6/5/26 card show report: the appetizer

I'm back from a quick vacation down south (possibly more on that in a future post as it did involve a baseball game and related card purchase), and tonight I'll be posting my pickups from the first of the two shows I attended in June. This was the usual monthly one at Taylor Town Trade Center, whereas next time I'll recap the big meetup in Kalamazoo.

If May's $170 spending made up for the paltry $25 I threw down in April, June was a regression to the mean (which I made up for a couple weeks later!) as I exchanged a decent $53 for what you see below and more:

A new Grandy! Did you know I now own 300 of his cards, good for #1 on TCDb as the first to reach that milestone? 1000+ guys Gwynn, Larkin, and Maddux all came along for the ride on some fun inserts too.

No Griffey, but the other Junior at least rounds out the big PC guys, and my Pudge PC continued to skyrocket this year thanks to another trio here.

A Pistons THJ Refractor represents the lone basketball item, but I did make up for that a bit this month.

A couple nice looking Nicos kick off the football content, including a die-cut Select parallel and insert from Topps Chrome, a product you'll see a good amount of tonight. I also came away with a couple new cards of national champ RB Blake "The Great" Corum, one of which sports Donruss's Rated Rookie logo that I value above Topps's All-Star Rookie cup.

This football scan brings a great mix of color, some of which was from Panini brands, but most of which hails from Topps Chrome. The Peppers Red Ice looks great with the Giants' unis, but the Oluwatimi is the card I'm most excited for here because the transfer C who led the OL for the 2022 Big Ten champs doesn't appear on much cardboard.

Hey, how about six total cards of GOAT DB Charles Woodson to wrap up the non-hits? The Heisman-winner is four cards away from becoming football player #3 to join the 400-club in my collection, and not that far behind leaders Brian Griese (431) and Jim Harbaugh (400 even).

I managed to snag a few fun hits as well without breaking the bank. The Select jersey of "Gift from the football gods" DL Mason Graham represents his debut in my hits collection, which is pretty exciting. Meanwhile, the Pink Prizm (but red jersey swatch) of transfer (out) QB Joe Milton III is, appropriately enough, #3. And last up, not only did I land a second relic of #1 WR Roman Wilson, I also lucked into finding a beautiful Prestige auto of Graham's fellow national champ. It's foil, it's Prestige, and it's a Michigan uni card, so I love it...even if it uses a photo from before he switched to the #1 jersey!

Ordinarily that would be it, but I wasn't spending a ton and noticed some interesting oddball stuff on one of my usual seller's tables. In the end, I decided adding $10 to my total was worth it for this:

Does anyone else who grew up during the 80s or who collects the decade recognize the name "Topps Gallery of Champions"? If you do, then you already know what to expect:

This is the 1988 set of 12 mini aluminum "cards" representing some of the award-winners from 1987. The set, also available in bronze and silver at much higher prices, replicates each player's 1988 Topps card.

Hopefully you can get a decent idea from these images, but I've also included the checklist here:

As you can see, each player is represented only once, even if they won multiple awards (Dawson, McGwire, and Bedrosian). Of course the big draw for me was Tony Gwynn, but I also thought it was fun picking up such an oddball item in its complete, boxed form.

Of course Topps wanted you to buy the more expensive versions too, for about $134 and $484 delivered--and that was in 1980s dollars! Those prices equate to about $378 and $1366 today. Whoa!

Nope, I'm totally good with the $10 I spent for the 12-piece aluminum set, thank you very much.

It was another good Taylor show, but as I said in my last post covering the trade package Jeff brought along, the Kalamazoo meetup a couple weeks later was an absolute blast, and I'll plan on covering that next, so stay tuned!

2026 trade package #13: Baseball Cards Come to Life

How about some late evening Independence Day posting to catch up a bit?

One of my favorite combo bloggers/TCDbers is Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life. I especially enjoy his posts on the '85 Wendy's/Coke and '88 Domino's Tigers cards, for obvious reasons. Well, after I sent him a '67 Topps Poster he asked about after I made it and others available in a show recap, in June he was nice enough to surprise me with a PWE of needs that just so happens to include one of those Wendy's cards, plus others I was excited to get. Check 'em out:

I seriously can never have too many Grandersons, and when one of my next few TCDb trades arrives, I'll hit the 300-card mark, which is pretty cool. For that I can thank many kind traders like Bo, who sent me the 2008 UD StarQuest insert you see above. Next, Mr. Padre is from the 1989 Score 100 Superstars boxed set, one of many such fun items from that decade. And then we have the aforementioned Wendy's/Coke card, which stars Tigers OF and '84 champ Chet Lemon. That's just my second from the 22-card set (to go with the header/checklist), and there are 12 more cards of players I actively collect among the 20 I'm missing if I don't decide to chase the set.

HOF P Greg Maddux gets the second row to himself thanks to a very nice trio. I was a very active collector in the mid-to-late 90s so I'm very familiar with the designs of the first two sets: 1997 Leaf and Score. While I don't own complete sets of either, I have quite a few cards from both, and I really appreciate their designs, Leaf in particular. And then the third card is Mad Dog's entry in 2002 Fleer Hot Prospects, a product that I believe ran from its debut that year until 2004's Draft Edition. It's another design that I'm cool with, but that's pretty typical for me when it comes to Fleer from that era.

Speaking of Fleer and HOFers, the last baseball item is a gorgeous Ripken from 2003 Flair Greats. This is another flat-out beautiful design in my eyes, plus I love the 80s photo of young Cal surrounded by a very classy look.

Bo didn't stop at baseball and instead included a Michigan Football pair. Hailing from 2020 Leaf Draft's Red parallel are QB Shea Patterson and one of his best WRs, Donovan Peoples-Jones. The enshittified current Leaf iteration has its faults, but I do love seeing my college's football team represented on cards (even if they have to Photoshop the uniforms) and adding new items to my collection, so I really appreciate Bo including these as well.

Bo, thanks again for this fun surprise envelope of some PC needs! Please keep up the great Domino's and "Burgers or Gum?" series as well as the rest of your excellent blog writing, and I'll keep working on finding stuff you can use in your own collections.

Next up should be the other trade package I received in June, one that was a bit bigger but at least required zero postage for the person who gave it to me.

2025 TCDb trade roundup: July through December

Hi all, and welcome to what should be my final post for 2025! Or at least for now. I may go back and do a recap of my spending or something, but this post is the last one recapping cards I acquired last year.

As promised, I'm giving you a look at my TCDb trades and PIFs (pay-it-forwards) for the second half of the year. Back in August I ran through the ones I completed between January and April, and now you'll see those I got done starting in July after a bit of a trading hiatus.

There's a ton of images here representing something like 46 transactions so I'll be keeping my comments to a minimum. Please feel free to ask questions in the comments and sound off on your favorites, though.

Here we go!

158cf946-8d68-483a (TCDb Secret Santa):

This member may have a cryptic username that means nothing by me but his real name is Ross. He was the sender of my Secret Santa package last year and did an amazing job by picking out this six-pack of numbered Dean Palmers. Hailing from 2000 and 2001, the highest print run is just 99 and the lowest is 52. Wow! It was certainly a Merry Christmas for me and I had a blast participating in the event once again.

ablox (PIF):

 

 

avsbruins65 (PIF):

avsbruins65 (PIF--his own Secret Santa):

Mark is one of the best guys on the site especially when it comes to PIFs, and this second one was right around Christmas, as you probably guessed from the note. The Playoff chips are very cool and I was grateful to receive my 29th Griese hit in the form of a Topps Pristine jersey.

Barbeque Chicken:

bcmeeker:

1B Nate Holdren, a Michigan alum, joins the collection with one of the just nine to his name. The Rockies drafted him in 1993 but he never made it above AA.

Bigdaddymac25:

bigfocus:

Bob Warnell:

brad456:

budler:

chris_from_md:

deadhead11:

John from Minnesota, who's oddly enough a big Saints fan, is my top trade partner on the site as this was our sixth deal since I joined.

DeckedKey86:

Eggbert60:

Ericd3043:

There are lots of beautiful cards here but the one that needs some explanation is the 1986 Slurpee coin since you can only see Carlton Fisk in the image. He's joined by fellow catchers Tony Pena and, relevant for me, Lance Parrish. While I'm at it, Tram's DK card is a sample, and Kaline's Refractor is numbered /299.

greg_fantom:

hawkking:

Joe's another one of my site favorites. I needed to make a quick deal with him to acquire a few cards to add to a separate deal and scored these four for myself. I don't really collect Pistons cards but did need the 1980-81 leaders card you see as it's my first of Michigan guy Phil Hubbard.

heattreat:

horfin:

Another Michigan baseball guy joins the collection here in 2010 Reds draftee Chris Berset, a Wolverines catcher with just six minor league cards to chase. I also snagged my first relic (to go with a pair of autos) of All-Star Riley Greene.

imthegrinch:

jambieyes:

Lazy Amish:

LMCards17:

marcbrubaker:

Bru! Marc and I worked out a 65-for-55 deal, one of my biggest of the year, over the summer, and it went very well. He no longer blogs at Remember the Astrodome but I'm glad he's pretty active on TCDb because it was a blast trading with him.

mastodon:

In this deal the Carlson finished up the 2021 Topps '52 Topps Redux set that was nearly complete when I picked it up as part of a Facebook Marketplace lot, plus I nabbed a relic of Michigan/Rams RB Blake Corum, whose team is playing for a Super Bowl berth tomorrow.

Monkeyfeetmd:

myrke:

The item in the second scan here is a 1988 Topps box bottom which includes a pair of PC guys: Darrell Evans and Tony Gwynn. It's kind of a cool piece as it includes players from both 1984 pennant winners.

njavgjoe:

OfficerZero:

ravensray52:

This one kind of ended up being two deals in one shipment for us as I contacted this member, John, about the Sainristil auto after we agreed to the first transaction. I was glad we were able to work out a second one for my first hit of the '23 national champ, out of Topps Resurgence.

Revmrzac:

Ronsolo1:

Rooty10:

Royals417:

sgill08:

smitha1:

sparkchaser 41:

A couple quick notes here. First, the red Conlon card of the Killefer brothers added another Michigan Baseball guy to my collection: Wade, a.k.a. "Red," who played for both Purdue and the Wolverines in college. He appeared in seven MLB seasons with Detroit, Washington, Cincinnati, and the NY Giants. As for the last three items, they're fun oversized Coke/Kroger Tigers team cards.

Spinmove:

sues2blame (PIF):

Before the apparently retiring Hill was chosen for 2025 Topps Chrome Update and Heritage, this minor league card was his lone issue last year. It was snagged from a team set representing KC's AAA affiliate and sent to me very generously by Thomas from--you guessed it--Omaha. Hill did manage to appear in a couple games for the Royals, unfortunately losses for him, as he marked his 21st MLB campaign with his 14th team. If he's truly hanging 'em up, may the ageless wonder look back on his long career with pride.

TallestJord:

triplecrown:

Fellow Michigander (Muskegon) Matthew and I were able to put together a fun deal that would benefit us both since he was in need of the extra 2017 Tigers SGA team set I had, and he had some good matches for me. He even worked in a pair of autographs: an IP/TTM of current Piston Duncan Robinson plus a Leaf Metal high school card of now-former Michigan QB prospect Jadyn Davis. The latter came in as a fairly well regarded four-star but barely played despite a number of opportunities, and it seems like the scouting on him was a bit too optimistic. Still, I'm glad to add him to my football collection!

Wax_Nostalgic:

wayneh59:

woodmangb:

ymmat:

I've mentioned a few other favorites in this post so I'll call out this Joe as well. We've done a few transactions and PIFs and I'm always glad when we can do so. Here you see a mix of what I picked plus a few surprises, like the Norris auto and Keith Primeau at the end. There's a reason the dude has 3300+ trades and 100% feedback!

That was definitely a huge stack of cards that I got to show off, though I've long since put them away. Before I sign off on this post, just a quick update on some of the baseball sets I'm working on that you saw throughout this post:

• 1990 Swell Greats: need 7 more
• 1991 Swell Greats: need 14 more
• 1995 Finest: need 19 more
• 1996 Flair (both Silver and Gold): need 11 more
• 2015 Topps Cal Ripken Jr. 2632: need 1 more
• 2024 Topps Celebration of the Kid: need 16 more

Besides those I was happy to add to a bunch of my player collections in multiple sports, including Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken, Barry Larkin, Rich Hill, and yes, too many Grandersons and Verlanders! I knocked off some more cards in my never-ending chase for Michigan Football RCs and added a few hits as well. And as I continue my foray into player collecting, I added a bunch of new subjects to my collection, with a project focusing on that possibly upcoming. It was another productive and entertaining year of trading as I crossed the 200-mark and made 55 deals (not including PIFs and the like), good for my second best year after 76 in 2022.

Hopefully I'll be back at it again in 2026 soon with an updated tradelist and renewed energy.

Thanks again to everyone for a fantastic 2025 in the hobby and on this blog, and I'll be back soon to kick off 2026!