Vacation recap and a bunch of cards

 I feel like the last week was just jam packed with tons of stuff to do, and I was on vacation for 4 1/2 days, so it was definitely good. This week has a lot to do, and being the week before Easter, it’s one of my dreaded weeks at work. With that being said, it’s not all bad (don’t really have to worry about getting out in time to pick up Kyler from school since he’s on spring break, and the sale isn’t all that bad for the bakers other than the usual apple pies and dinner rolls. Plus, I got a crap ton of cards!!!

Thursday we went to the airport and actually had time to kill as the line for security was only 10 minutes or so, and we ended up getting lunch there before the flight. I think the coldest I was the whole trip was when we got out of the airport. We stayed with my Aunt Val (my dads sister) and Uncle Jeff in their guestroom. Their house is kind of in the woods so I think it was a tad warmer there. Friday it was snowing when we got up and didn’t stop until like 7 in the evening. It was the first time I really saw it snowing since 2003 one time, and probably 1988 or 1989 before that, so it was basically like seeing it for the first time as an adult and being able to form solid memories, and I probably looked like a dork with how much I gazed at it all. 

Might have to get the last one framed. 

Thursday we went to lunch with Karens friend Natalie and her family. I was hoping to meet up with Stu (aka Poison 75) at Legends in Grand Rapids, but the road from Aunt Val’s house was too slick for Karen to drive over the hills on, so Aunt Val drove us out and dropped us off at the brewery we were having dinner at. Stu, meanwhile, was at Legends, and he and his girlfriend kindly drove over to the brewery where we got a quick picture, and then took me to Legends, while Aunt Val took Karen and Kyler home. 

Legends was a lot bigger than what the pictures online showed. I stuck to the quarter boxes, a shelf with few small team sets, and was looking for boxes with Topps sets so I could finish a few.  Unfortunately for me, the boxes ended around 1976. I still pulled a decent stack of lesser stars from a few boxes. There was a 2017 Tigers Topps set, and a 1988 Tigers Police set which I purchased, as well as a 2006 Topps Update set for 20 bucks. At least I finished 1 set. 

I haven’t got any ‘23 Pro Debut cards, so I got one of ex-Ray Kyle Manzardo. My assistant manager at work is a big Yankee$ fan, and she saw Spencer Jones hit a mammoth HR in Lakeland during spring training. I’ve also heard some buzz about him, so 2 of his cards for a quarter each didn’t seem like a bad deal. There are the 2 Tigers team sets I got. 

There’s a sampling of the Topps needs. A few were from the 25 cent boxes, I believe all of the pre 1975 ones were from the 25 cent boxes. I don’t know if the Vida Blue was an SP or what, but when I logged it into TCDB, it was like 4 bucks. I need to put the average common price and notes about what cards are SPs in my Topps needs binder. I also want to put pictures of designs for some of the ones that are confusing to me. 

I also got a ton of more cards, compliments of Stu. I picked my collection clean of stuff on his wantlist, and he hooked me up with a binder full of Tigers. 

The ones on the left are keepers, the ones on the right are doubles, but that’s to be expected as some of the cards crept into the late ‘80’s, and due to the fact that I’ve accumulated a ton of Tigers since blogging. 

Stu had a bunch of hard to find sets, and that is definitely an area that is lacking in my collection. ‘81 Coke, ‘85 Donruss Highlights, ‘85 Wendy’s/Coke, ‘87 Fleer Mini, Topps mini leaders sets, ‘87 Donruss Opening Day, and more. There were old cards like the ‘65 Freehan, team cards like the ‘71 team card, many Traded/Update cards like the ‘76 Staub. The ‘84 Traded cards were cool because those guys helped the Tigers win the Series in 1984. The ‘85 Topps Sparky along with 1 or 2 others got me a Dave Bergman away from completing the ‘85 Topps Tigers team set. My favorite card of the huge lot was the 1978 Alan Trammell rookie. That one gave me the core 4 rookies from the ‘78 set for Detroit (Morris, Parrish, Tram, and Whitaker). I can’t wait until I can update my binders. 

Stu drove me back, and we went to my Aunt Mary’s house. She and her husband Sander do a lot of renovation on the house to restore it to its original condition, and they have the upstairs almost done. The first time I saw it almost 5 years ago, they hadn’t even touched the staircase yet. Their latest project was installing some new doors on the main level and some tiling in the bathroom. We ate dinner at a pizza place in downtown Grand Rapids, and it was neat because I felt like we entered through the front of a bar, walked through it and out the back into another restaurant that had a stage and a guy on piano, out the side of that one, and finally into the pizza place. Just different to have to walk through 2 or 3 places all under 1 roof in order to go to the place you wanted to eat. Kind of reminded me of some places in St. Augustine. 

The next day, we went to a children’s museum in Grand Rapids, and Kyler enjoyed that. We went to the planetarium show, and it was just odd. They played Christmas music the whole time, and some of the images moved more than in a motion simulator ride. Glad I didn’t have any alcohol before. For dinner we went to one of Val & Jeff’s daughters, Heather’s place. Her husband Jim grilled some burgers and we watched some college hoops before leaving. 

Sunday we relaxed most of the morning/afternoon. The wedding was ‘no kids allowed’. Never knew that was a thing, but Heather was able to watch Kyler, so it wasn’t a problem, even though we didn’t find that out until we were in Michigan. The wedding was nice. I had a really good cider at the reception. It was called Blake’s Triple Jam, and I only had 3, but it did the job and even got me out on the dance floor for a song or two.  The food was great. Some mini potatoes, some nice chicken, and string beans. I had a nice time talking with another one of Val & Jeff’s kids, Katie, and her husband Derek. The whole family might do a cruise in 2025, and we’re seriously thinking about doing it with them, and they really want us to come. A bunch of fun people I’m related to in Michigan, and they all adore Karen & Kyler, and vise versa. I’m a lucky guy. 

After flying back and unpacking, I went back to work on Tuesday. On one of the card groups I’m a part of on FB, a guy from Daytona had posted about wanting to trade a while back, and I mentioned I was close, and we kind of decided to do most of my doubles boxes for stuff I needed from his collection. He looked like he might have some stuff I needed for my Topps sets, and I was finally able to meet up with him and swap stuff yesterday afternoon. I got 2 boxes of stuff, and he still has more cards to go through with my wantlist. I went through maybe 2/3 of a box yesterday after work, and it was very easy putting them into TCDB because they were ordered by number. There were a few stacks of various Bowman years, and he said he didn’t really go through any of them, so I was curious and looked through the Bowman portion, and low and behold, this one jumped out at me. 

Wasn’t expecting that!  I got really excited. I think that will be the best card from the box, and the rest will probably just finish sets and have Tigers, Rays, and players I collect as good cards, but to pull a Verlander rookie from a random box that had just a few inches thick stack of various Bowman years was definitely a win!

I’ve gone through a little over half of the boxes as of Wednesday night, and I just have the Score cards left. Got a number of 2006 Topps cards knocked off of my Wantlist, and with a little luck tomorrow, I’ll finish putting the rest of the last box into TCDB and at least pull out the Rays, Tigers, and guys I collect. My head is just trying to catch up with all of the incoming cards as is sometimes the case, and I’m hopefully going to get back into the flow of things and have a chance to catch up on some trades and such that had been in the works since before the trip. Maybe by the first couple of days after Easter I can get the new stuff sorted into teams and at least in a group that will be ready to put into my boxes. I really need a day off in the middle of the week, but that won’t happen until after the holiday. 

All in all, it was a great trip, and totally worth it. It was nice meeting another collector in person and making some card swaps before Easter gets work all crazy. It’s good to be back an on the blog again. 

Thanks for taking the time to check out my latest post. 

-Jeremy