12/1/23 card show report: December dimes and more

I'll probably do the other half of my TCDb trade recap next time, but to break things up a bit I'm finally covering what I brought home from December's monthly show.

I headed to Taylor on the first of December last year and threw down $80 for some nice stuff, though it's been long enough that I can't remember the breakdown. So just assume it was the usual combination of dimes, $1/$2/$5, and everything in-between!

First up as always is the trade bait:

Belt /250; Grieve /1995; Loney /520; Manny /150; Blackmon /499; Burleson /600

Carricker /2249; Cole /2000; Cotchery /2007; Curtis /999; Cutler /999; Delhomme /250; Farmer /1999; Henderson /500; Holiday /599

Johnson/ 175; Leftwich /750; Okoye /999; Pumphrey /175; Salaam is a promo; Shenault /399; Williams /2010

Claim 'em in the comments or make me an offer on TCDb!

And now for my keepers:

I was surprised to find this complete and still shrink-wrapped 1989 Donruss the Rookies set in the $5 or 5/$20 box and I immediately grabbed it. Not only does the set contain quality players (though not true RCs) like Sheffield, Deion Sanders, Edgar Martinez, and Randy Johnson, plus guys in my PC like Jim Abbott and Gary Wayne, but there's also a reasonably big deal rookie year guy:

Junior! You're probably much more likely to be paying in the neighborhood of $10 for just this Griffey than getting the whole set (albeit minus the box and Spahn puzzle) for just $4. So I was pretty happy about this one.

The mix of dimes & more starts with a couple nice Tony Clarks. The ex-Tiger and current MLBPA prez stars on a couple mid/late 90s issues. The Stadium Club Onyx Extreme of Griffey may have been another $5 box card, but then, this isn't just the "regular" version of that insert--it's an even cooler die-cut parallel that I don't think I'd ever seen before. Looks like I paid around a half or even third of the going rate for this, and earned this post my coveted "90s inserts rule" tag.

That makes a couple nice Griffey cards, and Gwynn and Maddux are next with some dime box gems, mostly of the Pacific variety, though Mad Dog also gets a cool UD Fun Pack card as well, plus a '99 Bowman International parallel.

And a couple more of the HOF P while we're at it, from 2005 UD and 2012 Prizm. Just one Cal this time but he completes the big four PC quartet with a standard 2017 Ginter base. Scherzer's non-die-cut die-cut looked pretty cool as did the actually-die-cut Verlander, both of which offer a Refractor finish, and I met my recommended daily dose of two many Verlanders with a Gallery Printer Proof from 2022.

Meanwhile, the basketball group was relatively tiny with a couple shiny dimes of THJ and LeVert, but I did manage to snag myself hit #10 of college star Trey Burke: a 2013-14 Totally Certified jersey card (probably from the $2 box?).

And we'll finish with football. Nico is a shiny/laser-y Xtra Points parallel of his '22 Prestige base. 2022 rookies Haskins and Ojabo are seen on first-years from that season's Donruss Optic, and the Ravens defender gets a Select RC to boot. Lewan adds a Leaf card that's fun for the Michigan uniform aspect and not much else. Colts edge Paye adds another RC to his total as well out of '21 Mosaic. And lastly, I added yet another Braylon to his stack in the form of a 2011 Prestige Prestigious Pros Red horizontal card, one that looks more suited to Christmastime thanks to its colors.

I was pretty happy with how this show went, especially with the way it helped me bulk up some of the Christmas packages I sent out a couple weeks after.

And if any of you enjoy show recaps, you'll be quite happy when I start covering my 2024 stuff because I've already got three shows' worth of content, including a much-hyped blogger/TCDb meetup in Kalamazoo!

But before then I believe I'm left with one TCDb trade recap and my COMC loot for the big finish.

2023 eBay purchases: rockin' around the Christmas Tariks

With 2023 blogger trades all wrapped up I'm moving on to my eBay purchases from the last four months of the year.

We'll start back in early September when I happily spent a bit more than $12.50 delivered for my second plate of Denard Robinson. This particular Shoelace 1/1 is his magenta plate used to make his 2013 Absolute RC, specifically the "base" version and not the variation where he's carrying the ball in his other hand. You all know I love me some Denard, and I hope he's one of the holdovers on new Michigan coach Sherrone Moore's staff.

A bit less than two weeks later I was quite happy to win this Trey Burke plate for a little under $10 shipped. The 2016-17 Contenders Draft magenta plate you see above is my third 1/1 of the former college star, but it's my first of him pictured as a Wolverine instead of with the Jazz so it's my new favorite. This one puts Burke one away from joining the double-digit hit club in basketball as the fifth member, though a couple others are also getting close.

At the end of the month I was thinking about how well Tigers P Tarik Skubal had pitched after returning for the season's second half. He started off a bit slowly but ripped off four straight wins in the final month to end the year at 7-3 with a solid 2.80 ERA. I decided I wanted a nice card of his and landed on this 2021 Absolute Rookie Leather Signatures Tan auto for about $13. Maybe I'll get something with actual team logos on it in the future, but I'm a sucker for fun gimmicks like this and was more interested in jumping on something before he possibly develops into a higher-end starter. And even if he doesn't, I've got a pretty cool card of one of the team's solid core of starters.

Next, early in October I found a bunch of stuff for myself and others all from one seller and took advantage of low auction prices and combined shipping. The three cards you see above are the ones I grabbed for myself. First up is a Pudge jersey that I thought was worth a flier at $1.50. He'd joined the Yankees in '08 so UD listed him with them, but he's pictured as a Tiger and I'm betting the swatch is from a Detroit jersey, not that it matters too much to me since I collect his non-Tigers cards too. That appears to be relic #10 and hit #11 of the HOF catcher.

To that I added a pair of Leaf-branded cards of former UM WR Tarik Black, our second Tarik of the evening! Black was a top-200, 4* recruit coming in to Ann Arbor in 2017 but he'd compile just 50 catches for two scores in 18 games over three seasons before transferring to Texas, where he put up similar numbers in the shortened 2020 COVID season. I was very happy to add a couple Wolverines uniform autographs of him to my collection (as subject #240) even though they're from the wish.com iteration of Leaf, which is part of the "way too many parallels with ridiculous names" problem. That said, I have enjoyed the State Pride design over the years.

I included the backs to show that the top card is numbered just 4/4 while the other is #19/20. As best as I could tell, these are from 2021 Leaf Metal Draft Flashback Base Autographs Mojo (even though the provided checklist SNs don't match) and 2021 Leaf Metal Draft Flashback State Pride Autographs Wave Blue. For just $4 and $3, respectively, I was satisfied with what I got.

The next time I spent money on eBay on something for myself it was the first day of December and I was able to score this 2012 Bowman yellow plate of Michigan WR Steve Breaston for a cool $8 even. That year's design has always been an outlier when it comes to Bowman but not in a bad way in my opinion. Then again, it's fairly familiar to me as I already had purchased the magenta plate of the same card! Breaston is therefore one of a number of PCs for which I have multiple 1/1s.

That distinction is true of former Reds prospect Ryan LaMarre as well. The 16th hit in his collection is also the 5th 1/1, which is quite a ratio if you ask me. And this design is also well known to me because the black plate you see above from 2010 Bowman Draft is the third one I now claim ownership of from the set! I've checked off the black, magenta, and yellow versions and just need the cyan, making this one of five plate sets where I have three of the four (others are Chad Henne 2014 Prestige; Clayton Richard 2011 Topps; J.J. Putz 2012 Topps Mini; and Rich Hill 2006 Topps). That was worth a bit under $12.50 shipped as far as I was concerned!

Finally, with Christmas just five days away and having barely crossed the $1800 mark in spending for the year, I decided to treat myself to an upgrade. My copy of Kirk Gibson's 2001 Topps Archives rookie reprint auto was one of my favorite cards in my entire collection, but it was somewhat faded when I bought it, and leaving it and some others out where too much sunlight got to them didn't do it any favors:

That's a recent pic I took of what's essentially an auto-less Gibby and a very faded 1999 SP Signature auto of Griffey (that I pulled myself and regret ruining this much all the time!). So I was very much on the hunt for a much better copy despite the cost of Kirk's signature going up quite a bit.

And you know what? For the nice, bold blue signature you see above on my new copy, I didn't think twice about plunking down $53. It's great having such a nice version of that piece in his collection and I'd do it again if I had to. But I probably won't because I'm not letting that sucker get any regular sunlight!

And those nine cards are how I finished up 2023 when it comes to personal eBay pickups. I still have lots more to show off from the end of last year but I'm at least making some headway, and I'll be back soon with more!

2023 trade package #23: Cards on Cards

Let's get back to my pile of trades to cover with a fun package sent by my MLB/NCAA collecting counterpart in the west, Kerry of Cards on Cards!

This one included a nice amount of baseball, a bit of football, and to my surprise, a whole lotta basketball stuff. While the latter sport is my least favorite to watch, it's always great receiving those cards in trades because I put very little money and effort into those PCs. That means just about anything sent my way has a high likelihood of being new to me, plus it bulks up some collections that I'm often neglecting otherwise.

So here's a look at what my future Big Ten-watching pal sent this time:

Baseball 1 of 2: There was some chatter that Baddoo might not be in the team's plans next season but other than the recent acquisition of Mark Canha I haven't seen anything to support that so I'll keep on collecting him and his many crazy parallels. Kudos to Kerry for including the Russ Brock since he's a bit of a deep cut out of my Michigan Baseball PC! I don't know if the reality of Miggy retiring will really hit me until he's not in the lineup next season. And thank you to folks like Kerry for bulking up my Cronenworth collection in packages like this one to the point that I've eclipsed the century mark. There's so few active UM alumni these days that I especially appreciate people finding his cards to send me. And Cal's Optic card features a different view of his unorthodox stance.

Baseball 2 of 2: a classic shot of Gorgeous George leads off, followed by a two-pack of Tigers rising star slugging 1B Spencer Torkelson. We might just see him in the neighborhood of 30 bombs next year, and I hope the front office gives him some lineup help.

The baseball group then ends, appropriately enough, with blog namesake guy JV. The Mosaic Aces insert looks quite cool, then we have a pair of Mets cards to document his short stay with the dysfunctional New York franchise ("LOL which one?!"). Finally, how about a relic card with a design as eyeball-popping as anything made by the guy I wrote about in my last post, Mike Cramer? The oversized relic card is numbered to just 99 and looks to be my 30th hit out of what now amounts to more than 600 cards, another fun milestone!

And now we have the first of five(!) basketball scans. This one features just two players: Trey Burke and Jamal Crawford. Burke was a blast to watch in college and Crawford seemed to be in the league forever (20 seasons, counting one game in 2019-20) while suiting up for nine teams. There's some nice looking base designs for both of these players and each gets a solid collection bump: Burke's right at 30 and Crawford sits at 39.

Not only does this 100% THJ scan feature a nice bit of color, but it also includes a pair of season-appropriate Hoops Winter cards. You'll see a few more of those in the rest of the scans. My favorites have to be the Prizms, though, with the Red/White/Blue having the best color combo, but I think I like the design of the first Green card up top a bit more. This bounty bounces his collection up to 54, good for 6th place in my collection.

Other than a single Mitch McGary card here (#12 in his collection), the star of this scan is former four-year Wolverine LeVert. Once again there are some mighty fine designs here, especially the Revolution and Optic cards, but nothing tops that Prizm, which I believe is called "Red White Orange Shimmer." You'll see a couple more of his items below which means Kerry sent me 10, and those vaulted Caris into the top 10 of my basketball collections with 42 cards, one more than I own of Michael Jordan via the sets I've built!

Just a bit more variety here with four players represented. I'm glad Poole got dealt away from the Warriors and complete toolbag Draymond Greene, though I wonder if his best days may be behind him after a legendary NCAA tourney performance and a title with Golden State in '22. The first two cards of his trio look especially nice, and when I add them to what I had before I now own 21 Pooles.

I'll handle GRIII and Sauce Castillo together as they were teammates from 2012-14 in Ann Arbor. Both were drafted in 2014 after a pair of good seasons though neither is in the NBA at this point. It looks like I have nine Robinson cards, fewer than the 16 I own of his dad. Stauskas is a bit more prevalent among the hoopers I collect with 21 cards.

And then including the next scan I can show off six cards of the younger of the two Wagner bros to play for Michigan: Franz. Just like Hardaway above I was treated to a pair of Hoops Winter cards and a reminder that the season is coming with its frigid temperatures whether or not I like it. What I do like is shiny cards like the last one in this scan, and collecting brothers who played for the same college program and are now teammates in the league (along with fellow Wolverines Caleb Houstan and Jett Howard!). Including the three you'll see next, I now claim ownership of 24 of Franz's cards, and that has me :clap: pumped up.

Last up in basketball we have a four-pack of the older Wagner bro, Mo. I'll still take Donruss's Rated Rookie logo over Topps' rookie cup any day, but that's me. The two Panini Status cards--a rookie and Rookie Prominence insert--are shiny and cool and right up my alley. The group grows his collection to 14, a distant 10 away from little bro. Speaking of which, Franz joins the previous seen LeVert in sticker form bringing to mind the original iteration of Panini and the stickers they sold.

One last scan will take us home tonight, and that includes the two football cards in the package. Before he headed to the NFL and some legal trouble, Haskins etched his name in program lore with five TDs against a soft Buckeyes squad to put Michigan back in the win column of the rivalry in 2021. Appropriately enough you see him here in the winged helmet, probably racing past another defender with no chance at stopping him.

Ordinarily a college uni card would be my favorite but I'll give the edge to a new item for one of my top PCs, Chad Henne. One of six players to hit the 300-card mark among the gridiron guys I collect, Henne is seen on a 2013 Prizm Pulsar parallel that could only be one color for a Michigan alum: Blue. Great find, Kerry!

Many thanks to Kerry for this outstanding pile of cards, most of which, if not all, were new to me! I'm grateful to have a few friends who also collect college teams because it's so much fun seeing what we can find for each other.

With this one covered, I hope to recap a few more trade packages soon!

2023 trade package #22: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

It's November, so I'd better get back to posting if I'd like to be caught up by the end of the year!

That means I'm back tonight with a new trade recap. This package came from my top all-time trade partner, Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store, back in August (yeah, I'm that far behind on some stuff!).

By my count this is the 50th time on this here blog I'm showing off a package from my favorite Canadian in the hobby, so thanks for 50 and here's to many more, Doug!

Let's dig into the contents:

These '88 OPCs, as the Canadian alternative to Topps, bring to mind Detroit's old rivalry with Doug's Blue Jays in the 80s. In fact, these cards carry stats from 1987, the year Toronto headed into the final week of the regular season with a 3.5 game lead but got swept in Detroit to end the season on an 0-7 run. The Tigers wouldn't be back in the playoffs until 2006.

More baseball content, including more Tigers, and Wolverines too! Elliott, an OF in Oakland's system, was a second-rounder in '22, putting him up there with a few recent Michigan Baseball draftees. Jobe was picked #3 overall in 2021 out of high school, and he's settled in as a top 100 prospect, so getting a numbered card of him early is great. I'm glad to have a guy like Rogers behind the plate as the position in Motown has been pretty iffy over the past few years.

Beers is a pitcher, also in Oakland's system, and was a 19th round pick out of Ann Arbor in '21, and here you see him on a Leaf Perfect Game signature card, allowing him to join the hits club. And then we come back to Elliott who also joins the club with an autograph on a sweet looking Elite card that includes some college uni action. I'm thrilled to add both of these guys to the collection!

On the basketball side of things, LeVert is starting to feel like a trade package stalwart, which is great, and so are the Wagner bros, in this case Franz. Webber was one of the most well known Wolverines on the court and I'm glad to see the HOFer in envelopes like these.

Not as excited as I am about the two hits, though! First up is one of the most exciting of the bunch as it's another Wolverine/local pro team guy to add to the collection. Livers is from Kalamazoo and after four seasons in Ann Arbor the Pistons took him in the second round two years ago. Burke, of course, has been in the league since he was a top 10 pick in 2013, and that Purple Donruss Optic auto of his looks great! It's just my third card of his with a signature out of eight hits.

All four major sports got represented this time, including my 9-0 Wolverines from the gridiron. Asiasi transferred but of course I'll take any cards of such players as long as they don't appear in a college uni other than Michigan's. I guess Brady's retired for good, eh? He'll still appear in products for years to come, I'm sure. Hill's been good for Cincy's defensive backfield as a rookie, notching a couple picks and 1.5 sacks while being near the team lead in tackles, and his Bengals actually face off against Doug's Bills in just a bit as I'm writing this. Rudock's Spectra card is die-cut and SUPER thick, and this Neon Green insert, which brings to mind the upcoming holidays in the form of a Christmas tree, is numbered just 12/15! Lastly, ex-Michigan RB Charbonnet, who like Asiasi transferred out west to UCLA, is seen in his Bruins uni on the two cards above so I won't count them towards his collection but until I can find pro uni issues of his, I'll be happy to own a couple of the talented Seahawks back.

We'll finish up with hockey, as is tradition (for Canada and therefore the world). I grouped the Wings with the Wolverines since it made sense to me to show off all the cards from one sport like I do with the others, so here you see a couple of my favorites in D-men Konstantinov and Lidstrom, plus a couple other recent Detroit icers.

On the Michigan side of things, this group reminds me I just enjoyed a 10-1 Wolverines pasting of Lindenwood at Yost Ice Arena last Saturday during the football team's bye week. That's a good indication that the program is still a talent factor capable of producing guys like the ones you see above.

I had to squeeze one last non-hit into this scan, a sticker of Wings captain Dylan Larkin, one of the best to come out of Ann Arbor in the past decade. He's continuing to produce points like a machine and seems to be benefitting from the signing of local guy Alex DeBrincat!

Let's end with a bang thanks to four especially nice hits that typify Doug's generosity. I mean, the first two are plates! Number one is Jets star Kyle Connor, a Yellow plate from 22-23 O-Pee-Chee. The base set has a design that's nice to look at as usual and of course I'm thrilled to add my first 1/1 of the sniper. 

He's joined by my first card of any type of ex-Wolverine Chad Kolarik, a talented four-year Michigan C from 2004-08 (meaning I saw a good number of his games live). His NHL career amounted to a cup of coffee with the Blue Jackets in 2009-10 and a few more games with the Rangers the following season. Card #1 in his collection is one of UD's outstanding framed plates inserted into their high-end The Cup product, and this magenta plate was used to produce his Artifacts cards in 2010-11. Welcome, Chad!

I'm no less hyped for the other two cards here. The first is just a flat-out amazing booklet of former Jet/current Rangers D-man Jacob Trouba out of Panini's Playbook. Booklets are very cool items to add during a period of lack of innovation, and I love the combo of jersey pieces and a signature plus the shadowbox effect. Not only all of that, but this one's numbered AND a RC! Trouba's collection has grown nicely especially thanks to the sender of this package and he's among the hockey hits leaders with 18 now.

Finally, we travel near the end of the alphabet to one last player joining my collection tonight. Defenseman Cam York was drafted #14 overall by the Flyers in 2019 and he went on to play two seasons in Ann Arbor. Since then he's spent a good amount of time manning the blue line for Philly, and will soon be suiting up for his 100th career game. He joins my collection tonight thanks to a Rookie Materials jersey from 2021-22 Upper Deck, and I look forward to finding more of his cardboard myself or in future envelopes from Doug.

Speaking of which, one thing that finally motivated me to get off my butt and post was receiving another envelope from Canada just last week. I still have a few other trades to get to before then but I'll try to put in more effort to get caught up soon.

Until then, thanks again for package #50, Mr. Corti, and I look forward to seeing what I can do by the end of the year to return the favor!

10/6/23 card show report: cheap boxtober

I'm encouraged by the fact that I was able to get that Facebook Marketplace purchase post up last night so I'm back this evening to see if I can zip my way through another one. Because I'd like to give folks at least a couple days to look over that one and pick out potential trade bait, tonight I'm going to do the same with my show pickups from last Friday.

I continued my standard practice of taking the first Friday of the show off from work despite Michigan not playing until Saturday evening, largely because I feel like I might miss out on some good stuff if I wait a day. So early Friday afternoon I headed out to Taylor and spent around two or two and a half hours digging through lots of boxes. It was certainly worth the effort with the deals available that day. Dime cards were 100/$7 (and even better deals were there if you bought larger quantities but I'd had enough by then) and the next level up was quarter-ish cards at five/$1.

Here's a quick spending breakdown before I get to the scans:

• 100 @ $0.10 each = $10
• 125 @ 5/$1 = $25
• 10 @ 2/$1 = $5
• 7 @ 2$ = $14
• 5 @ 5/$20 = $20

That's $74 and he asked for $70.

Before I left I hit up the vintage guy I check out once in a while and grabbed eight of his $3 cards that go eight for $20. That means I left having spent $90 on some 255 cards--not bad!

Here we go with some trade bait. Please make your requests via comment/email/TCDb offer as always.

UD Finite rookies /1299; Moments & Milestones /150.

More M&Ms /150.

The rest of the /150 M&Ms, plus a Black parallel /25. The Studio Stars inserts aren't SNed but look awesome.

Bonds /10,000; Brown /2000; Ensberg /2006; Giles /150; King /3499; Reynolds /500. 
Ayanbadejo /1000; Denson, Huard, and King /2999; Graham /399; Hali /999; Mason /2009; McNown /2500; Moore /2010.

Moreau /2000; Redman /2500; Stith /1500; Westbrook is a Promo; Williams /500.

Pettis, Schaub, and Shiancoe /999; Stith /1500; Williams /999.

And now we get to my keepers:

These six items are among the eight I snagged from the vintage guy for $20. I'm very short on Bunning Tigers cards (and Yankee Killer Lary as well), Cash is always a winner, and the quartet of '74 Topps Stamps was too cool to pass up, especially since it added a new Freehan to my collection.

The dimes and $0.20 cards were as good to my collection as they were to the piles of trade bait I'm building. A numbered Bondo, a new Grandy, another Griffey for the set from which his card hails, Mr. Padre, the Professor, a sweet acetate Manning, and three of the four new Cals I added that day.

A numbered Pudge for under a buck? Yes, please! Not only did I hit all four of Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken, but I also got both blog namesakes too in Grandy and JV. Cecil looks cool in UD holo form. Ripken and Ozzie were All-Star stalwarts. And my first relic of Skubal, who put on an ace-like performance to end the 2023 campaign, is a 2021 jersey from A&G for just $2!

I didn't skip the other sports either, coming up with a sweet acetate Iggy plus a $2 signature of former star Trey Burke. That was such a nice deal I added a second one to send Jeff's way (since that's exactly what he would have done for me). It's just my second autograph of his among seven hits so I thought it was a particularly good score.

As for football, I came up with a couple more of those Donruss Premium Press Proofs, and I'll have to see how close I am to a team set at this point, but it was cool that they were RC parallels of Haskins and Ojabo. Law is a 2000s Ultra Gold Medallion, Funchess represents yet another sweet acetate insert, and we finish up with a final parallel, an Elite Pink, to add to Ojabo's growing collection.

I don't know how often my favorite seller will have those dime and $0.20 boxes but I've really been enjoying the time I've spent digging through them for gems so I hope to see them at upcoming shows.

Anyway, as usual, I hope you enjoyed a recap of my show experience, and I'll remind y'all one more time to please feel free to stake claims to some of the trade bait above!

As for me, besides packing up some envelopes soon, I think I may go back to the blogger trades I need to cover, then sprinkle in some eBay pickups and more TCDb transactions.

2021 trade package #11: The Collector

I follow a pretty large number of blogs, and based on the blogrolls and mentions I see on those I'm aware that they only represent a fraction of what's out there. That's awesome because it's a great sign that both the hobby and this part of it are still doing great.

While I can't claim to pay attention to many of them to the degree I'd like, such as commenting on posts the writers clearly put lots of work into, I do try to make the effort to participate on some more than others. One such blog is The Collector, run by one of my favorite trading partners Chris. He and I are like-minded collectors in several ways so he's always fun to deal with. He also recently reached a very significant milestone: 500 posts! Among those are one of the best series I've seen on any blog: his all-time teams, which definitely required a lot of work but resulted in some great reading.

I mention all that because last week I received a PWE from him which included a note thanking me for reading and commenting to the extent that I do, which is really nice considering he's one of the folks I can pretty much count on to find a comment over here. Oh, and some cards for me too!:

Jeez, anybody still remember 2013 Topps? Two-time Derby winner Fielder didn't take home the crown that season, but he was the 1B for the 2012 squad pictured on card #2 up there, a team that beat Oakland in the ALDS and swept the hated Yanks to reach Detroit's most recent World Series berth, only to get swept by another great even-year Giants run. I still can't believe one of the teams from that era didn't win it all!

Chris apologized for what ended up being a hockey-heavy envelope, as if that's a bad thing somehow. On the Wings side, AA's been gone for a couple seasons while Bertuzzi still has a chance to but into a star. And then we get to three big pieces of Hockeytown's success over the past quarter century: Holmstrom, Yzerman and Zetterberg. At some point I'll get my Wings PCs loaded in TCDB so I have a better idea of what I have of some of those favorites.

Oh yeah, and for good measure Chris included a very Alluring autograph. Kuffner only got a cup of coffee with the Wings in 2018-19 and then was included in the deal with AA above for Sam Gagner, a pick last year, and a second rounder this year, so that could still turn into something. He's one of those Canadians you occasionally see spurn the OHL to play American college hockey, which I love. That and the colorful design makes this one a winner.

He even managed to make an almost even split of Detroit stuff and Michigan cards, which is pretty cool (besides the already impressive fact that there were no dupes in this PWE!). I needed each of Burke and Sauce Castillo (a RC) from the shiny 2014-15 Panini Prizm. 

OLB John Anderson (who also punted in college!) played 12 seasons for the Pack but only made it onto 39 items catalogued by TCDB, with even fewer being mainstream products. Yet Chris was able to send me a third item for his collection, his 1984 Topps second year base--a card with six years of stats on it. RCs are weird but that design is still a classic.

And then there's a quartet of some recent(ish) Wolverines hockey stars. Cogliano has never been a star, but this year he gets to Be-a-Player for the 14th season, and that's awesome. Hagelin is nobody's idea of an MVP at this point but he chipped in 10 goals and 21 points over 48 playoff games with the Pens, winning a pair of rings. WolverWing Larkin has seen the quality of the team around him erode but is still young enough to become an MVP one day. And all Patch has done is score 300+ goals in parts of 13 seasons, never being named the most valuable, but winning the '11-'12 Masterton ("Qualities of Perseverance and Sportsmanship") so there.

(Wait, why was he worried about this being hockey-heavy again?)

Chris, thanks again for a fun PWE as you celebrate 500 posts! Congratulations on keeping up with the blog for that long (and hopefully years to come!) and thanks for being a terrific trade partner. Should things fall in line it's not inconceivable that I could have some card show-sourced items headed to your own mailbox in the next month or two.

And coming up next on this here blog...another trade package? Don't mind if I do!

2021 trade package #9: Bob Walk the Plank

I know I'm always repeating myself about this but it's really nice dealing with a bunch of folks with different trading styles. I have some that opt for PWEs, others that will send bubble mailers; with a few I tend towards rapid-fire deals while some go the once-in-a-blue-moon route.

One dude that falls into the latter part of the second category is Matt, formerly of Bob Walk the Plank, who's still plenty active on Twitter. Apart from maybe one or two others, he's been my high-end trading guy, meaning that we generally don't have a lot of envelopes go back and forth on a yearly basis, given that neither of us is rich enough to afford that kind of thing. That, and as he noted in a recent Twitter discussion with me, it's difficult to acquire new trade bait right now.

The last time I posted cards I received from him was last June, when he sent me a $1000 package of stuff. Given the absolute lunacy around the hobby right now that's probably not much of an exaggeration! Two of the items are Jake Cronenworth cards, and his prices have exploded beyond reason. Then you add a super nice relic of Al Kaline and auto of Ivan Rodriguez, plus a Brady RC and rookie-year parallel, and you've got a pricey package indeed!

So whenever he lets me know he's sent something my way, I know that means he's put both effort and money into one or more cards I know I'll treasure.

That was most definitely the case once again this week after he alerted me that I'd have two envelopes coming to me directly from eBay sellers, which is awesome if you can get them to do that and eliminate yourself as the middleman (not to mention more shipping cost). I'm showing them here in the order in which I received them: 

While I have to wait until tomorrow to learn Michigan Basketball's fate against Florida State in an exciting Sweet 16 matchup, here's a guy whose team made it all the way to the title game eight years ago. In his second and final season in Ann Arbor, Burke led a team of future NBAers to the finals, going off for 24 points in the six-point loss to Louisville, earning himself a ton of accolades along the way. Though he's now with his fifth NBA team (Dallas, with a quick stop in Philly in between tenures with the Mavs) he's had a solid career after making the 2013-14 All-Rookie team.

That was with the Jazz, who traded for him from Minnesota at the draft, and that's whom he's pictured with here on a 2015-16 Immaculate magenta plate inserted into 2016-17 National Treasures, as Panini likes to do sometimes. I don't have the original Dual Memorabilia card--my Burke collection is still relatively small at just six hits--but this is already my second plate, so that's extremely cool!

No matter where he ends up in the pros I'll continue to collect Trey in memory of his contributions to the team's postseason success in the past decade.

After I thanked Matt for the first card to let him know it had made it safely, he promised the next one would be even more PC-centric for me. And if the Burke had me seeing red (in a good way--magenta means printing plates!) then this one that came the following day definitely had me looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses. You all know old Rich Hill is my favorite PC guy and I get geeked for any items of his I can add to the collection, but better yet, I love it when I can add items like this to further my argument as the top collector of the former Wolverine hurler. Why would anyone care enough to oppose me? I don't know!

Anyway, what we have here, as you can probably tell by the reverse image--Mr. Not-So-Resting Pitch Face is a lefty--is a plate from a Chrome card, and as it happens, it's Hill's 2020 Topps Chrome Update Magenta Plate. That makes it the most recently produced 1/1 in my Hill collection, which numbers roughly 30 (out of around the 150 I own in my entire collection). Yep, you could say I'm a bit of a supercollector. Apparently not that great of one, though, since Matt apparently snatched this up in a BIN/OBO deal before I even knew it was available. With friends like this who needs eBay?

My collection of Rich playing for the Twins remains small since I haven't had the opportunity to pick up too many of his 2020 issues, but that's fine since I'll get 'em eventually, and anyway now I can look forward to landing my first cards of him with the Rays whenever those are ready. Given his health issues I think Tampa was an ideal landing spot for him with their recent pitching innovations (like openers) that I'm betting help get him on the mound for more games, if not total innings. The opportunity to see the over-the-hill Hill back on the hill soon is one of many reasons I'm excited for baseball to return in 2021.

Matt, thanks again for this super nice high-end pair of eBay wins that you so expertly pinpointed for my collections! Whenever I can break out of my own trade bait slump you can count on me hitting you back with one or more nice Pirates/Mountaineers items that you'll love as much as I appreciate these.