2023 trade package #25: the Lost Collector

Let's keep on keepin' on with trade packages! Tonight's comes from AJ, the Lost Collector. Though he stopped blogging almost two years ago now he's still plenty active on Twitter and in the collecting game, so I thought of him a few weeks ago as I was going through some unwanted stuff in my collection and came up with a Wheaties box that included his dude Tino Martinez on the front; I later added a Donruss promo card I found at a show and somehow he didn't have that either!

AJ was nice enough to send me a pretty sizeable envelope in return filled with Tigers and Wolverines:

Bojarski was born in South Africa and has appeared in games for American minor league teams plus one in Australia, so yeah, dude's well-traveled! Fick's rooftop grand slam was the last homer hit at Tiger Stadium so he'll always have that going for him. Greene, Jobe, and Manning, all of whom appear down a diagonal here, could all be part of the team's future "Mojo." Tommy Henry, the pride of Portage Northern High School, is the lone Michigan baseballer here today, appearing on his Heritage RC from this year. Pudge was indeed a star wherever he went, a total of six teams as it turns out. And as I said the other night, Tork's power potential could make things very interesting for a lineup that's been starving for runs.

Another Tork insert--because why not--gives way to probably my favorite card in the whole package. Gibby and Tram were certainly cornerstones of the '84 champs, not to mention a number of teams that surprisingly couldn't repeat that year's success. The insert you see is from 2005 Leaf, so it's old enough that it was made when inserts still meant something other than TacoMojoPrizmFractor. Too cool!

Over to basketball, a sport in which Michigan's success this year has been fleeting. At least the team has been an NBA factory, producing guys like LeVert and Wagner. I just made fun of Prizms but that first Caris looks great, even if blue is a much better color than green. And if I had to pick between the Wagner bros who play for Orlando, Franz would be my choice as he's been the better of the pair, though I'd be happy to get cards of either.

Oh, hey, football, that sport that Michigan's been great at the past three seasons! Not only are the player selection and overall design variety in the group outstanding, but there's a ton of college uni action going on too! Star WR Nico Collins is finally benefitting from having a QB who isn't a serial sexual assaulter and/or dead-armed retread. Though he may now be dealing with an injury, he's already eclipsed the 1000-yard mark for receiving yards and has also amassed a career high six scores. Hell, you name a stat and it's a new personal mark for him this year.

Meanwhile, Chris Evans hasn't become a star like his Hollywood namesake, but that won't stop me from collecting him. I'm always glad to land new stuff like the above plus a couple more seen in the next scan, putting me at a solid 18 with plenty more to come.

Like I said, green isn't my top choice for a Wolverine alum's parallel, but the color does look solid in Prizm form.

Next we get a look at some rare cards of players on the D side of the ball. Kwity Paye's been pretty good for the Colts since they took him in the first round in '21. This season he already has career highs in fumbles forced and recovered (two each), and his 7.5 sacks are also a personal best with a few games left. He's also got a good shot to surpass last season's tackle (combined, solo, and for loss) numbers, so he's definitely trending in the right direction. Naturally he gets a Green Prizm too!

Ambry Thomas is a DB that flashed a lot of potential in limited play in Ann Arbor and he's made a bit of noise for a Niners team that includes fellow alumni Ronnie Bell and Jake Moody. He doesn't have a lot of non-college product appearances yet but I'm plenty happy seeing him in the winged helmet thanks to SAGE.

LB Josh Uche was a bright spot for the Pats last season after going off for 11.5 sacks, 9 TFL, and 2 forced fumbles, but his 2023 has been about as middling as the rest of the team. Hopefully he can move on to a squad that'll appreciate him more and put him in position to succeed.

Speaking of success, few Michigan RBs enjoyed more in college than Tyrone Wheatley, seen high-stepping to another TD at the Big House on a card made by Classic. Blake Corum's historic career brings to mind the affinity Wheatley had for piling up yards and finding the end zone. What a great photo that encapsulates the experience of watching him play.

AJ, I really appreciate this great package you put together for me that featured some great additions to my collections. Though it's rare to find new Tino items for you I'll keep working on it just in case because I owe you a lot of thanks for this stuff!

So who was the next generous soul to gift me some cards? Check back soon to find out!

2023 trade package #9: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

It's been more than a couple weeks since I last posted, mostly due to the usual procrastination and distractions, this time with a bit of life thrown in. That said, I haven't given up on covering the piles of cards on my desk, especially the blogger trades from some very cool people.

For the second straight year, Michigan Hockey's season ended in disappointment in the NCAA semi-finals, this time to eventual champ Quinnipiac (who's ok in my book for beating Minnesota!). All the same, it was a great year for a star-studded team that certainly lived up to the historically great program's expectations.

The person I trade with who's boosted my Wolverine Hockey collection with cards of the program's past stars more than anyone else (except, maybe--maybe--myself) is Doug over at Sports Cards From the Dollar Store, and earlier this month he treated me to more of his trademark generosity from across the border. There's lots of hockey to check out and plenty more too!

We'll open things up with Bowman Chrome and Heritage Minors of some of the Tigers' prospects. The two double-"J"s are among the team's top farm players, and Greene has shown plenty of flashes. Paredes, of course, was flipped to Tampa in another one of those ill-fated "Will Detroit ever develop and keep an infield prospect?" deals.

Among the notables here are a 2007 Topps Red Back parallel of Bondo, a Fleer All-Star insert pairing up the well known Fryman with HOFer Craig Biggio, a Matt Manning that's "OMG eBay 1/1 100/100 last one!" (which is extra cool), a sweet recent Stadium Club base of Cal, and a Heritage insert of prospect Wenceel Perez. Nice stuff!

The baseball group ends with a bang! First is a Leaf Flash autograph of former Portage Northern and UM pitcher Tommy Henry, who got nine starts last year and one so far in '23. It's gaudy--it is Leaf after all--but the mostly Michigan uniform-ness makes it a winner. Joining him is my first hit of ex-#1 overall pick Spencer Torkelson. Nobody knows what to make of him but I think he still has plenty of time to show what he's capable of, especially if the team can stop messing with the swing he had success with before they got their dirty mitts on him.

Like I said, there's lots of UM Hockey to cover but there were also a few of the local pro team as well including a fun pair of stickers.

The Michigan Football contingent all fits in one scan with room to spare. From the non-hit group I especially like the brand new Aidan Hutchinson, and I recently learned that the blue Select cards are the retail version which explains why they seem to be way more prevalent to me than the "regular" base, which I now know as the hobby set. The Nico auto, which may be a Mojo parallel or one of about a million other variations, is just as loud as the earlier Leaf auto we saw but no less appreciated--it's just my second of the stud WR, and just like the Henry it's a college card, so thumbs up! To that Doug added a nice relic of Collins' WR predecessor Amara Darboh, and the numbered hit with a large swatch is my 48th of him. It's apparently a rare instance of a Darboh I have that Jeff doesn't, though I wouldn't be shocked if he rectified that soon.

The hockey content did not remotely disappoint, and most of it this time seemed to hail from a few products like 17-18 Compendium, 21-22 OPC, and 22-23 Upper Deck. They all look quite nice but I think the latter happens to be an especially good effort by UD. Out of this group the Jets' Kyle Connor has one playoff goal thus far.

Oh that's a nice Dylan Larkin! The captain tied his career highs with 32 goals and 47 assists in '23 but did them in the same season for the first time, so his 79 points were a career best. He led the team in all of those categories and also signed an eight-year extension, so I'm happy he'll be around Hockeytown for a while longer. The Young Guns of Will Lockwood that follows is my first of  four-year Wolverine, so that was a fun find in the envelope. We'll see more of a couple of the guys in the next scan, but for now the pairing of Montoya goalie action cards was pretty nifty too!

The non-hits stuff finishes up with an awesome Turco action shot and trio of additional recent UD issues that include outstanding photography and design. How cool is that Larkin, tho?!

As for the biggest cards, two of them star former Wolverine-turned Devil-turned Golden Knight-turned Wing-turned Canadien-turned Wild: Jon Merrill. He's popped up a good amount in Doug's previous packages and got another nice boost this time with a very nice autograph and oversized jersey swatch. The pair gives him 13 hits, good for a tie with fellow buckstorecards package stalwart Chris Brown for 7th in the hockey collection. He's joined by another well-travelled vet still active in the playoffs, Tyler Motte. His 8th hit is a gorgeous UD Premier jersey/auto/RC with a beautiful three-color swatch from a jersey of the team that drafted him, the Blackhawks (he's now with the Rangers). Bonus points for the jersey number added to the signature plus serial numbering to boot.

Doug, thanks again for another killer package! I know you've already started posting some of what I sent back your way, and I hope you've had a chance to pick out some Presstine repacks for even more blog content.

As for me, I don't know how quickly I'll be back with the next envelope, but I'll work on it!

2021 trade package #30: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

As I slowly (very slowly!) continue catching up on trade packages from late last year, I'm back today with another great one from Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store. The fifth envelope he sent me in 2021 came around the beginning of January, I believe, and he once again knocked it out of the park in sending some amazing and much needed cards my way:

Baseball part 1 was a 100% Wolverines affair with seven cards hitting five different player collections. Blomgren, Criswell, and Franklin are all pretty recent draftees so I don't have a lot of their stuff yet, most of which consists of Bowman/Chrome and the various Topps minors-focused sets. That means I'm always glad to see them appear in trade packages like this one. 

Just as welcome are two new cards of #CroneZone guy Jake Cronenworth, a guy who looks like a building block on what could be a dangerous Padres team at some point. The Bowman Platinum and Topps Update parallels of yesterday's birthday boy give me 25 cards of a player whose checklist has exploded since his recent breakout.

And the group concludes with a pair of cards of a guy whose last game was much closer to the production of the older card than the newer of the two you see. Barry Larkin's issue from the second year of UD's amazing SPx product is from 1997 while the Donruss base you see hails from 2021. Out of curiosity to anyone who sees this, which SPx design do you prefer more: 1996 or '97? I consider the latter a nice improvement on a very cool look but understand the appreciation for the OG.

The hit side of things was also very Michigan-centric with one exception. The Cronenworth auto, just my second after buying one at a recent show, is just my second of his, and Doug was generous enough to let me have it after he pulled it from one of several Chronicles boxes he's opened. Switching from sending him cards to straight cash since he pulls great stuff to send me remains on the table. Anyway, it's a very cool looking card out of the Panini Black Autographs insert and I'm excited to now have a second signature of the young star.

Next up is a Bowman Platinum auto of Portage, Michigan native (shout out to John!) and former Wolverines star pitcher Tommy Henry. As you can see here he was selected by Arizona, back in the 2019 draft, and he seems to be slotting in the middle of their top 30 prospects at the moment. This is my third autograph of the left and I'll gladly take more if I can get them!

Last up is a former Tigers prospect, Scott Sizemore, on a 2007 Bowman Heritage Signs of Greatness autograph card. One of Adam's/Spankee's favorite PC guys (yep, he's a Virginian), Sizemore spent a little time with Detroit in 2010 and '11 before being flipped to Oakland. Though he was a pretty good prospect at second and third, he was somewhat blocked by a combination of Brandon Inge, Carlos Guillen, and a couple utility guys, and he played minimally after 2011. He does, however, have an outstanding signature!

The basketball portion was 20 cards strong, and "strong" goes a long way towards describing the quality of some of these cards! THJ, coach Juwan Howard, Caris LeVert, Mitch McGary, and Glen Rice are all represented here, and the die-cut SPx offerings and Howard insert particularly stand out. Just lots of great new content from one of my collections that tends to lag behind the rest because of my relative disinterest in the sport.

But it certainly piques my interest when I see cards like the ones above along with these! Three more players make appearances here: Maurice Taylor, Franz Wagner, and Chris Webber, and all three are shown on notable cards. Taylor's is a cool UD die-cut that screams "90s inserts rule!", Wagner's is a college uni photo, and Webber's got lots of razzle dazzle including die-cut and shiny inserts and base. By the way, Wagner's Orlando team may be rough in terms of its record but I love that he's teammates with his brother Mo (Moritz) plus fellow Wolverine Ignas Brazdeikis.

Here's a couple more Webber cards that didn't fit in the other scans since nine doesn't go into 20 nicely. C-Webb's sitting pretty in my basketball collection at #2 with 159 cards, second only to Rice's 204.

Moving over to football the last names were clumped together in the letters "A" through "H" but that's fine because you still have plenty of good players to choose from. Like transfer TE Devin Asiasi, former WR and current coach Ronald Bellamy, GOAT QB Tom Brady, and WR Devin Funchess on offense. Or if you're a defensive guy there's LBs Taco Charlton and David Harris. Charlton was one of I believe four former Michigan guys that played for the Steelers this year. And Bellamy's card makes me wonder how many Senior Bowl-type cards I have of the player in their college helmet and a pre-draft all-star game jersey.

As with baseball, Doug really brought the boom with the hits here. Imagine my surprise when I saw the Henne jersey (2008 Bowman Sterling Green Refractor, #d /50) and found out that I didn't actually have it! That's a rarity these days since I own 138 different hits of the former UM QB.

Beastly DL Mo Hurst suited up for the Raiders his first three NFL seasons, as depicted on a 2018 Prizm auto (#d /199) above, but this year he's been plying his trade for the playoff-bound Niners, who are playing tonight, and also boast former Wolverines Lavert Hill, Ambry Thomas, and Jarrod Wilson on their defense. That's my fourth hit (all autos) of a DL who put up 13.5 sacks in Ann Arbor.

And then we have a new member to the PC (#229 overall), former FB Ben Mason. An excellent blocker and short-yardage/goal line back, "Bench" picked up 7 TDs in 2018, though his role on the team changed as coaches Jim Harbaugh and Josh Gattis tweaked the offense his last couple years. A Ravens draftee, Mason can be seen here on his 2021 Panini Chronicles Prestige auto, on that stars a great action photo of a guy whose position has largely been phased out of the game.

Definitely the most unique item of the package was a 2016 Panini Father's Day card of blog favorite dude Denard Robinson as it includes a piece of pylon from the Colts/Jags game on 12/13/2015. Looking at the box score of that 51-16 Jacksonville win (BORTLES!), Shoelace led both teams with 75 rushing yards (he tacked on a 12-yard catch) on 14 carries, including a 31-yarder plus a score from the 1. That was his lone TD that season and in fact the final one he'd score in the NFL, adding on to the four he accumulated the previous year. I'll have to look but I believe pylon relics are few and far between in my collection, though Denard certainly isn't as this is my 52nd hit of his.

And last up on the gridiron is a beauty of a horizontal auto card design courtesy of--who else?--Upper Deck. Braylon made the most of the room he had on his sticker affixed to this card that was part of UD's 2009 Signature Shots insert. A respectable 15 of my 93 hits of Edwards include a signature like this one but not all of them can claim a classy UD design.

And lastly for today, if the fact that I needed the Henne shown above was surprising, the relative dearth of hockey cards came as a shock! That certainly wasn't a bad thing, though, given the quality of everything else Doug fit into the envelope, plus he fills gaps in my Michigan Hockey and Red Wings PCs so frequently that going without them once won't kill me.

This very red trio of icers on UD products looks terrific all lined up together. Mathias Bromé is a Swedish winger in an organization that certainly knows how to value them, and UD took notice by including him in their coveted Young Guns subset in '20-'21. HOF goalie Dominik Hasek sandwiched a year with Doug's Senators with two two-year stints in Hockeytown, winning a pair of Cups in '01-'02 and '07-'08, and here he's seen on a '20-'21 UD Artifacts card #d /499. And my favorite of the trio is also numbered, plus it stars WolverWing Dylan Larkin. UD's Synergy brand has resulted in some very cool looking acetate cards like this '20-'21 Exceptional Young Stars insert, which is #d /749. The young star continues to be an important cog on offense, leading the team in points and tied in goals (with dumbass Tyler Bertuzzi) at 19. I love getting any and all new cards of his to add to my collection.

Doug, I'm sorry it took so long to recap this package but once again I want to say a huge thanks for all the Christmas goodies! As always I appreciate it big time and I'll continue to put in work to hit you back. The good news is I already have a couple things in hand and more in the works, so I'll at least try not to take so long to return fire.

The rest of you should stay tuned for six more blogger trades (more keep coming in!) and at least four TCDB trade recaps as I slowly try to catch up.

2020 COMC purchases: Dean-o and more new cards you haven't seen-o

Before I get to today's cards I just wanted to highlight a minor miracle that occurred since I last posted: last week my first COMC shipment containing the items I purchased for Christmas card packages finally rematerialized and appeared in Detroit, then Ann Arbor. I've since managed to put together all but one of those envelopes and send them out, so you may see some belated Christmas card posts soon!

Besides getting those done I've been hard at work ordering buttloads of cards from Sportlots (almost done!) and my first try with baseballcardstore.ca (ordered!), so I'll be showing those off in due time.

Ok, onward to tonight's content, which is 100% baseball:

Former slugging 3B Dean Palmer was one of two big winners today, and the guy who got the most new items added to his collection (now 160 cards strong). I'll get to the two most prominent items in a minute, but first, it's "90s inserts rule" time! The '94 Pinnacle Museum Collection design isn't nearly as good as '95's in my opinion, but it's still a great looking parallel. A year after the Preferred brand debuted as a Leaf name, it switched over to Donruss and was responsible for some very nice looking inserts, such as that Cut to the Chase die-cut parallel.

A Silver base card from '97 Finest gives me both of Dean's entries in the regular set, with the only two Rangers earning spots in the rare Gold versions the exact two you'd expect--Pudge Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez. And '99 Black Diamond has some very fine parallels that are nicely differentiated both in coloring and numbering. Above you see the Double (/3000) and Triple (/1500) versions, meaning I still need the Quadruple (/150) to complete the mini rainbow.

As if 90s insert greatness wasn't enough, I managed to score my second relic (also a bat) and first autograph for my Palmer PC. The signature hails from the well known auto-per-pack 1996 Leaf Signature product and is the most common Bronze version, limited to 3500 copies. The writing is a bit squished but fairly legible otherwise. And speaking of hit-per-pack products, the bat was found in 2001 Private Stock packs I remember quite well, busting many back when relics were more novel. Both of these make for a nice boost to that growing collection.

This next group is a bit of a mix, comprising two former Tigers and another favorite PC. It may not have been too many© but I did find two new Granderson jerseys from 2008--SP Legendary Cuts and Topps Heritage--getting me to the 10 hit mark, for just $1.50 and $1.25, respectively. I also came up with a 2016 Donruss Stat Line insert for under $0.50 which was exciting since I've loved the parallel since it first appeared in 2001. This one's numbered to 263 for his career HR total through 2015, and he's put up 81 more in his final four seasons for a solid total of 344. And after all that we're not quite done yet with Curtis....

First let's have a look at the other cards here. Gwynn was one of the two subjects (Griffey's the other) I wanted to track down from Leaf's 1997 insert called Knothole Gang. Leaf took the motif seriously and came up with a super cool design. These are numbered /5000, which you should remember was pretty tough back then! 90s inserts rule and this was an easy purchase for me. Would you believe it was a "Freedom Isn't Free" special at just a buck-oh-five?

Former versatile Tiger (and player for five other teams) Tony Phillips, like Palmer, is another PC I've been starting to build up in the last year, and this '97 Refractor was the cherry on top of this order, the last card I snagged with my dwindling credit before seeing about shipping my two groups of purchases (trade bait and personal). 1997's design happens to be one of my favorites of the brand so I didn't mind paying $0.75 for this shiny 90s gem.

I said I'd get back to Grandy, didn't I? After naming this here blog after him more than 10 years ago I was finally able to add a plate to his collection. As you can see, this one's from 2017 Donruss and is of the yellow variety, and it was right in my $5-10 wheelhouse at around $8. I'm super excited to add another 1/1 of a favorite player, and I may have to put together a display for whatever "-fecta" I end up with. Right now I could do a RC, relic, auto, 1/1, and manurelic, which is a pretty nice group!

Switching over to the Michigan guys, here's today's last group. Leading off is the Mechanical Man and a 2012 Panini Cooperstown Crystal Collection parallel. This is the regular version, numbered /299, and it completes the trio for me as I already had the Red and Blue versions--a trifecta rainbow!

Next, I was ecstatic to score my first UM uniform autos of 2019 draft picks Tommy Henry (D-Backs, 2nd round) and Karl Kauffmann (Rockies, 2nd round). Elite Extra is perfect for collectors like me because of just such cards. In each case it's also my second auto but obviously my favorite for both given the college photos.

Staying relatively recent, I continued my slow progress towards P Clayton Richard's collection with a 2019 Topps Walgreens Yellow parallel. While the hues aren't quite right, combined with the blue of his team's uniform, it makes for a very appropriate card for a Wolverine!

I'm pretty sure buddy of the blog John, who's definitely already enthused by this group, will like this next card the most. My fellow Freehan collector would be all over this 2005 SP Legendary Cuts Glory Days jersey, one that was surprisingly new to me as I got down to my last few bucks of credit. I already owned the Gold (/75) version of this but not the unnumbered regular one you see above. $3 was a small price to pay for my 25th hit of one of the franchise's best all-time catchers.

And last but not least is the end of my baseball gets, namely a Getz. Hailing from 2008 Just Minors' Just Autographs set, this is a Gold autograph that's numbered on the back (digitally, on a foil stamp), which set me back $1.33. I ended up snagging it instead of the paradoxically more costly (on COMC, anyway) base version. This one getz (sorry, not sorry) his hit total up to 16, with all but two of those (a couple of plates) featuring his signature.

This is quite a nice haul to look at and I haven't even gotten to my football stuff yet! I haven't even scanned that yet, much less figured out if I'm going to break it up into multiple posts, but between the card stuff I mentioned above that's been keeping me busy and putting together this post, I've neglected a couple really nice trade packages I need to show off, so look for those to be my next two posts before I possibly get back to the rest of my COMC loot.

Until then, please enjoy looking at these pickups while we all wait for pitchers and catchers to report!

2020 trade package #2: Sport Card Collectors

You just never know what you might get when you're lucky enough to receive a surprise PWE from Matt over at Sport Card Collectors.  Of the many he's sent me, quite a few included some new stuff for my Ken Griffey Jr. PC since he's a guy we both collect.  That's why the one I'm posting today was a bit out of the ordinary, though in a great way!  Check out the cards and see what I mean:

#1 is the first of what I hope will be many autographs of former Michigan pitcher Tommy Henry in my PC.  It hails from 2019 Bowman Draft Chrome, and the numbering on the front is your best indicator in the scan that it's the Refractor version, since that trademark shine didn't really come through as much as I would like.  Henry's got a great signature and a Refractor's always a plus so I was really excited to pop this one out of the envelope.

I was scanning the back to put up on TCDB anyway so I thought I'd include it here for a couple reasons.  One is the (unfortunately way too small) "*Played at Michigan" note, and the other is that it points out his birthplace of Portage, Michigan, which I figured John might like!

Second is this very cool Ripken insert.  Before removing it from Matt's perfect packaging job I thought it was die-cut but then I noticed it's acetate, which is very cool.  I hadn't seen these before though I was at least able to guess it was related to Topps High Tek.  Indeed, it's from the 2019 version, an insert called PortraiTEK, and its shiny, see-through nature won me over, plus it's even serial-numbered.  Who knew that Topps was capable of producing something like this that I like so much?

Matt then tripled my collection of NCAA hero Jordan Poole thanks to this pair from 2019-20 Prizm Draft.  I wasn't aware that the base set includes multiple cards of some of the players so I'm happy to benefit from that in the form of two new Michigan uni issues (though I'm not sure how both could be deemed "RC"s?).  Here's hoping my collection of Poole grows along with his development with Golden State.

Last up today is Michigan WR/returner legend Desmond Howard on a beautifully colorful card from 1992 Classic Four Sport.  Classic tended to be a lower-end brand but it's nice to see that even in '92 they could make cards like this that really popped, going for a modern design that made the Topps and Fleer looks at the time appear positively ancient.

Matt, thanks again for another outstanding PWE!  I'm looking forward to helping you fill out your Kerry Collins collection soon, and maybe I can add to that at an upcoming show.