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!

2025 trade package #24: My Sports Obsession

November ended up being a very social month for me as far as the hobby goes. Less than a week after I attended the show with Angus that I just recapped, I headed about an hour and a half west to meet up with Jason, John, and the person who handed me this trade package, Jeff of My Sports Obsession. It was a Saturday show that I was able to go to with Michigan on a bye week (I'm sure Jeff wouldn't have missed the game either!) and things also worked out for Jason (and his lovely fiancé) and and John to have time to spend there.

I'll recap that show a bit later this month after covering the other trade packages and the usual monthly show, but for the purposes of this post I'll briefly say that I really enjoyed getting to hang out with these guys and look at some cards. It's a treat getting to enjoy this hobby with others that feel the same way and I'm grateful that they all made the effort (and glad that I did too).

Of course I was dumb and didn't get a picture with everybody for the bit of time we were all there (just with John when I dropped him off at home, though I'll share that in the show post), but at least I made sure to maximize my time with everyone there. That includes Jeff, who beat us all to the venue and therefore left sooner. We still got to talk for a while while flipping through cards at the tables run by a family he saw all the time when he and his cousin were doing shows, and that was a good time.

And of course he brought me some cards. LOTS of cards. I always appreciate it when someone puts in the time and effort to set stuff aside from me, and Jeff's one of the best at it thanks to the work he does for a card shop near him.

Here's what he brought me this time:

Miggy hit six career grand slams--I just looked it up--and I'm sure each ball felt like that Mosaic card looks when it left his bat. I hadn't added a new card of Michigan alum Franklin in forever so I loved seeing that Refractor. Griffey, Gwynn, and Maddux all pop up in this scan on Prizm cards, and you'll get to see the fourth member of that quartet plenty in this scan. The two colorful Panini-branded Kalines are among the coolest cards in tonight's bunch (even if "Pink Ice" sounds more like a drug reference than a baseball card).

See what I mean about Ripken? Jeff and I have a bit over 2400 Cals between us so you'll always see lots of his cards go back and forth in our trades. I really like the Diamond Kings and Gallery cards here, and there's even a rare Gypsy Queen design that works well with a photo of the HOFer in the field. These aren't the only cards of the Iron Man you'll see tonight, though. Before we get to those, it's back to the Prizm well one more time with HOF Wolverine Ted Simmons and a nice shot of him wearing the tools of excellence. He's followed by (future former) Tigers ace Tarik Skubal on a couple recent Topps inserts.

I'm hoping my fellow Tigers fans and I get to enjoy Skubal for at least as long as his predecessor Justin Verlander, of whom Jeff sent two many this time on a couple shiny parallels. The final non-hit portrait card is a checklist from a Wendy's/Coke '84 Tigers set that I've actually seen pop up a few times lately on Blusky and blogs, which is fun, and hopefully I'll add more of those myself. A quartet of landscape Ripkens rounds out the leader of the big PC foursome, including a typically beautiful Stadium Club shot of a guy known for staying long after games to sign for kids.

There were a couple surprise autographs mixed in with the baseball stuff: a 2016 Bowman Platinum Green (/75) of  Michael Fulmer and 2021 Topps Chrome Update Autographs signature of Kyle Funkhouser. These are my first signed cards of the two pitchers. Fulmer was that year's AL Rookie of the Year after coming over from the Mets, though his effectiveness waned and he found himself in the bullpen. Funkhouser was Detroit's fourth-rounder in 2016 (after the Dodgers took him in the first round the previous year but didn't sign the Illinois native heading to Louisville). He also didn't pan out in the end, but a Refractor is always fun and he has a very nice signature.

The last baseball item is a fun oddball piece: a 1994 team schedule. Detroit went 53-62 in the strike-shortened season, Sparky Anderson's penultimate year managing the club. My PC guy Tony Phillips led the team in bWAR while Travis Fryman and another PC favorite, Mickey Tettleton, made the All-Star team. David Wells and Mike Moore were the most effective pitchers that year. Yeah, the 90s sucked for Tigers fans. But items like this are fun to keep!

In a bit of a surprise, a Panini Phoenix RC of Franz Wagner was the only basketball item, but a very good one!

As for football, the content pretty much matched both the quantity and quality of baseball. That begins with RCs of TE Erick All. Buckeye-killer RB Tim Biakabutuka pops up on a 2000 Collector's Edge insert that's numbered /500 on the back and color matches pretty well with his Panthers uni. Transfer guy Charbonnet, who plays the same position, also appears thanks to Panini Prizm, and I'm enjoying seeing him play weekly for Seattle. And then there's a quartet of Nico Collins, who continues to star especially when the QB throwing his way isn't ass. Nico added a pair of TDs in today's win and eclipsed 1000 receiving yards for the third straight season. I have to say that Panini's retail version of its Illusions brand scans quite nicely and largely looks just as good as the hobby version.

The theme of this scan is "color and chrome." I love getting cards (especially colorful cards) of Blake, who scored a TD and had a couple very nice runs against the Lions' porous defense earlier today. I don't think too many others would give a second thought to a card of Amara Darboh, but Jeff and I both would, and I love the colorful Optic card of the WR. Michigan sorely needed Grant and his DL partner Mason Graham this season, but I hope things go well for the Dolphins rookie, seen on his first Score card. Between the years Aidan and his dad played for the Wolverines, there was HOF G Steve--no relation--who's seen on last year's Topps Chrome return, along with fellow HOFer Ty Law. Jenkins is another young ex-Wolverines defender I'm watching with great interest. JJ's had a bit of a rough first year as a starter but still shows a lot of promise, and his alma mater's fight song is the best. Ojabo's Contenders Optic features a very nice design and action photo of the fearsome defender.

The second-to-last scan begins with AN ORJI IN THE ENDZONE! (Thanks to Bowman Chrome U.) Like Orji, QB Brandon Peters transferred out, in his case to Illinois, though he has no cards depicting him as a Wolverine, and therefore I don't count him in my collection. The trio of A-Train inserts look great, with two hailing from Pacific brands and one from UD. Like fellow RB Tim Biakabutuka above, Tyrone Wheatley adds a numbered (/500) Collector's Edge insert to his pile. He hasn't had much NFL luck, but I'm happy to add another RC of national champ WR Roman Wilson to my collection. And the pair of Woodson cards looks great, especially the Select Draft Picks parallel where the red really makes the best college football uniform pop.

The last cards I'll show off tonight are ones I really appreciated since I wouldn't likely add them myself anytime soon. ONIT appears to be the latest brand handling the cards being sold for NIL money for a number of schools, and their overall design is pretty solid. I believe Jeff bought a few packs (which aren't cheap) or found singles otherwise, and gifted me these six. We'll skip talking about the guy who should be shot into the sun, but it's great getting the rest (plus I can cross the ex-coach off my checklist now).

Browder is a true freshman WR who appeared in seven games this season. El-Hadi is a fifth-year OL who came back for one more season where he finally got more playing time. Goodwin (son of Michigan alum Jonathan) is a sophomore WR who played in all 12 games and caught 11 passes for 145, and was also sometimes a pretty effective pass-blocker. Senior EDGE Derrick Moore was one of the most effective players on defense in '25 with 10.0 sacks, and next year's defense will surely miss him.

Finally, QB Davis Warren is one of those great stories you sometimes hear about in the college game. He overcame leukemia in high school to walk on at Michigan, then persevered long enough to get most of the playing time in 2024 after JJ McCarthy headed to the draft. It was a trying season for Michigan but against all odds he helped the Wolverines beat Ohio State for a third straight season, and also started in the bowl game win over Alabama. Whatever he does after graduating this year, he'll surely be great at it.

Jeff, thanks so much once again for this huge stack of goodness you were generous enough to bring me at that show. I have no idea what's in store for our favorite college football team going forward, but I'm thankful to have friends like you with whom I can root for them and trade some cards. I'll get a return envelope back your way at some point soon, possibly before Christmas.

Readers, you can look forward to three more November trade recaps before a couple show posts and one looking at a few eBay pickups too.

2025 trade package #23: Dawg Day Cards

Moving on to my second trade package of November, this one was actually hand delivered to me at a show (the first of two times that happened last month!) by Angus of Dawg Day Cards (who also goes by armac on TCDb). The Ottawa native wasn't too far across the border on Sunday, the 2nd, as he was nearby for a wedding. He'd let me know he'd be around with the possibility of meeting up, and fortunately that was day 3 of my monthly show. I made my usual trip on Friday to see my favorite seller, then headed back on Sunday while Angus was working his way across the border and dealing with all the fun that entails.

We arrived at practically the same time which worked out great, and I'd say we both really enjoyed talking cards and sports and stuff while looking through boxes. I may go into that more when I cover those two show trips in an upcoming post once I've taken care of recaps of the other trades that arrived last month.

Here we are. As always I'm the short one, though at this angle it doesn't seem like such a huge difference. Anyway, we each brought some cards (and more, in Angus's case) for the other person since that was a huge savings on postage, assuming you don't take into account how much he spent on gas. Hey, at least he was nearby for a fun reason before the show!

I have to say that what he brought put me to shame, but I did try to make up for it a couple ways, like buying him a few Browns he needed (which you can read about in his recap) and shipping a trade package for him.

Here's a quick look at all the cool stuff he brought:

Here's some of the non-card and oddball stuff. First is a Tiger Stadium giveaway radio. I have one or two of these from back in the late 80s or early 90s, but they're not in great shape like this one! Next is a souvenir cup and pin from the 2013 Buffalo Wild Wings bowl. I believe Angus said he was at this game, in which Michigan lost 31-14 against Kansas State, largely thanks to a 3-TD game by future pro WR Tyler Lockett.

A few more pins join the fray, including a mix that mostly came from Little Caesar's and come with informational panels. Two celebrate previous World Series wins (1935 and '68) while the other two focus on '68 stars Mickey Lolich and Denny McLain. A 90s Pinnacle pin of Travis Fryman rounds out that group.

Then we have a couple team sets: 1990 Procards' Bristol Tigers, which I'll get to in a bit, and a '92 Coke/Kroger stadium giveaway Tigers set.

And last up is a matchbook featuring Al Kaline. Mr. Tiger graces the front of this item that appears to be from 1980 Liberty Superstar Matchbooks. I see a total of them on psacard.com, and the multisport set also includes Larry Bird, Guy Lafleur, and Willie Mays, among others. This is among the most unique Kaline (or anyone for that matter) items that have entered my collection.

And here's the back of some of the above items for those of you that would like to see more.

Before even getting to the "regular" cards this was a very generous pile of interesting stuff from Angus and I really appreciate it! But there was lots of cardboard to enjoy too:

Angus and I briefly discussed how he found himself starved for Topps cards in Canada the same way we Americans would describe ourselves when it came to O-Pee-Chee. Fortunately these days a diplomatic trade agreement that benefits residents of both countries is very easy to make! This scan leads off with the biggest star for me, Mark Fidrych, and his OPCs from 1978 and '80, and you'll see him again in the next scan. He's joined by '77 OPC Tigers Hiller, LeFlore, Oglivie, Ruhle, and "Le Grand Orange" Staub, plus a '72 of the late Joe Niekro. I didn't separate out the other stuff so an oddball Barry Larkin 1992 Investor's Journal single breaks things up a bit, but I still very much appreciate it!

Late SS Tom Veryzer joins his teammates from the '77 OPC stack, and a Ted Williams Pog card ends the "regular" stack of vertical cards, pairing up Detroit with their four-time World Series foe the Cubs. Chicago won the first two meetings in 1907 and '08, but Detroit got its revenge in 1935 and '45.

Next I'll do a quick summary of the horizontally-oriented cards you see. #1 is the third Fidrych of this post, also from 1977 OPC. While I still lack his Canadian RC, I now own his other appearance in that set that mirrors '77 Topps, which celebrates "The Bird" leading the AL (and both leagues, really) in ERA with a tiny 2.34. That season he put up a 19-9 record with a league-leading 24 complete games and crazy 9.6 bWAR, good enough for the AL Rookie of the Year and a second place Cy Young finish, but nowhere near the MVP. It was a season for the ages, even if it would precede a quick decline due to injuries.

The other horizontals were quite nice as well. Nolan Ryan was in his final season as a Met (and wouldn't crack 300 strikeouts until the following year with the Angels) so Lolich was able to take the K crown with 308. He'd go 2/3 on the pitching triple crown thanks to second place strikeout guy (301) Vida Blue's ridiculous 1.82 ERA (Lolich had 25 wins to Blue's 24). Mickey's teammate Joe Coleman was a distant third with 236.

Ending the all OPC run are team cards from 1973 and '76. What a cool look back at some vintage Canadian Tigers cards!

I also included some of the '90 Procards Bristol Tigers in this scan. The Virginia city hosted Detroit's Appalachian League (rookie ball) team from 1969-94, a rare long-term partnership for a minor league affiliate. Most of the players represented on these cards were in their first season with the club, and I picked two notables to go along with a Michigan PC guy and an occasional Tigers PC.

OF Danny Bautista played in parts of 12 MLB seasons, which is pretty solid, though most of those were away from Detroit (including the Series-winning '01 Diamondbacks). Late pitcher Jose Lima is definitely better known for a pretty good 13-year career mostly spent in Detroit and Houston.

Meanwhile, pitcher Greg Haeger's card was on my wantlist as one of just seven made of the Michigan alum, and it became my first in his collection, making this set an even better addition for me! And lastly we have 1B Tony Clark, the 1990 #2 overall pick, who played pretty well for the franchise and over his 15 years in the league. He's been head of the MLB Players Association for more than a decade so he's done quite well for himself.

The last of the baseball includes a couple oddballs and lots of stickers. Travis Fryman makes another cameo (or two) on Sports Collectors Digest and Baseball Cards Magazine inserts from '92 and '93, respectively, calling back to Topps designs from 1974 and 1968. I think cards inserted into magazines are great and loved getting a couple here.

There's also a stickerpalooza starring Tigers Fred Lynn and Jack Morris plus big four PC guy Cal Ripken Jr., and what's fun about these is that they're all Canadian versions. That goes for the Panini stickers, which is everything but the first Ripken, and that exact one which was produced by OPC.

A nice baseball haul to be sure, and we're not nearly done with this post yet!

Angus is a Browns fan so of course he knows football, especially when it comes to his favorite team. I'm sure he had dupes of the two Braylon Edwards cards he brought for me, one of which is 2009 Donruss Classics jersey numbered /299 on the back, which comes with a swatch in the color of, well, what else? That's my 97th hit of the former star WR.

Current Colts DE Kwity Paye doubles up Braylon with four additions from Panini Playbook and Prizm, a wacky Wild Card Alumination, and just my fifth signature of the seeker of sacks, this one out of 2021 Aspire, a SAGE brand. It may be airbrushed but we all know what team he's repping there!

And last up is a really nice pair of autos of defensive back Ambry Thomas, a Wolverine from 2017-19 who played in 42 games between 2021-23 for the Niners and has most recently been found on Philly's practice squad. Panini Contenders Draft Picks is a boon to a college collector like myself and I really enjoy the ticket motif plus the college action photos on the base and Red parallels you see above. Also, Ambry has a pretty nice signature even if he abbreviates his first name. My hit count for Thomas tripled thanks to this beautiful pair from Angus.

If you've read this far, congrats, you've made it to the final scan! I suppose they'd let Angus out of Canada no matter what, but could he really return home if he hadn't brought some hockey cards to a hoser across the border? No way!

First we have a fantastic pair of cards starring Wings HOFers Gordie Howe and Norm Ullman. Those came from a 1988-89 set called Esso NHL All-Star Collection. They're just a bit smaller than a standard card and I have to say I really like the design, which is very simple allowing for more attention to the classic photos.

Detroit legend Steve Yzerman is up next and three of the four items are brought to you by Kraft Dinner, one of the most Canadian things I can think of. The fun food issues you see above came out in 89-90 and 90-91. Lastly, The Captain appears on a more mainstream card: 1994-95 Finest, the first year that brand made it on the ice.

And lastly we have a pair that I think Angus was pretty excited about since they're Canadian stickers of Wolverines I collect. Debol has all of 6 cards listed on TCDb and his '79 Panini sticker is just the second I know have for his collection. Shand doubles him up with 12 to his name, and the former Flame now claims three items in my Michigan Hockey collection.

Angus, once again I want to say thank you for making the time to cross the border both ways to hang out at the show, and above and beyond that, for bringing me so much cool stuff that it took me this long to show it off! I'm definitely looking forward to scheduling another show with you (and potentially others like Night Owl) and maybe getting out to a Blue Jays game as well. Until then, it's a pleasure trading with you and I'll try to build up some good Browns to send your way.

I'll be back soon with November trade package #3!

9/1 and 9/16/23 show reports: Social September

It's showtime! With October's even just a couple days away I thought I should get around to recapping the two I hit up last month.

First up was the usual monthly trip to Taylor on the first of September. With Michigan Football due to open its season the following day I made sure to take Friday off so I could head east and take my time. It's been long enough that I can't remember the exact breakdown but I do know I scored LOTS of dime cards and then a few in the $1 and $2 categories for a total of $40 spent.

I'll get the usual disclaimer out of the way that much of what I picked up is destined for trade packages, but first we'll start with the available trade bait, almost all of which hails from the dime box. When you're like me and you see stacks of numbered cards for $0.10 you don't put 'em back in the box! As always, please claim anything you'd like in a comment below, via email, or on TCDb.

All of these are numbered and all are available as of my posting this.

The Johnson jersey set me back a buck. Most everything else is numbered besides the Butler and Young in the upper-right. Palmer is pending on TCDb.

Here the Westbrook/Galloway, Harrison, and Housh are spoken for or pending.

McKenzie and Rowe are pending a TCDb transaction, everything else is still up for grabs.

Last one! D. Thomas and Ricky Williams are gone.

As for my keepers this time, it was a good mix of baseball, basketball, and football dimes:

Dingler is an interesting catching prospect for the Tigers even if he IS a Buckeye. Big Daddy and Hammerin' Hank show the evolution of Diamond Kings from the early 90s to today. I also went 90s/recent with a couple cool Gwynns. The Palmer First Day Issue was a huge find for me in a dime box. The Diamond Kings inserts like the Ripken you see tend to look ridiculous to me as the players are depicted in an old-timey fashion, but hey, new Cal! And Rogers is the Tigers' catcher of today, doing a solid job as the only player of any value Detroit kept from its deals of players such as Verlander and J.D. Martinez.

While I don't tend to go out of my way for Scherzers I won't turn down some fun ones for a dime each. Logoless or not, old action shots of '84 Tigers like Tram are great! Gallery offers a masterpiece of an image of pitching Maestro Verlander. Pudge and Yadi make for a pretty good pair though the latter's HOF case is much less obvious number-wise, though his many accolades certainly help.

On the court side of things, we go way back to current UM coach Juwan Howard's rookie year, and I  join the UM community in wishing him the best on his recovery from heart surgery. Current guy Caris LeVert looks great on a Red Cracked Ice Prizm, one of the parallels I can actually ID without help.

The football bunch opens with this sweet five pack of '22 Donruss Premium Press Proofs. They're not the numbered Gold versions but they still look terrific in hand, and a stack of them has a pretty impressive heft to it. I was thrilled to find this quintet of Wolverines including Collins, who's finally benefitting from a functional QB in Houston, and Gary and Paye, who are making noise on the defensive side of the ball.

Clark's still a jackass but that Red Score parallel looks good with his Chiefs uni. Collins has popped up a good number of times in those dime boxes recently, much to my benefit, and that acetate Playoff card looks awesome. Like Clark's card, I couldn't have asked for a better Prizm parallel color for Graham. Haskins just had his aggravated assault charge from earlier this year dropped, but he still has plenty to do to repair the rep he damaged. The SAGE card of him does look excellent short of lacking UM's iconic wings that were removed from the helmet. Jabrill was a serious Heisman contender thanks to his do-everything skillset, and I'm glad he's moved on from the disgraceful Giants franchise. He's actually a teammate of the final guy here, Josh Uche (Michigan uni card!), who's got 2.0 sacks in four games this year after piling up 11.5 in 2022.

That's it for Taylor for September, but I wasn't done because buddy of the blog Jeff and his cousin Sluggo (Kevin) were heading up to Kalamazoo on Saturday, the 16th for one of the many shows they do in the northern Indiana/part-of-Michigan-ish area. My previous experience with them earlier this year in Lansing was a very positive one, despite a super rainy day plus it being, you know, Lansing, and it's not like they're in reasonable driving distance from me very often, so I happily made the effort to drive a bit more than an hour and a half west. It also doesn't hurt that fellow buddy of the blog John and his wife would be driving down from nearby Portage. A chance to see that many collecting friends in person? I couldn't miss it! (Also, Michigan would be playing later that evening so I had all day to kill.)

You may have already seen this image recently but that's Jeff, John, me, and Kevin in a picture snapped by John's wife just before we all left. When I say we all had a great time talking cards and baseball for a while, I mean it, and I think you can tell here.

Speaking of John, he brought along a few cards for me, all of which I'm happily adding to a couple PCs:

Despite three of these being some cool Ripkens, my favorite is easily the Fleer/SI Gwynn insert, definitely the "90s inserts rule!" card of the day. Thanks, John!

So I enjoyed talking to the guys while flipping through the $3 and $5 boxes and 2/$1 cards (all sorted by team!) and $10 and up stuff. In the end I put together a stack I was happy with and Jeff gave me a price, then Kevin lowered it a bit based on some Braves stuff I brought him in trade. My total ended up being a very reasonable $50, and some nice cards are heading for trade packages soon!

I also kept these two for myself:

The Stadium Club Gwynn insert (second place for "90s inserts rule!" today) looked too cool to pass up from the $0.50 box. And the Funch jersey, which is bordering on prime/patch territory, was $3, I believe. I was a bit surprised that it got past Jeff's hands, but in the end it worked out because I already had a copy I'd mis-IDed on TCDb, so I corrected that and ended up with an upgrade, and Jeff gets his own copy on my dime!

Thanks again to Jeff and Kevin for another outstanding show at one of the most well-run operations I've seen, and to John and his wife for hanging out and making it a great time as well. If any of you are ever in their area, there's absolutely zero reason not to go see Sluggo's Sports Cards at one of their many shows.

As I mentioned I'll be heading back to Taylor on Friday but before then I may try to recap a couple Facebook-related purchases that left me with a lot of misc. trade bait, though some will surely result from the show as well. Either way, expect double-digit trade packages to be heading out as soon as early next week!

12/28/19 card show report: 90s inserts rule at the end of 2019

As I mentioned in my last post covering my in-person trade with Paul, we hit up his (extremely) nearby show in Troy on the last Saturday in December, marking the second time in 2019 that I got to two shows in a month.  That ended up putting me over $200 in card spending for the month, the only time that happened last year, though I came within $1 on two other occasions.  There was plenty of good reason for that, though:  besides the two shows I finished up my COMC purchasing for my Christmas Cards.

Anyway, Paul made sure it was worth the trip for me in a few ways, starting with that trade.  Plus, as I also mentioned in that last post, we got to meet up with Chuck (C2Cigars) from TCDB, which was really cool.

He brought a nice little stack of TCDB customs I'd seen around the site, and I happily took an autographed version of the one you see above.  It's a nice reminder of getting to meet one of the nicer guys on the site, and I hope some of you on TCDB trade with him eventually.  He was nice enough to bring me something straight off my wantlist:  a 1957 Topps RC of former UM football player Lou Baldacci.  A terrific addition to my vintage and RC collections, it's my first of the FB/QB/HB/PK, which isn't surprising since he has all of three cards to his name--this one and a couple reprint versions Topps did in 1994.  It gives me a completed run on my Michigan Football RC project checklist from 1955-'94, a string of 78 players.  Thanks, Chuck!

After the meetup I hit up one of Paul's favorite sellers, a guy who's usually at Taylor, though I tend to spend my money there on my favorite dude's tables.  I believe I ended up with $10 worth of quarter cards, including a nice bunch of $0.25 hockey autos that might make for good trade bait.

Then we headed over to the table of a guy I hadn't met before.  Paul was nice enough to alert us to his crazy deals, and after talking to him he sounded like a guy having fun and just wanting to sell stuff at ridiculously low prices to people who'd appreciate it.  He didn't seem to be aware of the value of current stars and was checking a Beckett or some other price guide, generally in favor of the buyer.

I dropped $38 at his table on a few things for my self and some pretty nice trade bait, some of which will go out eventually, plus a few cards for Paul as well--call it a finder's fee!  Here's the stuff I took home with me:

The "90s inserts rule" tag portion of the post covers these two fun inserts from that era.  Mr. Padre's is a '96 Denny's Holograms Grand Slam Artist's Proof, which was fun since I didn't realize Pinnacle inserted those into the packs found at the restaurant known for its food being garbage.  It's Gwynn on a hologram insert made in the 90s so it's 100% gold to me.

Joining him is Ripken on a shiny (not that you can tell from the scan) chase card from '97 Circa called Icons.  In fact, it's funny looking at the image in this post and then down at the actual card with its reflective rainbow foil front.  Cal was indeed an icon of his era and the back of this surprisingly thin card lauds him for his professionalism during "the most celebrated baseball feat in recent history.  That's great, but I was already sold on 90s insert+Cal+shiny!

Next up we have a couple graded rookie year cards of Michigan QB Brian Griese.  Besides the fact that my opinion of grading couldn't get much lower, I just felt like it would be more fun to crack these and see them up-close, so that's exactly what I did, and grouped them with my other football pickup from the guy:

Fellow QB Todd Collins looks awesome on his own rookie year insert, an acetate die-cut 1995 Playoff Contenders chase card called Rookie Kickoff.  Reread that sentence and then try coming up with a scenario where that doesn't come home with me!  And now we get a better look at the Griese cards from '98.  Up top is a Finest Refractor from that year, and despite the lack of film it hasn't been peeled--it's the rarer No-Protectors version!  Fortunately I didn't have to take the grading company's word for it as these are easy to identify with one trait:  the No-Protectors have the same Refractory look on the back.  Please allow me to demonstrate with something that took enough effort that I'd better get a comment from Gavin:

Shiiiiiiny!  That pairs nicely with Griese's '98 SPx Finite RC (#1535/1998), which was a bit too reflectively to scan nicely.  With that one out of the way I'm short just six of his 39 first-years I'm chasing.  Plus I got to celebrate yet another milestone in 2019 by landing my 200th card of the '97 National Champ.  Woohoo!

This guy also had a binder full of completed and near done baseball and football insert and relic sets.  This Amani Toomer autograph is just my second signature of the former Giants WR, and it hails from 2000 Playoff Prestige's Team Checklists set.  It looks like the last 30 of them were signed, and that includes fellow Wolverines Elvis Grbac and Tyrone Wheatley, the latter of which I also own.  One of the reasons I spent a lot of time digging through this seller's cards is that I first asked him for a price on this one and he wanted $2.  Sir, you have my interest!

Last up from this seller was a very appropriate color for a parallel of a former Wolverine star.  Here's a beautiful Blue version of Marty Turco's 2003-04 O-Pee-Chee base, numbered up front 432/500.  As usual I'll happily laud Topps when they deserve it, and I'd argue that they knocked this one out of the park (though I'm not surprised since they were still putting effort into their releases back then).

On the way out I made sure to stop by the tables of a guy who always has a huge variety of BCW supplies and some miscellaneous other stuff, because he was asking $3 for opened factory sets of 1990 Topps.  That worked for me since the set definitely doesn't warrant paying shipping, which costs more than the worth of the set.

I had most of my PC guys' cards from this one (though not all, which I'll get to in a second!), but scoring the complete set filled a nice gap in my collection:  I now own complete Topps flagship sets from 1984-2010, a run I'm fairly proud of.  Plus I had plenty of fun getting this set all sorted and in order (they didn't ship that way, I believe) as that gave me a chance to take a closer look at all of the cards.

And, as I alluded to a minute ago, I did end up with a few new additions:  two of Tony Gwynn's issues--All-Star and regular--and one of Ripken, also the All-Star subset.

I'd call landing this much stuff at a show that hasn't had much for me in the past an unqualified success and definitely a great way to end 2019.  Many thanks to Chuck and Paul for a fun meetup!

As far as shows go I did get to Taylor this month but haven't decided what order I'm going to cover my in-hand stuff, so we'll see when I get to that.  In the meantime, here's to another great year of shows and trading!

2019 trade package #41: Scribbled Ink

My final trade cards of 2019 came courtesy of buddy of the blog and fellow Michigander (for a bit longer!) Paul of Scribbled Ink.  He's a busy dad so I try to meet up with him now and then if we get the chance, and as luck had it we were both available for his monthly neighborhood show in Troy on the last Saturday of December.  I don't tend to enjoy that show as much as the one I frequent in Taylor, though this one ended up working out quite well.  More on that soon!

Anyway, Paul let me know that fellow TCDBer C2Cigars would be in town and was interested in a meetup, which sounded like fun to me.  He was a cool guy and we all swapped a few cards while hanging out at the show for a while.

On a related note, Paul brought a box of stuff for me, and out of that big pile I ended up with a nice chunk of new cards for my PCs.  (I'm trying something a bit different tonight by only scanning the new stuff instead of everything, and we'll see what I do in the future.)

We'll start with a few 2019 Topps Tigers.  Greene (the only Update example here) was traded to the Braves, of course, and utility guy Rodriguez went to Milwaukee on waivers, but the other two seem to be ticketed for a good amount of playing time in 2020.  I think I've mentioned this once or twice before but I got to see Lugo play with Single-A Lansing a few years ago when he was in Toronto's system; He then got flipped to Arizona before heading to Detroit in the J.D. Martinez deal.

Pretty much everything else was baseball PC stuff.  Before I show off the spoils I wanted to demonstrate the composition of this box.  The pile on the left is all Jim Abbott cards while the one on the right is everything else!  I did a count and came up with 80 total Abbotts, 48 of which were unique, and I needed five of those, which means Jeff's getting a bunch of new cards of one of his favorites!

One of the words of the day is definitely "oddballs," and that's a good word when it comes to sending cards to me because there's always a high likelihood that I don't have one you're sending me.  Four of Abbott's cards here fall into that category, including some unlicensed issues and a '92 U.S. Playing Cards four of spades.  Even the more mainstream card is a bit odd--a '92 Studio Preview.  I happen to think preview cards are lots of fun to collect too, and my collection of those is also fairly small.  By the way, there were some really nice Abbotts in the dupes pile, so I want to make sure to give Paul credit for those as well.

The letter "G" is a big one today as well.  One Grandy isn't "too many" but it's a great place to start, and this Orange Refractor from 2012 now has a happy home with me.  Griffey cards from '96 Summit (co-starring Johnny "Noodle Arm" Damon) and 2019 Topps Perennial All-Stars are also very welcome, especially since they push his collection over the 900 mark to 901, allowing him to join Ripken in that very exclusive club in my collection!  A nice little run of Gwynn--the player who got the most new cards this time--follows, and that begins with an odd-ish boxed set Fleer card from '86.

Again, I give lots of credit to Paul for sending some super nice Gwynn cards that I obviously liked since I'd picked up a number of them myself.  This run of five (with more below) starts with another unlicensed item, then jumps ahead to the next couple of decades.  The UD Heroes card actually came out of Prospect Premieres in 2002, which might explain why it looks so different compared to that name's usual design.  And I love the throwback to Donruss's Heritage Collection on Panini's beautiful Diamond Kings card from 2017.

Supercollection guy Rich Hill would appear here but both his items were dupes; That's still worth mentioning since Paul smartly tossed them my way in hopes of feeding my favorite PC.  I can generally find good homes for those anyway.  Instead, how about a super cool Pacific Barry Larkin card, 2000's Invincible, which, as a reminder, is a base card!  Man do I miss Pacific.  Paul certainly didn't miss when he managed to hit my Clayton Richard wantlist twice:  2018 Topps Big League's Blue parallel and 2019 Topps Update.  Clayton's made a decent number of Topps appearances in the last few years for a lower tier pitcher so there's still plenty I need.

I'll include the last card from that scan in this group, which includes four of the packages five many Verlanders!  The Chrome 2019 Topps 150 card above has a Refractor finish while the one that follows it is an X-Fractor from the base product.  Topps Fire isn't really high on my list but of the Gold Mint and Orange (#108/299) parallels above, the latter looks pretty sharp and I do like that it's numbered.

The horizontal cards formed a nice group of eight, and it starts with more winning with Gwynn.  '94 Select and '96 Collector's Choice (with Edgar!) take me back to the early years of my teens when I was collecting a bit, but the UD3 and Ionix cards from a bit later really hit home with memories of some of my prime collecting years before I took a bit of a break in college.

And again, props to Paul for hitting a couple of my slightly more obscure PCs.  Two-sport star Henson gets his 59th card, and and awesome one too, from back when Refractors really meant something and didn't have like 80 versions.  His 2003 Topps Chrome Gold Refractor has that big fat serial numbering (#062/449) that brings back fond memories of collecting in the first half of that decade.  And he also surprised me with a 2002 card of Putz I needed from that year's Piece of History product (#793/950), my 199th checklisted card out of 217 overall.  Well done!

Closing things out here, Cal makes one appearance as a co-star on a 2019 Topps Historic Through-Lines insert with Astros star Carlos Correa.  Baseball-Reference finds that the latter's age 22 season, 2017, was Ripken-esque, plus there's the card's point that both were AL rookies of the year.  And then there's one last Verlander, another appearance from 2019 Topps Update.  Not only can I credit Paul for the 900th Griffey I'm posting, but he's also responsible for JV #400!  As with Junior he's now one card over that mark.  Quite the exciting trade package, no?

Well we're not quite done yet.  "Bipped with Sabos" is your new favorite band name that you're gonna steal, and in my case I laughed at seeing these 90s Topps second-years of Spuds because of a purchase I made that that day's show.  Anyone need this card in quantities ranging from 1-12?

The final baseball item is a graded copy of Alan Trammell's '84 Topps Rub Downs oddball issue.  I already had a regular copy but Paul pointed out that this one got an '84 grade, so it'll be fun keeping it this way.  Until I crack it, trim it, and resubmit it under the name "Vary Gee, sports card influencer" and it comes back as a 110.  By the way, SGC bills itself as "THE MOST TRUSTED GRADING & AUTHENTICATION SERVICE IN THE INDUSTRY," which is like Curt Schilling calling himself the most trusted athlete in a room with Aaron Hernandez, Ray Rice, and Pete Rose.  Good luck with that.  Anyway, cool item!

And at last, the final item in the box was this Jordan Poole 2019-20 Prizm Draft Prizm parallel, my first of a guy who 1) hit this amazing buzzer-beater in 2018 to send Michigan to the Sweet 16 on the way to an appearance in the title game,

and 2) is not Jordan Peele, the hilarious actor and brilliant writer/director of Get Out.  I'm very happy to begin his collection with a college card.

Paul, thanks again for all of this and so much more!  I'm looking forward to more trades and hopefully a couple games and shows before you head to the northeast.

With my 2019 trade packages wrapped up I'm planning on covering the aforementioned late December show next, then I'll decide if I want to finish up 2019 with my COMC loot before moving on to my first show of 2020, trade package (a box!) #1 from this year, and my first buy on eBay.  Stay tuned!