Vintage Trading

 I love a good old fashioned trade.

You know, the one where I get stuff I want, the person I am trading with get what they want and there is no nickel and diming. That's a good vintage trade. The old days trades.

It's really hard to come across people who like to trade like this anymore, especially on social media.

But, then there are those rare occasions and I have had a few of those with @levy2628 previously. Such a good guy, a great trader and friend.

We pulled off a non-sport trade full of fun.

He had a ton of vintage non-sports cards he was just looking to move and I was very interested in the whole lot. Even though I wasn't able to get all of them, I was able to land the key ones I wanted most including this first card.....

A 2011 Topps American Pie Freddie Mercury which was a set need. This has been a set I have been working three or four years on and have narrowed it down to just eight cards left. You can see my remaining needs HERE.

I would love nothing more than to put this set to rest by year's end.

This card I would say was probably the centerpiece to this trade just because of its significance to the set chase.

But, that doesn't mean that the rest of these didn't sparkle as well,

1953 Maple Leaf Gum Frankie Laine. Gotta admit I didn't know who Laine was so I had to hit Google. I just liked the card.

 

These two 1933 National Chicle cards I wanted just because of the pictures and because they are really old cards. Other than that, they didn't really have a centered purpose.

1965 Blandat "HB" George Harrison. When you can get a vintage Beatles card, you add it.

1953 Maple Leaf Gum Romy Schneider. Once again, had to Google her. Actress, seemed popular in her time.

And finally, let's end this trade with a legend. A 1974-81 Swedish Samiarsaker Pop Star Diana Ross. Big name find in vintage I couldn't say no to.

Now that was a good Vintage Trade! Thanks again @levy2628! Hope you are prepping for our next one!

I wished more people would trade this way. Sometimes trading becomes more of a hassle than being worth the time you put into it. I have had so many traders say, "we are about $2.63 off from completion of this trade". I just want to roll my eyes, instead I give them a couple free cards and a $5 one just to complete the trade. And I don't "comp" any of them, I just go with the flow.

How has your luck been with trades? Are you finding it harder or easier now? What was the best vintage type trade you have made? Let me know in comments or just comments on the cards I added works too!

Hope everyone has a Wonderful Wednesday.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

The Three Blog Mailings

With so much to catch up on, I have been using nighttime to get some blogging done and trying to keep pace with what I have to get posted. The only problem with this is that I am using the little bit of free time I have to do this. Which means blogging is taking place of sorting cards or playing a game of Madden.

As I get caught up, I will have to find a better balance so I can enjoy all three downtime things.

But here I am until then.

When I took a couple months off in the fall, which by the way was a nice refresher, I struggled with getting mail days which led to no content to post about and led to thoughts of retirement from blogging. 

Things started to change in December as my mailbox found quite a few mainly from bloggers, former bloggers and possible future bloggers. 

Like Crocodile Sports Cards who I won a football prize pack from his contest. 

The box was loaded with vintage (like actual vintage in the 70's, 90's is not vintage), 90's, and even cards from today. A mix of teams, players, rookies and a few stars.

Some examples to follow,

(absolutely adore this card)

Thanks Croc!

Then there was a very generous mail day from The Diamond King that arrived pretty fast despite how slow the mail was around the holidays,

A Trout for my player PC

Shiny!

Then came the eye candy of an Shohei Ohtani rookie! Pretty stoked to add this one.

Thanks DK!

And finally, Johnny's Trading Spot saw my comment on one of his recent posts

 

About this Keenan McCardell and how I didn't have it for my set chase. Guess what, the always generous guy sent it my way. Now I can cross this one off! With this addition, I now have 36 of the 120 or so autographs. I am not sure I will ever be able to tackle the big boys but would be fun to try and get close. Here is my list of needs if you are curious or have some help for me:1995 Pro Line Autographs

Thanks as always Johnny!

This is just the beginning of the fun mail days I have to share.

Hope everyone has a fantastic Friday! I have basketball practice tonight to prep for our first game tomorrow so I know I will have a great one...and busy one.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Don't forget you can start to nominate cards for the 2025 Coffee Card Hall Of Fame!! Cards don't have to be autographs, patch cards, super star cards. It can be whatever you think is Hall Worthy! Find details and current nominations HERE.

My First Vintage Chase?

*sits down, coffee in hand, breakfast in hand, a huge stack cards nearby. sorts them by color than proceeds to type*

I am not much into vintage when it comes to sports cards, mostly because I don't know that many players from those eras. I wasn't really into sports until 1995 so anything that happened 25+ years earlier than that didn't really have an impact on my sports life so collecting those players doesn't play a role in my nostalgia.

That doesn't mean I won't add a few players I know of, but not my top preference when it comes to new pickups.

However, when it comes to non-sport vintage cards, that's a different cup I don't mind drinking.

*speaking of cup of drinking, takes a sip*

Recently, I made a trade with @levy2628 who had stacks of 1977 Topps Star Wars and had been looking for a trade mate to unload them all to.

That's where I stepped in.

We pulled off a trade pretty fast, like we usually do, and I landed the stacks.

There was a stack of blue.

With Obi-Wan on the top.

A stack of Red.

With a picture of the spaceport on top.

And a stack of yellow.

 

With an escape pod on top.

Having all three stacks got me to thinking...should I chase my first vintage set? And if I do, how should I approach it? Need to keep in mind also that this is a very condition sensitive set and most I have aren't mint. However, being said, isn't the point of vintage cards not to be mint? It gives them their own flavor.

If I decide to go forward with this project, here is what I will have to tackle:

There are five series in the 1977 Topps Star Wars set with each having their own color, 

1 Blue
2 Red
3 Yellow
4 Green
5 Orange

but all pick up where the last one ended. Overall, there are 330 cards.

The Blue set, the most popular of the group because it has the "rookie cards" of, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I own a good portion of the key "rookie cards", especially the Skywalker that is most valuable, I may not be too far off from the set once I gather what I had already and what I just hauled in. There are only 66 cards in the first series.

This is my first haul of the other colors and here is how they break down,

Series 2 Border Color: Red
Card Numbers: 67-132

Series 3 Border Color: Yellow
Card Numbers: 133-198

Series 4 Border Color: Green
Card Numbers: 199-264

Series 5 Border Color: Orange
Card Numbers: 265-330

Now that I have broken it all down, how should I proceed with this. Just finish Series 1 Blue? Do the ones I have? Or chase it all?

Let me know what you think in comments!

Thanks again to @levy2628 for the trade.

Hope everyone had a safe holiday weekend and has a terrific Tuesday.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Not Vintage

*pours a cup from the freshly brewed pot*

Vintage is a word that gets thrown around out there loosely when it comes to older items and sometimes not used in the right context in my opinion when it comes to sport cards.

Here's a few examples of the definition of Vintage.

• The definition for vintage for clothing is something that is at least 20 years old.
• The definition for wine is 50 years or older.
• If the item is no older than an antique which is 100 years or older, but not less than 20 years, it falls under the term vintage.

So where do we draw the line with sport cards?

To me, "vintage" in the sport card world is any card older than 1970. Which falls under the wine and final definition examples I gave above.

However, some believe, that cards from 1990's are vintage.

V....I....N....T...A...G...E.

That's very misleading to me. Cards from the 1990's are NOT vintage they are RETRO folks. Anything over 10 years old to 30 years old is considered retro. DO NOT USE THE WORD VINTAGE for cards back in the 1990's. Not even cards in the 1980s'.

*ranting makes me drink coffee faster, time for cup number two!*

Is this coffee mug that I am using this morning vintage because my wife has owned it close to 20 years? No. No it's not should be your answer (I like to use this mug as it's the bigger ones we have not that I don't have a sister)

Or how about this coffee, if I was to let this sit here for an hour per say, does that make this vintage coffee that I poured a long time ago? (by the way no plans to do try that)

But I bet some would consider both of those scenarios as vintage.

*quick sip*

For Christmas this past year, my sister-in-law grabbed me a box of "vintage" cards online. She knows I love to collect so she was trying to find a unique item for myself. Which she did, as I hadn't seen one of these before. So I expected the unexpected but seeing the word vintage I was drawn in and was excited to rip into it.

Until I found out that the wrong term was used for the product.

I didn't find vintage, I found retro packs. Not just any retro packs, but "junk wax" retro packs.

Those kind of packs I don't really ever open. They are more valuable to me being sealed than to be opened and trying to find a place to store them since most cards would be duplicate cards and I don't keep dupes in my collection.

Here is the pack variety I found in this box. There are 20 packs in every one of these boxes with some packs, the most common ones, having multiples of the same pack.

not the ugly yellow baseball, but still....

I have three base sets of these and close to 100 Hampton rookies

6 packs of these!

Could be a Favre rookie in here I guess

The final pack I was most excited about....

There you have the box breakdown of these "vintage"packs.

Did you see any from 1970?....I didn't.....

*Halfway through cup numero uno, time to weigh my breakfast options. I did make chocolate no bake cookies yesterday....*

I was curious what my sister-in-law dished out for one of these boxes and it appears they go for $35-$40 each. 😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒

That's saying each pack would go for $2 each. I am sure you could buy multiples of some of these packs for $2. It's tough for me to see and definitely not something I would have grabbed for that cost.

I never told my sister-in-law anything negative about the cards because she bought them for me. I just opened the box in front of her, smiled and thanked her. She gave them to me as a gift she thought I would enjoy. So I will and will find a way to do so.

So my rant is over for the term vintage. I think I made my point. Now I better go eat my breakfast and pour cup number three before both of those and maybe even myself become vintage sitting in front of this computer.