TCDB and Me

It's been a rough week for me. Last Saturday I attempted to mail a PIF to Adam, got to the post office and realized I left my wallet at home. By the time I got back home it was snowing so I didn't go back out. His box - and other packages - will be mailed shortly.

That sort of set the tone for the whole week. The NFC title game was a disaster. I never thought the Packers could possibly play worse in a big game than they did against Atlanta three years ago. I was wrong. (Does Tevin Coleman film GB's practices or something?) 

I've been struggling with new responsibilities at work, and there's been a lot of staff turn over which has made it much harder for me to focus on specific tasks. My manager had to train a new girl and cover for another girl so I only worked with her once this week. Monday was such a rough day at work that I took a sick day Tuesday to recharge. 

On Tuesday, I finally received a trade that had taken 2 1/2 weeks to complete receive. On Jan. 3 I proposed a trade to a user in NY offering 72 of my cards (including 11 Brett Favre dupes) for 66 of his (including 6 Favre cards). He accepted the trade and I shipped the next day. 

The following Monday he went to pull the cards and found that he was missing 8 of the 72 I'd requested. He apologized, but didn't offer a replacement. When I asked for one he replied "what u want in replace of it and i will send them" so I asked for 7 cards, including one Favre insert to replace the ones that were omitted. He did not reply "yes" or "no".

He didn't reply at all. I had to ask him if he sent my end. He finally did, on Jan. 18 - and neglected to mention that he omitted two more cards from the trade, including the Favre insert I'd asked for as a replacement. 

I've been trying to offload my 2015-2019 Topps baseball duplicates for Red Sox and set fillers, with mixed results. Most collectors have finished these sets already, and I don't like making trades with less than six cards going each way. Lately I've run into the problem of proposing trades that would help me finish the 2019 Topps set, only to receive a reply three days later that the one card I really need is involved in another trade.

This has happened at least four times in January alone, and after reading a TCDB thread about "pet peeves" (which some jerk naturally turned into partisan political bickering) I'm skeptical of anyone who uses this excuse. 


Another trade arrived yesterday. I had offered 7 cards to an O-Pee-Chee collector in Canada including two of my Platinum Franken-set dupes and a Sidney Crosby parallel.

In exchange, I asked for 14 O-Pee-Chee cards from the 1970s and 1980s (the only hockey cards that interest me anymore) and one retro parallel. I've been skunked with creased cards in the past, so I asked the user ahead of time to describe the condition of the oldest issues. He said they are in great shape and didn't think I would have a problem.

Ron Francis freebie! No problem with that. It's a little miscut, but that's expected for a box bottom.

This Tom Kurvers card made me smile. Do you know what Toronto traded for him? A future first round pick that ended up becoming Scott Niedermayer. LolLeafs. 

Devils and Whalers needs. Check out the awful airbrush job on the Steve Richmond card. Yikes! 

These were all fine. The '86-87 Cirella at the top left is off-center, but that's minor. The older cards however...

Problem. Q's card isn't creased but the corners are rough. Potvin isn't technically creased, either. There's a long scratch through the front though. Shutt is creased at the top.

These aren't great, either. Even the Bergeron (which is a 2008 issue) has two corner dings.

I specifically asked about the condition of Keon and Resch. Keon has a thumbnail crease at the top left, in the same spot as Shutt but more severe. As for Chico...

You can't see them in the scan but there are two large creases on the back, extending from the first 'N' at the top down to the "Chico is a doll" sign. Perhaps the trader didn't see this, either. It was a shock to him that these cards were damaged. 

I may have been a little hard on him, and he did offer to send replacements (provided his seven cards arrive in good shape) so we'll see how it goes. In addition to disappointing trades I bought two cards on eBay for my 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set. The auctions were ending at 5pm so I had to bid at work, only to find out that one of the two cards was already in my collection! 

I'm blaming the new diet I'm on, which cuts down on sodium and caffeine in order to lower my blood pressure. It's making me more exhausted and irritable, but hopefully I'll feel better in the long run.

I'm going to turn off trading on TCDB soon. The postal rates are increasing (again) and I need to reduce my stress. I'll be happy to swap cards with any of my regular readers - especially if you have an Eloy Jimenez Topps RC or something else that helps fill my sets :)


Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!