2023 trade package #13: the Angels in Order

I know it's been a few weeks since I last posted but I've been busy with stuff like turning 40 and visiting a friend down south. Still, trade recaps await so I'm back to it!

It's been great for the blogosphere to have Tom from the Angels in Order back and writing very regularly (something I obviously can't manage!), and an even cooler development is the way he's taken to trading on TCDb. His exploits there (TCDb ID "calangels") where he's well on his way to the 100-transaction mark in just a few months led to our first trade in about three years. I was happy to tack on some extra stuff to his original proposal and off we went!

Here's my end of the deal:

We start with a trio of '87 Leaf Tigers. I took a look at the team checklist for the set and these sew up the players I actually collect from it, meaning I'm ignoring Bruce Fields' and Walt Terrell's entries. Next, I can't say no to more cards of Maggs and Pudge, a couple of key '06 Tigers, whether or not they're depicted with Detroit. That would explain why my collections of them are as large as 236 and 351 cards, respectively!

The last Tigers card was a '96 Collector's Choice Silver Signature parallel of the team checklist starring who else back then but Big Daddy himself, Cecil Fielder. The '96 set featured one of the product's better designs in my opinion.

And then we move on to cards of three guys that make up my big four PC group of non-Tigers/Wolverines. Ripken gets left out this time but he leads the pack by a mile so that's ok. I was happy to add four new Griffeys, three of them Reds cards, to keep marching him towards the next milestone of 1100. Mr. Padre Tony Gwynn adds to the Collector's Choice parade with one of the 836 items I own of him. And ex-Padre and Dodger (not his most well-known squads) Greg Maddux is a bit behind Gwynn with 817 including the '07 UD First Edition above.

Since this bunch was going to work out to be three images regardless, I bunched the three Wolverines together. It's great trading with an Angels collector like Tom because he happened to have a couple Jim Abbott dupes for me in the form of a couple oddball-ish items. The first is a 1991 team issue Smokey the Bear card while the other is from a 1992 Classic multi-sport product called World Class Athletes, a set that largely focuses on recent Olympians (Jim was one in the 80s, of course) but which also includes a smattering of other stars.

The '75 Topps of HOFer Ted Simmons was a late addition as a replacement for an '82 Fleer Stamp of Jack Morris that Tom couldn't find. Uh, yeah, that's a reasonable swap, dude! It apparently gives me 99 cards of the ex-UM C and a milestone celebration will surely follow soon. A fellow Wolverine from the gridiron closes us out tonight in the form of a '91 Classic base of Jarrod Bunch, a late 80s FB (remember that position?) who spent four years in the NFL with the Giants and Raiders.

Tom, thanks again for reaching out and working this deal via TCDb! It was great trading with you again and I look forward to the next time we can swap some cards. In fact, I may already have a decent pile going for you after this month's show.

Stay tuned for a couple more trades, a June show recap, and lots more!

2020 trade package #12: The Angels in Order

I'm once again making a concerted effort to get a post up since it's been far too long and I have lots to catch up on! My biggest recent excuse is more TCDB trading, which has been a surprise and much-needed boon to my collecting this year given that shows are out of the question.

Tonight I'm showing off an envelope sent to me by Tom of The Angels, In Order. Tom gave me a heads up that this was on its way a few weeks ago, and sure enough it arrived safely in my mailbox. I'd argue that he severely underplayed what was inside, apparently a PWE he'd had mostly ready to go last year but forgot to mail out. Works for me!

While I don't need most of these anymore, I appreciate Tom making the effort to hit a few of my PCs. The '93 Pacific Spanish Griffey was new to me, and it's possible the others would have been last year, but who cares, because, new trade bait for me! The others here are two more Juniors from Topps' 2016 insert called Tribute to the Kid--which I'm slowly working on--plus Rich Hill's '18 flagship base and a Cal 3000 Hits Club insert from 2016 Topps. I shouldn't have any problem finding other folks who'll appreciate these as much as I do.

The real shock for me came when these two signed photos popped out of the envelope. Tom Grieve, who mostly played for Texas over parts of nine MLB seasons, currently calls games for the Rangers, but he also happens to be a guy I collect because he went to the same school I did. Although he didn't suit up for Michigan Baseball during his time in Ann Arbor, he's still an alum and therefore meets the criteria for being part of my collection

All that said, it's extremely cool to get not just one but two autographs of his, and very nice signatures at that! Again, I really appreciate it when people go out of their way to send me stuff of the players I collect, especially digging deep enough to find something of a UM guy.

So thanks again for your generosity, Tom! The envelope wasn't a surprise but the contents definitely were. I've actually got a pretty decent pile of stuff going for you so it may not be too much longer before I can respond in kind!

2020 trade package #6: The Angels, In Order

Well, it's happened.  I keep getting more cards in and then not posting them, so they keep piling up!  A couple recent purchases have a lot to do with that as I've been spending a good amount of time related to them on TCDB.  But I can't keep putting off showing off trade packages and other stuff, so let's go!

I can speak for everyone when I say I'm glad to see the return of Tom of The Angels, In Order, to blogging and trading after a heartbreaking loss in his family.  In the face of something like that, anything like collecting takes a back seat to more important things like taking care of your family, but sometimes the distraction can be nice as well.  And in my case, when my stepdad passed more than a year before I was blogging here, looking over the boxing autographs I bought for him helped remind me of the fun we had watching the sport together.

With all that to deal with I wanted to emphasize that I appreciate Tom being back and I hope we can all help him in some small way.  For my part I'm looking forward to sending him some more of the Angels, Patriots, and checklists he loves to accumulate.

I definitely need to do that anyway since he was nice enough to send me a PWE filled with Tigers.  "Happy new baseball season!" said the note, sent well in advance of the coronapocolypse.  Oh well, we'll get back to sports when it's time, and for now I'll enjoy some new cards:

Part one is a nice bunch of 2019 and 2020 stuff.  Talented up and coming P Matt Boyd, a.k.a. John's guy, reps the former on a 2019 Rainbow parallel.  I hope over whatever portion of the season gets played he shows more of the stuff that got folks excited about him last year.

The 2020 stuff is split into flagship and Heritage, and I believe all of it is new to me.  Miggy hits both with a Turkey Red insert and Heritage base, the latter done up in the classic '71 Topps design.  The Turkey Red cards are interesting because they maintain the look of past versions other than the matte finish.  Three guys give me examples of the 2020 flagship base Tigers--utility dude Niko Goodrum (nice action photo), Paul's favorite, JaCoby Jones, and--barf--Jordan Zimmermann.  JZ and his albatross contract will at least be gone after this season!

Joining Miggy from the Heritage set are OF Victor Reyes and P Drew VerHagen.  Detroit plucked Reyes from Arizona in the 2017 Rule 5 draft, and he put up a decent showing last season over 69 games, so he may have a shot at a bench spot.  VerHagen was kind of a swing guy and was released by the team late last year so he could sign in Japan.

That pile was nice enough but this quartet of TTM/IP autos totally surprised me!  I'm familiar with all except Saucier, so it's off to Baseball Reference once again!  Lynn Jones, who signed his '81 Topps card, was also a Rule 5 guy, and was in Motown for five seasons, missing out on the '84 team but earning a ring with the Royals the following year.  His younger namesake Todd ('07 UD First Edition) was a notable closer in Detroit after coming over from Houston, and was reacquired for the 2006 World Series season.

Saucier ('82 Donruss) joins his fellow players from the decade in a "How 80s can you look?" contest, and he apparently came to the Tigers from the Rangers after being a PTBNL in their deal with the Phillies, with whom he won a ring in 1980.  And lastly, Searcy's ('89 Topps) name is one I remember well from the junk wax-era cards that touted him as a "future star".  Though he didn't live up to that billing he did last five seasons with the Tigers and Phillies.

Tom, once again it's great to see you trading and writing, and I'll certainly be returning the favor with some cards for you once I have the ability to accumulate more to go with a few I already had set aside.  Welcome back!

2017 trade package #4: The Angels In Order

My next trade package came from Texan Tom of the Angels in Order.  Please note that I'm saying that Tom lives in Texas and I'm not trying to give him an alliterative nickname.

Tom is great to trade with because it's relatively easy to find cards I know he'll want.  Do I have any Angels or Patriots?  Send them to Tom, boom, done.  It also doesn't hurt that he sends fantastic stuff back your way.

In this case he lamented the fact that he didn't have many Tigers to send me, as he wrote on a note inside this package filled with Tigers and more.  Check out the goods:

Three Tigers, all still on this year's team, which is a nice bonus.  I'm always happy to get more cards of Cabrera, but the other two players here are even more useful to me as I have very few of Kinsler, one of my recent Detroit favorites, as a Tiger, and few of Martinez overall.  These three combined for 12.8 total bWAR (4.9, 6.1, and 1.8, respectively) last season, and I hope that number's even higher in 2017, which will likely be the last season they play together.

Here's two more current Tigers and three that were with the team very recently.  It was fun having Maybin back last year but he's since been shipped to the Angels (hey, that's Tom's team!).  Salty couldn't hit his weight last year but did show a bit of pop.  And Soria was one of several recent closers that have since moved on.  Meanwhile, Norris and Rodriguez will have key roles in the rotation and bullpen, with the former showing plenty of promise and the latter owning a reputation of success (at a fairly reasonable price for a closer!).

Sticking with the Tigers but going the oddball route, here's a couple team-related giveaway/contest cards that came out of Post cereals in 1982 and 1983.  I've included front and back scans of both of these, which include the awesome old-school Tigers logo up front and a similar write-up inside.  In my long career of collecting Detroit stuff I'd never seen these, so thanks for sending them my way, Tom!

And now, the player collections section:

Here's the first of three scans worth of Barry Larkin.  Wait, that many cards of Larkin?  HELL YEAH!  This group includes Larkin's card from the 1990 Fleer League Leaders boxed set; one each from 1990 and '91 Score; 1992 cards from Donruss and Fleer; a '93 Panini sticker; and a Hometown Heroes subset from '93 Pinnacle.

This bunch continues from 1993 and gets us into '96:  first up is a '93 Upper Deck insert I don't remember called Clutch Performers; then we have three '95 Ultra inserts:  All-Star, the Gold Medallion parallel of that insert, and one from the main set as well.  Anybody else getting a case of the nostalgias after seeing that familiar gold foil stamp?  Moving on to '96 we start with an excellent horizontal photo of the '95 MVP who won his second of three straight Gold Gloves, as seen in that year's Collector's Choice product.  A Star Power subset issue from '96 Topps finishes up this group.

This last six-card scan spans 20 years!  First we go back to the Ultra brand with a '96 Ultra Stars subset.  Next is the Dan Patrick/Keith Olbermann-centered Big Show insert found in '97 Collector's Choice.  After that is a five-year jump to the beautifully artistic '02 Diamond Kings set.  A couple Upper Deck brands follow:  2002 World Series Heroes (Barry hit .353 with 3 runs scored as the Reds swept the A's in '90) and the 2003 base set that came out a year before his final season.  We finish off his pile with Topps' Bunt set from last year.  For cryin' out loud, dump that crap and bring back Total, you idiots!

This nice bunch gets me to 352 Larkins, a Barry nice total indeed!

The next PC guy Tom sent me was Greg Maddux, and I split his cards into two six-card bunches.  This group includes:  1990 Bowman; 1991 Donruss, Fleer, and Score; and 1992 Triple Play and Upper Deck.  Not sure what's going on in the UD photo....  As you can see, all six of these cards feature Maddux with the Cubs, his team for the first seven seasons of his career.

As luck would have it, the other six showcase Mad Dog with the Braves, the team with whom he enjoyed most of his success--194 wins, three Cy Youngs, and a World Series ring.  The cards you see come from 1995 Emotion; the extremely weird 1995 Topps Embossed; an instructional insert from '95 Ultra called Strikeout Kings; and a '96 Ultra Ultra Stars subset, '97 Collector's Choice Big Show insert, and 2016 Topps Bunt issue as we just saw with Larkin.  I think we should see cards like the Strikeout Kings example above more often as they could possibly get more kids into the game, not to mention collecting.  Don't hold your breath to pull one from Topps' next five-card, $200 product.

Tom's hard work here bumps me up to 269 cards of Maddux, and I have plenty more left to scan and post!

As if all that weren't enough, he also sent me two more scans worth of Cal Ripken Jr. stuff.  Larkin, Maddux, and Ripken?  How generous can you be?  What's great here is that any dupes of Larkin and Ripken I have can go right over to Jeff from My Sports Obsession, and some of these will!  Happily, though, I needed the vast majority of what Tom sent over.

In this scan you can see cards from 1987 Fleer Award Winners; 1992 Stadium Club Dome (the set sold in a tin in the shape of the Skydome); 1993 Leaf;  1994 Topps' Measures of Greatness subset;  a fantastic '94 Upper Deck base card in which he catches some air while turning two;  another subset card called Hitters Inc. from '95 Score; and a trio from 1996 including Leaf Preferred, Topps (celebrating his 2131st straight game played), and once more, Ultra Stars from that year's Ultra product.

This post's last scan includes three Ripkens from last century and three more that are a bit more modern.  First up is the first card in Upper Deck's multi-product '96 Ripken collection.  That's followed by Cal's base card from a set you don't hear much about 20 years later, 1997 Pinnacle X-Press.  To their right is another subset (a major theme for today) out of '98 Donruss called Fan Club.

The three more recent cards are from Topps brands, naturally.  First is Ripken's 2012 Archives issue, done up in the style of '54 Topps.  That's joined by a couple inserts:  a Holofoil parallel of one of his Chasing History inserts from 2013 flagship, and a 3000 Hits Club insert from last year's release.

Needless to say, I also very much appreciate the new stuff here as Tom got me over 400 cards to a new Ripken count of 403!

Once again, Tom, thanks a ton for your generosity in this trade package.  I loved the mix of Tigers and some of my other favorite player collections.  I'll happily pile up some more Los Angeles Angels of Los Angeles And Definitely Not Anaheim But Definitely Los Angeles, and some Patriots as well, so I can return the favor!

2015 trade package #5: a superb trade with the Angels in Order

(Apologies for today's brief post--it's Super Bowl Sunday, after all!  And I have a lot going on anyway)

Today's trade package is the last one I received for the month of January, and while I'd intended to post it sooner, today is a perfect day as it comes from a fellow Pats fan, Tom of the Angels in Order!  I don't want to get too confusing here as what he sent me is 100% baseball--all Tigers, in fact--but I thought that was something else we had in common that was cool.  Before the big game, here's a bunch of Motown Kitties:

Miggy Mania!  Cabrera outpaced everyone else in the package and I couldn't be happier that Tom picked the Triple Crown-winner to highlight what he sent.  My favorite from the bunch is the super cool Topps Opening Day Stars hologram insert.  Why is it that some of Topps' most interesting inserts are from their lowest-end set?  Plenty to like here regardless.

Here's some more to highlight in terms of past and present Tigers.  Castellanos starts the group alphabetically but I'd put his card at the top of this list anyway since it's the coolest of the bunch, and again, out of Opening Day!  The Fryman takes me back to the 90s, both in terms of his presence on the roster and the release of the Emotion set.  A trio of Topps parallels, including 40% of this year's rotation, caps things off.

Here's a few more inserts of guys I don't find as much in my PC.  Tom sent a double dose of Benoit, and I sure do wish he'd been in Detroit's bullpen last year.  The trio of Minis, including a pair of Cobbs, was cool as well.

Going oddball I got a quartet of cards of players playing on playing cards.  The first three are from a deck that highlighted rookies in '92 while Fielder's came out of a '91 All-Stars set.

And finally we flash back to the Tigers of old with Hal Newhouser and Johnny Pesky from Topps' '91 Archives set.  Pesky is more well-known for his time in Boston and his namesake foul pole, but he did appear in parts of three seasons in Detroit after a trade that sent George Kell to the Red Sox.

Tom, thanks again for a ton of Tigers that have me getting ready for Spring Training.  I'm happy to say that I've already started a new package to send your way at some point.  Readers, whether you like the Angels, Patriots, or none of the above, go head over to the Angels in Order before the Super Bowl!  Oh yeah, and consider this post my endorsement for Tom Brady, Alan Branch, and the New England Patriots in tonight's matchup with the Seahawks.

A trade post straight out of Los Angeles of Anaheim of California

Thanks to a rapidly growing fat stack of Angels cards sitting on my floor, I was able to make another enjoyable team trade, this time with Tom of The Angels, In Order.  In return for the reclamation of prime floor real estate and a bit of shipping money, Tom sent an outstanding trade package that included some wantlist help and a bevy of Tigers, including some real fun stuff I'd never seen before.  Highlights, roughly in order of release:

 Some oddball-ish-type stuff of three of the best players on the '84 Championship team

 There's a ton to like here--the Black Gold cards are sweet, I really do need to work on picking up more Frymans, any Whitaker's I pick up are an automatic win, Nokes is one of my favorite Tigers catchers of all time, Tettleton earns this trade package 1,000,000 karma points, and HoJo is a guy I wish the Tigers could have kept after that World Series run, but I'm glad he had a solid few years with the Mets.

Hey guys, what's goin' on over here?

GAAAAH!  Oh, it's just Kenny Rogers, who was either constipated, about to sneeze, or under heavy sedation.  A cool card of Kenny otherwise.  Back to the regular stuff:

 Some newer Tigers including a sweet numbered Pudge, some nifty multi-player pieces, and FOUR MANY GRANDERSONS!

The newest of the new, including some shiny new Bowmans and Chromes, plus a sticker of Jhonny Peralta

All in all, that's a bunch of great stuff to add to my Tigers PC, which means this swap of teams appears to have worked out for both of us.  It's nice to get back in the swing of trading after quite a bit of buying this year and--

I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL

--GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!  That one will be in my nightmares tonight!

Thanks again to Tom for an easy and excellent trade.  Please make sure to patronize the entertaining blog of this fan of the Los Angeles of Anaheim of California Angels Who Are In Los Angeles or Anaheim, Both Of Which Are In California.