Blog-Influenced Trades

The award for most brain-breaking confusing set in 2021 has to go to Wild Card's NFL draft set. There is a hobby set--which may or may not be all serial-numbered and has either 20 or 70 cards in the checklist. Then there are not one, but two different retail products--one white and one black. No, they are not parallels inserted in the same boxes. You can buy packs and boxes of black or white. There are a few insert sets, but they come in few different colors. The problem is that Wild Card has yet to release a checklist for these sets. Not only that, they haven't even clarified what the different color variations are. I wrote about my experience with this set back in November. It's still a mess, without even enough information out there to put everything from the release on TCDB yet.

Yet there is a certain BYU phenom quarterback in the set who demands my attention. So a few months ago, when Matt at Cards Over Coffee showed his blaster break of Wild Card White, I recognized that the Zach Wilson he pulled was different from mine because I had purchased Black. The reverse was true for his Giant rookie Kadarius Toney and mine. We worked out a trade. I may be slow in posting this, but here is what I received from Matt.

In typical blogger trading fashion, Matt threw in a few unexpected cards, too. There were two more ZWs, a KB, a Babe, and Yogi. 

That's not the only trade I've made that has been influenced by this blog recently, though. A couple of weeks ago, I received a trade proposal on TCDB from a user called "abide." The proposal included a note that said he had read my blog for the first time that day and wanted to trade.

He asked for a Jo Adell Black Gold insert from this year's Update. He offered these cards in return, but said that the Adell was a valuable card and I could adjust the trade if I wanted. It's funny how relative value can be in cards, because these three are worth far more to me than that Adell. In particular, I was eager to add the Derek Jeter coin, which leaves just one more to polish off the complete set.

Our trade extended beyond those four cards, though. On my end, I also received these from blog reader/TCDBer abide. The Chipper Mint and Cal and Desmond Topps 206 are set needs, and the Cooperstown Village card knocks off the set for me.

 

Those weren't the only trades returns to come my way this month, though. I've completed a handful of other TCDB trades, too. These scans come from user clay. He helped me add some former Cougars, some All-Decade performers, and four more toward my 2013 Opening Day build.

These came from a trade with FinalStopShop. My favorite card of this bunch (and there are some great ones) is the Topps Total Saints card, which is my first featuring former BYU linebacker Colby Bockwoldt. I learned something I hadn't known before from this card: Bockwoldt went from 7th round pick in 2004 to leading the Saints in tackles in 2005. I didn't know he had ever led the team.

A lot of really cool cards came from nkandy11. Richard Seymour and Steve Young are serial-numbered. I'm loving the Press Pass Steve Hutchinson, primarily because I don't have many cards of Hutchinson alone. Most are Topps Total with other linemen. The two Tom Pacioreks are for my All-Star collection and the accompanying All-Star Frankenset. But the star of the show is obviously the Big Z auto, my first of his.

Steelers fan Wudu44 sent me some great Heisman winners in college. The quartet of BYU players in the NFL is so great, I don't know which is my favorite. The sleek Sterling Van Noy rookie or his celebration with the ball? I can't overlook J-Swag Daddy with the Packers, either. The bottom scan is just extras that he sent along.

OfficerZero sent some cards commemorating Heisman awards and some cool mid-90s cards.

I had a small trade with NetScans that netted me some needs from my most recent set build, 1994 Finest, and the penultimate Wal-Mart Marketside for my set. Also in this scan is Dane Iorg, who not only attended BYU, but his brother, Garth, and two of his sons have all played ball for the Cougs.

The last two were small trades with jamestagli and kcjays. The two BYU legends from jamestagli are my favorites. For anybody who hasn't heard, Shawn Bradley had a bicycle-automobile accident last February and was paralyzed as a result. This was just three or four months before former Jazz center Mark Eaton was killed after being hit by a car on his bike. Both accidents occurred in Utah, marking a tragic, oddly coincidental stretch of time for retired, big post players in the Utah basketball scene.

That was a lot of small trades to show. There was a lot of variety coming in, but I am most pleased to see there was a healthy smattering of set needs added. I'm also happy that there were both blogger trades and trades with blog readers. I have few more trades in the works right now, too. There will be more to show soon.