Zistle Trade #64: bbronzan

Well, the San Francisco Giants were eliminated from the postseason earlier this week.  It ended the ridiculous even year streak the Giants were on (#BeliEVEN).  I am not sure "streak" is an accurate description, though.

Fittingly, my next Zistle trade included a bunch of Giants.  I reached out with a trade offer to Brandon, who collects Giants.  We made a pretty quick trade and sent off our cards.
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I received a bunch of Jeff Kent cards in this trade which makes sense as Kent had his best playing years with the Giants.  I always think of Kent as a big loss for the Mets.  He played well for the Mets, but the team was pretty terrible.  He also wasn't known to have the best clubhouse reputation.  Maybe he was bitter for being traded from the Blue Jays during the start of their back-to-back World Series wins.

Furthering the Giants connection, Edgardo Alfonzo also played for the Giants.  His case is a bit different than Kent's.  Alfonzo had his best years for the Mets and is beloved by Mets fans.  He played pretty lousy for the Giants.

Marco Scutaro is another Giants connection from this trade.  Marco made his MLB debut with the Mets in 2002.  He spent some time with the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers before that, but never reached the big leagues with either team.  Scutaro bounced around from the Mets to the A's, Blue Jays, Red Sox, and Rockies.  In 2012, he was traded to the Giants mid-season and helped the Giants win the NL West title.  He went on to hit .500 in the NLCS, win NLCS MVP honors, and drive in the winning run in Game 4 of the World Series as the Giants swept the Detroit Tigers.  Some may remember this image from the NLCS.

Overall, this was a solid trade!  Thanks again, Brandon!

Blogger Trade: All Cardinals All the Time

Next up is a trade I had completely overlooked!  Not the first time and probably won't be the last. 

I had a stack of cards that I have been trying to figure out who sent them.  Zistle keeps track of trades, so I know it was not from anyone there.  I searched my inbox, but couldn't find anything that wasn't accounted for already.

Well, somewhere in that stack was a note from Ray.  I recall leaving it there to remind when I got around to scanning those cards.  I guess I hid it too well, because it took me long enough to see it again.

Anyway, Ray has a great blog over at All Cardinals All the Time.  It is like my little blog here, but much better written.  Ray reached out via email (I found our emails later) with a list of cards he needed from my Zistle collection.  A little back and forth later and we had a nice trade worked out.

Ray sent over a nice stack with some great cards.  It is always nice to be reminded that the Mets were one of Rickey Henderson's nine teams during his long, Hall of Fame career.  He was voted the Comeback Player of the Year in 1999 for his one full season with the Mets.  He was released the following year just over a month into the 2000 season.     

Ray also sent along a couple of nice throwbacks.  The first one being the above Rey Ordonez wearing a New York Cubans uniform.  The New York Cubans were a Negro League team from 1939 to 1950.  The second one, with Tom Glavine, might be a Cubans throwback, too.  I think Ordonez is in the home uniform and Glavine in the road uniform.  The Mets would wear these throwbacks a couple more times in 2010.

Sorry it took so long to get this trade posted, Ray.  It was a pleasure and I hope you need some more Cardinals!

Blogger Trade: gcrl

Up next is a Blogger trade with Jim at garvey cey russell lopes.  This was a trade that started way early last year and took a few months to complete.  It did not take us a few months to agree to a trade, but rather put together a trade package to send to each other.  It was probably more my procrastination than his, but we eventually got this trade done.

I find Blogger trades make me more nervous than Zistle trades.  You can see what cards you get and what cards you are sending with both sides agreeing to a Zistle trade.  Blogger trades seem to be rather blind in most cases.  You might know some of the cards ahead of time, but generally not every thing you get.  I believe this trade was blind.

Jim sent along a rather interesting card.  The above 1999 Topps Stars n' Steel Mike Piazza.  The set is a pretty basic 44 card set with just two parallel versions.  The interesting part is the cards are printed on 0.25 gauge metal.  It was rather surprising to look through a bunch of cardboard and come across one that was metal.

I received some pretty great cards from Jim in this trade.  Some cards finished some team sets and some cards started some team sets.  

Jim finished up his blog last year with a nice "goodbye" post.  He is still collecting and trade, though, which is always nice to see.  Thanks for the wonderful trade, Jim!

Zistle Trade #58: mkaz80

I had a good run of posts there for a hot minute.  I figured out how to schedule posts, so I got a bunch of draft posts published.  I made a pretty good jump in catching up to present day.  Then the Summer came with beach trips, yard work, and going to some baseball games.  Now, I am sort of back where I was wanting to get closer to present day.  So, let us start to catch up, again.


This next trade was completed at the start of the year and was a real New York Mets trade.  Mark is Mets fan with a healthy collection of Mets cards of his own.  He has his own blog over at This Way to the Clubhouse.  It is fine read not only for Mets fans, but card collectors in general.

I have been meaning to work out a trade with Mark for a while now.  It sounds like he was doing the same.  We are essentially the perfect trade partners.  We both have plenty of duplicates that the other needs in their collection.  Even after this trade, I still have over a hundred Mets cards Mark still needs according to our Zistle matches.

This was one of the larger trades I have completed on Zistle.  It would take me a while to scan all of the great cards I received, so there are some of the highlights.
 

The cool thing about these large trades is that you can see the changes to the team over time.  Starting above, George Foster represents the early 80's Mets.  Gary Carter arrives from the Montreal Expos and we go into the mid to late 80's Mets with Dwight Gooden, Howard Johnson, and Lenny Dykstra.  The 1990's start with some veterans hitting their declining years and young players just starting their Major League careers.

During the mid-90's, the new crop of players takes full effect with Jeff Kent, Rey Ordonez, Todd Hundley, John Franco, and Rico Brogna.

Towards the late-90's, some younger players were traded and established players like Bernard Gilkey, Carlos Baerga, Robin Ventura, John Olerud, and Mike Piazza were added to the team.

The early to mid-2000's saw the arrival of David Wright and Jose Reyes.  The highlight play from those years is depicted by the center card above.  The Catch.  Then we have our first no hitter from Johan Santana.

This was a fantastic trade with Mark.  Look forward to the next one!

Zistle Trade #26

The Mets keep rolling with another series sweep this weekend over the Atlanta Braves.  There were a couple of unfortunate errors in Sunday's game, but they redeemed those with three runs in the ninth and tenth innings to complete the four game sweep.  The Mets return to Queens to start a homestead against the Marlins, Yankees, and Braves.  It is only a matter of time now until the Mets clinched their division.

Moving along with another Zistle trade.  This time with user reyoung68.  He reached out to me requesting some of his Topps needs and countered with these Mets cards along with some of my other various needs.

Not a bad selection of Mets cards.  I was looking to get Rickey Henderson's first Topps card as a Met for a while at the time of this trade.  I also enjoy the Upper Deck Oviation Mike Piazza I received.  The card is made to look and feel like a baseball.  Of course, they do not feel like an actual baseball, but Upper Deck made an interesting card with that set.

Zistle Trade #25

Well, those were some great games of baseball!  Three come from behind wins for the Mets and they now have a nice seven game lead in the NL East.  Mets fans do not like to say something is definite until it happens, but things are definitely going our way right now.

Now, back to the trades...

I have traded with user bdlehman18 a couple times now.  Our first trade was only my second one on Zistle.  He was only looking for a couple of cards for our third trade, so it was short and simple.

We did hit a little snag when he went to pull the cards he was going to send me.  Zistle is a great website for keeping your card collection, but it does come with some bugs.  It happens on occasion during trades, but it never has been a big deal.

Being the good trader he is, Brian asked if I wanted to pick a replacement.  I gave a couple of options and asked him to surprise me.  This is what he sent.

I really enjoy the look of these 1998 Pacific Omega cards for some reason.  I only had one Omega card prior to receiving these four cards, but that one card has always been a favorite of mine.  I could have pulled that card and scanned it, but decided it was easier to do a Google Image search.

"Courtesy" of The Snorting Bull

It is not too often you find a card depicting a player on three different teams, especially of a high caliber player like Mike Piazza.  Unfortunately, Piazza missed the Hall of Fame election again this year.  His chances are looking better for next year with only one definite shoo-in (Ken Griffey, Jr.) in front of him.

Zistle Trade #19

Alright, I have gotten behind on these trade posts.  Let's try to work through my draft folder and get closer to present time.

This Zistle trade was completed with user royals.  I reached out to him a while back regarding some various basketball cards.  I looked through our matches selected some cards from his trade list that intrigued me.

I think the first card I saw was the 2003 Upper Deck Rey Ordonez.  I liked the look of the throwback uniform and then saw he had some more Mets from the same set.  Upper Deck usually has a nice look to their design.  The 2003 set is on the simple side of designs, but it works well here.

I also got reminded from this trade that David Cone had a second stint with the Mets.  He was attempting a comeback after sitting out the 2002 season.  His comeback was short-lived as, at the age of 40, his chronic hip problems became too great to finish the season.

The cards you see here are just what we agreed to for the trade.  It was a total and pleasant surprise to find some extra stacks of great Mets card in the package!  I definitely try to reciprocate when a trader is over generous and this one is long overdue!

Zistle Trade #14

Another trade in the books with Zistle user neckababy1.  He offered a handful of Mets for a few cards in return.  He has been a good source for Darryl Strawberry cards thus far.

Here is what I received:

The Hall of Fame ballots were made official yesterday.  Mike Piazza will have to wait another year to be elected.  It was a pretty stacked list this year with those getting elected being very deserving.  Piazza will be the top holdover next year and will only have one sure thing in Ken Griffey, Jr. in front of him.

I think the biggest oversight on this year's ballot was Carlos Delgado.  He did not receive enough votes to remain on the ballot next year.  Oh, and this was just his first year of eligibility.  He definitely had an amazing career.  Some might say he was not quite a Hall of Famer, while others will say different.  He does deserve, at the least, to be on the ballot longer than one year.  I feel it is another reason to throw amongst the many others to reevaluate the voting process for the Hall of Fame.

eBay Summer Purchases Continued: Catcher Edition

Here are more of my summer purchases off of eBay.  This is what we will call the "Catcher Edition" and focus on two of the Mets well known catchers plus a cameo from a rising star catcher.

First, Gary Carter.  Gary was traded to the Mets from the Montreal Expos after the 1984 season.  In his first season with the Mets, Gary hit a career high 32 home runs and helped lead the team to a 98 win season.  The following year the Mets went on to win 108 games and the World Series.

Next up is Mike Piazza.  Mike came to the team in 1998 via trade with the Florida Marlins.  He immediately made the Mets a better team and reached the World Series in 2000.

The Mets' current catcher does not want to be left out.  Here is Travis d'Arnaud, who arrived from the Toronto Blue Jays via the R.A. Dickey trade.  It looks like Topps used some of Travis' minor league jerseys for these cards.

eBay Summer Purchases (plus a contest pimp)

I had another round with eBay this summer.  I decided to change things up this time around.  Instead of watching the auctions until the end, I decided to just place one or two bids and see what would happen.  Well, when all was said and done, I ended up with a nice stack of Mets cards.

First, lets start with some vintage Mets.

Next up are some modern cards.

The two auto cards are Juan Urbina and Fernando Martinez.

Urbina is one of the young Mets pitching prospects who has been playing in the rookie and low A leagues for the past few years.  He turned 21 years old this year and is the son of former All-Star closer Ugueth Urbina.  The older Urbina, a 2003 World Series champion with the Florida Marlins, has had an interesting post-career life.

Mets fans will remember Fernando Martinez as a promising prospect that eventually went bust.  He was highly ranked amongst multiple publications as the top Mets prospect.  He played very well in the minors, but just never materialized in the majors.  He also played briefly for the Houston Astros who ended up trading him to the New York Yankees.  He was suspended in August 2013 as part of the Biogenesis scandal.

To close out this post is a little contest pimping.  CaptKirk42's Trading Card Blog is having a contest celebrating the fifth anniversary of his blog.  Check it out and join in!

More from eBay

Here are some more cards from my last eBay run.  I have auto cards for both David Wright and Zack Wheeler, so I needed some game used relics to complement the auto cards.

A couple more autos...one of the Mets lone 2014 All-Star selection, Daniel Murphy.  I still think David Wright was snubbed since his numbers are similar to Aramis Ramirez.  Either way, Daniel Murphy deserves to be there.

  

 

This card was probably the one I looked forward to receiving the most.  With a little copy-and-paste magic, you can see the front and back.  The relics are a bit on the small size, but I am not complaining about a Willie Mays relic.

  

These are my first attempts at scanning cards.  A little crooked, but I am getting there.