Fun Saturday in KZoo

We set up in Kalamazoo on Saturday. The last time we set up there, John (John's Big League Blog) and Dennis (Too Many Verlanders) met up with us and bought some cards. KZoo is a little over an hour for us and around an hour and a half for Dennis and John lives there. Dennis and I traded some cards so we didn't have to pay postage.

First off, he contacted me about a Valient set on Facebook that he found. For those that don't know, the Valient set is the NIL set of the Michigan team. There are 110 cards in the set and I believe each player is represented and I believe they all get a cut from the set. They sell packs of the set and they aren't cheap, which is why I didn't have any. I don't think I would have normally dropped as much cash as I did on a set but we just won the National Championship with this team so I though if I was going to do it, I should do it on this team. It was a great price for the set so Dennis grabbed one for each of us and he brought it to the show.

These are what the cards look like and they are the 4 players that I already have PC's of. I'm sure there are a lot of other players that I'll have PC's of but I didn't feel like guessing so I'll just wait until I pull future cards of them then add them to their PC. That's cards 8 and 9 of Corum, 3 and 4 of Edwards and only my 2nd of Wilson. This is a really cool set and I'm glad I bought it and super happy that Dennis gave me the opportunity.

He also dropped a few other cards in the box with the set.

These 3 are Sox collection cards. 2 inserts and a color parallel. That's my 280th card of Abreu. The top 2 player never really grew on me in their terms with the White Sox.

This card is also a Sox collection card, but also a player collection. This Fisk insert surprised me because I've sorted a lot of A&G plus there is a bunch in the list stuff that I sort but I didn't have it yet. This is my 388th card of Fisk.

Dennis also hit me up with this Woodson and a couple of other guys who probably aren't any good. Ok, maybe good. I like the name of the insert, 3D with 3 top defensive players. This is my 60th card of Charles Woodson.

I did also buy 1 card while at the show, from Kevin. This Aqua of McCarthy earlier Bowman U. I wish it was the new Bowman U where they had a license because I hate when they make the helmet a solid color. This, and the other 2 at the top, are my 8th, 9th and 10th card of JJ.

It was a great show and a good time with some friends. Dennis also invited Jason and his wife who actually live just North of us. I believe Dennis met him on TCDB and trades with him. He's also the guy that made the Mike Hart jersey that Dennis gave me for Christmas. If you don't remember, here it is, along with the rest of us, including Kevin.

Christmas is coming, my stack is getting fat

As you probably know, Dennis is a very generous dude and for a little while now, he's been sending out Christmas packages. I've been lucky enough to be on his list for a number of years. We share a bunch of PC's so it's easy for us to pick stuff up for each other. I've got a box of stuff ready to go to him as well, I just got to get it to the post office later this week.

As per the usual, we'll start with the White Sox cards. These 4 all go to the Sox collection. The Reylo is the metallic winter. The Morel and McDowell are inserts and the Short is a purple refractor. The McDowell looked familiar but I didn't have it.

Just as the Reylo above was, this is the Metallic version as well. You can't really tell in either of the scans. This is my 228th card of Yoan.

Dennis sent me some of these Generation Now of Zimmy. These were the only 2 I needed to go along with the 19 that I already had. I also have 3 of the Chrome version. These 2 got me to a milestone though, I now have 400 cards of him.

One of our shared collections is Cal jr. I thought I already had this card as well, I was even thinking that I just added it not long ago but it turns out it was the Darryl Strawberry version of it. This Cal give me 975, not sure I'm going to make that 1k by the end of the year.

He even managed to hit my Vintage collection with this 1972 Topps leaders card. It is my 239th card from that set.

This was another card that I thought I had but I didn't. I do have the base version as this is a promo parallel which explains why I thought I had it. This is the 21st card of Tyrone Wheatley and being as he isn't a PC player, they are all in the Michigan uniforms.

I definitely like this card of our current Running Back. This is the International Trading Card Day card. I'm so glad Bowman can use logos now so they didn't screw with his helmet. This is my 5th card of hopefully many more in a pro uniform as well.

Now we get to the hit portion of the package.

First up, he sent me my 5th auto of Trey Burke. Out of those 5, this is the first one he put her jersey number on the auto. This is also the newest card I have of Burke so maybe this is the way he signs now. This card is my 60th card of Trey.

Funny story with this Funchess patch, Dennis came out to the Kalamazoo show (we'll be back there in January and May) and pulled a card just like this, only with a better patch, out of our boxes. A card I obviously didn't know was there. So he bought that and upgraded his and sent me the old one. It's still a cool patch even if you can barely see the other color. It's also numbered to /50. This is my 113th card of Devin.

Love seeing these 8 TK Legacy autographs as they are difficult to find around here, at least the Wolverine ones are. I see the Notre Dame ones all over. I even recognize a few of the names. He also added a Donovan Warren silver auto.

As always, a great package from Dennis of Too Many Verlanders fame. Thanks brother and I'll hopefully get you yours before Christmas.

New and Old PC's

On Saturday, we did the show in Niles but after the show, while unloading everything out of the car, Kevin gave me a stack of cards for me that he pulled while sorting. I went through them on Sunday morning and got them logged in so here we are.

We'll start with the Team collection cards.

Kevin doesn't save many base cards for me because I have so many but he does set aside parallels and inserts in case I need them. The Engal is the 150th Anniversary, the Danks is the Blue and the Bummer is the Gold.

Next up is Tier 3.

A lot of the cards he gave me were the next 2 players. He sent me 9 cards of Dwight Gooden. They boost me up to 156 which isn't bad considering I've only been collecting him for a few months.

He also gave me these 18 card of Strawberry, I prefer them in Mets uniforms but I guess these will do. I started this collection the same time as Gooden and this one is up to 152 cards so just below him.

On to Tier 2.

He also added 3 parallels of Vaughn. The Pink Holo, the Ice Holo and the Red parallel of Stadium Club with the usual great photography.

Lastly, the Tier 2 Michigan collection.

Another Pink Holo and another Red Stadium Club. These 2 give me 76 of Cronenworth, Jake is one of the players that Kevin knows went to Michigan. I don't even want to think about how many players he probably passes up that I could use.

At least he knows the guys when they have the Maize and Blue on. He gave me this Ronnie Bell and Kwity Paye. It is my 5th card of Bell and my 39th of Paye.

These were great to see just before we stomped State again. Gotta love NIL, just for the cards. This is my 5th card of JJ and my 4th of Blake.

This is my 44th card of Woodson. It's a pretty slick looking card too. I started his collection at the same time I started the Strawberry and Gooden collections.

Now we can get to a couple of new PC's.

These are my first 2 cards of our former TE, Luke Schoonmaker and they both got to keep their helmets clean instead of taking off the wings. He is currently with the Cowboys so he's been getting more cards that I will need to locate.

This is also my 1st card of DJ Turner but I don't believe he's currently on a team so this will probably be one of my PC's that doesn't get very large.

I have one more pickup video for some stuff that I came home with from the show so stay tuned.

Century Mark

I said yesterday that I was starting my next round of posts. I have a few new PC's in this round, mainly thanks to Bowman U but I figured I'd hit those firsts today and get them out the way. Plus, one of them has a birthday coming up and I don't want the birthday post to show the card before I actually show it off so here we go, all in one post.

My first card of Livers who went pro in the 2021 draft. I showed it first because it's in a pro jersey. I liked him in the Maize and Blue, he always seemed to have fun and played hard. I picked these up from Sluggo.

With the NIL (Name Image Likeness) we now get cards of players still in college and that's where these come in of our back up (last year) QB. He's fighting for the starting job and a lot of people want him to have it. I posted these next because while they have the Maize and Blue, they are unlicensed. I got these 2 McCarthy's from Sluggo as well.

More Bowman U. This one of our starting RB is the pink parallel so it's shiny. We're expecting a lot out of him this year. This also came from Sluggo.

I was really excited when I saw Bowman U but I was disappointed because I didn't think about them having a license. I'm not sure if Fanatics has it yet or not but if they don't, I hope they can get it.

I saved the licensed Michigan card last. Fred brought me this card of Steven Hajjar. I have searched a little for some of his cards but hadn't come across any so it was nice to get one to start his collection. He's in the Twins organization so if he makes it to the pros, I'll get to see him play at least.

So add 4 more PC's to the list. These 4 players give me 103 player collections started. On top of the 2 teams I collect and the vintage collection. Boy has my collection gone a long way from the couple PC's I started with.