Tradecenter--2s and 3s

It's been a busy month on the trade month so far.  17 trades completed and a lot of walks to the post office, sometimes with 2 or 3 envelopes in hand to send to fellow collectors.

Today's post is just a quick homage to 5 trades I've made that all saw me receive just 2 or 3 cards, which for me works just as well as bigger trades, but I don't have to stand in line at the post office to send PWE's.

The 3 cards I received above were my first trade with someone from Slovakia!  I remember him telling me that the trade might take a little longer because he's in Europe, and I thought to myself it's not a big deal, I was only sending a few cards so why not?

I received the cards in a little over 2 weeks, no different than if they came from Canada.  Fabulous.

Loving the chase for the '85 inserts from this years flagship, and the two trades above netted me an extra card for a pair of player collections.  A fairly large need for the Olerud collection are cards that feature him as a Met, Mariner, Yankee or Red Sox player.  70% of the collection features him as a Jay, even though half his career was spent elsewhere...

I was going to chase the series 2 set this year, but the card insanity at the retail stores, and the brick and mortar shops selling boxes at $120 (really!) has made me think twice.  I grabbed the McCutchen in a trade and that will be all for Series 2.  Meanwhile the 2019 GQ green release keeps chugging along, and it will certainly be part of the next 10 sets that I work on once '74 Topps is done.

Haven't really shown off a lot of vintage on the blog in recent weeks, so a trio of '72 Topps I'm sure is a welcome sight for some.  I really haven't looked at this set much recently in trades, and now that I've worked my towards the semi-high and high numbers, this will probably stay slow for a while.  There's a long way to go though, as the set is only 55% complete. 

Still have more trades to show off, mostly player collection stuff which I've taken some time to enhance my want lists on the TCDB website.  These will be more of the 7-9 card variety, filling those Ultra Pro pages in the PWE's quite nicely.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Trade Week: tenlbpain

We're already half way through trade week and it seems like just a blur.  I'm sure that my liver is working overtime to keep up with the extra alcohol intake that is sure to be happening.

This I believe is my third trade with Nick, and it happened quite quickly as I had notice he had listed some Donruss 2019 FB for trade.  I've found very few trade partners for football on the TCDB site, which for me has been quite surprising.

I do like this set and hope to complete it in the not too distant future, but with the (lack of) speed in which this is happening, I might have to dip into my pocket to finish this up, which I was hoping wouldn't be the case.  I still need 126 out of the 350 card set, so if anyone has any extra cards floating around out there, please check out my want list on the TCDB.

The bigger part of the trade was the hockey portion, specifically a 30 card dent into the 2015-16 OPC set.

It was interesting as I scanned the cards how many players since that year have either moved on to other teams or are out of the NHL already.  Dougie Hamilton has been traded twice already since he started his career in Boston.

Matt Moulson's career hit the brakes when he moved from the Islanders to Buffalo.  It was almost as if the sticks he took with him didn't have any goals in them.  I had no idea he signed as a free agent with the Capitals this past summer, but I haven't seen or heard from him since the season began so I guess that he didn't make the club.

My goodness I had no idea that Nick Bonino was a Canuck!  One season was all it was though, as he left for Pittsburgh for the 15-16 season, and became part of one of the most famous goal calls ever made in the playoffs for his goal against the Sharks.

Last up, I snagged one of the few Mitch Marner cards I have in that PC, the 2019-20 MVP short print.  His cards are going to be crazy expensive because of the crest he wears, so anything I can grab trade wise will be a bonus.

Thank you Nick for the great trade, the cards are appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

OPC all over the place

This evening I'll be watching what arguably could be the biggest game of the regular season so far for the Maple Leafs, as they'll be right down the road from my house here in Sunrise.  The defense corps just lost its 3rd person, as Jake Muzzin is down for a month with a broken hand.  the current defense is nearly the same as the one that won the Calder Cup (AHL championship) two years ago.  Yikes!

So while I'm doing that, this post will automatically appear on the blogger site, featuring a group of OPC cards that came from Canada via new trade partner JF (TCDB ID: althib).

These are the bits and pieces of the trade, 4 cards from 3 different sets over the past 5 years.  No big names out of these 4, but they do remove 4 numbers off of 3 want lists.  Maybe this weekend I will get around to adding these want lists to the blog.

Since I really started focusing on trading on the TCDB at the beginning of 2019, the 1990-91 OPC set is one that I'm surprised that I haven't been able to complete yet.  I was sure that I'd get a lot of requests for trades, especially from north of the border.  Alas, that hasn't been the case, but the set is getting closer to being completed as I'm down to just 44 cards to go.  Been a long time coming...

JF pretty much cleaned me out of my 83 and 85 Topps baseball traders, which is cool as I'm glad that they found a good home.  Thank you for the trade JF, the cards are really appreciated!

Enjoy the hobby!   Go Leafs Go!

Robert

Number 11?

I've talked pretty regularly on the blog so far this year about the 10 sets I'm going to finish off first in 2020.  Pretty much a way to keep myself motivated and not try to get too distracted.  But, with this recent trade that I received from 2nd time trade partner Aaron (TCDB ID: suedehead) I may now have the 11th set that I could finish this year.

This was actually a very big hockey trade, the biggest trade I've done in a while.  I wound up knocking off 84 cards off of 2 want lists, both of them being recent OPC sets.

First up is 9 of the 11 SPs that were part of 27 cards from the 2015-16 OPC set, which I had mentioned recently was just starting to get off the ground.  This set doesn't really have any big name RC's (the most notable I found was Sam Bennett), and the other half of the SPs are the Legends, which usually add a bit more to the cost.  I only have 81 cards out of the 600 for the set, so it's nowhere near worrying about yet.

Still need to figure out how to scan 

The 2018-19 OPC set was really bolstered with 40 cards from the base set, 18 of which are shown above, in whole or in part.

And 17 of the SPs, including 7 of the team cards, an idea which I've said that I love in the past.  I've also mentioned this before, but I like what Upper Deck did and instead of pushing the same old Legends cards on us year after year, they added the League Leaders cards at the end (See Ovi and Freddie Andersen above), and the Season Highlight cards #'d 551-560.  It was very nice to see a change, and I hope that they keep this trend going.

This 57 card lot that came in brought the set total to 501 out of 600 cards; there's been quite a jump towards completing this set with the past two trades.  With less than 100 cards to go now, this might be the next set up once the first 10 sets are done this year.  There's other sets that are close to being complete as well, but this is now in the mix.

Thank you for the trade Aaron, the cards are appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

These aren't exactly on the radar but...

Lots of pairs happening here as I have 2 trades to show off (for lack of a better phrase) today, and another pair for the next post, hopefully tomorrow.  First up is someone that a lot of you know from Twitter, Jenny (TCDB ID:  JennyMiller521).  We completed a relatively small trade for our first go on the TCDB site, sending 5 cards her way for a half dozen A&G wants from 2017.

No really huge stars here, but for me it was good to get Joey Bats as he was a favorite of mine during his time with the Jays.  I'm making slow progress on this set, with these 6 bringing the total to 185 out of the 350 needed for the set.   That means there's a lot of base cards to go before the remainder of the SPs get tackled.

Next up I grabbed a few cards from a set I've barely started, 2015-16 OPC hockey.

This represents just over 1/4 of what I have so far for this set, with just 54 cards in hand so far.  This trade came from repeat trade partner Nick (TCDB ID: tenlbpain) and cost me a bunch of dupes that I'm sure that Nick can make better use of.  I have a lot of want lists for the modern OPC sets, and at 600 cards for each set, it'll take me a while to get them all together, but the challenge is what all set builders enjoy, isn't it?

I've already hit the 25 trade mark for 2020 with 4 still in the pipeline, and 2 active offers.  I wasn't sure what this year would bring after a big trade year in 2019, but if the first 6 weeks is indicative on how this year will be, I could surpass last year's total.

I can live with that...

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

You're not from around here, are you?

When you get a nice big stack of cards from a fellow blogger, but you don't want to cram each and every last one of them into one post, you have to look for common themes among the group.  Case in point, the monster lot of serial #'d hockey cards that Doug from the Sportscards from the Dollar Store blog sent me.  Seeing as I didn't want to put all 50 of them into one post (thank you again Doug, BTW), I have to find some common groups or themes.

I thumbed through the cards recently and found 6 cards that had a significant theme.  The players aren't North American by birth.

Let's start with the Eastern European group.  Vlad Namestnikov is in his 2nd full season (4th overall) with the Lightning.  He's actually sporting one of the versions of the Lightning jersey that I like, with the "Bolts" nickname diagonally in the front.  His card is from the 2014-15 Artifacts set, a product that you're likely going to see quite a bit in the SNI Hockey set. 

Another Lightning product, Vlad Mihalik, managed only 15 games over 2 seasons with the Lightning before heading to Europe to play one season in the Swedish Elite League before finding steady work with HC Slovan Bratislava in the KHL.  This card is from the 08-09 Trilogy set, and is one of those rookie cards that hit the market and cooled quickly. 

Konstantin Pushkarev is the 3rd member of this group, and not unlike Mihalik, only had a cup of coffee in the NHL.  He lasted just 17 games over two seasons in the mid 00's, played a couple of more in the AHL, went to the KHL for a year, back to the AHL in 09-10, then back to the KHL again for the past 6 seasons with Barys Astana.  The card of Konstantin is from the 06-07 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection set.  The serial # is a little harder to see but it is #246 for my set.

We go up to Northern Europe for the next three players.  Peter Forsberg doesn't really need any introduction to hockey fans out there.  "Foppa" was a first year HOF inductee in 2014, and finished his career with 2 Stanley Cups as a member of the Avalanche.  Forsberg's card is from the 16-17 Artifacts release. 

Petter Granberg never did get much of a chance to show what he could do in a Leafs uniform, playing just 8 games over 2 seasons.  He was actually called up to Nashville's roster in the past week, but hasn't seen any playing time with the big club this year. 

Markus Granlund has finally found a full time job in the NHL, having played each of the Vancouver Canucks games so far this year.  He was acquired from the Flames a week before the trade deadline last year for one of the best names in hockey, Hunter Shinkaruk.  Granlund's card is from the 2015-16 O-Pee-Chee set, and is serial #'d 68/100. 

Tampa and Toronto become just the 2nd and 3rd teams with 5 cards shown so far, trailing only Philadelphia who have had 6 displayed in the first few weeks.  

Still a long way to go....

thanks for reading, Robert