A Multitude of Zistle Trades

 There is a flurry of activity happening on Zistle right now.  The only problem is that it's the same people creating transactions over and over again.  With the uncertainty caused by Beckett's takeover, it seems that many Zistle users have jumped ship.  But there are still a couple dozen there, and we are all trading like crazy before the chance is gone.

I've pulled off at least 10 trades on the site since the New Year, with more in the works.  The cards have been coming in faster than I can handle them all, so I'm afraid that I can't really remember which cards came from which user and how big the trades were.  So these pictures may be all sorts of disorganized, but let me hit the highlights of what could be trades on Zistle's deathbed.

Set Help:

I'm now down to one card left in the Pride and Perseverance Insert set.  Ironically, it is Mr. Pride himself.  Curtis Pride, that is.

Will I ever complete this set?  Probably not.  But the cards are just fun enough that I'll take them when I can.

I asked for the Perspectives card here, but the MLB Debut card was thrown in as a bonus.  Not a bad card to get, since I have a little Ryan Howard collection going due to his Rookie of the Year award.

This beautiful insert set from 1998 is not even halfway complete for me, but once again, I'll pick them up when I can.

Baseball Award Winner Collections:

I've found that Sasaki cards can be hard to find.  I was glad to get this relic for my collection. 

 I've really taken an interest in Bobby Crosby cards of late.  Here he is with a pair of fellow Rookies of the Year.  A second relic card is shown here.

Here I am, bolstering my Crosby collection again.  The back of the A&G mini is shown because the front is identical to the one on the left.  I just wanted to show off the A&G back parallel.  This trader must have thought he was dealing with an A's collector when he was pulling cards for me.  Nope--the team just has had some great rookies through the years. 

 I really need more Nomar in my collection.  I've always been a fan, even if I was a little disappointed in his Chicago stint.

These three cards really seem like they don't belong together.  But they all go in the same binder!  I really like the Bazooka card here.

 These are two beautiful cards.  The Trout is my first National Baseball Card Day release.

 

And here is the Fish God again paired with a favorite player for me to collect.  I really dig these Donruss 1982 inserts.  They even make it work without the logo, which turns me off.  I'm not chasing the set, but I have been gathering a bunch of the players I collect.

We'll move from the ROY to the All-Star MVPs, though Sandy was both.  I think his Team 2000 card is my favorite here.

What a great quartet of Cals.  Three oddballs and a beautiful Upper Deck Sweet Spot.



Cubs:

Here we have some great Cubs hurlers.  I love seeing both Prior and Wood on the NL Strikeout Leaders card.  Oh, what could have been if not for injuries to both young stars.

 Mark Grace seems very happy to be added to my collection.  I love this Billy Herman, even if the condition is not great.  I never knew that Action Packed made baseball cards until I found this card on a tradelist.  I knew had to have it.

 A couple of horizontal Gracies.  The 1998 Omega is the first I've ever seen of this set, too, and it's a beaut.  All Cubs of this set are now on my wantlist.  As if I were turning away Cubs cards in the first place.

Some random Cubs to add to my binder.  I believe this is the first Todd Hundley Cub card I have.  The picture of Darwin Barney turning two is a great shot.  I think I need to check my Darwin Barney and find the percentage of cards that have him either airborne or celebrating.  He always seems to be a great photographic subject.  I think my favorite card of this bunch is the team card featuring Wrigley's iconic old school scoreboard.  It just feels like baseball.

Here are two formerly unrepresented Northsiders for my collection.  I don't even recall the name Tommy Shields.  It turns out he played 28 games in 1993, making 36 plate appearances and manning every position but shortstop and the battery.  He didn't play in the Majors again after that year.

 Other Baseball:
 

 All of these cards fit in my collection.  I like the Rizzo because it's one of his first cards with the Cubs.  And it may not be a Cubs card, but I couldn't pass up the chance for Arrieta's rookie in a trade.

Packers:

Ooh, shiny!  Here is a beautiful Reggie White from 1995 Pinnacle.

I like this Erik Affholter.  I've never heard of the guy before, but he was drafted as a kicker/wide receiver.  Gotta love the versatility.

Here are some old-school Packers and 1996 first round pick Jon Michels.  He wasn't a good player, but this is my first card of him, so into the binder it goes.

 

Here is a good mix of Green Bay greats.  I'm shocked that I don't have that 2014 Prestige Cobb already, as I have most of the set.  But I never seem to pull Packers for myself.

All-Decade Teams:

I think the 1989 Pro Set is actually a great set.  1989 was the year that Score and Pro Set changed football cards forever, much like Upper Deck for baseball that same year.

All of the above Steelers were named to the All 90s team, and these cards all came from the same Steelers fan getting rid of his extras.  I appreciate them because offensive linemen cards are harder to come by and I really had next to nothing by way of Carnell Lake and Levon Kirkland.  In fact, it was until last year I got my first Kirkland.  By the way, the 1995 Fleer football set is not nearly as bad as the baseball version, and I actually find it quite interesting.

Those of you who were really paying attention are saying, "Wait, didn't he just barely show that 1989 Pro Set Zimmerman?"  Yes, yes I did.  But I just happened to have worked out two separate trades simultaneously for the same card.  Has anyone else ever done that?  At least I'm saved by the fact that Zimmerman had a place on both the 80s and 90s teams, so one can go in each binder.

 

Two of the greatest runners of all time.

And some of the greatest recievers.  How cool is that 1997 Pacific Revolution set?

 

And let's hear for the great defenders.  

We'll round out the All-Decade teams with a pair college uni rookies of Curtis Martin and Marvin Harrison.

BYU:

 

 

And, staying true to my collecting focus for the year, I added to my BYU collection. The Chad Lewis is my first, which seems weird to me given how long he stuck around in the NFL.

But let's not forget that BYU has a baseball team.  Danny Ainge won the John R. Wooden award as the nation's top college basketball player and went on to a successful career with the Celtics, but he also played baseball.  Fun fact: he is the only player to be named a high school All-American in baseball, basketball, and football.  The Pirates Future Stars card features Vance Law, who played for BYU and returned to coach the team following his playing career.

Local Fun Card:

Though I did not grow up in the same town as Bruce Hurst, I did spend a good portion of my adult life living in the same small town where he grew up.  I now consider it my home and hope to move back within the next couple of years.  I pick up Bruce Hurst here and there when I can.

So thanks to a bunch of Zistle users for the cards above.  I have a couple more trades in the works, but I just had to get these out of the scan folder.  I hope Zistle survives the year, but it's looking bleaker and bleaker as more sets are released and no one is there to add them to the site.  I'm getting my set in order to move to another organizational tool soon.

Blockbuster Trade on Zistle

Zistle user DMK250 contacted me with trade proposal.  He offered me all kinds of junk wax and vintage from my wantlist in exchange for all kinds of rookies and inserts of Philadelphia Eagles.  We hammered out a trade, and it was MASSIVE.  So many cards changed hands (in the neighborhood of 500 total) that I didn't even try to scan and post everything.  Here are some highlights.

Let's start off with the BYU players, both of the football and baseball variety.  Wrigley Roster Jenga posted this same Golden Richards card last week, pointing out that most people know him as a Cowboy, not a Bear.  I want to point out that the back of this card lists Hawaii as his college, but he spent his first 3 years of college eligibility at BYU before his grades forced him out of school.  He's still a fan favorite in Provo, and people remember him fondly for the NCAA records he set while wearing royal blue.  His post-football life has been somewhat tragic, as I learned a few weeks ago from an essay written by a Chicago journalist.  I forget the writer's name and the essay's title, but the writer spent a weekend with Richards and saw first-hand the sad state of drug addiction and lies that make up his life.  It seems that I hear a lot about former football players who become addicted to painkillers and fall into a downward spiral.  And I don't know what can be done about that.  As much as I love football and would have played a lot longer myself, had I been blessed with more talent and size, there is an ugly side to it.

The majority of the cards I received were Packers, most coming in the 90s variety.  I like this Stars and Stripes Perry Kemp.  It's a set I know absolutely nothing about and had never heard of before this trade, but it's unique in my collection. 

Here are some All-Decade players from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s teams.  I love that Zenith Atwater, and I think 1994 Upper Deck (represented by LeRoy Butler) doesn't get as much love as it deserves.  It's definitely a good-looking set.  The Walter Payton is pretty beat up, but it's okay.  At least my trading partner warned me about it.

Though there were many, many more football cards, I've just given you a small sampling.  Now let's check out the baseball.

Here is a smattering of the Cubs DMK sent me.  Love the Upper Deck Heroes Black Aramis Ramirez.  I'm trying to pick up all of the 1993 Topps Gold parallels of my PCs, and this trade brought me a few of them, including this former Cub utility-man Steve Buechele.

All of these cards fit PCs.  You'll notice another 1993 Topps Gold.  I love the Eric Karros and Mike Piazza on the same card, as I collect both of those players.  I'm not a Dodgers fan, but LA sure had a run of Rookie of the Year award winners in the 1990s, so I have PCs of Karros, Piazza, Todd Hollandsworth, Hideo Nomo, and Raul Mondesi. 

 

I'll leave you with some oddballs, highlighted by two hand-cut Gracies from card magazines.  Thanks DMK250 for the trade.

Been Busy...Trading on Zistle

After nearly two weeks away, it's past time to put up another post.  I've been busy in about every aspect of my life lately, including trading some cardboard. Before I fall too far behind, let me post a couple of Zistle trades.  

User Dannicole contacted me about a trade that would bring me some junk wax that was missing from my collection.

These guys all won a Rookie of the Year Award, though they experienced varying degrees of success in their subsequent careers.  I feel more drawn to collecting the guys who peaked in Year One.  I think it’s partly because it’s easier to get a bunch of cards of the guys who never became superstars. 

Jerome Walton is one of those guys, and he gets bonus points for being a Cub.

Next come the All-Star Game MVPs.  Cal bridges the gap as having won both awards.  Even though he is a superstar, he’s one of my favorites to collect.  It seems like since I joined Zistle, everybody has been offering me lots of junk wax Cal Ripken.  Now that it is starting to fill up in my collection, maybe I can start seeing some trade offers for other things.

These two guys I pick up every now and then.  Wally Joyner is a former BYU guy and Curt Wilkerson goes in my family collection because he shares a birthday with one of my kids.

Dannicole also threw in some football for me.  Kellen Winslow (as seen above) is a PC guy because of his spot on the 1980s All-Decade Roster.  This is his rookie card and it fits nicely in my collection.

This card is needed for my back-burner building of 2012 Topps.

And finally, some Packers.  The Blood McNally is especially cool because I love that Honor Roll insert set.

Another Zistle user, Sandlot, is a Mets collector and we worked out a trade.  He sent me another Cal and some Cubs I needed.

Kerry Wood is another ROY+Cub=Awesomeness PC player.

The last card here is the gem of the post.  I was perusing COMC one day and came across some Cracker Jack micros.  I thought, “I wish I still had some of those Cracker Jack cards.”  Lo and behold, Sandlot contacted me the very next day offering one of my childhood baseball hero.  I couldn’t say no.

Thanks to those Zistle users for their trades.  And thank you, readers, for reading.