North Pole Express

Is it John or Kenny Rogers?  Only Santa knows for sure and I doubt he's talkin.'    While the reindeer frolic on the beach, Santa is enjoying a summer's day  nap.  He's been a busy man,  keeping postal clerks working those long Christmas-time hours...IN JULY!

Santa thought I'd been pretty good this year and chose to reward me early, before I had a chance to screw up the remainder of 2017.  He checked my list and found many Tiger Team sets missing.  His elves stuffed a priority mailer with at least 200 cards!

86 Leaf and 82 OPC -   Leaf  and OPC sets to complete!  I owned one OPC card.  These three are over-the-top awesome!  I get it now!  I had to own a few to get a clue!  Great additions to my team sets!  

An 87 Donruss set I knew nothing of - Opening Day.  I like the maroon-brownish borders.  I'm not sure what color they are but certainly a refreshing change.

2000 Upper Deck - a high end look and feel for base cards.  Blue and copper tones are extremely appealing to my eyes.  A couple of  good catcher shots there too.  I always purchased UD base so there's no reason for me not to own these cards.  I expect the market glut kept me from buying more than a pack or two.  I wanted everything that came out in those days and likely sampled a bit of all offered.

In 1981, The Detroit News released a boxed set The Boys of Summer 100th Anniversary to celebrate a centennial of professional baseball in Detroit.  The set includes All Time Greats, Championship pictures, headlines etc.  I'm fortunate to own all the cards but for Cochrane.  This Norm Cash from John goes into the PC!

2016 Donruss Optic was a pricey version of Chrome.  I picked up a few cards in an Ebay lot to satisfy my need for these.  The black border Kinsler/199 is a sharp-looking card as is the pink prizmy Upton.

2017 Bunt with parallels and an Infinite insert looking very much like Studio of old!

2017 Ginter mini [Maartinez has an A&G backside] and Archives: so far - thanks to the trading community - I've had no need to purchase them!

John included an old press guide from 1992.

This was fun to look over.  I was quite taken by the ticket prices.  Who doesn't miss the days of $12.50 box seats  and  pins, gloves, and baseball giveaways?  Campbell's Soup Famous Chicken Day - now that's a sponsorship!

1987 Boardwalk and Baseball - the fat B/B logo  and pink and black borders of these cards screamed purchase!  I now own a set!    It was a one time issue produced by Topps for a theme park in Florida, not too far from Disney.  You can read about it here.

2003 Fleer Hardball - I was excited to find these!  Looking over prices on ebay made me happy to own a few Tigers!

How about this for old, cool and oddball? Collectors Quarterly was offered in 1975. Contents included articles on collecting, trading, and autographs plus perforated SSPC cards for the tearing and ripping apart.  I'm not sure how this card fits with the magazine except for advertising purposes.  Very unique item for my collection!

2003 Fan Favorites - the name says everything.  Classic Tiger faves including beloved Ernie Harwell.  Seeing the smiling face of Mark Fidrych made this gal's heart quite happy.

In June, John posted cards for music lovers.  Although I didn't comment, John knew I would love having one of these:

Oh yeah, I want it!   I also love cats so this is a purrfect choice!  From 1978, going into the 70s binder.   Time to close this out with one more card, I'd never seen.  From 2003 Fleer Fall Classic:

 It was a sharing challenge, choosing from so many cards new to my collection.  Seriously, I needed  all but a few.  Merry Christmas John!  Please check out Johnny's Trading Spot.  It's wacky!