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!

1/2/26 card show report: jumping back in in January

Tonight I'm back with my first show recap of the year, which was incidentally my first card spending of 2026. The first day of January's event was Friday, the 2nd, and I took that day off of work because, why wouldn't I?

I spent a pretty solid total of $90, with most of that going to my favorite seller, and a few bucks at a different table I've been to a few times. More on that later.

First up is some trade bait. I've got tons of relics and autos available on my TCDb sale/trade list, but these were cheap enough--generally $2 or $1 or less--that I decided to add them.

Baseball:

Football:

You know the drill: claim 'em if you want 'em!

As for my keepers, they had a bit of a 90s bias to them:

The Rainbow parallel of Criswell is obviously newer, but otherwise, the gang's all here! Yes, it's the quartet of Griffey, Gwynn, Maddux, and Ripken, though Maddux's cards are a tad newer. With the "90s inserts rule" tag in full effect once again, we'll begin with Griffey's inserts. The first is from 1997 Pinnacle XPress and is called "Far and Away." The other is one of my all-time favorites from back when Topps actually tried, and it's called "Clout Nine." That's a hell of a squad right there.

The lone Gwynn is actually a promo for one of Fleer's typically excellent Ultra inserts: an acetate 1996 chase card called "Season Crowns." Yes, this one looks even better in-person.

Mad Dog gets a new pair of parallels from last year's Donruss product, the first of which is one of a ton of Optic versions.

Lastly, there's three new Ripkens. The first is actually one of two cards you'll see that came from a purchase from the other seller I mentioned. I previously noted buying from them when I went for a second trip to the November show with Angus and found some cool stuff in their $1 or 6/$5 bin stuffed with miscellany. One of the things I found this time was a small package of 1991 Stadium Club Members Only cards, which I broke up to keep the pair I wanted then trade the rest.

The two beautiful inserts you see here are from a single-card 1996 Pinnacle offering called "Cal Ripken Jr. Tribute," a shiny and relatively tough 1:150 pack pull, plus 1998 Ultra's "Notables." I love anything that highlights Ripken's streak and that Pinnacle issue is flat out beautiful.

The final Ripken is an Elite Series insert from the previously mentioned '25 Donruss product. You can tell it's not from the heyday of inserts because it's got a plain white border along with the lack of logos. No, it doesn't hold a candle to the insert that originally claimed the name, but nothing is these days, and it's still a new Cal I needed, so I'll take it.

The Fielder/Canseco was my other keeper from the '91 Stadium Club Members Only cards, and it serves to note that those two led the AL in homers that season, tied with 44. That came a year after Big Daddy put up 51 bombs to get Motown rocking.

The final baseball single here is a 2005 Topps Total RC of once-again relevant guy Justin Verlander. HEY, THAT'S THE GUY WHAT I COLLECT! Of course, I grabbed this first-year of the future HOFer before the Tigers boosted their rotation by having him come home. Sanchez, the pitcher he shares the card with, was one of three players flipped to the Yanks for Gary Sheffield in November of 2006, by the way.

The final single period is a lone football card: a Donruss Optic parallel of Jake "Money" Moody that's the right color for a former Wolverine. His NFL performance has unfortunately been anything but "money," which is the way it can go for specialists, unfortunately. I hope he lands on his feet (unintentional kicker pun?) next season.

Finally, I have two more items from the oddball stuff found at that second table:

Back at that November show I grabbed the first box (#s 1-12) of these 1990 Collect-a-Books, and I was excited to find the next dozen in the exact same place! Gwynn is my lone PC guy from this one but the player selection is excellent, even if the QA isn't (former Giants slugger Kevin Mitchell is missing an "L" in his last name). Will I find the last box to round out the trio? Stay tuned (spoiler alert: no luck in February so the search continues).

The last item tonight is the oddest of all: a 1982 McDonald's placemat starring four Tigers from that era: John Wockenfuss, Rick Leach, Chet Lemon, and Alan Trammell. This thing is relatively large--about 17"x11"--when it comes to the type of items I tend to store, but for less than a buck I couldn't pass it up. Who knows, maybe I'll even eventually find the other three!

Obviously February continues to fly by so this month's show has already come and gone. I'll recap that somewhat soon (maybe) but first need to thank a couple very cool bloggers for trade cards they sent me this month. I also have a couple TCDb PIFs in hand and my first eBay pickup of the year on the way.

Until then, I hope everyone's had as nice of a start to collecting in 2026 as I have!

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!

5/2/25 card show report: it's gonna be May

With another monthly show coming up in less than a week, tonight I'm recapping my Taylor Town trip from May.

Coming off a show where I'd spent a yearly low of just $55 I almost doubled my spending at a $100 even. Oddly enough I may have come home with fewer cards than April, but that was the result of an increase in quality at the expense of quantity. Hey, whatever works!

First up, I did snag a bit of trade bait to make available here, all of which is a bit higher end than normal:

The Lo Duca auto is numbered /227 while the patch is limited to 100 copies. I know I trade with a bunch of Dodgers collectors but decided I might prefer specific offers of items in trade for these as they're on the nicer side. Meanwhile, the jersey/auto of Stewart is /75, and the Sano manurelic isn't numbered.

Please claim any if you'd like to trade for them here or over on TCDb.

As for my keepers, I can also sum them up in a single scan:

#1 PC guy Cal gets yet another addition in the form of a '21 Topps 70 Years of Topps insert that imagines what he'd look like on the 1978 design. His fellow 2007 Hall of Fame inductee (I was there!) Tony Gwynn is the other baseball representative tonight in the form of a pair of early 2000s relics. The vertical card is from 2002 Topps 206 while its horizontal sibling hails from 2001 Upper Deck. The latter came out just four years after Gwynn was on the small checklist of the ballyhooed debut of UD's Game Jersey cards. It was certainly a different time back then! I now count 12 relics in my collection of Mr. Padre, and I'll happily spend in the $5-$10 range to continue growing that count.

As for football, the lone non-relic I picked up was a 2021 Absolute Blue Diamonds parallel of former UM RB Chris Evans. It's numbered /99 and the color was along the right lines so why not? Next to him we have my first two hits of 2023 National Champ QB J.J. McCarthy, both of which are Vikings jersey relics. On the left is a jersey from '24 Absolute's Rookie Force insert, and that's joined by the same year's Donruss Rookie Phenom Jerseys set. I hope he hits the ground running as Minnesota's QB this season after barely playing during last year's preseason due to injury. For now he becomes subject #265 in my football collection.

Last up is relic #5 (and 6th overall hit) of the electrifying Desmond Howard. He's pictured on the card above with the Lions but this one was actually made by Stadium Club in 2001 to celebrate his appearance earlier that year in the Pro Bowl as a KR for the NFC. That was his lone appearance in the NFL all-star game over his 11 seasons, and he was named to the team on the back of numbers like 457 punt return yards (including a career-high 95-yarder) and TD, plus 1401 kick return yards on 57 tries, including a season-high 70.

That's all for this time but I'll figure out what I'd like to show off next and try to get another post up soon. Until then, if anyone has any solutions for the reeling Tigers, please feel free to share them with the front office in Detroit!

2/28/25 card show report: Marching into spring

I've been slacking again, or more accurately, focusing on other stuff that's grabbed my interest. That said, I haven't forgotten blogging, even if I'm terrible at keeping up with it!

Some of you may recall that I combined my first two 2025 shows into a single post because both dates were in January. Similarly, the "March" show's first date (since I usually go on Fridays) was the final day of February. Confused? Don't worry--the April and May shows took place during their corresponding months.

Once again it's been far too long for me to remember the details on this one, but I spent an almost-yearly high of $115 (January's was $120), largely thanks to one high-end card that I'm sure will get posted on another blog soon enough. There was also the usual nice stack of trade bait destined for some of my favorite folks, plus this unassigned stuff up for grabs:

The baseball stuff was mostly very cheap autos with a stray relic thrown in.

As for football, I went for a couple eye-popping patches and a patch/auto, plus a couple other cheapies I'm hoping someone will take off my hands. You know the drill: claim 'em if you want 'em!

And then there's my small pile of keepers:

Fleer's Lumber Company went through a number of different looks over its multiple iterations, and the '94 version isn't at the top for me, but it's still a very good one. I love me some numbered 90s inserts (they rule!) of my favorite stars from the era, so that Black Diamond Maddux (#d /1500 on the back) was a nice find for me. Cal's '83 Donruss second-year is a rare 80s base of him I didn't own, not to mention a reminder of the year I was born. Pacific's 2632 insert honoring his streak is one I don't recall seeing before so I was glad to snag it. And the Leaf Clean Up Crew insert offers a look at a very powerful infield trio for Baltimore that included two of the guys in the 500 HR/3000 hit club plus the SS with the most career bombs at his position.

On the basketball side of things I once again came home with a Caris LeVert insert out of what I'm sure was a dime or quarter box, plus a nice Bulls red jersey swatch of Fab Five guy Jalen Rose, my fifth relic and seventh total hit of the 13-year NBAer.

I now have a couple more shows to recap but first will be returning to trade packages with two from the month of March, then a few other incoming items.

1/3 and 1/31/25 Show Reports: Two-fer '25

Because I attended both January's and February's shows during the first month of this year (as you can see in the title, February's began on 1/31, and I like to go on Fridays), you get a two-fer post tonight!

#1 for the year was Friday, January 3, and my spending sheet says I threw down a year-high $120, which made for a strong start.

First, here's a scan of some pretty nice trade bait:

I've tried to swing back into getting baseball fodder since it seems that's what many folks prefer, but the football stuff just ends up being more plentiful much of the time, both in quantity and quality. The printing plate you see (scanned sideways, for some reason) stars Bears QB bust Mitchell Trubisky, and it hails from 2019 Panini Luminance (well, it was inserted into that year's Plates & Patches, but you know what I mean). I can't remember the exact price but I snagged it for less than $10.

As always, if you see anything you like, just ask and we'll see what we can work out!

As for my keepers,

It doesn't get much better than some "90s inserts rule" goodness! Junior Griffey features on the front of a '96 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle insert, Gwynn looks spiffy on a '97 Skybox E-X2000 base, Maddux is the face of a 2003 Fleer Tradition mini insert, and Pudge is the back half of the catching duo on Pinnacle's '97 Team Pinnacle version. Oh, and Ripken completes the quartet with a new relic card courtesy of '24 Ginter. Sweet!

The well-traveled Burke was a fun throw-in on the basketball side of things, and I'm always up for a cool Donruss numbered parallel, especially the Season Stat Line cards.

And it may not look it, but that '92 Pro Line football card was one of the most significant pickups for me this time. I'll explain why in a moment as we look at some backs.

The Reds' Sanders was a reasonable pick opposite Griffey to rep the NL OF in '95, his lone All-Star campaign. Maddux's Black & White mini card has a nice bonus of being numbered /1936 as a throwback to that year's Goudey design. I don't know why I included the back of Cal's Ginter relic here, but I did. Piazza was a natural counterpart to Rodriguez on the other Team Pinnacle insert.

And then we have my second example of a signature card from 1992 Pro Line Portraits' Autograph sets. OL Greg Skrepenak suited up for the Wolverines before being drafted by the Raiders, and he'd play 68 NFL games over five seasons between them and the Jaguars. His brief career combined with that era of the hobby means his certified auto selection is extremely limited, and this is one I was hot after since it's his only NFL version. I love adding signatures of new players to my collection and was happy for Skrepenak to join the club!

Four weeks later I headed back east down 94 for another Friday show. This time I spent a slightly odd (but even) $76, and I don't recall how I ended up at that number. Despite shelling out less cash, I brought home even MORE trade bait, if fewer PC additions:

Trade bait scan 1 of 2 is just the vertical cards, and most everything here was in the $1-$2 range, I believe.

And the other nine were of the horizontal variety. Lots more football, as you can see (and hopefully I'll get those sent out in TCDb deals at some point) with a pair of baseball relics. Want any? Please ask!

As for my keepers:

We'll start off this small assortment with another "90s inserts rule" reference. I don't know for sure if 1998 was my favorite year for Topps inserts, but after dragging their feet long enough to get way behind the likes of Pacific, Pinnacle, Fleer, and UD, Topps produced some bangers late in the decade. '98's Clout Nine, Focal Point, Mystery Finest, and Clemente Reprints were highlights, and to that group I'd add Hall Bound, a 15-card die-cut set honoring players who were practically shoo-ins for Cooperstown. Of that total, Clemens, McGwire, Bonds, and Juan Gonzalez were the only misses, for obvious reasons. Cal, of course, had no such problems. And here I added the Chrome version of his entry in that beautiful set!

Next I rewound the clock a decade while picking up the Whitaker/Trammell double-play combo in Starting Lineup card form. I've had (open) figure/card pairings of the two (plus Matt Nokes) since the year I turned six and was in retrospect lucky to find them at Meijer or Toys R Us, and now I have the inaugural iteration's cardboard issues. It was great finding them together and I think they were just a buck or two each. Cool!

Lastly, I think I paid about the same amount to add relic cards of a couple more Wolverines that are joining the hits collection tonight. QB Joe Milton III is the guy that transferred to Tennessee after the wacky 2020 "season," and then the hapless Patriots spent a pick on him. He was just flipped to Dallas where he'll try to be Dak's backup, I guess. Meanwhile, NCAA champ WR Roman Wilson joins him, and though his post-college year in football proved to be a bust due to injury, I'm hoping to see him making some plays for the Steelers in a few months.

The three football additions you saw tonight put me at 260 unique subjects in my football hits collection, and that's a number I've proudly increased quite a bit the past few years.

Posting these show pickups lets me put some more cards away and continue to chip at my backlog. Next I plan on showing off my lone February trade package, one that was plenty big enough to get its own month!

2024 Facebook Marketplace purchases: a few Facebook finds

As I near the end of my 2024 pickups so I can move on to this year's stuff, here's a quick look at my last three Facebook Marketplace purchases from last year. It's been long enough that I think a few of the items got mixed in with each other, but those details aren't as important as just showing off the goods.

So in mid-August I made two stops in one day, which was pretty cool. Trip #1 was to a garage sale that was thankfully largely inside a garage on a day when it decided to be pretty rainy! I saw an intriguing bunch of sports stuff for sale and made my way over. Here's most of what I picked up for an even $40:

I'm not sure if this matted 12x16 piece was a stadium giveaway or from something else but I thought it looked extremely cool. The top photo includes lots of team greats, all of whom are among my favorites in the history of the franchise, plus it notes the Tigers' four World Series titles to-date. The bottom is made to look like an envelope with a cancelled Tigers stamp, and it celebrates Miggy's 2012/13 consecutive MVP wins. I'll get this framed and put up at some point.

This stained glass piece doesn't specifically say it's Tigers-related but that's the feeling it gives me anyway. It was just $0.50 and I ended up sending it to Paul.

Y'all know I trade with at least one Blue Jays fan so I spent $3 on this baggie full of Toronto postcards. I still have a ton left with larger quantities of Juan Guzman and Pat Hentgen, slightly fewer of Ed Sprague and Devon White, and a smaller stack of Al Leiters. If anyone would like one or more of these please let me know and I'll see what I can do

Here's the first of a few boxes of cards. There was easily more than $2 worth of '24 Heritage in this box and I've already put some of them to use in trades. I kept a couple for myself and still have over 100 of them available to help anyone who can use them (but no SPs).

This was a fun box to flip through since I love Sportflics! I don't think there were any I needed in the box, but for $3 I got some cards from the first four years of that product to include in trade packages.

This $2 box of '94 Stadium Club ended up being a bit of a bust since the vast majority were in bad condition (foil issues), which is a shame since there was a good number of the Golden Rainbow parallels to be found. I may separate the few good ones out but otherwise don't mind taking the loss of $2.

Once again I'd argue that I got more than $7 worth here. There were plenty of dupes but since these were new enough at the time I threw them up on TCDb where they remain available, and I'm sure I've used some in deals already. If you can use some non-SP base help, I have almost 400 total cards up for grabs.

And last but not least, the lone single I grabbed was this cool 2022 Absolute dual jersey of Mize and Skubal numbered /99. I think the cost was a bit more than $10 but I didn't hate the overpay, even for a relic, because I'm enjoying getting nicer stuff of Skubal, plus the swatches aren't your usual plain white napkins.

With that sale in my rear-view mirror I once again headed in the direction of Brighton to buy a four-row box of cards from the same guy that sold me this shoebox back in April. I talked him down to $60 for the box and happily flipped through it once I got home.

It's entirely possible that there were some keepers in here for me that mixed in with the images for the last purchase below, but either way, once again I easily got my money's worth in entertainment and trade bait. These were pretty much all baseball and football--my bread & butter--and were mainly from the past few years, filling in some holes in my trade bait.

I don't have anything specific to show off at this point but anything I didn't keep for myself or send out in a trade package likely ended up on my TCDb tradelist.

Finally, early in September I noted a guy selling some cards that lives not too far from my mom's place, and for the initial asking price he was offering a bunch of prospect autographs (generally busts from the 90s-2010s), so we made a plan to meet up at his house to look things over.

He ended up being very fair to work with and in the end I bought home this stuff for $120:

Quite a few of these cards were either autographs (as mentioned) or bulk RCs, though like I said, many were scrubs at this point. But for the cost of one or two of my show trips I got a lot of value!

Here's how things shook out in terms of baseball. The first row and a half are prospects, especially 2000s Bowman/Chrome and Topps Traded, plus Bowman Sterling and others. The rest of row 2 plus row 3 are generally other base, some in decently sized groups. Row 4 I believe is all inserts, with a big, big portion being Bowman Gold parallels, but there were some other fun ones as well. And everything in the last row is an autograph or jersey, with more of the former than the latter.

A chunk of these went out in trade packages and I think I traded a few on TCDb as well, but I still have a good amount on that site's tradelist. I'd say the most "significant" card I pulled was this one:

It's been a while since Castillo could be considered a prospect, but an autograph #d /5 isn't something you pull out of a bulk box every day!

Here's a look at the football stuff (with a stray hockey card or two):

These are broken down in rows as following: base RCs, 90s base (mostly Stadium Club and Zenith from 1997, I think), inserts (lots of parallels!), and hits. The group of autos was smaller but still quite useful to me.

And here are the singles I ended up keeping for myself, again with the caveat that I might have mixed in pickups from purchase number 2 above:

Lots of shininess and big names! I especially love the 90s stuff like the Press Proof of Fielder and the Griffeys.

More shiny, numbered, and big PC guys. The Refractor theme was strong in this box and I loved it.

A few more baseball including Two Many Verlanders and a HOF battery of horizontals.

1997 Zenith treated me very well in terms of needed Wolverines but I was surprised by how many nice Brady cards were available too.

Both '97 Zenith and Stadium Club look fantastic, and that A-Train insert (#d /1000 on the back) was the cherry on top.

Obviously Facebook can be very hit or miss when it comes to card deals (or anything else, really), but that makes me appreciate these successes even more. I'll be back at it this year seeing what I can score on the site in between shows, eBay purchases, and blogger & TCDb trades.

But before I get to the new year's collecting, I need to recap my 2024 COMC Black Friday pickups. Stay tuned for those!

2024 August-December card show reports: binging through five shows

Here's a show recap post for my five trips to Taylor in August through December last year because if I do one post for each at this point it may take me until March.

8/2/24:

My purchase-tracking spreadsheet says I dropped $80 at this one, so it was a pretty average show for me price-wise.

First up, some trade bait:

I believe both the A-Rod and Hoffman up top are gone but I think I may have everything else still.

My keepers:

Hooray, a new Granderson! Newer Gwynns are nice but how about some "90s inserts rule!" action for Maddux? Griffey and Ripken complete the quartet. By the way, Bowman's Best's Mirror Image was one of my favorites back then despite the fact that the prospects they featured often didn't work out.

Holo Griffey! A numbered Gwynn! I included the back of the Mirror Image insert plus the numbered Elite Teams insert of the Braves, who definitely lived up to that description. Speaking of the Bowman's Best card, this one was quite good as obviously Maddux and Moose are HOFers, but Colon also had a very nice career, and Wright even managed to last for 19 seasons!

Basketball ended up being the story of the day with a couple of the biggest cards of the haul hailing from that sport: an autograph of Caleb Houstan (my second), the guy who plays for Ann Arbor South (Orlando), plus a nice Lakers swatch of his teammate Mo Wagner (hit #4).

Football didn't get shut out, though, as I came home with both a numbered rookie-year Griese from SPx plus a new Funchess jersey relic (hit #32 for him).

9/6/24:

For September's show it looks like I upped my total spending to an even $100, and a good chunk of that must have gone towards items for trade packages based on what I have scanned to show here. That works for me, though, as I love using these shows as a source of cards to send out to my favorite trading buds.

As for cards that weren't ticketed for specific folks, here's what I grabbed:

What can I say? I'm a sucker for autographed manupatches, and I think those signed metal cards are too cool. I probably only spent a couple bucks on each of these anyway, and hopefully they'll find a good home before long, but I don't think I've had any bites for them on TCDb just yet.

My keepers:

It's always great when I can add rarer cards like Artist's Proofs to my PCs, including Palmer's. Pudge shares his '93 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle insert with another excellent if not HOF backstop, Darren Daulton. And I'm sorry that Gwynn's the one to get covered by the peel's sticker on '95 Donruss Dominators insert you see above--a favorite of mine, by the way--but I got this one to pair with a copy that I do have peeled, so now I have one of each to enjoy.

I scored a few more basketball items this time, and THJ was the highlight as I found three new cards for his collection, including a Panini Prizm auto that represents my sixth signature and 13th overall hit of the ex-Wolverine and current Pistons standout.

The football side of things was very offensive, but only in terms of the positions represented, because I was quite happy with my little haul. The Threads jersey of Braylon gives him 95 total hits, keeping him in 4th behind Henne, Manningham, and Long, though the race to be the second to 100 is anybody's game. I also found my second auto of TE Nick Eubanks on a red parallel of his Contenders Draft issue, and believe it or not, the one I already own isn't from the same product, but an entirely different one!

10/4/24:

October was a bit of an outlier as I spent just $55, but in thinking back to that day and looking over what I have here, I'm pretty sure I recall that being a day where my favorite seller had lowered some of his prices even more so I got a lot of bang for my buck.

The available trade bait:

I'm pretty sure each of the autographs/jerseys was just a buck, plus the numbered inserts and other 90s stuff were just too cool to pass up and try to get into someone else's collection.

Not a ton for me either this time, but a few cool items:

The Maddux, Ripken, and Pudge cards were all fun additions, plus I nabbed my first card of IF prospect Trey Sweeney, one of the guys that came over in the Jack Flaherty deal with the Dodgers. If he can help force Javy Baez off the roster then he'll forever be a legend in my mind. Meanwhile, the Manning ended up being a decent chunk of my purchase price, and if I'm being honest, probably an overpay, but I thought it was a very cool piece with huge swatches, a signature, and numbering to just 10 copies. I don't know what his future is with the Tigers but this is the kind of card I see myself keeping even if he moves on.

RBs Chris Evans and Hassan Haskins stole the show on the gridiron for this month, though defenders Rashan Gary and Chris Wormley also get in on the action with cool numbered cards.

11/1/24:

I spent $105 on this one and didn't come home with any up-for-grabs trade bait, but I believe I did score some nice items for trade and Christmas card packages. But better yet, I had a very nice day bringing home some cool hits for myself, much of which I think was in the $2-$5 range:

A jersey produced by Fleer's Ultra brand becomes relic #18 (and hit #19) for Mad dog. I'm the most excited about the Arrington/Henne dual because it's getting harder to find reasonably priced copies of cards for either that I need, and Henne's one of my favorite PC guys. Arrington gets his 56th hit and Henne keeps a secure grip on the top spot in the sport with his 145th(!).

I landed pairs of autos of the rest of the players. Butt's are from Panini's Absolute and XR, and the Michigan TE who was anything BUT booty cheeks in college jumps up to 13 hits. DT Mo Hurst started his career with Oakland as seen on signature cards from Luminance and Prizm, but he's since moved on to San Fran and then Cleveland. I now own seven hits of his, all signed like these. And lastly, DPJ finally made his hits collection debut with a couple Panini Chronicles autos that were parallels done in the Obsidian design. I believe the Purple is limited to 30 copies and the Orange is /25. While they remind me a bit of many recent Leaf designs, I'm relieved that they weren't made by that execrable manufacturer, and instead I've got two quality college uni cards of one of the most talented wideouts to pass through Ann Arbor recently.

12/6/24:

With the holiday approaching quickly in December I planned on throwing down more cash towards Christmas cards fodder and was quite successful. The $115 I spent was second only to February's $130 cost, and I think the results speak for themselves as you look over the various posts and Tweets mentioning some of the cool stuff I sent out.

Once again, no unassigned trade bait, but some very cool keepers:

My favorite vintage guy was around and I think $15 of my total went to him for this trio of super cool Freehan items. Those include a '65 Topps Hot-Iron Transfers, '70 Topps Super, and '73 Topps Candy Lids. I'm always on the lookout for new Freehan stuff because anything I don't have is something I'll treasure. That made these an exciting purchase for sure!

I believe everything else I got for myself from my favorite seller was from the cheaper boxes, so everything here was probably $1 at most, and more likely $0.25 or $0.50. Once again, the "90s inserts rule!" tag is in full effect, and you have to know I was loving it. Fun insert designs starring three of my favorite 90s heroes always make my day. By the way, I think Freehan and a Pacific card featuring in the same post is very apt since they each remain criminally underappreciated these days.

Well, that's the rest of 2024 in show recaps for me. I believe what's left for me to cover for last year at this point is COMC, eBay, Facebook, and something else really fun that I don't think I've teased yet. Once I can catch up on those I can get to some cool trades I've received this month, January and February's shows (I'm sure I won't have those all done by this Friday), and maybe more timely TCDb trade recaps.

You might even say I still have a whole lot to...show you! (Sorry.)