This Is Why

Big mailday today. Six packages arrived in the mail - three from Sportlots, two from TCDB, and one from eBay. 35 cards total. Varying degrees of satisfaction.

Christmas Evening, as in eight days ago, I spent a small fraction of the cash I'd received as gifts and hit up Sportlots for some set fillers. Had to purchase from four different sellers due to postage and inventory. If you're one of those weirdos who collects baseball and hockey cards (there are dozens of us!) you've probably noticed that sellers who have hoards of hockey cards rarely have the baseball/football cards you're looking for, and vice versa. 

And so I placed my order on the 25th, expecting that maybe one or two would ship from Canada, one or two would ship on the 27th or 28th, and at least one seller would be on vacation and wouldn't ship until today.

I got all four orders already. Here they are:

This order was based around two cards that had been oddly difficult to track down. Finally I'd found someone selling this 1993 Donruss Eric Karros Diamond King insert for under three dollars. Tocchet is the last "common" I need for the 1988-89 Topps set - though it cost me 52 cents (the highest of these four cards) and the bottom has both a dirt spot and a rough corner. Karros cost just 37 cents - but it's a little off-center and has a wonky corner. Still, the foursome was just over three dollars shipped.

I needed just two cards (excluding the super rare gold SPs) to complete my (wife's) 1995-96 Playoff One On One hockey set. Sabres32 happened to have them both, but not much else I needed. Perreault was sort of a throw in; 1983-84 O-Pee-Chee is a set I might consider building someday.

Trombley was initially in a bigger order but since I couldn't find a fourth card from Sabres32 I bought it from him/her instead. You know the rule.

Here's a few representatives from that bigger order, a 32-card mailer that nearly completed two sets:

I decided to complete the 20-card Pro Pointers insert set to fill out the extra pockets in my 1995-96 Donruss hockey binder. Irbe was one of the seven base cards in this order from the actual set and completes the run of 1990s Donruss flagship puck. 1994 Ultra is nearly there - I've got less than ten cards to go. Two of the cards have some bricking damage as you can see; the seller did reimburse me for these.

This PWE actually arrived before New Year's. A four-day turnaround beats nearly every TCDB trade. I sought out the Hakeem Topps card because I didn't want to spend 90 cents for it on COMC. However I did end up spending that 90 cents on the last Pro Pointers card I needed after Lindros and Kariya arrived. The Mario Lemieux is en route from COMC (along with 75 other cards) but it will take a lot longer than four days to arrive.


Speaking of slow wait times... I really, really tried to wrap up my TCDB trading in 2023. I even offered an inducement. But, despite pestering the last two traders as if I was at the office, these swaps took > 2 weeks to complete.



I will give saavik a pass on the turnaround time. She's a student, and her profile page indicates shipping will be a little slow. But I removed something from a different offer when she specifically asked for this one and only card. I sent her the Don Larsen insert she requested on the 16th. She sent me this Clayton Kershaw on the 26th:

Scotch-tape and a penny sleeve. It's amazing this card survived without a scratch.

The last trade took nearly four weeks to complete. And it is my last TCDB trade for a reason. I made an offer to Dtd500 on December 8. He countered on the 11th by removing the Olajuwon Topps card you saw above, and substituted it with another PC player. I accepted, and shipped on the 12th. 


Hoping to receive my six-card PWE by Christmas I messaged him on the 18th "Have you shipped my end yet" He said he was busy with the holidays and would ship the next day, on the 19th. 

Sigh... Christmas mail, am I right? So...let's see what we got.

Yes, Blue Prizms are worth the wait. Unfortunately these two were not eligible for my contest. Mihome316 won, btw.


This is why I'm happy to be done dealing on TCDB. People have busy lives and stuff happens. But when you buy something, those mail delays somehow cease. A purchase made a week ago(or less) can arrive at the same time as a trade shipped out three weeks ago.


(It also helps that the holidays are over.)



Thanks for reading!




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