A Trade With Mr. Dodger Penguin

I'm having such a hard time starting this post, so that'll be my intro. About a week ago, Matthew and I completed a trade. It wasn't a very easy trade, as it took a couple of weeks to complete, but it was well worth it! I sent him my Tony Gwynn 2014 Topps Series 1 strata autograph, that I have owned since November, and the Julio Urias 2014 Bowman oversized purple ice autograph that I got in a trade about a month ago. It was sad to leave the Gwynn and Urias, but what I got definitely makes up for the loss of both cards! Before I get to the main cards in the deal, I'll get to the extras first.

I used to love Inception autographs when they first came out in 2013, mainly because of the awesome design, but their were also some good prospects in the mix. Corcino is rated the #98 prospect in baseball, so I'm hoping he'll have a chance at the big leagues sometime soon! 

He also included two blue refractors from 2013 Bowman chrome, one of Gabriel Encinas, and the other of - 

Nik Turley! 

My favorite card that Matthew threw in was this Mike Trout 2014 Topps series... Series something. For those of you that don't know, I'm a HUGE fan of manufactured relic cards, and having one of the best player in the game isn't too bad either! Well, I do think Trout is super overrated, since Anthony Rizzo is just as good, and so is Stanton, but if everyone else thinks Trout is the best, he must be! Now onto the main cards of the deal. 

When the card is in a BGS case, the scans are terrible... I'll do all my talking when I take quality picture with my terrible iphone. 

Terrible scan.

Worse Scan.

 

Dreadful scan.

I'm a huge Biggio fan, especially since he was inducted into the Hall Of Fame in January. I decided to start a mini collection of him, and have slowly been picking his cards up. This is my second autograph of Biggio, the other being a strata autograph. Another Hall Of Fame autograph that I can add to my collection! It's also graded a 9/10, being 0.5 away from a 9.5/10.

No, Bo Jackson is not in the Hall Of Fame, and he wasn't a superstar player. He didn't even have a high average, but he was just one of those players that you had to watch just like Griffey, or even Puig. He doesn't even come close to Griffey, but he made amazing plays in the outfield. It's graded a  BGS 9/10! 

Since I sent Matthew my Gwynn, I was looking to get another autograph of the Padres legend in return. One thing I noticed about this card, is that Gwynn's autograph is much nicer compared to the signature on the strata. Another thing is that it's graded a 9/10! This card was definitely my main focus when I brought up the idea of a trade to Matthew. It actually wasn't. I first emailed Matthew about an Adrian Gonzalez framed museum collection autograph, but that wasn't available, so I aimed for a five star autograph. That didn't work, since we didn't find anything that would be 1 for 1, so I brought up the idea of trading away my Gwynn strata. After a lot of back and forth, we finally came up with a trade! 

 

I didn't even bring this card up in the midst of the trade, until he offered it to me in a 4 for 2 deal. It worked! 2013 Topps Archives is one of my favorite sets, and having a Nolan Ryan on card autograph #ed 22/25 is even better! This is my first Ryan autograph, and it will probably be my only one, unless I can snag one for a reasonable price. I think after all, this may be my favorite card...

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Thank you for the trade Matthew! I hope we both liked what we got!