2/6/26 card show report: February fun

I did end up going to my monthly show yesterday (as opposed to Friday) which was kind of a nice change of pace. You'll get to hear all about that eventually, but before then I'll be giving you a look at what I brought home earlier in February.

My total spending on that Friday was $98, split almost down the middle between my usual seller ($50) and one I've checked out a few times lately for some more oddball stuff ($48), especially the 6/$5 tubs.

Speaking of the latter, I picked up a lot of 14 of the 1967 Topps Posters for $23:

This isn't all of them as I set a few aside for other collectors, but I do have these available for trade. If it isn't obvious, there are dupes of Campaneris and Wagner. If you'd like to claim these, please do so and we'll work out a trade!

Next up is the baseball bunch from the usual guy. I believe the Briceno came from his box of cards that are $1 each or 6 for $5, and though it's not a RC, I thought it might be a good time to pick up something of one of Detroit's better catching prospects. The Bunnings all came from the dime box, and I didn't mind that all four picture him with the Phillies instead of the Tigers. There's three great brands plus Gypsy Queen in the quartet. Speaking of HOF pitchers, the Red Prizm of Maddux is a bit of a color match for his Braves.

And then there's the biggest card I scored for myself this time: a Jack Morris auto from 2004 Upper Deck Etchings. Numbered to 375 up front, it's obviously a sticker-graph, but a cool one in my opinion since it's not the boring old clear sticker that often gets signed. The card itself looks great too, not that I'm surprised given UD's output of classic looking vintage-themed products during that decade. I'm also happy to keep up a streak of autos of Morris with the Tigers instead of his other well-known teams (Minnesota and Toronto), with that count now at five. This was a great way to round out my purchase at that seller's tables for a reasonable $10.

Before we go back to my loot from that seller in football form I'm going to show you my other keepers from the second seller. Once again I scored some of the previously mentioned 6/$5 bin items, and you'll get to see one in a minute, but in addition to that and the Topps Posters above, I grabbed these:

For a combined $20 I scored a trio of 7-11 Slurpee coin sets. These lenticular "coins" are among my favorite oddball collectibles and I couldn't pass them up! Also, I know I'll definitely be getting a comment from Fuji on this post!

Scan #1 shows off the complete 1984 Central Region set. Per TCDb, these have an "E" suffix for the card numbers (which are Roman numerals) as opposed to "H" for the East and "K" for the South. There are 24 total and you see each of those above, with plenty of stars mixed in with other favorites. Lou Whitaker and Ted Simmons are my PC guys here but I'm happy to have the whole set!

The second scan starts with 15 of the 16 coins from the 1986 set (also the Central Region, which you can tell since the fronts have blue borders and the backs are yellow). I didn't realize until I got home that while what I bought came with 16 coins, one of them was a dupe and I was missing probably the best one: Steve Carlton/Nolan Ryan/Tom Seaver. No biggie, I may be able to score that on eBay soon. Anyway, this set is even more reminiscent of the very similar Sportflics cards as it opts for trios (except for the Dwight Gooden that leads the set). Those obviously work well on this style of card and I like how they look. PC guys for me include Cal Ripken Jr. (on an MVPs coin with Keith Hernandez and Don Mattingly), Jack Morris ("Ace Pitchers" with Bert Blyleven and Rick Sutcliffe), Lance Parrish ("All-Star Catchers" with Carlton Fisk and Tony Pena), Chet Lemon ("Star Outfielders" with Brett Butler and Willie Wilson), Darrell Evans ("Home Run Hitters" with Tom Brunansky and Cecil Cooper), and Kirk Gibson ("Big Hitters" with Paul Molitor and Greg Walker).

The last set here is the Detroit Region version made in 1987. From what I can see, Detroit is the only area that had its own team represented by itself. Chicago got a 16-coin Cubs/Sox split, the East got Mets/Red Sox/Yankees, Mideast got Orioles/Red Sox/Cubs/Mets, and West got Angels/Dodgers. This set was made close enough to the '84 World Series team that the biggest stars are still present, and there are only two players (Darnell Coles and Dwight Lowry) that I don't collect. Gibby, Tram, Sweet Lou, and others are all there, plus relative newcomer Frank Tanana, in the 12-coin set. Cool!

Before getting to the final item from this seller I thought I'd grab an image of an example back of each coin.

Besides those, like I said, I kept one of the 6/$5 items for myself. That was the complete 12-card set of 2015 Topps Update's Pride and Perseverance. Thought it wasn't in the greatest of shape since its team bag got bounced around in the tub plenty, I thought it was worth it for less than a buck. While the design is typically fairly boring in the usual Topps way, the idea was a great one: examples of players who overcame adversity. It's inspiring to read about how these guys defeated obstacles that could have prevented them from playing. Former Detroit Tiger Curtis Pride and Jim Abbott feature in this set, and I'm glad to have it in my collection.

And now we'll close things out with some football, mostly from I believe the dime and quarter boxes. Score-A-Treat and Donruss feature heavily, but I did manage to find a colorful Absolute parallel of Corum, a Mosaic of Moody, and Topps Resurgence base of Woodson as well.

This could have been a decent trip if I'd stuck to my usual guy's tables, but the 7-11 coins definitely upped the experience to an excellent one. And I'm glad to say I had an enjoyable time yesterday as well, but like I said, you'll have to wait a bit for that. I still need to show off a couple TCDb PIFs, a pair of eBay purchases (with one on the way), and at least one March trade envelope. Until then, may the weather continue going in the right direction as we get deeper into spring training!

2026 trade package #4: My Sports Obsession

There's not much left of this short month so I better get gettin' and start covering cards I received/bought in February!

Trade package #1 for this month was a nice little box courtesy of longtime buddy of the blog Jeff of My Sports Obsession. Jeff absolutely packed a 200-count box with some outstanding cardboard goodies:

Appropriately enough we'll start with baseball now that spring training is in full swing, and not a moment too soon. Happily, a few Tigers old and new lead things off. Baez looks great on designs from Stadium Club and Gold Label, and it's always great to see future HOFer Miggy. Big Daddy's card is another fine example of Stadium Club's top-notch designs paired up with some older photos. And Riley is indeed one of Detroit's Finest.

As for some non-Tigers, Griffey's '24 Archives card looks nice, Mr. Padre is a throwback to 1985, and it's really nice to see a newer Tommy Henry card. The pride of Portage Northern High School is still with the Diamondbacks and that Blue (what else?) Sparkle Chrome Refractor from '24 Heritage makes a nice addition to his PC.

Speaking of former UM pitchers in Refractor form, how about ex-Pirate (among 14 clubs) Rich Hill, who seems ready to call it a career? We had Mr. Padre, and now it's Mr. Tiger on an '85 Topps throwback, plus the always shiny Topps Chrome Platinum. His fellow HOFer Maddux shows up on two different Donruss Optic cards, and then it's back to Topps Chrome Platinum for another HOFer in Jack Morris. And then we have a pair of '21 Topps parallels of Paredes, the prospect Detroit foolishly traded away for about 40 worthless games from Austin Meadows.

And then what do we have here? Could it be...TOO MANY VERLANDERS! This package was very, very low on dupes, and that goes for this whole scan. Impressively, he managed to capture all four of JV's franchises here, including his stints with the Mets and Giants. It sure is awesome to have him back in Detroit!

That '98 Crown Royale of Maddux is also new to me and makes me long for the fun of the '90s when Pacific was riding high.

Jeff also threw in these Tigers cards that are Christian-themed on the back. Because that's not really my thing and Matt Boyd pops up twice, I'm choosing to thank Jeff for his generosity and then pass them on to John, who I'm sure will love them.

When it comes to college basketball, Michigan's men's team is no longer #1 but it still looks like a threat to make a deep run in March. LeVert and Wagner are examples of past stars, appropriately surrounded by blue on their cards. Meanwhile, Jeff sent me some dupes from the ONIT cards he's been getting, giving me my first cards of junior F Harrison Hochberg, plus star sophomore G Syla Swords and sophomore G/F Te'Yala Delfosse. The latter pair is a good reminder that the women's team has been cooking at times this year too, with an excellent 22-5 record, as they look to make a deeper March run themselves.

Football season may be over but that doesn't mean college collectors like Jeff and me stop thinking about it! This scan starts strong at the RB position with a couple playoff guys in Charbonnet and Corum, with the former winning a ring, though having to miss the Super Bowl. Buckeye-killer Hassan Haskins also makes an appearance. Then we have my first non-NIL-issued cards of DB Jyaire "Sugar" Hill and EDGE Derrick Moore. Hill won it all with the '23 title team in his freshman season and will be back to hopefully lead the defense. Moore was a sophomore in '23 and his TFL and sack numbers increased nicely into his senior season last year, which could lead to a decent draft ranking. Going back to the '25 Score RC of the talented Will Johnson, you all know I love that brand and its college first-years. This scan concludes with one more RB in Thomas Rawls, out of 2016 Prizm.

The basketball items weren't the only ONIT cards in this package by far, and I'm very happy that Jeff included an even larger pile of the gridiron guys than he did last time. There were a few repeats but almost everything was new, with a bunch of these guys due to be back in '26.

Thanks to Jeff I now own 19 of the 79 cards, which feels great since I haven't paid for a single one. I do hope to find more and see if I can help him with his own set chase, though.

Oh, and there's one last card for me to enjoy, the biggest one of the package. It's a callback to the now-shuttered sister blog here as I continue my quest for TOO MANY MANNINGHAMS! I don't know if Super Mario keeps signing stickers for Panini or if they're sitting on a stockpile of them, but either way I'm happy if it means more autographs like this one from 2024 Panini Prizm Deca.

The Super Bowl-winning WR is seen here on the 34th card I own with his signature, out of 102 hits overall (a distant second behind Chad Henne's 146). If you're wondering if the card actually looks that black, well, it doesn't--that's just how the reflective silver Prizm cards tend to scan. As always, this one looks better in person. And it'll look even better in my collection with the 100+ other hits of the pass-catcher who was as smooth as his middle name: Cashmere.

Jeff, thanks so much for this box of greatness (as always), and I look forward to getting you back whenever I have enough to send something you way. I also hope we get a chance to meet up at at least one show this year, but rest assured I'll be treating you to some new stuff either way.

Back "soon" with another trade recap!

2026 trade package #2: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

So much for getting my next post done before the February show, but that's ok because I still haven't been overwhelmed with new stuff coming in this year...yet. Tonight I'm back with another January trade package: a bubble mailer from Canadian friend Doug over at Sports Cards From the Dollar Store. Speaking of his country, I hope they have a fantastic Winter Olympics as I root for the Americans as well!

Here's what he sent last month:

Baseball opens the proceedings with a current and former Tiger, Donruss style. The Topps Holiday of Verlander--the Metallic Snowflake version--arrived not long after the Christmas season, but I'm hoping people have finally put away their decorations as of the time I'm posting this. And we have our first hit in the form of a Bowman Sterling auto of OF prospect Daniel Cabrera. Not to be confused with the pitcher from the 2000s, this Daniel was a 2nd round pick by the Tigers out of LSU in 2020, but he hasn't played since 2024 and I couldn't find a reason why he's on the organization's restricted list.

Both baseball and basketball fit into one scan so I put them together here. The latter includes Jamal Crawford (whose son the team just offered) from the 2020 Topps Seattle Children's Heroes set, which was made to benefit that hospital and includes lots of area subjects. It uses the '84 Topps design but is much glossier and looks great. Next is the collection debut of Pollyanna Johns, a native of the Bahamas who was with Michigan in the late 90s and played for Charlotte, Cleveland, Miami, and Houston in the WNBA. Her 2001 Fleer Tradition WNBA card seen here is her RC and lone card listed on TCDb, so this was a great find by Doug. And lastly we have a '25-'26 Topps of Magic star Franz Wagner, whose collection has grown nicely thanks to trade packages like this one.

The football content could easily be labeled "numbered and new guys." Big Mo Hurst kicks off this section with a very bold blue Leaf Certified parallel that's numbered 46/50 up front and very on theme for a former Wolverine. Former WR DPJ is even more colorful--not a surprise when it comes to the Prizm brand--on a Red and Yellow Prizm parallel that's limited even more: #42/44 on the back.

Next we have the first of two new guys. DL/LB Josaiah Stewart put up great sack numbers during his 2021 freshman season with Coastal Carolina, then transferred to Michigan before the '23 season, helping the Wolverines to a national title. The Rams took him in the 2025 third round and he put up 3.0 sacks in 17 games. He's seen above on a Pink parallel from Donruss Elite, and I hope to add more of his cards--especially RCs and autographs--soon.

The other new guy is here thanks to the CFL-focused JOGO brand. He was also a DL who won a championship, in his case with the '97 team, and he was in Ann Arbor through the 2000 season before going undrafted. The Lions gave him a shot but it was in Canada that he would enjoy his pro football career. That included time with Winnipeg (with a couple year hiatus in the Dolphins org), Saskatchewan, and finally Montreal, with whom he won Grey Cups in 2009 and 2010. Thank you again to Doug for tracking this down and getting his name in my collection.

The last football item is a 2021 Leaf Flash autograph of former Wolverines RB Chris Evans. It's got the usual Leaf craziness going on, and this is the Platinum Blue version of a signed insert called Flash Photography Autographs. Naturally I love the combo of a signed card of a player in a Michigan uni, plus this one's numbered /35 on the back, and it's my fourth auto of a guy who didn't play Superman but who was quite good at times in college.

I mentioned the Olympics which means the NHL's on a break, but that doesn't mean we can't look at some hockey cards. We'll start with the non-Wolverines Red Wings, who are looking good for a playoff spot for the first time since 2016. D-man Ben Chiarot is the one guy in this scan who's currently with the team while Howe, Kozlov, Probert, and Sheppard are all players I know well from the team's history.

The Michigan Hockey stack starts off with defenseman Jack Johnson, who retired last year after 19 seasons, and that makes me feel super old. A pair of UD cards of WolverWing and Olympian Dylan Larkin is next, and I have to say that the first, a 2023-24 SPx Radiance FX Blue die-cut insert, is totally sick. What a great looking design that really calls back to the glory years of the SPx brand, plus it's blue and numbered to 299! D-man Zach Werenski joins Larkin here both from the UD base set and in this year's Olympics, and fellow Wolverines Kyle Connor and Quinn Hughes are also in Milan for Team USA. Go (red, white, and) blue!

The rest of the hockey content arrived in the form of these stickers, and there were lots! Most were made by Panini and released in the last 15-ish years, including those of Cammalleri, Cogliano, Johnson, Knuble, and Komisarek. The tiny Knuble is a bit of an exception as it's from 2003-04 Topps Mini Stickers, my first example of that product. I see other Wolverines in that set and will have to try to track down their minuscule counterparts. Jeff Norton, a much older Michigan/NHL alum, joins from the '91-'92 and '93-'94 Panini sticker sets.

Ordinarily we'd be done by now having covered hockey, but Doug had one more surprise in store for me. I do have a small collection of Michigan alumni from other sports (including Olympians) and non-sports, and that collection got a new member thanks to this card. Brandi Rhodes (born Brandi Reed) indeed graduated from my alma mater, chose to go into broadcasting and modeling, and eventually joined the WWE, mainly as a ring announcer. She spent time with a few pro wrestling organizations and also married fellow wrestler Cody Runnels, a.k.a. Cody Rhodes, son of Dusty Rhodes, a WWF wrestler from my time as a fan.

Doug found the above 2023 Leaf Heroes of Wrestling green autograph and sent it my way, and thanks to him she's now the sixth member of my other/non-sports Michigan collection. Cool!

Doug, many thanks for this great envelope, especially the thoughtful new additions to three sports! I'm still working on putting together a return for you and it may take a while, but in the meantime I wish good luck to your country's Olympic team as well as a great week leading up to your birthday!

I'll be back again soon-ish with my third and final January trade package, then you'll get a January show recap, first February trade package, and a show recap from yesterday.

2026 trade package #1: Chronicles of Fuji

Tonight let's party like it's 2026 since, you know, it is, by taking a look at my first trade package of the year before the calendar flips to February.

Sender #1 this year was one of the blogosphere's favorite people: Mark of the Chronicles of Fuji. Just after the start of the new year I got this envelope in my mailbox:

Oooooh, this is big enough to hold some interesting items! Side note: do yourself a favor and buy postage on a site like PirateShip so you don't have to pay nearly this much when you're already being very generous in sending cards and paying to ship stuff.

Ok, well this is a good sign--that's my name. This portends good things!

And good things were indeed within! That's the January 1991 issue of Beckett Baseball with that year's sensation Cecil Fielder grading the cover, not to mention 1990 World Series champ Barry Larkin on the back, a hell of a two-fer. There's also a very nice Christmas card from my "blogger buddy" that was a nice touch. And then we have a couple taped up things of cards to open up.

The old nine-pocket page: a tried and true method for shipping cards, especially in PWE format. Fuji picked some very nice stuff and also packaged these in expert fashion. Let's have a better look:

Baseball begins with Tigers old and new. Baez is a Sepia Refractor and the Miggy pair is quite nice: a Triple Threads base and manu-"medallion." Carp's Topps Holiday card is a Green Plaid parallel that still feels appropriate for the season. The two Clarks bring me back to when cards were more fun, especially the Black Diamond parallel numbered /1500 on the back. Evans is a box bottom card and you actually just saw the whole bottom in my TCDb recap post.  And there's Big Daddy again, on a playing card (naturally he's a king in that set).

Card #1 in this scan is great since I'd say I share Fuji's love for collecting Mr. Padre and 80s boxed sets. I wasn't familiar with Jimenez but see that he's the player Detroit flipped to Minnesota for pitchers Chris Paddack and Randy Dobnak during their lackluster trade deadline last year. Lipcius and Meadows are both good old regular Refractors, though given how briefly the former was with Detroit I have no idea why Topps bothered putting him in their sets. Finest isn't what it once was but I won't say no to a RC of Mize! Nunez has been out of affiliated ball for years now but is still kicking in a few indy and foreign leagues, which is very cool. Cal joins Miggy above with a gorgeous Triple Threads card. If I'm not turning down Mize RCs I'm definitely happily accepting any Skubal RCs that come my way! And that Tork is a very nice Bowman Draft Invicta insert I don't think I'd seen before.

And we've still got plenty of baseball items left. York, a '45 Series champ as the team's starting 1B (though as the card implies, he did catch more than 200 games early in his career) appears on a card from the fantastic Conlon product distributed in the 90s. We'll get to the hits in a minute but first we have some other interesting stuff including horizontal cards of Miggy (a Topps Golden Giveaway code card), Colt Keith, and a Heritage team checklist. Then there's a cool five-pack of minis. The first two are from 1993 Humpty Dumpty and both Jim Abbott's and Jack Morris' cards are still in the plastic wrap. Nice! The other Minis, meanwhile, are from 2006 A&G. World Series guys Bondo and Polanco are regular backs and Chris "Red Pop" Shelton is a Black Border.

Fuji also treated me to a trio of Chrome autographs. 2015 Tigers first-round pitcher Beau Burrows' signature is from '21 Topps Chrome, and it remains to be seen if he can work his way back to health and a spot with an MLB team. Kubitza, also a pitcher, was a 2013 4th-rounder out of Rice who apparently flamed out a couple years after his 2015 Bowman Chrome auto was packed out. Lastly, Lugo's name is probably the most infamous to Tigers fans as he was half of the deplorable return for JD Martinez in a 2017 deal with Arizona. Here you see Dawel's 2019 Topps Chrome autograph, signed by a guy I actually got to see play in single-A ball for Lansing way back in 2015 when he was still in Toronto's system.

The final baseball items, which you saw way back in the first image of all the stuff together, are these 1977 Dover reprints. I actually snagged the book they came in (as panels) at some point, but it's very nice to have the singles as well. Both of these are reprints of 1912 Hassan Triple Folders, also known as T202 cards. The top one is "Ty Cobb Steals Third" starring the Georgia Peach and manager Hughie Jennings while the bottom is "Jim Delahanty at Bat" which includes that former Tiger (among other teams) from a big baseball family, and OF Davy Jones (get your "locker" jokes out of your system now), who appeared in parts of eight seasons with the Tigers. This is the only way I'll ever be able to afford anything that looks like one of these cards so they were a fun inclusion here.

The basketball content included RCs of two very notable Michigan hoopers, Juwan Howard and Glen Rice. I hope this year's squad can repeat the latter's heroics and win it all to cap a season that's going extremely well so far! Joining them is another big name, literally and figuratively. The late Robert "Tractor" Traylor was another Detroiter that starred at the program and went on to the NBA, resulting in some cool cards around the end of the 90s. Besides a very of-its-time UD Ionix RC, the '98-'99 Fleer Brilliants Illuminators insert looks fantastic, and believe you me, this scan does not do it justice!

And we'll close things out with football. Corum's Rams put up a good fight, but Fuji's Seahawks prevailed with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. Not that I'm complaining since Seattle has a bunch of Michigan Football connections as well, and I'll be rooting for them in the Big Game in less than a couple weeks. As for the new card of Blake, it has a nice shot of him on his way to score again with the Wolverines so I love it.

He's joined by a guy Fuji knows quite well due to his time with the Packers: Charles Woodson. I believe Mark actually commented on a recent post of mine that he had some of these piled up with plans to send them my way, so that's likely what happened here, much to my benefit. I love the mix of designs and years, and of course that two of them (Panini Contenders Draft Picks) picture him with the '97 champs.

Fuji, thanks so much for this early year treat which I obviously enjoyed very much. I hope your return to the classroom has gone well and that you still manage to find some time to blog--you know I love those flea market recaps! And while we're at it, good luck to your Seahawks in the Super Bowl.

I should be back relatively soon with my second of three January trade posts. That's right, I received a third today just before the calendar flips! After that I'll cover my January show purchases, and then maybe I'll be caught up in time for next Friday's show. Wait, caught up? Is that even possible?

2025 eBay purchases: maize & blue plate special

Hey all, tonight we'll take a look at the stuff I bought on eBay for myself in the second half of 2025. Let's get to it!

This first card is actually my most recent purchase but it doesn't fit in well with the rest so we'll start with it. Back in November I showed off the 2022 Michigan Valiant box set I bought, and I mentioned that when I opened it I had dupes of QB Cade McNamara's card #69 and was missing #68. Long story short, I plunked down $3.69 a bit before Christmas to be able to cross this one off the list. It's a decent overpay for what should be a cheap card, but I haven't found singles for these to be easy to find, and since I got such a ridiculous steal of a deal on the set, spending under $4 to finish it didn't bother me.

Now we'll head back to late September when I picked up this cyan (essentially blue!) printing plate auto of former Michigan/UMass RB Michael Cox. For some reason at the time I was under the impression that I didn't already have a hit of Cox in my collection, though I did, but that's ok since this one's much nicer, and wasn't crazy expensive at about $12.50. Plates like this one from 2013 Panini Contenders are great on their own but even better when they player signs them. By the way, for those who don't know or remember him, Cox played at Michigan from 2009-11 (mostly that first year), then headed to UMass for his senior season. He was a pretty unlikely draft pick by the Giants (7th round, 2013) but managed to rush for a TD in each of 2013 and '14 in a combined 18 NFL games.

It took until November for me to strike on eBay again, but when I did early in the month I hit paydirt with another Cyan plate. This time it starred DT Maurice Hurst the younger: a 2018 Luminance plate of his RC inserted into that year's Plates & Patches product. This one appealed to me since it's a college photo, of course, and earned me the first 1/1 in his PC to go along with seven autos. After being drafted by the Raiders he moved on to the Niners, sat out a year with an injury, and then has suited up for the Browns ever since. I happy put up a bit under $11 shipped to get this one in my collection.

Speaking of productive Michigan DTs, I then scored my first hit of one of Jim Harbaugh's "gifts from the football gods" who, along with Mason Graham, anchored a fearsome DL that helped the coach go out on top. Kenneth Grant went #13 overall to the Dolphins last year, and here you see him on a black plate used to produce his 2025 Panini Absolute RC. Because of the color, the front's not much to look at, but I love the metallic colored backs of these plates. Just under $9.50 was surprisingly enough to start a hits collection for a guy that could be a future star, and who's one of 273 (and still growing!) subjects in that bunch.

Last up tonight, how about a 1/1 of a former #1 overall pick? Jake Long was one of the best players out of Michigan's outstanding 2008 draft class that's still my favorite. The four-time Pro Bowler stuck it out for nine NFL seasons with Miami (his drafting team), Atlanta, Minnesota, and also the pictured St. Louis Rams on this yellow plate from 2014 Topps. I picked it up for a little over $9 the week before Christmas to put the stud LT at 99 hits, putting him one shy of being the third football PC to hit the century mark, behind fellow '08 draftees Chad Henne and Mario Manningham. It's also my third 1/1 (all plates) of the top pick. Not bad!

For those interested, this haul puts my combined plates & 1/1s collection at a crazy 198. Whoa!

I'll try to finish up 2025 in the next post or two with my second half of the year TCDb trade haul, and then it'll be on to 2026.

12/5/25 card show report: Christmas show-ping

Welcome back to another show recap as I near the end of my collecting from 2025. As you can tell by the date this was early in December, and I headed to my usual monthly show in Taylor.

I got a nice amount of Christmas card shopping done here, spending a yearly high of $153. $20 of that went toward some vintage Topps SPs for a deserving TCDb member, and the rest was at the tables of my usual seller.

First up is a bit of trade bait, which I hadn't come home with for a while:

I decided these were a pretty good value for the prices, which I think were generally $2 and under. As always, please drop a comment if you want to work something out!

And now for my keepers:

Baseball was well represented with a Purple paralle of Cronenworth, Donruss-related base of Griffey, Maddux, and Ripken (no Gwynn this time, sorry!), a Kinsler parallel, and a cool Griffey insert from UD's awkwardly-named HoloGrFX. With 630 bombs, Ken certainly earned his Longball Legacy!

As I've done a few times recently, I went through the seller's boxes of unpriced stuff that he hadn't put out yet, and I came up with a few including the two biggest cards you see here. He gave me a price I thought was great, so I was happy to take home a couple '84 Tigers hits! First is a 2005 Donruss Classics Stars of Summer jersey of Gibby. Numbered /250 on the back, it's my seventh relic of the '84 World Series hero (who may have appeared in one other one?) and I love the photo of him wearing the old-school uniform.

Joining him is another 1984 hero, Jack Morris, on a 2005 Donruss Leather & Lumber Leather Cuts signature card. This was one of a number of products that made things interesting by having players sign swatches of real or manufactured stuff like baseballs, wood, leather, and more. Black Jack's autograph looks excellent on a manu-leather piece, and of course I love seeing him pictured with the Tigers instead of one of his other teams as well. I now own four cards with Jack's signature, and this one is numbered /128 on the back.

When it came to basketball it was all about some cheap colorful stuff. THJ, Jett Howard, LeVert, and Poole all got new items added to their collections for what I think was less than a quarter each.

As for football, a Kwity Paye Prizm parallel was the only non-hit, but that's ok because I found a couple relics to boost that collection's numbers. First is a 2023 Contenders jersey relic of transfer (to UCLA) RB Zach Charbonnet, representing my third hit of my favorite half of Seattle's running back duo. Unfortunately his excellent season ended in the Hawks' win thanks to a torn ACL, so he won't get to appear in a hypothetical Super Bowl.

He's joined by a nice bold red jersey swatch of former Michigan also-transfer (Tennessee) QB Joe Milton, pictured with his former team that drafted him--the Patriots. He's currently with the Cowboys and stuck behind another entrenched starter, but if he can keep earning paychecks as a backup, that's not exactly the worst case for a guy not known to be accurate enough to be a starter. By the way, this is relic number two for the gunslinger's PC.

I'll be back soon with a few eBay pickups from the second half of '25, and in the meantime I'll be rooting for Indiana to cap off their magical NCAA football season with their first title. Go Hoosiers!

11/8/25 card show report: a triple "J" meetup

For what will likely be my final post of 2025 (man, the year went by so fast!) I'm going to close the book on my collecting for November by covering the show I went to the weekend after the one I just covered.

Thanks to a bye in Michigan's football schedule I was able to head out west to Portage, not far from Kalamazoo, for a show held in a school gym. I made the 1.5 hour-ish trek out there because I'd get to hang out once again with John, Jeff, and Jason (plus his fiancee Samantha). You just don't pass up opportunities like that! John lives nearby and I was able to pick him up, Jeff's about a half hour closer than I am, and Jason's drive was just a little longer than Jeff's.

Of course I mention all three of these guys here and then didn't think to get a picture of all of us together while we were at the show. At least I got one of John and me when I dropped him off before heading home:

Anyway, just like I enjoyed hanging out with Angus at the show the week before, I had a blast with these folks. I ended up spending a bit of time with each of them, including Jeff before he took off (he beat us all there), but not before handing me the stuff I posted in this trade recap. I then stopped at a few tables where Jason and Sam were looking before they headed out. Then I closed out the show looking at a few other tables with John before we got out of there.

It was really nice seeing all of them in person and I greatly appreciate that they all took the time to hang out for a bit. I'm grateful for all the cool people I know through this hobby and here I was surrounded by a bunch at once, truly a treat.

I ended up spending $79, every last dollar in my wallet but one, apparently, and scored some cool items that went in Christmas card packages. I also came home with a few keeper items for myself, but thankfully not so many that I'll need to spend a lot of time going over them.

This 73-card boxed set focusing on Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline, was actually the very last thing I bought. I noticed it on a table way in the back and made sure to come back for it before I left. It's fairly low-end as far as production value goes, but for $5 I couldn't just leave it.

Here's a look at some vertical fronts. If the design isn't much to write home about, the photography choices are still very cool. The cards span Kaline's playing career and life beyond the field. There's a mix of orange and black borders not to mention black & white and color images.

 
There were some fun horizontal images too so I included a scanner bed worth of those as well. 

The backs are about as simple as the fronts but the write-ups are solid. You'll notice the first card is numbered "1A" and there's a "1B" as well, and then the rest of the numbers go up to 72.

One other thing to note is that the set was made with both black and red borders on the back, and mine obviously has the latter, which is a bit less common.

Overall I thought this was a great value for just $5 and it allowed me to add more than 70 cards to Al's PC!

I believe the rest of my cards, all but one of which were of the football variety, came from three different tables. First up is my sixth relic (13th hit overall) of Sauce Castillo. I'm pretty sure this came from a younger guy, probably a teenager, who was wearing a #2 Michigan Football jersey, so I was happy to give him a sale.

The cheapest football card here is a SAGE base of Michigan/Bengals DB DJ Turner. And then I found three very nice hits from the sport. One is my 12th autograph of TE Jake Butt, out of 2017 Spectra and numbered /75 on the back. #2 is a large multi-colored jersey swatch (with stitching) of RB Hassan Haskins from 2022 Panini XR, which is limited to just 25 copies. And last up, I overpaid a bit for the auto you see of Iowa/Michigan/Lions QB Jake Rudock, but it just looks so cool! It's a 2016 Panini Black Gold card, and I'd already scored the "White Gold" version (numbered /99, as opposed to 199 here) so now I have its twin. The signature and player image areas being enhanced by acetate make this a big winner for me in addition to the black background with gold foil. Besides the other auto I mentioned, I have a plate of Rudock as well and therefore three hits of him overall.

Thank you again to John, Jeff, and Jason & Sam for a nice meetup at this show. I hope we can set up something similar in 2026 depending on when these shows are scheduled!

This should be it for me for 2025. I'll mostly be spending tomorrow watching Michigan face Texas in the Citrus Bowl as my fellow fans and I look forward to a new coach next year, plus I've been putting in some effort cleaning up and updating my trade bait on TCDb. I should be back early in 2026 (maybe as soon as Thursday? We'll see!) to recap this month, which brought a couple more blogger trade packages, plus I have the December monthly show and rest-of-year looks at my eBay purchases and TCDb trades to get to.

So Happy New Year to all of you, and GO BLUE!