Fun freebies featuring A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts

Who doesn't love free stuff? That's why my post is all about this evening.

The main star for tonight is Jon over at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts. I was one of a pretty large group of folks who participated in his "Take my cards Tuesdays" and "Free Card Fridays" back in May, and I know I saw quite a few familiar names in the comments so this won't come as news to many of you. I give Jon a ton of credit for his generosity as he was truly asking for nothing in return--not a follow, not cards, not a damn thing. And some of the stuff up for grabs was very high quality considering the price, or total lack thereof. Stars? Check. Serial numbered inserts? You bet. Vintage, oddball, and non-sports? All there, friend.

All he asked was for folks to try to limit their initial requests so a reasonable number of people could get a chance to claim something. I had no problem with that and came away with eight cards I chose plus a bonus:

The baseball selection was pretty much Tigers baseball royalty. Cobb, Cochrane, and Manush are all HOFers, Miggy will join them in a few years, Evans and McLain came up big for title-winning teams, and Granderson is one of the best players the farm system has produced in the past 20 years. I think the Purple Refractor of Granderson was the one I wanted the most from this bunch so I made sure to get my comment in very quickly!

Before we get to the football pair, the Evans you see up there is the bonus Jon was nice enough to include (along with, remember, my free cards) and it was totally new to me. Normal '87 Topps? Nope, I already said it was new to me:

That's a blank-back version! What a fun throw-in.

As for the two Michigan football stars, Anthony Carter's is an SI For Kids issue from 1992, and HOF Rams LG Tom Mack's hails from 1976 Wonder Bread. I believe I can count my NFL food issue cards on one hand so that oddball-ness is extremely cool to me, in addition to it being a vintage piece of a former star.

Thanks again to Jon for treating so many of us to some quality free cards!

Next up is a freebie via Twitter thanks to a friend. Buddy of the blog John saw an account named C-Train GatorMayne offering up the following card gratis and asked him to send it my way, which he did:

Ex-UM WR Nico Collins is looking mighty fine on a 2022 Panini Obsidian parallel called Electric Etch Orange. It lives up to its name for sure and as always it looks better in person so just take my word for it when I say it looks nice.

Thanks again, John!

Last up tonight, I believe I've mentioned a number of times that my mom has always been very supportive of my interest in the hobby, one of the many reasons I appreciate her so much. She gets out to garage and estate sales once in a while and sometimes even grabs things she think I might like. At some point in the past year or two she found me a sealed 1991 Topps baseball factory set.

A few weeks ago she texted me asking if unopened 1990 Donruss packs were worth anything. Naturally I asked if she was thinking of starting a fire. Anyway, she specifically wondered if I thought she overpaid for 10-15 "packs" of them, and I thought, "probably, but it's the thought that counts, thank you!"

Well, it turned out to be a bit better than that:

Hmmm, opened but...

Ah, those are the "packs she's talking about. Let's take a look at a few of them:

Yep! It's an opened factory set and but with the base cards and Grand Slammers still sealed, meaning the only thing that appears to be missing is the Yaz puzzle, which I believe I already have anyway. Each sealed brick has 55 base cards plus one Grand Slammers insert except for the 13th brick which has the Bart Giamatti tribute base card in place of that insert.

While I already had a complete set put together by hand, it's fun knowing I for sure own a complete run of the cards with the factory set border, which is a bit different than the one on cards that were packed out. That and it's really nice having another set my mom specifically bought for me. Please believe I treated her well as always when Mother's Day came around in May!

So thank you to everyone involved who made my collection that much better with the free cards you saw this evening! Stay tuned for some more trades before I catch up on other stuff I'm excited to show off.

TCDB trade roundup: cards from C2Cigars and BKim

I haven't done much trading on TCDB at this point, having made just one deal with someone other than Paul, but in the last few weeks I got cards from a pair of members there anyway, which was a great development for me.

First up is Chuck, a.k.a. C2Cigars.  If you're not a TCDBer but the name sounds familiar, that's because he's the member Paul and I met at Paul's local show late last year.  An older school collector that looks for vintage Mets, Raiders, and Sabres, plus Syracuse alumni, he followed up the vintage Michigan Football item he brought to that show with a bigger bunch of the same, almost all of which I needed:

Though none of these guys are new to my collection, it's generally been limited to their RCs, so this is certainly a bunch I can appreciate.  WR Doughty (card #2) and OG Mack (4) are from 1975 Topps on a design that's miles away from the baseball version.  RB Lytle (a dupe), OG McKenzie (3), and TE Seymour (3) feature on the '78 design that I think has a bit more going for it.  TE Mandich's (4) second-year '76 Topps photo is very similar to the one seen on his RC.  McRae's '69 Topps probably looks familiar since Jon sent it to me first and I showed it off in my last post.  And LB Nunley (3) and CB Rowser (2) both make appearances in '73 Topps, which was their second-year set.

This next group begins with a card I don't really consider vintage, an '84 Topps USFL of WR Jim Smith (3), but that doesn't make me like it any less, especially since it's a cool piece of history.  Then we return to 1973 for OT Steve Smith's RC plus S Rick Volk (5).  I somehow missed Smith on my RC checklist so I'm glad Chuck alerted me to that, especially since he appears to have only one other card to his name.  By the way, the colors used for the '73 set confuse me, so maybe someone can tell me if there's a rhyme or reason to what was used or if they're just random.  Anyway, I was also treated to a second card of Volk, in this case from the '75 set you saw above.  That gives me Rick's cards from '71, '73, '75, and '76, which is pretty good!

This last scan shows the other two cards from Chuck's package.  On the left is a '91 Pro Set of former QB and current HC Jim Harbaugh, but it's not just any card.  Instead it's from the Spanish version of the set, as indicated by some of the text you can see up front.  That's a fun addition to his PC (142 cards).  He's joined by recent DB Channing Stribling from Topps' coverage of the defunct AAF, the final dupe in the package.

Chuck's a great guy to deal with, as is pretty obvious considering the above, so don't hesitate to trade with him if you're on the site!

The other envelope that arrived was what the site calls a PIF, or "pay it forward."  It's kind of the site's equivalent blog trading's blind trades with the idea that you pick someone and send them something they'd probably like.  Member Robert (BKim), who seems like a good dude from what I've seen on the site, was nice enough to surprise me with this:

As I'm now actively collecting HOFer Ted Simmons--it took me a while to confirm he's a Michigan alum, though he didn't actually play baseball for the school, though that doesn't disqualify him for my collection--I'd updated my wantlist for the catching great, and Robert picked one of those needs and sent it my way.  This is Ted's card from Fleer's 1981 debut, another appearance where he looks high but at least doesn't have long hair like a hippie.  I'm glad to add it as the first Simmons in my collection that isn't included in one of my complete sets, giving me 14 overall.

I made sure to thank BKim in the forum's PIF thread and I already know to whom I'll be paying it forward very soon.  Thanks to both him and Chuck for making TCDB a cooler place to be!

With lots of cards in-hand still to be covered and the likelihood of working from home starting next week you may actually see more of me!  Stay safe and healthy, everyone.