Barter: Care of Chris OK

Here's the first of hopefully several long overdue trade posts! This one finished up about 2 weeks ago. Chris over at Budget Baseball Cardboarding offered up some cards on my needs lists and some Ichiros for a couple of Longorias he spotted on my blog.

At the rate I'm going, I think I'll have 2010 Topps Series 1 finished before Series 1 2009. Weird.

Chris surprised me by throwing in a bonus card, and wow! This is sweet!

Thanks so much Chris! These are all great additions!!

Barter Scans

I'm beginning to feel the pressure of having more than one trade in progress at any given time. It is intense. I know I've been asking for it but, it's intense! I still have a family and a life outside of collecting and they just won't be ignored. But you guys can count on me. When I have to choose between postage and a meal, I will gladly choose postage because postage means getting cards in return. And I've skipped plenty of meals for cards, sometimes without even realizing it. In fact, just today, I started to lose my sight because I forgot to eat lunch.

This first trade comes from dgreen1899 from Drinking the Orange Kool-Aid. He's got quite an extensive want list, so if you've got any Phillies, Orioles, Ravens, Cowboys or Eagles to trade, head over and he will hook you up!

Initially, the trade was just for some Strawberrys. But things kindof got out of hand...

...He also threw in some surprise Ichiros which are pretty sweet. I've had my eye on the Japanese Topps Trading Card History card up above and I would have eventually paid real American money for it.

The jersey card was also unexpected! Wow! This is actually my first Strawberry jersey card. I didn't even realize that until this trade came in. Thanks D for a great and generous trade!

Next up are a couple of small trades, but of course hugely appreciated. These came from dogfacedgremlin from The Real DFG. He offered to send these over and didn't even ask for anything in return so I've been trying to find all of my Penguins cards to return the favor. Thanks DFG!

And last but not least, Flywheels from Cardboard Collections sent these over for just one card he spotted from a pack of Topps Platinum Football I opened up. My '09 set is really coming together.. 5 of these 9 cards finished an album page so these were really some thrillers for me! Thanks Flywheels!

Barter: Care of Night Owl

First of all, if you traded with me recently, and I didn't share it on here, I'm sorry. Just as of last month, I didn't have internet or a scanner that worked more than 10% of the time, so cards were not posted and cards were assimilated into my collection and they were all very much appreciated. Now that I have these luxuries, posting a trade post doesn't take me 3 1/2 hours to put together.

This latest one is from Night Owl. He contacted me about some Dodgers he spotted from my '93 Action Packed box break, and he had several great Darryl Strawberry cards that I didn't own yet. He also took a stab at my needs list and knocked a few off of there!

Some examples of my base card needs he sent:

2009 Allen & Ginter #213 Stephanie Brown Trafton. She brought home US gold from Beijing for discus.

2009 Topps #259 National League Strikeout Leaders Tim Lincecum (265k), Johan Santana (206k) and Dan Haren (206k). Edinson Volquez also had 206k but I guess he lost the popularity contest.

2008 Stadium Club #98 Roberto Clemente. These Stadium Club cards #91-100 are among my all time favorite cards. Incredibly high quality vintage images with a glossy finish. Nothing better.

Here are all the Darryl Strawberrys I traded for. 1993 Upper Deck #477 Team Stars w/ Eric Davis.

1994 Pinnacle #309 Hometown Heroes.

1992 Studio #50.

1992 Leaf #29.

1991 Fleer Update #U-96.

1991 Donruss #696. This might have been my most heavily collected set as a kid so eventually I'll have to put this one together.

1991 Classic Blue #T68.

Once again, thanks for the great trade Night Owl!

Barter: Care of Roll Out the Barrel

What a sweet weekend! I've learned not to get my hopes up when looking for new releases at Wal-Mart and Target. When I first heard about the full blasters of the '09 Topps dark parallels, I was super giddy. I never did find any on the shelves. Probably a good thing too since I see them as a gimmick now instead of a must have. I picked up a small lot from eBay though and that got the curiosity craving out of me. Same thing with Obak. Never saw any gravity feeds. Once I saw a blaster but those are HUGE rip-offs. I still own zero Obak. I'll buy a hobby box one day, maybe for my birthday. I just worry about them selling out. I have no idea how many of the limited hobby boxes remain. Anyways, back to my point, I walked into Target today hoping for my first '10 Topps, but not hoping too much. I could see the double wide gravity feed a mile away! I STILL didn't allow myself to celebrate since I've been duped by empty feeders before. Yes! It was almost empty but that was good enough for me!

I'm really excited for '10 Topps. The base design leaves a lot to be desired coming after last year's. But I do love most of the inserts, except for the "when they were young" set. I can't wait to get into the "million card giveaway". I'm hoping I can use it to trade for at least a handful of singles towards my '69 Topps set. We'll see.

I'm also really going to enjoy the NFL Playoff double-header with my Dad today. And the wife has her own agenda today so she doesn't have to sit through two whole torturous games. Hooray!

Ok, I'm sick of your jibba-jabba! This IS a trade post after all, didn't you know? No, I don't have any scans of '10 Topps. It's mostly '09 T.. where are you going?!!

Last month I posted my first trade bait post, which worked out pretty well and I'm happy with the results. I think that post now sets the bar for hits on this blog. I'm not sure but I think that post caught the eye of Ed from Roll Out the Barrel because of my considerably large set needs, and he needed to unload some extras. Without expecting anything in return, he sent over a much appreciated amount of help towards those sets. I don't like getting something for nothing though. I've never been able to forgive myself for winning a card on eBay for a penny with free shipping, even though the seller was asking for it, right?! Anyways, I was really grateful and sent over some Brewers in return. I scanned 1 card for each set or group that were sent over.


Ed sent several Ichiros, and I don't think I owned any of them yet until now. This is the '09 Turkey Red #TR96. Ichiro is by far my favorite player in the league today. And as of right now, he is the only active player of any sport that I have a player collection of. I plan on picking some more players this year though.


Jeff Weaver '09 Topps Updates & Highlights #UH115. I'm still getting Jeff and Jared constantly mixed up and can't tell one from the other. Cardinals, Angels, Dodgers.. which one is where who whatzit? Red Sox?


#176, this is one of my favorites from the '08 Upper Deck Heroes set. This one might now be much rarer than the rest of the set since I'm sure so many Yankees and Red Sox fans cut it in half the moment they saw it. I like the Sox, but as more of a fan of the game, this card featuring 2 of the greatest hitters of my lifetime is magic.


'09 Topps #40 Carl Crawford. Seeing this card up close helped me understand why this card ranked highly with so many other collectors. It is really a great shot.


Finally, we have an '09 Topps Allen & Ginter Jamie Moyer #68. I had no idea this guy is still on the Phillies roster. I thought he was retired! He should be fun to watch if he plays this year.

That wraps it up. Just the tip of the iceberg of the cards that Ed sent. Check out Ed's blog at Roll Out the Barrel. Thanks Ed!