donruss Estrellas Spanish cards you'll see today.

Ripken's group ended up being a pretty interesting one as it paired him up with a couple other PC guys.  The solo offerings include a Score Dugout parallel and Ultra Checklist from the mid-90s, another Ultra insert, a second Estrellas card from the early 2000s, and the "Auxiliary" (read:  non-CD) version of a 1999 PowerDeck insert.  He then gets matched up with a couple other good shortstops on a '94 Triple Play Medalists insert, one being Tony Fernandez and the other, Hall of Famer Alan Trammell.  The final three cards are from a Ripken/Gwynn insert from 2007 Upper Deck that celebrates both entering the Hall that year (I attended that induction ceremony!).  There's apparently 50 of these and I may eventually try to chase them down.

How about starting the year off 100% on-brand with too many Verlanders?  I didn't mind paying a quarter apiece for 18 new cards of his from 2007 Topps Moments and Milestones, which also let me earn a few points but uploading their scans to TCDB.

Here's the other nine, giving me one from his "wins" version and 17 of the "strikeouts" cards.  Taking a quick look in his folder it would appear that I now have two of the former and 22 of the latter "base" versions (plus two Black parallels of just the strikeouts).

I also came away with these two Topps Chrome Generation Now cards from the same year, then found that I actually completed his run of that version because the only offering #s 1, 10, 15, and 16 in Chrome for some reason.  I'd previously knocked out all of the base versions from Flagship, so that's pretty cool!

Last up is mostly a mix of buybacks plus another PC checklist card.  Elliott Maddox ('74 and '79) and a badly miscut Lary Sorensen ('79) are 2015 Topps Originals Buybacks.  Sabo's is the Gold version of his 2017 Bowman Buyback of his '90 Bowman base.  Finally, I found a pair featuring Geoff Zahn from Topps' 2014 75th Anniversary Buybacks:  his '75 Topps RC(!) and his base from the following year's set.  Not bad!

To those I can add retired 2B Chris Getz's Yellow parallel from his final flagship appearance, 2014 Topps.  That leaves me needing six more versions from the flagship/Mini rainbow.

It was indeed another great show for me, and I may just be looking to replicate that success in the western part of my state as weather (and getting my ass up in time) permitting I might be meeting up with John for a show in his neck of the woods, the Kalamazoo area.  Here's to another blogger meet-up!