Let’s Make A Deal!

Trading is something that still exists today but was much more a part of my collecting when I was a kid. As an adult, I’ll occasionally make a trade with a friend and we’ll exchange cards through the mail. But that’s a little more difficult and risky than when you could sit down and hold a friend’s binder and physically make a deal. Due to that added risk and effort, there are some Do’s and Don’ts that I use when trading today to try and reduce the chances of getting burned. Everyone learns from their own mistakes and you may have some different or additional techniques that are helpful to you. This is not meant to discourage you from any of your techniques. I’m also not calling this the gospel of trading. This is what works for me. Finally, these may seem like normal common sense items but I have seen too many people get shafted because they were too eager to make a move.It’s usually best to get comfortable with a trade partner before sending a card off willy nilly in the hopes of getting one in return. I’m in a Facebook group that promotes the hobby and buying/selling/trading. I’m also active on Twitter with my personal and blog account. Social media is an excellent source for finding some of the cards that you’ve been looking for to add to a PC when you are trying to avoid EBay. I use EBay quite a bit as well but the trade is what we are focusing on today. As a general rule, I don’t entertain trade offers from someone new to the FB group or a fresh follower on Twitter unless their references check out. What I mean by that is you can check their timeline and with some mutual friends to see how active they are. If someone is a chronic retweeter or has 5 followers, I will likely not trade with them. It’s no offense to that person, I just don’t get enough material in the due diligence period for a trade or purchase.When you get comfortable with someone, it’s still usually a best practice to start slow with a fairly inexpensive card, like Mr. McNamara here. You know, baby steps. I recently pulled off a small trade with a twitter friend, @ShaneKatz73. He’s also a fellow blogger and I would recommend you check his work out at www.otwbbcards.wordpress.com. I was able to get comfortable with him quickly because for one, he has a blog of his own. This told me that he was pretty serious about the hobby and also that he was not necessarily hiding from the public. He also has a solid presence on Twitter in the card community. Even still, the trade we pulled off was mere pennies. But it went off without any issues and will lead to me seeking him out when I am in the market for something a little more valuable and I won’t worry whether that deal will be ok or not. If you pay attention to your feed, you can usually pick up on the people to trade with and those to stay away from.One thing about trading now that is much different from when I traded as a kid is value. As an adult collector, I have come to understand that value is relative. We still have Beckett and EBay to give us a taste of market value but I am sometimes willing to pay/trade a little more than market value for items I need for my PC. When I was a kid, all of my trades were based on needs but Beckett made it fair. At 14, you may have needed the ’89 Donruss Griffey but it was going to take more than the Sheffield ’89 Upper Deck to get it. You may have to throw in a Kevin Maas or Gregg Jefferies to complete the deal. Now, I might trade a $10 card for a $3 card if it’s something I need. We all develop this sense of value in our minds now based on what we collect. It differs from person to person so sometimes you can target PC items and make deals in that realm. The deal needs to make sense to both parties but it doesn’t always have to be equal in market value. I am not recommending that you go out and fleece anyone or allow yourself to be fleeced. I’m still not trading a $100 card for that same $3 card but value truly is in the eye of the beholder.Once the deal is done, make sure you acknowledge the deal with the trader and share your thoughts on how it went down. If it was a positive deal, let them know and let others know so they will have that reference for the future. If it was a negative deal, always try to work it out with the trader before going negative with any posts. Be clear with the trader about what didn’t meet your expectations and what would make it right. If the card was not as advertised, try to work something out to return the card. Many times, its buyer beware and you need to check everything up front. Unless the seller was misleading or did not follow through with a deal, you may have to play the hand you’ve been dealt. Of course, if the seller was misleading or failed to send an item and you can’t resolve it, negative feedback or a negative post may be in order, if for no other reason but to warn others. I am very careful with negative feedback because usually things can get worked out unless you are dealing with a real scammer. Then, that’s another story for another blog post.There are a couple of things that you don’t really have any control over. First and foremost is card condition. That is one of the major downfalls of not holding that binder in your hand when you devise your trade offer. Photos are good but if you are like me, you don’t really know until you are holding that slab of cardboard. You have to go into a deal knowing that unless it’s graded, it will likely have some issues, even if only minor. Secondly, you can’t control the US Postal Service. It’s good some days and atrocious others. You can pack your item with care in a top loader and then wrap in paper or plastic so it won’t come out. But let me say this. One of my #1 pet peeves with receiving cards in the mail is when someone tapes the top loader opening to keep the card from coming out. Please don’t do that. Find another way. Finally, you can use tracking in instances where real value is moving through the USPS system. This gives the buyer or trader a sense of comfort that a package truly is on the way and it protects your reputation if something goes wrong. Again, I usually reserve tracking for reasonably valued packages or packages where someone paid for shipping. If they pay for shipping, they get tracking!With all of this being said, it doesn’t mean that I have never been fleeced. There is one trade that will remain in my memory forever. For one, I still have the card that I traded for because it will always remind me. I actually look back on it now and it’s funny. But for a time there, I thought I had scored the biggest piece of my collection to date. I was 15 years old and Ken Griffey Jr. was my favorite player. I have mentioned before, When Subsets Were Cool, that I loved the 91 Score subsets. A friend of mine had an autographed 91 Score All-Star Ken Griffey Jr. I should’ve known something was up when it didn’t take too much to take it off of his hands. I also never considered where he would have gotten his autograph. This was 1993, before interleague play and TTM was prevalent. We live in Georgia and The Kid played with an American League team. And I knew my friend didn’t do a lot of traveling out of the state to baseball games. And furthermore, this was also before autographs were getting stuffed in every set made. But I was too star struck.I remember trading a couple of ’92 Bowman, which have turned out to be the class of the 90’s. I know a Chipper was in the stack but a Piazza might have been too. In return, I got this shiny Ken Griffey Jr. autographed card. My first autographed card! I know now that it isn’t real. I knew then that it probably wasn’t real but I couldn’t talk myself out of the deal. I still have the card in the exact same card holder as the day I traded for it. I’ll never get rid of it even thought I know it’s worthless. It has value to me. It is meaningful to me. It takes me back to the good ole days of my youth when baseball cards were my life. And that makes the trade worthwhile to me now.

Trading can be fun and easy. You just have to go into a trade with an open mind. A trade is meant to better each person’s collection. Much like fantasy football trades, you have to work at it a little bit and figure out what the other person really needs. You can’t just open the door and say I’ll give you A for B and expect that to be the end of it, unless it’s really minor items. And you have to accept that you only control one part of the transaction so do your best to live up to your expectations. It will go a long way in terms of developing future deals. Even though the days of trading in person are limited to card shows and close friends, trading is still a vital part of the hobby. Build your trader base and use it often to help each other reach goals. Whatever you do, be a positive force in the community. There have been too many members that have been out for themselves or out to make a quick buck. Be the person that you want to deal with when you make that next trade. You’ll thank yourself for it one day.

J-Dub