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.

Last cards of 2023

When I met up with Kevin before the show last weekend, he brought me a bunch of cards that he pulled from his sorting duties plus he picked up a collection. It gave me a milestone tonight, well, technically, last week. We'll go through the cards first.

I didn't know what these were but upon looking them up on TCDB, they are the 2005 Champions from Danbury Mint, they each came in plastic cases that I had to use scissors to free them from. I would have preferred to get some of the top names (4 of them are PC's) but they are still pretty cool.

A few oddball stuff from the earlier days of my collecting. The first 2 are from Coca-Cola, then Toys 'r' us. The bottom row is Denny's followed by a Fleer sticker back.

A couple of scans of newer cards as well. Rookies and stars, even an old coach. I didn't realize how many of those Chrome anniversary cards they put out for each team as I keep getting more and more of them. I have 235 of Tim Anderson, 154 of Lucas Giolito and 278 of Jose Abreu.

He also gave me a team card which I don't get too often anymore. I really need to pick up more of these Heritage team cards. I always forget about them until I see one.

Some more old school Strawberry's. A Fleer mini set and another Denny's Grand Slam of him. These 2 give me 159 of Darryl.

I also received a later Dwight Gooden. This gives me 164 cards of Doc K.

2 more of our now former closer. As I said, I keep getting these Chrome Platinum Anniversary cards. These 2 give me 39 cards of Liam. I hope he lands back on his feet.

Another Chrome Anniversary, this time of Eloy. This is my 212th card of Jimenez.

I'm not sure how I didn't have that Jim Abbott, I've probably skimmed right past hundereds of them doing my sorting and thought I already had it. It is my 288th card of him. You also see I did get 1 of my PC players from those card from Danbury Mint which I was happy to see. This is my 387th card of Buehrle.

I thought I had this one as well but it's apparently the silver parallel. I can't imagine how many parallels I went past before I used TCDB. This is my 127th card of our current coach.

2 more former Wolverines picked up. I have a bunch of Charles Woodson in the maize and blue because Panini pumps out a few a year. This is my 59th card of Woodson. I picked up another of Taco as well, this parallel is my 27th of him.

Another of PK, nice. I've picked up a few of him in the last month or so which is great. Another Chrome Platinum as well. This is my 763rd card of Konerko.

I told you at the beginning that I hit a milestone on my last pickups of last year. These 41 cards put me over 10,000 cards added to my collection in 2023. 10,016 to be exact. As I've said in previous posts, I've done that by spending less than half of what I did in 2022. I spent just over $1100 in 2023 as compared to just over $2100 to get just under 2400 cards in 2022. I would say it was definitely a byproduct of all the free cards I get from sorting.

As I've also said above, these were the last cards that I received in 2023, I logged them in (which is the day I consider them received) on New Years Eve day.

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.