TCDB Trade week #3: althib

Finishing off the trade week with another repeat trade partner, J.F. (TCDB ID: althib).  J.F. reminded me why I enjoy trading with my brethren to the north.

I get hockey.   Lots of hockey.

I sent J.F. some early to mid 80's Topps baseball commons + an early 90's Gretzky Score card, and in return I got some PC help, and the start of a couple more OPC sets.

The Keith Tkachuk PC is starting to grow nicely.  Part of the reason is that I took time a few weeks ago to add a bunch of cards to the want list.  These 5 bring the total up to 179, and what's nice is I still have a lot of base card needs for the PC.  Shouldn't be too hard building it up more without breaking the bank.

I don't know what happened for these two releases, but I could title a post for each of them "the dead zone".  Both 2010-11 (Top two rows) and 2016-17 (bottom row) I am virtually starting from scratch on both of the sets.  I must have went on hiatus or what I don't know, but both of these sets were virtually non-existent when I added them to my TCDB OPC want list.  Needless to say, I need hundreds of cards for both of these sets, so if any of you hockey collectors have any doubles lying around, just hit me up.

Thank you for the trade J.F., the cards are really appreciated!  Look forward to the next one...

Enjoy the hobby.

Robert

TCDB Trade Week: Hawkking

Joseph and I traded for the first time recently, an even 9 for 9 swap.  I sent him a page worth of Blackhawk cards, and he sent me a page of player collection needs, including a healthy dose of Keith Tkachuk.

I started off with the horizontal cards from the mid 90's.  I like them both, but the 3 Star Selection which could easily pose as an insert, but is actually a base card from the 96-97 Collector's Choice set.  I also like the dual photo in the 97-98 SPx card on the top, one in his Kachina style Coyotes jersey, the other featuring his All Star Jersey which was in San Jose.

More Jets/Coyotes base cards which include the tough to pull die-cut SP insert card from the 94-95 SP set.  After all these came in, the Tkachuk count has grown to 163 cards, not bad for a secondary collection.  Still lots on the want list though!!

It's always odd to see Tkachuk in the later years of his career without an "A" or "C" on his jersey, although it appears that there's one on the white jersey on the Upper Deck Ice card from 05-06 on the right.  Tough to tell though...

To finish off the page, a card each for the Potvin and Sakic collections.  I do like the 95-96 Topps card that features Potvin on the left, although if I could change one thing, the size of the team name would be a bit smaller top to bottom.  It looks a little too stretched to me.  The script for "Felix Potvin" is something that I have always liked and I wouldn't change it at all. 

Thank you for the cards Joseph, they are appreciated!!  Look forward to the next trade.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

TCDB Trade Week: CrazieJoe

This is the 5th TCDB trade between Joseph and myself and each time hasn't disappointed me.  Joseph runs the CrazieJoe's Card Corner blog, which features cards of varying sorts, even wrestling! 
This time I sent him a bunch of early year Blue Jays cards for his collection, and in return I received 7 cards towards various want lists.

This is a pair of cards from the 2009-10 OPC set, immediately I put them both into the "where are they now? category.

Of course, Atlanta lost its hockey team for the 2nd time to Winnipeg several years ago.  Maybe if they had brought the Flames back to Atlanta it might have worked, but the Thrashers never really caught on.

I certainly remember Christian Ehrhoff in the NHL about a decade ago, but I wondered what had happened to him when I saw his card.  Off to hockey reference for a look.

Christian played 2 years in Vancouver right after leaving San Jose, and had his most productive seasons in the league.  He scored 14 goals in each of his 2 seasons with the Canucks and garnered Norris Trophy votes for the best defenseman in both years.

After having those 2 solid seasons, he was traded twice in 2 days, both times for 4th rd picks in the 2012 draft, which kind of baffles me.  Christian would play 3 years in Buffalo, then finish off his career in the 14-15 season playing for both LA and Chicago.  789 games over 12 seasons, 74 goals.  A solid NHL career if you ask me.  I just couldn't remember him leaving the game...

This will go into the Ichiro binder, but to be honest these Triple Play cards will always leave something to be desired in my books. 

I was going to grouse on how the Upper Deck First Edition cards were just another rehash of their base sets in the late 2000's, but then I remembered that Topps does the same thing with Opening Day and their designs.   Moving on...

Finishing up with a trio of Keith Tkachuk cards.  I especially like the one on the right that features him in the classic Kachina style Coyotes jersey (I own one myself).  I've really expanded the want list for Tkachuk cards on the TCDB site and this is the first of 2 trades that I'll show this week that has helped this collection along. 

Thank you very much Joseph for another great trade!!  Look forward to the next one.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

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

dAndy

Sometimes the end result of waiting for a long time for a trade to come in is well worth the wait.  Case in point with this trade from multiple time trade partner Andy (TCDB ID: andyroy) who sent me a big helping of cards to make a few want lists shrink quite nicely.

I still remember sitting at a kitchen table with a buddy of mine 30 years ago, ripping open a box of these cards.  We split the proceeds in half, and they promptly went in one of my many monster boxes and sat for over 2 decades.  I finally decided to get a want list going about 18 months ago, and piece by piece this want list has shrank.

I just looked at the want list, and it's down to just 29 cards, much less than I thought.  This set is definitely on the radar now for completion as the task is a lot less daunting than I imagined.  I'll get that done sometime in 2020.....for sure??

The 85-86 OPC set build is the exact opposite of its counterpart above, as it only has 34 cards in hand as of now.  I'm finally starting to get some in here and there via trading, but it's been a very slow process for this set, which is probably my favorite from the 80's.

The only portion of the trade that saw any baseball come my way was these three cards for the Thome and Olerud collections.  The Olerud collection is starting to pick up a little since I expanded the want list, and it's just a handful of cards shy of the 200 mark.   Thome's collection, which I've been working on for much longer, is now 20 cards from hitting 600, and I had to add a 2nd binder as the first one was just too overloaded and a bit tough to manage each time I opened it.

The last scan is nearly a full page of needs for my various hockey collections, including a much appreciated Mitch Marner card from the 2017-18 Tim Horton's set.

This envelope actually arrived via the Pony Express, as it was mailed in April and didn't arrive until Friday of last week, about 5 weeks enroute.  In the end, it was worth the wait.

Thank you for the trade Andy, it is appreciated!  Looking forward to the next one.

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

One of the best in the west

Growing up, one of my favorite towns to hear about in the news or weather reports was Moose Jaw, SK.  Just saying "Moose Jaw" was always entertaining for me, and just imagining what it would be like to live there in the middle of the Canadian prairies always fascinated me.  Now, I'm able to get a few cards from there.

I've just completed my 2nd trade with a great trade partner, Kevin (TCDB ID: kdinthejaw), who is great at hitting multiple and varied want lists for me.

Let's start with some set help.  2018-19 OPC has 5 cards removed from the list, including the Maple Leafs rock steady Freddie Andersen.  That set is doing quite well now as it's over 500 out of the 600 cards needed.

Bill Guerin on the lower right of the scan is from the 2007-08 OPC set, which I'm miles away from finishing (I've just over half of the set in hand), and this may be only the 2nd or 3rd card I've received in trades.

Half a dozen cards from another slow set build, 2018 Playoff Prestige.  Still need another 86 cards to finish this set, including a bunch of short printed rookies.  Once I did some digging and found out that the Prestige set is released pretty much with the same amount of cards (300) and Short Printed rookies (100) you can better believe that I stayed away from it in 2019.  It still surprises me that I don't have a lot of trades for football on TCDB, even with a decent want list for my player collections on the site.

Leave it to my Canadian hockey brethren to help me out with some player collections, including a 04-05 Pacific Sakic, leaving me just 11 cards short of the 800 mark for the Sakic PC.  As a contrast, the Mitch Marner collection doesn't even take up 2 pages yet.  He's still quite young, and expensive, so there's a lot of time for him yet...

Pat Flatley RC!  84-85 OPC is still a set that I regret letting get away, and so it will be very sweet when I have this completed.  This card took me over the 50% mark by one, and the next card I receive will be the 200th for the set.  Still need a couple of the big RC's, including Steve Yzerman, so it'll be a while before this is done.

Thank you for the trade Kevin, the cards are appreciated.   Look forward to the next trade with you!!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

The same, only different

I guess that I could have posted all the cards that I've shown over the past couple of days on the same post as tonight's, but I really am trying to keep a steady flow of posts.   It doesn't hurt when you have just over a half dozen trade envelopes arrive on your doorstep in a 2 day period.  It's more hockey today as these two envelopes also knock down some OPC want lists.  One old, and one not as old.

Let's start with the newer part of the post, with a set that's coming along nicely, 2009-10 OPC.

3 time trade partner, and fellow blogger Joseph (TCDB ID: CrazieJoe) sent me a page worth of OPC cards, nearly getting me to the halfway point of this set.  The trade market has been the biggest source of cards for this set, as I may have had only a dozen or so when I put this set up on the site as one to build.  Up to 278 out of the 600 for the set, so we're doing all right.  Joseph also sent me another card for my Keith Tkachuk collection:

Very nice looking card, and it helps that UD put the year of manufacture on the front of the card, as often times it's very hard to see it when it's on the back.

Next up is an older OPC set that I've worked off and on since it came out in 1990-91.

25 cards off of this set's want list make this another set that's completable by the end of the year.  71 cards is not a whole lot for a set that doesn't have any cards that are high value.

These are the other two cards I received from another repeat trade partner, Andy (TCDB ID: andyroy3) who I'm sure was glad to unload all these cards for a few inserts and base cards from the 08-09 season.  As you can see, I still haven't figured out the new computer and scanner combo, as I keep cutting off the top of cards on my scans.  Practice makes perfect.

What has been great lately is that I've been able to knock off a lot of wants for my player collections as well.  It hasn't just been one or two of the ten, it's been most of them that have had cards added, which is great!!

With all the trades coming in, these posts are pretty much all the same, only different.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Some goodies from the monthly card show

Spent $50 at the monthly card show this past weekend, the most I've spent in quite some time.  I got some goodies for myself, and a few cards for my buddy Chris to help with his '83 Topps FB set build.  Some of the cards that I found this weekend were quite surprising to find down here in S. Florida, especially the hockey.

This wasn't in line with anything that I was working on, or hoping to find this weekend, but when I saw this in a dollar box, numbered 2 out of 10 from the '02 Chicago National, well there was no way that this Mask card of Ed Belfour wasn't finding it's way into my pile.  Love it!!

I could probably count on one hand the number of Keith Tkachuk cards I've found at the show over the past couple of years, and still have fingers left over.  This Pacific Paramount Special Delivery die cut insert is something I'd never seen before so I was more than happy to add it to the pile, along with this next card...

97-98 Donruss Preferred gold!  Another card never before seen by these eyes, so this was also a great find.  I was quite happy with these and a few others I found in the dollar boxes, such as these two Patrik Laine cards,

Rookie card and the retro variation for a dollar apiece is a bargain I couldn't leave at the show.

This turned out to be another Ichiro show; I grabbed a dozen more Ichiro's out of the dollar box, including these two serial #'d cards.  As you can see, I'm still working out the kinks of scanning with the new software.

I even grabbed a couple of serial #'d cards for some trade bait...

I've managed to pick up more Clayton Kershaw cards on the cheap at this card show than any of my own PC's.  Love how the Prizm scanned!

But the big two pickups for me were not in the dollar boxes.

For $5, I found this Larry Fitzgerald card #'d to 25

Believe it or not, that's the orange parallel.  Scans more red though, don't you think?  No matter the scan result, $5 was a good price from where I stood for a card #'d 3/25.

Last up, one of the few remaining cards for the '79 Topps set.  

Nolan cost me $8, not too bad.  The back is a bit off center, but for less than a sawbuck, I was happy to have this card finally in hand.  Down to just 3 cards needed to finish this one off.  Ozzie Smith, Pete Rose and Lou Brock are all I need to pick up.  Once that's done, we're on to 2012-13 OPC in keeping in line with the set completion order that I laid out for myself at the beginning of 2020.  

I wasn't too sure originally about finishing the 10 sets, but the way things have progress over the first 5 weeks of this year, I'm a lot more positive about finishing them all.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Well, if you insist

In the mail today I probably received the biggest package of cards from a TCDB trade yet, and I've received quite a few decent sized ones for sure.

So, I received an offer at the end of November from repeat Canadian trade partner Hugo (TCDB ID:pennytendencies) which took me a little while to get through.  Let me explain.

Hugo asked me for 15 Montreal Canadiens cards of varying types, such as serial #'s, silver signatures, inserts, you get it...

On my side, there were 13 cards that either fit my player collections

and 3 that helped a couple of early 2000's Topps Heritage hockey sets...

I LOVE these two sets, and can't wait to finish them.   Someday

But apparently that wasn't enough, because I guess Hugo had a few extra 2018-19 OPC hockey doubles lying around.

Good ol' Henrik Lundqvist was one of two hundred and six cards that I was able to mark off of my 2018-19 OPC want list.  In one shot, I gain almost 35% of the set. 

If you're familiar with trading on TCDB, you know that 222 cards will take quite a while to scroll down on the screen, and I'm sure it took Hugo quite a while just to click and enter them on the trade proposal.  Above and beyond for sure.

Down to 157 cards for the 18-19 OPC set, 1/2 of which are SPs.  Doable.  But after I finish about 10 other sets that I'm close to finishing.    Priorities you know.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for the trade Hugo, it is very much appreciated!!

Robert

4 in the door and 2 feet on the go

Well, there have been a couple of benefits of all these trades I've been completing over the past couple of months.  A big part of 2019 for me on a personal note is trying to lose all this excess weight I've been carrying for years.  My house is roughly a 10-15 minute walk to the Post Office, so weekend mornings have been spent gaining steps and some exercise while sending packages in the mail to trade partners all over N. America.

Here's the latest 4 trade packages to come in the door for your consideration.

I put this set up on the TCDB website a few weeks back on a lark, wondering if I would get any hits on it.  Boy, have I been surprised so far.   These 7 2008 UD X die-cuts came to me via TCDB user ID jrayes7of9.   I sent a few Heritage SPs his way and these 7 cards get me to just shy of the 1/2way mark for this 100 card set.

This trade was a hot one, as Steven (TCDB ID: parsley24) offered up these 4 cards for 4 '18 A&G Minis featuring the hottest peppers in the world.  The 2 A&G cards leave me with just 11 to go to finish the set, and the Cutch and Ichiro cards help those PCs out.   I've added quite a few base cards to the want lists for most of my player collections, and I've received quite a few hits in the past couple of months.

I was also very happy with this trade with TCBD user ID suedehead6 (I gotta start remembering to write people's names down, once they close the trade I can't see their names anymore!!).  I found it interesting that he collects both the New York Rangers and Kansas City Royals, but there's never any telling what people collect anymore just by geography.  I sent him some cards from those teams, and got back some much needed hockey from a couple of OPC sets (12-13 & 13-14) along with another Joe Sakic base card that I didn't have. 

Last but not least, this trade with Kevin, who has one of the best ID's on the site (kdinthejaw), sent me a nice chunk of 91-92 OPC Premier cards.  I'm sure that he's probably had them sitting in a box for quite a long time and was happy to get them off of his hands.   91-92 OPC Premier was another want list that I put on the TCDB site on a lark, and sure enough I have received quite a few cards for the set, with 5 more on the way from Hawaii!   Kevin also sent a Keith Tkachuk card and a couple of Joe Sakic cards for those player collections. 

I started the effort to drop some weight at the end of January, about a month before I saw my doctor for my annual physical.  A lot of this stemmed from being tired all the time (especially on weekends), and not wanting to be round anymore (lol).  Well, at the end of February I was weighed at the docs office at 284, and that same day I received a FitBit and vowed to start improving my health.

I'm down to 267 right now, and the best part for me is that it is noticeable.  My goal by the end of 2019 is to weigh 210 lbs.   I've also cut down on big meals, I don't eat as many sugary snacks (especially in the evenings), and my goal is 35 active minutes a day.   I'm not starving myself or going on one of those fad diets, just eating less and walking more is helping me tremendously. 

So keep those trades coming, the walks to the post office do nothing but help me out!!

Thanks for reading!

Robert