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Monday, November 11, 2019

Trading aprehension

First off, if I've named your blog on this post, please don't feel offended by it. I highly repect the blogs I have mentioned, and don't mean anything negative or offensive by what I post.

Have you ever just not traded cards with someone because you were just overwhelmed at what they had and really don't have anything that fit their collection or have just plain run out of cards of a certain team?

I have really started blogging for the past 3-4 years or so, and really haven't traded too much within the time. Sure, it has picked up some, especially in the past year, but I just don't trade that much. Part of it is because my wife would kill me if I kept getting packages every week and sent them out every week. With postage only going up, it is tough to trade anymore, and that is one of the main reasons I hear that people don't trade anymore.
I also haven't really ripped much retail in 2019. Part of it is because I just don't have the money to. I get the itch if I haven't got new cards lately, but it is just so much of a crap shoot with retail anymore (especially if you are looking for a not-so-popular team like the Rays). Let's say you buy a box of cards, and somehow you get a jersey card/low #d parallel/autograph of the team/player you collect. Chances are you purchased a Topps product, because everyone knows that Panini can't have team logos on the product, so not many collectors actively purchase Panini stuff. So you have the "hit" card that you take and file away in your collection in your binder/box/safety deposit box/whatever. Since you purchased Topps, and their coalation is horrible, you probably got multiple doubles, perhaps even triples of a few cards, and aren't really close to making a dent in the set (if you collect the set anymore). You could perpahps pass off the doubles to other collectors (I'll get to that later), but you are basically out let's say $30-50 bucks to break a box of low-mid level Topps product that will leave you with a hit or two of your favorite team/player (and beat the 1 in maybe 30 odds of pulling 2 cards from that combination) IF you are lucky. If not, more trade bait, hopefully, plus a ton of cards that probably won't fit your collection. Or you could've taken that money and purchased multiple cards from COMC, eBay, or even some overpriced cards on Amazon, and cherry picked the players and teams that you wanted. You could've even ordered some of Topps' overpriced online-exclusive weekly cards/sets and picked your favorite team or player. What I am saying is that buying retail just doesn't work for the average Joe anymore, and I think that is hurting trading as a whole.

From time to time, I will run across a blog that is not in my reading list, and think 'Wow! They have a nice collection. I bet they have some Rays cards, and if I could make a trade with them, I'll have some nice new cards!'. Beacuse, let's be honest. When we trade with someone, we hope to get some cool cards in return. That doesn't mean that guys won't send someone some cards expecting nothing in return, because that happens it seems more often than not, but in order to start a trade, you have to give something in order to get something.
This kind of leads to a few problems for me. Number one, I don't buy that much retail anymore. This past season in my life has been very crazy, so if things were normal, I could've probably went to 3-5 card shows (at least) in the past year, and visited the card shop a mile from my house at least another 5-10 times. That hasn't happened this year. Which means that I really don't have anything in my collection from 2019 other than base cards and a few inserts. Not my fault because things have been crazy, but it always feels good to surprise someone with a jersey card or autograph from a favorite player or team, and that's just not happening with me right now if you want to trade with me.
This also brings problem #2. I really don't have anything that would fit into a collection of a SuperCollector like Tan Man Baseball Fan, Collecting Cutch, the Junior Junkie, among others. Yeah, I have Jose Canseco, Andrew McCutchen, and Ken Griffey, Jr. cards, but just not anything super-rare that a supercollector would need. And truth be told, if they are a supercollector, I doubt they are wasting money on retail, so chances are, they don't have anything I need either (although, if you want to trade with me, I would love to try, so shoot me an email with a list of anything you think I could have). I mean, I could try to bid on a 1/1 card of one of these guys and try to trade, but why drive up the price if they are bidding on it already?  That doesn't mean I won't pull a 1/1 Dan Vogelbach card, but if I'm not buying much retail, it's not very likely. I hope in the future I will be able to go to more shows and shops and find more cards to trade, but for now, I don't have much.
Speaking of not having much, it kind of stinks that there are only 30 teams in baseball. There are more than 30 guys who collect and trade, so sometimes, you just run out of decent cards for a team. I recently ran out of 'hit' Dodgers,Cubs, Pirates, Padres, Athletics, (and soon to be Rockies as I am in the process of a trade with Adam from Infield Fly Rule Cards), so if there is a blog I see that collects those teams, I am hesitant to start a trade with them in fear of having nothing they need. It's also a tad hard for me to trade with Rays and Tigers fans, as I try to hoard all of those cards for myself, and although I do have doubles of those teams, all of them are base cards. I would love to trade with A Cracked Bat, but I really doubt I'm going to have many Tigers to add to Julie's collection, and I would probably try to dig through my collection and give her some Tigers so I wouldn't be a jerk, but I'm sure the stack of cards she needs would be less than the stack of what she would have for me, so it's almost a moot point.
I don't mean to whine about trading. I just have run into some obstacles when it comes to trading, and wonder if anyone has found ways around them or if I should just ignore my instincts and send base cards.
I really want to make some trades, but I just want to be reassured that I won't undercut the return pack package.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

5 comments:

  1. Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy. Relax young Jedi. (BTW: email me your address). Retail does suck, but that is Topps' fault. Beckett doesn't help either. As for trading try a card show and look for cards for those "tighter" needs of some trader/bloggers. Super collector's come in all shapes and sizes. IE: Team collectors. You'd be surprised just how many cards those folks need (I super collect Braves- checkout the 10's of thousands of cards I still need), many times they don't even know they need a certain junk wax era card. I've bought a lot of discount monster boxes just so I have cards for others (after I pick out what I want). In fact, it may take me a few years to (DUMP) I mean trade you my unwanted Rays cards, lol. Some of us are happy to help other collectors, even if the return is not favorable. Often a few needed cards is a blessing especially when "blind trading'. It's all good and don't forget to e-mail me your address.

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  2. In short: don't worry about it. ... I do not buy cards for hits so I basically have only base or inserts or parallels and I trade a bunch so people are apparently OK with it. And if they aren't, c'est la vie, I tried the best I could.

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  3. I agree with N.O., do what you can with a return package, and don't sweat it.
    I often forget that most in our blogging community are uber-generous souls and are pretty happy-go-lucky as long as an effort is being made.

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  4. Dude, I just looked at your want list. I should be able to fill a box of Rays for you with all I have available to move. If you can send me a handful of anything from my lists, I'll be happy. I will email you soon.

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  5. I totally understand. A few years ago there was a super traders group among bloggers and I pretty much cleared out 60 to 80% of my decent tradebait while being part of that. These days I don't actively reach out to people to trade. People send me care packages... and then I add them to my hit list and try to find singles at shows or on COMC for their collections.

    By the way... I know I owe you a care package. I'm sure you've figured out that I'm not very timely. But I am hoping to send out something before Christmas break.

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