2019 trade package #1: Nachos Grande

Chris from Nachos Grande was nice enough to be the first person to send me cards in 2019.  He was one of the many folks who received some Christmas Cards from me, and then he returned the favor after I claimed a couple things from his Trade Bait Blowout.  Naturally he threw in a bunch more stuff because he's a great guy to trade with.

Here's what I got this time:

Group 1 here is guys I have sorted by player in my Tigers box.  Miggy and Sanchez are the only ones that are still playing, but Clark is the head of the MLBPA and Henneman is still coaching in the Tigers organization (I think).  Peralta was quite good in his four years in Motown, but it looks like 2017 may have been his last year in the Majors.

And some other Tigers from the past 25-ish years.  Alvarez came to Detroit from Arizona by way of San Diego during the expansion draft in a deal for former star Travis Fryman, but he never got his bat going enough to last.  Anderson was a #1 overall pick as a closer but blew his arm out.  Benoit was a very effective arm out of the pen but his performance priced him out of Motown.  Fick was somehow an All-Star during the awful 2002 season.  Pena is back with the organization as a coach after retiring last year.  Rondon is the White Sox's problem now!  And Young just had a hell of a Winter League in Venezuela.

Chris's note mentioned that he thought I may have asked him for some Chris Sabos at some point and sent this five-pack my way.  That was awesome of him as three were new to me:  1990 Classic Update and Starline Long John Silver (#25, one of his two appearances), plus 1994 Pacific.  I'm especially glad he sent the latter because I'd included that set on the checklist of another player but not for Spuds.  That's all fixed now, and I'm happy to have even more cardboard of the notable 3B!

Also:  three many Verlanders!  The 2017 Topps Bunt card in the middle was a new one for me as was the A&G relic from the same year.  The latter was one of the two cards I claimed from Chris's piles of trade bait and I thought it would be fun to grab as I have his other version from the same set:

By their powers combined these give me 350 total Verlanders, which is not Too Many but is definitely a lot!

Last up is a very shiny Thomas Rawls insert, a Yellow parallel of 2016 Panini Phoenix's Adrenaline Rush (#49/99).  I claimed this one as well since Rawls is a former Wolverine (who blew up in his senior year after a transfer to Central Michigan).  While I usually post this kind of thing over on TMM I didn't feel like it was worth it for just one card.  Besides, the sport is especially relevant today, the NFL conference champ games, plus I have another Sportlots post I hope you'll all check out over there.

Thanks again for a great return package, Chris.  May your eight not be so elusive and your Larkins be plentiful in 2019!

2017 COMC purchase: new Jack city

Before I get to today's card I'm using the beginning of this post to try to solve a quick postal mystery:  who is the anonymous Oregonder (or Oregondor, which makes me think of The Lord of the Rings) who sent me a very nice bubble mailer full of Tigers (and a few Ripkens) from the ZIP of 97204?  I'd very much like to give that Portlander credit when I get around to the accompanying trade posts, and to return the favor while I'm at it.  So if you're the nice trader who sent that envelope on the Oregon Trail (where it did not die of dysentery or break and axle fording the river) all the way to Ann Arbor, please step up and get your kudos by leaving a comment or shooting me an email!

Ok, on to today's card, the last one I have from last year's COMC purchases (though if you want to see more of those, head on over to TMM!).  It doesn't fit in with the player collections guys I posted the other day but will look great with the best I can offer from my Detroit Tigers hits:

From the high-end 2004 Donruss Timelines product ($50 per pack with autographs 1:2, says Beckett) this here is a Recollections Autographs signature (#32/56) of newly minted Hall of Fame pitcher Jack Morris.  This enormous autograph offering includes almost 1600 cards (this one is #923) that are signed buybacks of past Donruss issues that add a "Recollection Collection" foil stamp (and serial numbering on the back) and leave everything else as-is.  Charmingly (or annoyingly, depending on your opinion) that means many are off-center like this one or feature other flaws, but for me that just makes them more fun. 

A quick search shows that Morris signed 18 different Donruss cards from 1981-93, with multiple appearances from a few years.  Print runs vary from 139--one of his 1988 base cards--all the way down to a single copy of his Baseball's Best boxed set issue.  The one you see above, of course, is from Donruss' sophomore product in 1982.

I'm sure buybacks like this are somewhat polarizing, though surely not nearly as much as Jack's induction into the Hall this year.  His was a tough case so I'm just glad to see him get in.  Even if he didn't I'd be happy to continue collecting some of his better stuff like this.  It marks my third auto of the former ace and three-time Series-winner, and I'm always on the hunt for more.

That's it for COMC stuff from last year, finally, so while I catch up on purchases from there over on TMM you can all look forward to a couple trade packages here soon!

2017 Sportlots purchases: a Barry nice finale, part 2

Time to finish up this series so I can move on to bigger and better things (namely pickups from COMC, eBay, and shows)!

Last time I showed off some Larkins from 1988-2000, and today I've got a similarly large chunk of cards that finish off that original run up to 2017 along with horizontal and non-standard sized stuff that spans 1988-2012.  Quite a ride!

First we'll finish off 2000 (after the last post's cliffhanger) with Topps' Opening Day and Upper Deck's totally weird Ionix.  Then you can buckle in for a nice run of 2001s that extends into the next couple scans.  This first bunch has some good lookers in Absolute Memorabilia, Bowman's Best, Donruss Classics, E-X, Finest, and Fleer Authority.  I give the Bowman's Best card a slight nod as my favorite but there's lots to like here.

I guess 2001 was a particularly strong year for Barry's cards because again there's some choice offerings here.  Fleer Premium had a nice design and Showcase looks excellent.  Leaf Limited brings some appeal with its strong foil game.  Private Stock (of one-relic-per-blister-pack fame) had a nice canvas style going on.  UD's SP Authentic and Sweet Spot were simple and solid.  Studio featured one of its top designs and I'm especially fond of this year's version because of the Private Signings 5x7 autos.  Topps Chrome looked quite nice in the upgraded version of the 50th anniversary product.  And then we finish the scan with one of my favorite cards in either post:  the Stadium Club entry from 2001 Topps Fusion.  Stadium Club's just about always a winner, and for some reason this design just really appeals to me.

It takes the first eight cards here to close out 2001.  Topps brings its solid Opening Day and a pretty nice Stars design.  Ultra has the best photo/design combo in the scan and the turn-two image is a big part of that.  Then Upper Deck owns the rest of the real estate with the fairly forgettable Reserve, decent MVP and Pros & Prospects, fun low-end Victory, and very cool Vintage products.  Then 2002 puts the previous year in the rear-view mirror with another cool Absolute Memorabilia design that's associated with an excellent product that's responsible for the cool Signing Bonus framed pieces you may have seen before.

Now we have a Donruss/Fleer one-two punch.  The former was responsible for the first four seen here:  Best of Fan Club, Classics, Fan Club, and Super Estrellas.  Classics looks fantastic as usual while the manufacturer should have chosen one of Fan Club or the Best of versions; Super Estrellas doesn't really do anything for me.

Fleer's offerings--which bleed into the next scan--are a bit of a mixed too.  Flair looks awesome, Maximum and Authentix are pretty good, and Focus Jersey Edition and Genuine are mediocre.  Considering the sheer volume of sets Fleer produced around then it's not a surprise that they weren't all winners.  You'd think I'd like the shininess of Genuine but it just doesn't do it for me.  Luckily Flair's there to raise the bar.

Fleer's 2002 dominance continues with the whole top row here:  the beautiful and artistic Showcase, the rather pedestrian Triple Crown, and Hot Prospects, which is kind of in-between for me.  The Leaf name features on the next two:  another pleasing Certified design and a decent Rookies and Stars (though I still find that brand unnecessary).  Then Upper Deck makes a cameo outside of its usual part of the alphabet with SPx and a design I don't really care for.  The bottom row is quite nice, though, with an excellent and patriotic Studio, vintage-themed Topps 206, and the sort-of-works Topps Ten.

Ultra starts us off here on a design that's not one of my favorites mainly because of the name/team piece.  Then Upper Deck goes on a nice run with UD Authentics (made to look like the '89 version, of course) and its turn-two photo, flagship (and a Griffey Sr. cameo), and the very cool 40-Man.  I don't think I'll ever put the latter together like I did with a couple years of Topps Total, but you never know!

2003 starts off strong once again with Absolute Memorabilia's shiny goodness, and it's joined by a solid Bazooka effort by Topps.  Then it's time to go on a three-card Donruss run with the brand's cool flagship product, the solidly-themed Champions, and the almost always great Elite.  I'll happily collect any '95 MVP cards of Larkin that get made!

Another big Fleer run dominates this scan, but first we start off with Donruss' Team Heroes, another fun product of theirs I like because it also includes some of my favorite 80s Tigers.

The next seven cards continue to illustrate Fleer going bonkers in the early aughts.  In my opinion Flair, Authentix, Genuine, and Rookies and Greats are all good to great while Focus JE and Patchworks were unnecessary, and Splendid Splinters has a weird color scheme thing going on that makes it look nothing like a Fleer product.

A pretty good Prestige design (you know I did that blue!) is a nice way to close out this scan.

Studio continues its strong run (which isn't nearly over!) and I should totally do a post on the lifespan of that brand.  Topps checks in with a nice trio of 205 (keeping things historical) plus Chrome and Opening Day.  Those blue borders on Chrome made for some great Refractors.  The second iteration of 40-Man wasn't as good as the previous one in my opinion, but I'm still glad UD made it.

Jumping ahead to 2004, Barry's final season, we open with a Donruss trio of Diamond Kings, Classics, and World Series.  The DKs look great and I'm glad Donruss was able to vary the designs a bit from year to year.  Classics looks fantastic as always, and I'm glad Larkin appeared in the product as often as he did.  And World Series' design isn't much to look at, though at least the theme is strong.

Fleer Platinum--a bit superfluous when you look at the Tradition card in the next scan--ends things here, but this time it's not the start of a huge run...

...because Tradition (see what I mean?) is the only non-Ultra card here from that year.  Leaf's design is solid enough and I have the Second Edition version of that card as well.  Studio...well, I don't think I have to say how much I love it at this point, right?  Donruss' Throwback Threads was a cool product though it kind of blends in with some of their other offerings from that time.  Topps Chrome featured another nice design as we get near the end of the era where they were good.  Ultra gives us yet another great double-play shot, and Upper Deck mixes things up a bit with what looks to be a stolen base attempt, maybe?

Then we get into 2005 with Upper Deck's Artifacts, a product on my shitlist due to the difficulty in tracking down the football versions from it that I need, plus another nice Donruss flagship design.  I sure do miss the good old days of that product!

The last card in the previous scan was a good omen for this one which is dominated by Donruss/Leaf/Playoff brands, most of which are beauties.  Those include Classics, Elite, Greats, Team Heroes, Leaf Century, Leather and Lumber, Playoff Prestige, and Studio; the only combo-breaker is card #8, another solid look from SP Authentic.

Of the Donruss products here Leather and Lumber is the one whose design I like the least, followed by the look (but not concept) of Leaf Century.  Classics, Greats, and Studio are all A+ for me while Elite, Team Heroes, and Playoff Prestige aren't far behind at all.

By the way, that Studio card is of particular note as it represents the sunset version of that fantastic product.  And that makes me want to show off all 13 of Barry's entries in its run:

Like I said, I may do a post focusing on these in the future!

And at last we reach the end of the verticals.  Solid offerings Throwback Threads from Donruss and Pros and Prospects from UD close out the year in cards 2005.  Then 2006 begins and ends with the beautiful Greats of the Game from Fleer, a product I'd sure love to see again these days.

The next two you see are 2013 Panini products:  Hometown Heroes and Prizm.  I've always thought the phrase "hometown hero" should refer to someone that's at least from that team's state, if not city, like the Cincy-born Larkin, so Barry definitely belongs here.

Two more comprise my 2017 haul:  Topps' Allen and Ginter and Panini's USA Baseball Stars and Stripes.  I have no love for the former while the latter's fun for me as long as it still includes players I care about (like Larkin and Jim Abbott).

And finally, two more went MIA while I was getting everything scanned (there were lots of piles, some of them huge...mistakes were made!) that caused them to end up here:  1995 Zenith and 2011 Gypsy Queen.  Like A&G, GQ can go take a long walk off a short pier for all I care.

The first of 3.5 horizontal scans opens with a '92 Fleer base shared with Twins legend Kirby Puckett and a hologram insert from '93 UD.  Three UD-branded cards including Collector's Choice cover '94.  1995 begins with a great sliding shot from Bowman, another from Sportflix(!), and a Gold parallel of the least popular Studio design.

'95 finishes with the trio of Summit, Topps Cyberstats, and yet another headfirst slide, this time courtesy of Upper Deck.  Summit returns for '96 as the only card from that year, and it's followed by a hit and miss Pinnacle pair from '97:  New Pinnacle--the hit with a nice design and a sliding Ryan Klesko getting doubled up--and XPress, a definite miss in my book.  Then we jump ahead to 1998 with two wildly different products:  Collector's Choice and Pacific's Omega.

Two more UD cards are enough to finish off 1998:  UD3 and a Retro insert called Time Capsule.  I don't think the UD3 design in '98 was as interesting as the debut version from the year before, but it was at least a fun way for Upper Deck to experiment with some crazy designs.  And I loved grabbing a Retro insert on the cheap since that brand was so much fun.  Omega then makes another appearance in the form of its 1999 version (which I thought was a bit of an improvement).

Speaking of looking a bit better, Upper Deck's 2000 HoloGRfX definitely shows signs of progress after the eye-melting 1999 offering, though it still wasn't that great of a set.  Fleer's 2001 Legacy shows plenty of promise but wastes a ton of space on literally nothing.  Upper Deck gives us a 2002 pair that includes a second appearance from the fun 40-Man product (card #1081, to give you an idea of the set's scale) and Vintage.  Then a jump ahead to 2004 brings another USA Baseball-related set, this one from Upper Deck celebrating the program's 25th anniversary.

Just two more "mainstream" horizontal cards here:  a typically strong action shot from 2005 Ultra and a textbook boring Topps insert pairing Larkin and Cleveland SS Asdrubal Cabrera, who I believe was captured mid-mlem (12/10, would bat 8th again).  Then we have a pair of junk wax-era stalwart Topps Bigs from 1988-89.

And now it's time to get into the smaller stuff:  1989 Topps Mini Leaders, 1990 Panini Stickers, 1990 Topps Sticker Backs, and 2001 Private Stock PS-206 Action.  Going even smaller there's a quartet of Topps Micros from 1991 and '92 (two each).

Last up in this scan are a Brass Coin from Pinnacle's crazy 1997 Mint product and a Fleer Hardball disc-like card from 2003.  But that's still not quite everything:

Some of you may recognize this:  an Opening Day Mini Poster from Fleer's 1998 collaboration with Sports Illustrated.  Definitely a fun throw-in in packs, and a useful one too!

And now I can finally say I'm done with this series!  After a crazy amount of cards scanned, edited, labelled, posted, and written about, Barry Larkin was the big winner after seeing his collection boosted by around 275 cards.  Chris, I'm coming for you!  While that probably won't happen in my lifetime, I'm thrilled to count a new total of 688 Larkins in his collection, just five shy of PC leader Cal Ripken Jr.

That was a ton of work and I know it's a lot to look at, so I'll happily take a breather (how will anyone tell given how infrequently I post?) before getting back to showing off more stuff soon!

2017 Sportlots purchases: mo better Lous

See?  No "Happy Lou Year" in the title, just like I promised!

Of course that means today's featured PC guy is Lou Whitaker.  I didn't knock anything off his checklist in my Sportlots purchase but did find a few scans' worth of new stuff to add to his collection, mainly of the oddball variety:

Most of what I grabbed was from the 80s which makes sense since Whitaker's career spanned 1977-95.  This bunch starts and ends with Topps Glossy Send-Ins from 1984 and 1987.  I don't generally count stuff like that towards the mainstream checklist because I tend to limit it to box- and pack-pulled stuff.

As with many of the other players you've seen, Lou appeared in many of Fleer's prolific array of products that decade, and here you can see his issues from their 1986 Limited Edition boxed set as well as the Star Stickers offerings from that year and 1987.  The stickers are definitely odballish enough to leave off the checklist but I may change my mind on the Limited Edition card at some point.

Last up is the most oddball of this scan:  1986 True Value.  These logo-less cards (despite apparently being approved by the MLBPA?) came in panels of four when you bought stuff at one of those stores.

Here's the final four standard-sized cards:  Up first is 1989 Classic Travel purple, an update to the product that featured trivia questions on the back.  Next is a psychedelic design from 1992 Topps Kids, another product that's weird enough to leave off my checklists, at least for now.  I'd argue that kid-centric products look a bit better today.

Going a bit more mainstream are Whitaker's 1993 Pacific Spanish base (with that butt-ugly logo from the early 90s) and Upper Deck's Fun Pack from that year, another kid-friendly product.  I may also decide to put these on the main checklist at some point.

Lou was living large in the 80s--five straight All-Star Games, four Silver Slugger Awards, three Gold Gloves, and 43.4 bWAR are proof--so naturally he belonged on some oversized cards like this Donruss pair.  The first is from the 1985 Action All-Stars set while the other product's name simply opted for "All-Stars".  If you're familiar with either year's base set you can see some similarities in the designs, though they're notably different as well.

And now we have the oddballs of the oddball stuff:  undersized and other non-standard form-factors.  The first and third items in the top row are stamps produced by Fleer in 1982 and '83, apparently designed to be stuck in an album, much like stickers from the era.

Speaking of stickers, this scan is littered with them:

• Topps:  (L-R, top to bottom) items #2 (1982), 5 (1983), 6 (1984), 7 (1986), 9 (1989), and 11 (1988).  The '88 sees Whitaker paired up with 1984 World Series foe Garry Templeton of the Padres.
• Fleer:  #4 (1983)
• Panini:  #8 (1989)

Item #10 is the first of four non-stickers, a Topps UK Mini from 1989.  Also from Topps I have a pair of coins from 1989 and 1990.  It looks like the company brought those back for a few years starting in 1987 after they were a mainstay of the 60s and early 70s.

Our final item on the day is also round, and it's a King B Disc from 1990.  The discs are food issues that came in packages of beef jerky made by a company I wouldn't know about if not for the cards!

And with that I have another nice bunch of Whitakers to beef up his collection and give it a ton more variety as I close in on 300 total cards.

Stay tuned for another Sportlots PC post soon, and in the meantime please check out a Michigan Football-related one this evening over at TMM.

2017 Sportlots purchases: listen all y'all, it's a Sabo-tage

For today's post let's go with another Reds fan favorite: Chris Sabo, the 3B nicknamed "Spuds" who was the National League's Rookie of the Year in 1988 and was a World Series champ in 1990.

Spuds is another of my supercollections and as with others like Hal Morris, I had a ton of luck attacking his wantlist thanks to Sportlots:

We'll start with 1988 when Sabo was named NL ROY.  Future HOFer Roberto Alomar placed a distant fifth in that voting despite a fairly similar season, oddly enough.

The first five cards in this scan are from that year and they include issues from Donruss and Fleer boxed sets, pre-RCs from Fleer and Score update sets, and a Glossy parallel of the Fleer card.

Then '89 opens with an oddball Bazooka product produced by Topps along with more Donruss and Fleer boxed set cards.

This scan will take us through the rest of 1989.  As in several of my other Sportlots posts there's still more boxed set stuff, especially thanks to Score and Fleer being so prolific late in the decade.  Speaking of the latter I grabbed both of Sabo's Glossy parallels of the flagship set.  An exciting appearance by Sportflics is joined by one other base card in Chris' '89 Topps RC.  Seriously, I didn't have one!  Finally, a Topps Glossy Send-In and oddball Toys 'R' Us issue close the book on that year.

Here we start with a quick romp through 1990:  base cards from Leaf and Topps (again, seriously) and Topps' Tiffany parallel.  Then we start a ten-card run through '91 with a trio from Donruss, plus Fleer, O-Pee-Chee, and one of two Score flagship appearances.

We'll close out '91 in style by starting with Sabo's other Score appearance:  a World Series card that includes fellow Wolverine Barry Larkin flipping his lid.  That's joined by another Score boxed set, Topps Tiffany, and a checklist from Upper Deck.

1992 Begins with Bowman and Donruss, gets interesting with a Fleer Team Leaders insert, then returns to status quo with Leaf and O-Pee-Chee Premier.

Let's finish off '92 with base cards from Studio and Upper Deck, plus UD's stupid Gold Hologram parallel.  I'm a supercollector so I have to pick those up!

Things start to get kind of interesting again with some of the '93 stuff.  Donruss, Fleer, and O-Pee-Chee are fairly pedestrian but the year gets boosted by Flair, Stadium Club (Members Only Parallel) and the much-improved Studio.

A '93 Topps Gold parallel finishes up '93 before we get into 1994 and Sabo's Orioles tenure, which ended up lasting just one season.  Bowman and Collector's Choice base cards lead off alphabetically, and I also picked up the latter's Gold and Silver Signature parallels; it's always nice to knock off the rarer Gold versions.  Those are joined by an even better version of Flair, one of my favorite Leaf designs, a much better effort from OPC, and the start of a nice run of designs for Pinnacle.

This group completes the year of cardboard in '94, and you can tell we're going alphabetically, not chronologically, because there's some Reds outliers here.  One of those is from Score, though the company updated his team in its Rookie/Traded product.  Stadium Club's base set (and its Members Only Parallel) showed him with Baltimore while its Team card, while listing him as an Oriole, still had a shot of him in his Reds uni.  Finally, his Topps Gold parallel also had him with the Reds, though that's not a huge shock since its flagship product can arrive before players switch teams.

This scan--the last with vertically-oriented cards--shows Sabo with three of his four career teams.  Three '95 cards--Fleer, Score Gold Rush, and Topps Cyberstats--end his Orioles run, and that year's Leaf documents his short (20 games) tenure with the South Side Sox.  I did a quick Beckett search and came up with just four products in which Chris appears with Chicago including Leaf above, Fleer Update (which I already have), Upper Deck (which you'll see below), and UD's Special Edition.  I'll also note that while Sabo appeared in just five games with the Cardinals during that same '95 season, he never appeared on cardboard as a member of that team.

Chris' final MLB season was 1996 and fortunately for me he could be found on Fleer's outstanding matte design from that year (as well as Ultra).  I also snagged one of his much more recent cardboard appearances, 2015 Stadium Club.  See?  Topps can do good things, they're just not in the practice of doing them regularly.

This second-to-last scan is just cards aligned horizontally, the way your cell phone videos should be most of the time if you're not an idiot.

Anyway, we have a nice assortment here, starting with a '91 Fleer World Series subset (not quite as cool as Score's), plus '92 OPC and Topps Gold.  Then 1994 is once again represented by Score's Select and Upper Deck (plus its not-that-great Electric Diamond parallel).  1995's Collector's Choice and its Gold Signature parallel--another one I'm glad to check off--finish us up here.

And here's today's final scan, which opens with the final two mainstream horizontal cards:  '95 Upper Deck and another Electric Diamond parallel.

The we go all the way back to the beginning with 1988 and '89 Topps Big, plus a miniature '89 Topps Leaders.  Those are followed by two '89 Panini Stickers, as well as Topps Stickers from the same year, one of which Sabo shares with AL counterpart Wade Boggs.  Last and definitely least (in terms of size), I grabbed Sabos Topps Micro issues from 1991-93.

All told this added a very nice 86 items to my Sabo collection and put me at 147/210 (70%) of his checklist, a great boost.

If that's not enough Sportlots action for you this evening, please head over to TMM for a nice little after dinner mint of a football post.  Either way, I'll send you off with a song: