Another sweet trade! P-Town Tom hooking me up

I found another great trade partner in P-Town Tom from one of the best collecting blogs I have found; Eamus Catuli!  I sent him some Kerry Wood and Cubs cards and received a box full of Detroit treasures! Here is a very small sampling of the loaded box I was sent:

First some jumbos! I love these. I had the Freehan but this one is cut way better than the one I had.

I have kept an eye out for this card for a while now and didn't expect to get it in a trade. Its a masterpiece.

Remember the name. This dude is gonna be huge.

A Mr. Tiger I have never seen before.

My favorite card of all time!

Sweet, sweet Blastellanos relic!

 Just a very small sampling of a huge pile from a great trade!

My first local card shop in 20 years!

My 1st LCS buy. Not anything impressive for anyone else but its a start.

 The last time I had a card shop local to me I was 12 years old. It was a magical place I started frequenting as a child any time I could. It molded my passion for collecting cards.
Today, I was out running errands and saw a shop called GRAND SLAM SPORTS that I had seen when I searched for local shops. Most of the "card shops" around me are pawn shops or antique dealers with a handful of cards they know nothing about in a glass case next to some fake Rolex's. I am over the moon happy to find a real brick and mortar shop. I could have spent hours in it but had my tired 2 year old son with me so I spent a whole 5 minutes. I quickly spent $4 on 4 cards and left. I will return as soon as I can and hopefully spend some real time there and pick up some treasures.

Miguel Cabrera = Wallet bait for the Tigers

The Miggy 8X10 I received on accident.

There is some crazy shit on the internet. Recently, I found the craziest. The Detroit Tigers (bless their hearts) used to do run an autograph for donation deal on their website. In fact, the 2016 version is still posted on their homepage under the Detroit Tiger Foundation heading in the Community tab. I reached out to them to see if they still run this program they are promoting on their website and they did not respond. If you tried sending TTM requests to the Tigers in past years you used to receive your crap back with a donation form for this program in return. Whatever, I get it, it makes money for different foundations supposedly. Many of the names listed for autographs on the current page haven't been Tigers for a while.
Anyway, years ago I used this program to get a Miguel Cabrera autograph. It cost me $60 and I sent them an 8X10 of a picture I took of Miggy in 2006 and they sent me back a very clean looking autographed 8X10 but NOT my picture. So they either tossed mine in the trash for whatever reason or sent it to somebody else on accident. It pissed me off and I have never used the service for an autograph again.
Recently this has popped up on the Detroit Tigers site:

So now $250 might get your baseball card signed. Also, notice it does not say any money is going to charity. I guess if you can't win games and sell tickets you whore out your players. I am appalled at the very notion of this and am so disappointed in the team for it. I know most Tigers "fans" are 90% pessimists and always have something to bitch about but I haven't been on that band wagon until now. This is unbelievable. They couldn't even send me the right item back years ago and won't return an email and they expect anyone to cough up $250 when his signature will be $35 after he retires and does the trade show rounds?! I am so confused and mad at the Tigers for so many reasons this year its crazy. My neck is tired from shaking my head so long.

International Man of Mystery: Carlos Guillen (Donruss Fail)

Will the real Carlos Guillen please stand up? I am not sure whether its because the Tigers were terrible in '05 or that all baseball players look the same to Donruss but neither of these gentlemen is Carlos Guillen. It happens probably more often than we realize, players pictured erroneously displayed as someone else. Unless you scrutinize every card you look at you may never find one. Somehow I came across two picture errors of the same player from the same year who is being passed as two different players. You can't make this stuff up. I like to think that Carlos Guillen had something better to do on picture day so Omar Infante and Alex Sanchez covered for him by posing as him. I almost took the card on the left to have Infante sign it but I wasn't sure if he would be insulted by Donruss dissing him or thinking I didn't know his name. Infante should be well known while having a decent career between Atlanta and Detroit and he performed well during Spring Training for the Tig's this year. Sanchez was just another player on the horrible early Comerica Park Tiger teams.

"You've got the wrong guy!"

I was the typical Tiger fan when it came to Guillen; loved him when he hit and dreaded hearing his name when he wasn't. Overall, I liked to watch him hit and it seemed to me he hit well when he used a two-toned bat compared to an all black one. I may have been the only one to notice that or I may have made it up in my head.

Disappointed in my Disappointment: A TTMer's life.

 I finally made it to my receiving address to pick up any mail I had from the last 8 weeks. I received ZERO TTM returns in those 8 weeks. I have received 10/106 so far since spring training. Two of those I had to pay for from retired players and a few others were returned unsigned. I haven't had this bad of a lull before, is this normal? Should I be worried my mail isn't getting back to me? Is someone sniping my returns? As the title says, I am disappointed in how disappointed I am getting. TTM autos are a crap shoot at best and I should be so lucky to have anybody take the time to return my cards. It is very disheartening when I see guys posting returns from Cam Maybin and some others from TTM and I have sent to them and nothing has come back. Maybe spring training isn't a good time to write.

One of two bright spots for items I did receive was this JD Martinez 5x7 I dropped off at DC Sports to have signed. I was disappointed again to find they did not send it back to me in the top loader I provided and the card has a large crease toward the top. I contacted them and they have offered all my money back in store credit. Though it sucks my card was trashed a little, they made it right by me without having to bitch too much. I appreciate what they do and still have confidence they will treat my items well in the future as they have in the past.

The damage is obvious in person.

Anybody want me?

I also received this copy of The Show '17 for PS4. I won this in a texting sweepstakes at the Jack Morris signing I went to. I LOVE LOVE LOVE The Show and have every copy ever made and used to take the day off on release day to play all day. I do not however have a PS4 and there is not one on my horizon so if anyone wants this game and wants to trade some cards for it message me. I'll give you a great deal. It physically makes me sick looking at it and not being able to play it.

Miggy Trade Pick Up

Its been over a month since I last visited my parents to pick up any TTM's waiting for me. Here is a Cabrera card I received in a trade for some old Macfarlane figures.

Treasure: I found cards in our new house!

Its the dream isn't it? You come across a box of old priceless cards in an attic or inside a wall. All collectors play that scenario in their heads and dream of the day it happens. It happened to me!
I recently moved (one reason for no posts lately) to house across town and had to install all new appliances. When I removed the dishwasher I found a small box of cards behind it. It obviously has damaged and even if it had been mint these cards would be worthless but for a moment I was crazy excited. Then I examined the find to see it was only two basketball cards and two football cards stuck together in an NHL card box. It was fun for the moment. Found with the cards is what I am hoping is not a suicide note.