Site Forum

I love HutNuts suggestion for generic entry to trade list that defines cards available from a set while not actually defining each and every card. I'm finding it challenging enough to add cards that I consider my collection let alone cards I would rather trade to someone that would value their posession more than me. Perhaps a little definition would help such as how many cards from the set are available for trade. It would seem more productive to ask a member that has identified many cards from a set available rather than just a few. Perhaps something like 1987 Topps baseball - 100+ available for trade. 

I'm finding it challenging enough to add cards that I consider my collection let alone cards I would rather trade to someone that would value their posession more than me. 

The value to you is in what you get in exchange for the card(s) you don't value.

To be honest, I really don't see the point of being able to generically say "I have 100+ 1987 Topps for trade".  If I'm actively seeking out 1987 Topps from you and I have even one card in the set I'll need to know which 100 you have so I don't trade for a duplicate. 

So the only real market this is serving is for someone that has zero cards of the set they're supposedly looking for.  How frequently does that happen?

Maybe there is a misunderstanding of sorts here. My thought was this. For me to upload everything I posess in my collection that I intend to keep will take quite some time. That would be my priority as far as entering cards on the site. Therefore the cards that I'm willing to trade will be the last cards ever entered here. That means none of those cards would seem to be available for trade to the membership here because there would be no public indication from me that I had anything available. Wouldn't there be some value in my being able to easily indicate to the community at large here that I would have available for instance 100+ 1987 Topps baseball cards? That way if another member is searching for a specific card from that set and no one else here has it listed as a specific card they have available for sale/trade that member could ask me to check my 1987 Topps cards to see if I did have that card available. To me, that ability has value, both to me in time savings to begin with in indicating I have cards available without having to specify each one and then to the membership in indicating the possibility of a match for an item they seek.

Maybe that's the misunderstanding. I didn't mean to insinuate all the 100+ 1987 Topps baseball cards were available as a lot at one time as a trade. Just to indicate generically that I do have a NUMBER of these cards available. That would increase the possibility of finding the specific card being sought in that stack of 100+. If I'm looking for 1 card from that set it would be better to ask someone that indicates they have 600 available than another that says they have 25. 

If I only needed one card from a set, I'm looking specifically for someone that has that card listed for trade. I'm not looking for someone with a generic list of cards from that set. It's also easier to do by just going to the cards' page and clicking a link. Just putting that out there.

Lerxst, it's MUCH easier to add your traders on here first than it is to add your keeps, UNLESS you have a complete set and want to trade the duplicates. Either way, you would have to add each keep or trader individually after you add the mass of the set.

As for the #1 thing I'd like to see added by ADMIN, I'd like to be able to sort TRADE searches by team and/or player name, intead of just by sport/non-sport and then a set! Teams and Athletes generally dictate what I want to trade for from my Want List. Since I can only search by set, it seems like I'm forced to take the fastest route to match a trade or spend WAY too much time looking at each set in the Match list to figure out which cards I want the most. In the MLB, I want every Ozzie Smith card that I don't have yet. But the only way to actually search that with this trade setup is to open multiple pages and constantly bounce back and forth b/t them to see if someone has even one card I need of his.

I agree with those who say that this option really wouldbe of little value.  There are already enough cards listed specifically for trade that having a simple listing of "100+ commons for trade" would not entice me much into asking about them.

I know that entering everything one has for trade is a long process (not as long as some seem to think if organized) but it is worth the effort to do so. Even the cards that you would think everyone has a copy of already sometimes gets asked for in a trade. Once your trade list is entered, simple maintenance can keep it valid for a long time and it does generate trade offers.

i use the Match List option here all the time, so having just a generic listing like that wouldnt show up in my search, so i wouldnt ever see what you had available....Entering your cards can seem like its overwhelming at times, but the benefits far outweigh the pain to have the cards listed specifically if you're looking to do a lot of trades...

I suppose I just don't understand the best way to go about using the site. If I want to contribute to the site, I need to find items I have in my collection that the site is missing. Then scan, edit and upload them. If I want to create a wantlist I first need to input what I have to find out what I don't have. At the same time, I need to be entering cards that I have available for trade. Pretty much all these things have to happen at once. And that seems a daunting task. 

Maybe I don't quite understand how other users use the site either. Looking at the list of the top 5 members all-time, none of the top 4 have a single transaction and the top 3 combined have a total of 2714 cards listed in their collections, with one contributing 0 to that total.

I'm wondering the best way to connect with collectors/traders with similar collections, wants and needs. It would seem to be beneficial to find other members that collect cards of a favorite team or player. I'm not sure how to make that connection though. There doesn't seem to be an easy avenue to determine who those collectors might be. My profile identifies what I'm interested in and collect, but I've found no easy way to search out others with similar interests. Is there a search feature for that? I saw a few members profiles that indicated favorite players and teams, but couldn't readily find how to add those favorites to my profile. I finally stumbled upon the fact you can search something and then star it to indicate it as a favorite. It doesn't seem to be a feature utilized by many though. Searching for other Cubs collectors by looking at those that favorited the Cubs only yeilded 9 members including myself. Of those 1 has 0 Cubs cards and 1 has 8 indicated in their collections. A check of the Yankees, Mets and Cardinals also yielded less than 10 members indicating them as favorites. I'm not sure how many members there are on the site, but I have to assume more than 10 collect cards from those 4 major market teams.

I haven't ever actually traded cards in the past. It would seem to be a smart and economical way of acquiring cards I desire while helping another fellow collector do the same. I'd like to be able to participate that way. This site seems like it has the potential to be an awesome tool. Any suggestions on how best to contribute and find like minded collectors/traders? 

Do you use Excel or Word? Do you use all the features in those programs every single time you open it up - within the first 3 minutes?

No, of course you don't - it's impossible.

Same with this site. It's massive. There are A LOT of things to do here. The "top contributors" are simply the top point getters. They like to scan stuff (or poach off the internet), whatever it is they do (except we know Billy only scans and uploads what he has in his collection). We have MANY other members who enjoy fixing the checklists (adding teams where there are none, fixing them to be correct, getting the names correct, getting the Note and Note2 correct, etc.). These are not high point-getting activities. (Admin does award points at the end of each month for these activities, but they aren't as "TCDB-point lucrative" as adding scans and checklists.)

Honestly, I've been registered on this site for over 5 years. I still do not have my inventory of trade bait listed. (I have about 80,000 - 100,000 cards to list!) I finally got my Phillies collection catalogued in January. I had gotten my want list somewhat squared, and managed to mess it up. (Next task for me...) I also have plenty of items in my collection that need scans here. I'll get to them eventually (if someone else doesn't get there first - and if they do, great).

Please don't feel you have to do it ALL immediately. So you want to trade. Get what you really want to trade away on the FS/FT list. Get your biggest wants on your want list. See if the automatic matching works. If not, add more stuff. Take year by year, or set by set. Don't try to do too much too fast. You'll get overwhelmed, and not do anything. They always say walk before you run. Same applies here. I'm still strolling along!

Please do continue to ask questions, read the boards, read the FAQ, and get familiar with the site. Learn about permissions and do what you can. Don't try to do more than you can. Ask for help.

As for your last question - you'd probably be better off finding people who don't collect quite the same as you. :) That way your collections won't overlap much. A lot of what I put in my 5th paragraph here applies - take it year by year or set by set adding stuff to the site for your various lists. Don't worry - you'll wind up making trades on here - if that's what you want to do.

I have my entire collection written out on paper, by set. Ive been dong that since I was 14 years old, before the internet was a thing that I was aware of.  When I first joined I used those paper listings to enter my collection on here. I added sets that were close to completion on my wantlist, basically if it was too close to justify buying a box of...I still harbor the myth/fantasy that I'll be able to buy a box of everything again someday. But I always tell people, anything not in my collection is part of my wantlist. 

For the past five years I had been spending every free hour of every day working on adding what was missing scans, which I finished in December. Now I'm working on my own personal excel files, recreating what I lost to a file corruption circa 2006, buf so much more as I have really changed the way I collect since then. 

I'm not very good at entering my tradelist. It's cumbersome at best, tedious at worst. I have only a fraction of what I have listed...literally about only 1/8th of my tradelist is listed. I don't really enjoy adding my duplicates so I don't generally bother...I spend about two months on it back in December 2014-january 2015 and I still get trade requests at least one a month on average. You never know what people will want, either. For example, 1991 Maxx is the most common NASCAR set ever. You can buy a factory sealed box or a factory set for $5 or less. I figured everyone who wants them has them already, but within a day of listing them on my tradelist here, I started getting requests asking for them, and of all the sets I had available, that one ended up with the most cards going out in the mail. It truly surprised me how quickly they went, you just never know what people are going to want. 

What I have been thinking of doing is possible due to the ability to have multiple collections. It's easier to add cards to a collection than it is to a tradelist, so I am debating creating a third collection for my duplicates. The main drawback from that is that they wouldn't show up on the tradelist when clicking each card...you'd have to be a regular member and know how I do it to find my tradelist, and that is holding me back from actually doing it, I simply have not decided yet. 

I'm not sure if all that will be of any help, but I hope it is somehow.