A Collection Handed Down: The Greatest Gift Ever Bestowed

I believe I mentioned in an earlier post about visiting my wife's grandparents and looking through a card binder with her Papa. I guess he really must have enjoyed sharing his cards with me because he sent me a full binder he called his "money book." I am in shock and speechless about the whole thing. Ever since I started collecting even as a kid I pictured being able to hand down my collection to my kids or grand kids. I never expected to be on the receiving end of such a transaction. The binder contains Detroit Tigers yearbooks, 8x10's, and pages of vintage cards. I will share some of it on this post. The binder will then be locked up in my safe and only pulled out for me and my son to flip through when we are feeling nostalgic or I have to bait him into the hobby when hes a bit older. He will ultimately end up with the binder in its current condition when he is old enough to appreciate it so probably 25 years from now. Here is a small, tiny, barely illustrating the greatness peek into the "money binder."

  Jim Northrup. Sweet windbreaker!

Mike Henneman with old Tiger Stadium in the background.

Unmistakable Walt Terrell's mustache.

Mr. Tiger

My first Pete Rose piece.

This masterpiece may be slipped out of the binder to be certified and maybe framed to protect it.

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Just one of the many ICONIC cards.

These minis are really cool.

I don't know why Topps seems to celebrate their ugly '87 wood trim set so often with reprints when the 1972 set is so amazing to look at.

A couple great managers in their early years.

Quick Trip to the LCS; Cody Bellinger and Dansby Swanson

I was finally able to take my brother to my LCS for the first time. We are really putting a hurting on their hobby packs. I pulled that Judge redemption a while back and this time my brother had the luck. I teased him into buying some Heritage telling him that I don't even have a Cody Bellinger card yet. He actually pulled one...a numbered one.

/999

He bought some other packs including a Donruss that contained this gem...

He crushed it with hobby packs. I had only $5 to throw away so I bought from a basket that had old junk packs 7 packs for $5. I got some really good stuff including this Jeter I already had but its a very interesting card.

I also found this Red Wings team set in the bin. Bad scan but love the Metal:

I have been SLOWLY updating my trade bait page so check it out. Here are just a few cards I added today some oddball Griffey for those JR. collectors and a Nomar RC:

Clearance 2016 Topps Series 1 double hanger pack

I grabbed a hanger double pack of 2016 Topps Series 1 on a late night WalMart diaper run for $3.48. I couldn't pass up the chance to scratch the itch for so cheap. I am pretty happy with what I pulled.

Henry Owens is rainbow foil.

Cueto went into the toybox. Not a fan.

Any Football Collectors?

First off, how does the USPS expect us to trust them with boxes containing valuable items when they can't even manage delivering empty ones they have in their own building? I placed an order 10 days ago for 10 flat rate boxes and have still received nothing. I know I can just pop into a post office and grab the free boxes but in my town it takes me 45 minutes in traffic to drive the 1.6 miles to get to the post office. Pretty pathetic showing for my local USPS and makes me wonder what else I am not receiving.

FOOTBALL CARDS!

I have finally gone through all the boxes I picked up at the LCS recently. The football box was a lot of fun but I am not interested in keeping any of them. There are a few names in the box that come up more than others...some 150 times more. Here are the bulk names I have if anybody is interested in any of these guys: Donovan McNabb, Drew Brees, Daunte Culpepper, Randy Moss, Torry Holt, Larry Fitzgerald, Ryan Leaf, Edgerrin James, Deion Branch and many, many more. I will post some samples but if there is somebody you don't see posted who played between 1998 and 2006 let me know I may have a stack for you.


Donovan McNabb - A LARGE stack of McNabb cards including rookies.

Torry Holt - Maybe every Holt card out there I don't even know but a huge stack of him with lots of different Rookies and variations.

Daunte Culpepper dominated the box. Literally hundreds of Culpepper, too many to even put in on stack.

Emmitt Smith - A decent amount of Emmitt Smith cards more Cardinals than Cowboys.

One numbered Larry Fitzgerald.

A pile of Edgerrin James.

A stack of Deion Branch rookies.

All Tigers; 2 TTM Returns and a nice pick up

Lots of Tiger Ink

First up is a Mike Rabelo XFractor I sent him TTM. I really liked Rabelo as our catcher and thought he would be similar to what Ausmus was for us behind the plate. Like most of the young Tigers I get attached to, he never got that chance. He may be filling Ausmus's shoes in another position soon if you know what I mean. Mr. Rabelo has proved himself an excellent Manager.

Mr. Gum Time himself; Nate Robertson signed the card I sent him and added his own. Interestingly, the same moment but different phtoto. Very cool! Nate was one of the players us "homers" loved to cheer for and still do.

TTM Totals so far 2017

I have been sending out a few TTM requests every now and then. So for this year so far.

136 Requests sent since Spring Training
2 Return to Senders
10 Donation Requests in return
21 Signed or preprinted returns

15% Success Rate

Feebay purchase

I picked up a new Castellanos RC with some extra paypal I had laying around. Pretty cool card only numbered /45 but has a sticker auto which is probably why it was attainable so cheaply.