Keep tryin'

Throughout the Topps Million Card Giveaway, I never possessed a card that anyone really wanted. Oh, there were a few '50s or '60s cards that I redeemed that drew some modest interested, but nothing special. I would read about some bloggers turning away 30 offers a day for particular cards, and that never happened to me.

But I have a feeling it's happening now.

Amazon.com's hosting snafu tried to sabotage my little experiment in virtual cardboard courtship, but Topps' Diamond Giveaway site is back, baby, and the dumb-ass offers are rolling in!

There are 18 offers right now for my Babe Ruth diamond diecut card. That figure changes almost hourly, but for the sake of this post, I'll say I've got 18 going now. Let's take a look at what people are throwing at the Babe:

DIECUT-FOR-DIECUT OFFERS:

These are trade offers from lucky people who have redeemed diecut cards themselves, but want to upgrade. Some of these I would have to be an idiot to take. Others make me pause. One, in particular, I would take immediately. That is, if I was a fan of the team. But I'm not. In every way that you want to interpret "not."

So here are the diecuts that could have been had by moi:

Billy Wagner for the Babe? Nah. I wouldn't even consider Honus Wagner for the Babe.

Marlon Byrd for the Babe? He was one of the heroes for the National League in the All-Star Game last year. But he also was the last card I needed to complete Series 1 of the 2009 set. I don't forget, Marlon.

Rickey diecut has been offered to me in three separate trades by the same trader. No. No. And ... No.

I don't care how many fantastic cards Wicked has on his trade bait pages, I am not dealing the Babe for a Marlin.

Now, there's some disturbing footage for you. Yaz admiring his lumber. Under normal circumstances, I would jump at this card. These are not normal circumstances.

Ooooooooh, this is tempting. Hank did hammer more home runs than the Babe. But, you see, I'm not looking for a Brave, especially a non-super-old vintage Brave. Reincarnate this item as a 1956 Aaron and you've got yourself a deal.

INSULTING ONE-FOR-ONE OFFERS:

Steroid jerk-off for the Babe? Good day to you sir.

Crikey, what's with all the Yankees? I have this card already. I don't need another to remind me I didn't like the guy.

This is a weird one. The trader probably doesn't know that I adore vintage World Series cards. But I'm still not trading it for Diecut Baby, especially since I have it already.

OK, this trader knows what he's doing. This is not insulting at all. If I didn't have this card already, I'd probably sign off on this. It wouldn't be a good deal on my part, but a vintage Brooksy is hard to ignore.

QUANTITY OVER QUALITY OFFERS:

2 CARDS: "Did I offer enough with the Clemens? I don't know, it doesn't seem like it's enough. Is that enough? How about if I add another card? How about Carlos Silva? That should be enough, right?"

That's right, hot stuff, I wasn't going to do it until you threw in that Silva card.

Sheesh.

3 CARDS: If I were to sign off on this trade, the authorities would come to my house and take my collection away. Then they'd remove everything from my home that could be considered "collectible."

3 CARDS: Impressive cards they are. I don't even know how someone was able to accumulate three stars from the same set so quickly. Unfortunately, I have them all.

5 CARDS: I looked up how many 1987 Tony Gwynn cards have been redeemed in the Diamond Giveaway so far.

FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN!!!

I don't even want to know how many 2001 Ivan Rodriguez cards there are.

Nice try mixing the junk wax with the two die-cuts, but me and the Babe ain't budging.

5 CARDS: You had me until you threw that stinkin' Giant in there. ... OK, not really, you didn't have me at all.

The final offer I'm showing included this 1972 Gene Mauch card. It is the highlight of the offer for me as it's a card from a set that I'm collecting that I don't have.

The entire offer is 24 cards. Everything from a 1969 Julian Javier and 1970 Paul Lindblad to a 1983 Ron Cey and a 2005 Jose Valentin.

If you knew nothing about the diecut cards or card collecting in general and you were offered 24 cards for one mere card, wouldn't you get suspicious?

Consider me suspicious.

And no, I'm not showing all 24 cards. I have my limits.

I have rejected all but a couple of these offers. I'll probably reject those, too, but I like to keep my options open.

Meanwhile, if any people are interested in actually getting a deal done, I like the following:

Dodgers.

Preferably vintagy. Very vintagy.

I think I've made that clear by now.