April 2024 - I've added a lot of Young Gun cards to my FS/Trade list, please don't propose a trade for these cards without being willing to offer Young Guns in return. Response A) Hate being a stickler about this but I'm really focused on wrapping up my Upper deck sets and need Young Guns cards to do so. Response B) I continue to get lopsided trade offers with folks wanting Young Gun cards, expect me to counter.
March 2024 - I am extremely busy at work right now and have next to no time for card related items. Happy to look at trade offers when I can but the hobby is not a top priority for me right now.
January 2024 - Over 1400 trades completed and I've owned/traded/moved over a million cards since joining the site 6+ years ago. That being said, the current state of trading on this site is atrocious. Several years back, the traders were all great to deal with but this has changed dramatically in the last few years and there's truly on a handful of traders which I feel any level of comfort dealing with. Trade offers go ignored, are countered with ridiculous offers and petty issues seem to be common anymore. I left out everyone seems to treat their cards like million dollar prized possessions. I started a No Trade list but it seemed like every few days I was adding someone to it, not worth it guys and gals. I'm finding that I can buy cards I want either from Sportlots or eBay with so much less hassle. And cheap too.
All that said, when my current stash of postage runs out, I'm turning off trading and not sure if I will be returning. Was a fun ride while it lasted.
November 2023 - Trade Values - I am back to using Beckett to look at card values for trade equality.
Willing to trade to Canada again. I am though not accepting any responsibility for any losses, etc. once I drop my envelope in the mailbox. Trader beware!
October 2023 - Nothing against any of my Canadian traders but I am no longer trading to Canada due to issues with Canada Post and the USPS destroying envelopes causing loss of cards, cards needing to be resent, issues with postage, etc. It's too much folks.
To pull, package and ship cards, only to have one of the postal systems destroy the package makes it a fruitless endeavor. It's a waste of both time and money.
Sadly, Canadian trades make up most of my trades so this is probably the beginning of the end of my trading days. I will probably beginning selling off most of my collection starting in 2024. It's been a fun ride but thats the way I'm heading right now.
****1990-91 Upper Deck Hockey VAR's on my For Sale/Trade list - Highly unlikely that I have any of the oddball VAR's. These cards were entered mainly as placeholders meaning I do have one version of a given card but probably not the version you need. If time permits, I may be open to checking VAR versions but it's not something that I enjoy doing nor high on my list of things to do. ****
September 2023 - Continuing to focus on collecting one card of anyone who is the four Hall of Fame's. I'm over 90% complete on Baseball and Football. Basketball is lagging far behind. Haven't updated Hockey but I should be in good shape there as well.
Supplies:
For anyone close to Denver, I have a large amount of trading supplies that need to find a new home. I have BCW card houses, 5000 and 3200 count boxes and a host of smaller boxes (800, 660, 550, 400, 300, 200 and 100). The latter is a mixture of used and new Collect-Save-Protect or BCW brand.
Disclaimer on PWE trades
I'm hearing of, and personally experiencing, more and more issues with PWE trades. Mainly postal machines destroying/bending envelopes or envelopes arriving and the cards being missing. I have not seen issues like this in my prior 1100+ PWE trades. That being said, I will continue to send 25 cards or less PWE but once the envelope is dropped in the mailbox, I'm no longer responsible for damage/issues after that point. I'm not sending replacement cards or funds if there's damage once the USPS has my/your envelope or your cards are lost in the mail.
I'm very close to no longer writing "Non-Machinable" on my PWE envelopes. This doesn't seem like a makes a difference to the USPS and the financial costs for doing this quickly add up.
I hate to take a hard stance on this but short of stopping trading (or doing larger, bubble envelope trades), I have no other options. I'm spending too much time and money on postage to send replacement cards, when the issue arises, to make trading worth it.
Happy to do larger trades (30+ cards) in bubble envelopes.
What I'm collecting for:
1)I'm primarily an Upper Deck flagship hockey collector. I'm working on completing a few remaining base sets and then chasing Young Guns and insert cards.
2)I'm also collecting RC's (when possible) of all NBA/NHL/NFL/MLB players who have been inducted into their respective Hall of Fames. Also collecting non-players cards as well if they are in the HOF. Basically if the person is in the Hall of Fame for their sport, I'm hunting their RC or if it's a non-player, some type of card for them.
3)Finally, I'm collecting Baseball/Hockey and to a lesser extent, Football sets, of the 1970's/1980's.
Card condition:
If your cards look like they have been manhandled, I'm not interested in them for my collection. No creases, rounded corners or teeth marks.
Buying cards:
I've had several folks approach me about buying cards..I will rarely be interested in buying from someone and, odds are, I will reach out to you first..
Trade size:
Make it worth our time..
PWE packaging:
I am no longer using cardboard protection in my PWE trades. Historically, I've done 100's of trades with cards just in 9 pocket pages and then placed in envelopes and have had zero issues. After some issues I have seen lately with including cardboard in my PWE trades, I'm no longer spending the extra money, and time, just to have cardboard protection in an envelope.
Postage:
Please make sure you have proper postage on whatever you are sending me. Seems to be half the envelopes I get are short on postage. Minimal postage on a PWE envelope is $1.03.
Canada trades:
Has between 9 and 25 cards or less. I can't afford to send big trades unless there's additional cards/value to compensate. Trades less than 9 or so cards don't make a lot of sense either from a cost standpoint.
