It's super-rare, 15-plus years into this hobby online, to receive a trade package in which every card erases a need.
It requires -- on the part of the sender -- attention to want lists, having inventory that a veteran collector requires and, most of all, a bunch of luck.
Even with all the transacting Cards On Cards and I have done over this time, in which we've gone over each others wants repeatedly and again, the dupes will slip in. It's part of the process.
This is why when I received a package from him a couple of weeks ago, I was floored that every single card was needed, a 100 percent success rate. That's hard to do!
Turns out I miscalculated a bit, but I'll get to that.
First stuff I NEEEEEEEEEDED.
This is how long this send has been sitting on my card desk. These two cards were Dodger set team needs when I received them. Since then, I've completed the team set. The Ohtani-Betts card arrived today as the final want (big surprise that was the last one).
Pure luck here or careful want list evaluating? I needed the Chrome Freeman, but have the base insert, I have the Chrome Betts but needed the base insert. Yes, 2010 night owl, this is the card world we live in 2024.
Mookie Betts has climbed quickly into the top 20 as far as Dodgers with the most cards in my collection. Took just four years.
This is an excellent way of ensuring the cards you send are not duplicates in my collection. I am not buying anything Panini, I haven't done so for at least 3-to-5 years. I don't even seek them out when I'm shopping online.
Now that I've rid my team binders of the Bowman Prospects Who Weren't, Panini cards know that they're next. I haven't gotten there yet, but there will come a day of reckoning.
All right, this is the card that I have already.
I thought that because it said "refractor" on the back that maybe I needed it. But I believe all of the Pristine encased cards are refractors, which means the one I broke out of its case several years ago is one, too. I know there's a different serial number on the back of this one, but that's not enough for me to think it's a separate card.
But I could leave this one in its prison so I have one Pristine Ishii on the inside and one on the outside.
Anyway, super-happy to add all these to my collection and not the dupes box.
(P.S.: Can you believe I got through the whole post without mentioning that gleaming gold parallel thingy of Jackie Robinson at the beginning?)
Comments