Delivery Time! The Make-Up of a Blog Trader (plus 21 Cards from Section 36)

In my trading experience, there are four types of people with whom I've dealt through my blog.

Type 1:  Active traders.
Active traders are people who constantly look at other people's wants/haves list and make offers.  Although the offers may end up large, active traders are just as happy dealing a small handful of cards.  The most active traders will gladly exchange plain white envelopes if need be.

Type 2:  The planners.
 The planners are people who wait until they have a fairly large stack of cards and then send the stack to the recipient.  For many planners, the stack for a certain person may grow over a period of months.

Type 3:  The suprisers.
The suprisers are people who love to send packages to people "just because."  Often, such packages take the form of helping knock cards off of posted want lists but other times a surpriser will send someone a card simply because they know that person will enjoy it.

Type 4:  The bums.
Unfortunately, if I'm going to classify traders, I do need a category for bums.  In the two years that I've kept track of my trades (close to 300 trades total), I've only encountered a small handful of bums.  Most of the time, the bums are people who don't have a blog - though there are a few bloggers out there that did promise to send me cards for cards I sent them that I've never received.  Unless you are on the strictest of budgets where every penny spent on postage is of the utmost importance, it's best to try to ignore the bums (and, of course, not deal with them ever again).

Now, most people probably don't fit 100% into a of the above categories (and hopefully no one is a 100% Type 4 person).  In fact, for myself I would say that I'm 50% Type 1, 40% Type 2, and 10% Type 3.  Hopefully, I've never neglected to send someone a card that I promised them and thus am 0% Type 4!

Why do I bring all of this up?  Well, Ron (from Section 36) made me think of it.  You see, I keep a spreadsheet of all the trades that I complete with people.  Each person gets his or her own page where I keep track of the date, what I sent, what I received, and any other news or notes.  It's fun to look back at what I've traded people before - and when!  For instance, with Ron, we've exchanged three or four packages since I've started keeping track - each one was a "surprise" package for the other person full of cards off their want lists (thus we both fit into Type 2 and Type 3).

The latest envelope in our series of trades happened to be destined for me - and true to form, Ron included a bunch of cards off of a variety of my want lists.   Here is a sampling of the 21 different cards that Ron sent my way.

2011 Gypsy Queen:
Ron sent me five different base cards including this Mitch Moreland short print.

 I happen to like the running view (it's quite a bit different than what you usually see on cards) - plus the expanse of dirt makes it look like Moreland is running away from a desert twister rather than a baseball!

In addition to the base cards, I also got two inserts from Gypsy Queen (both Future Stars cards).

 Of the two, the Jose Tabata is my favorite - after all, Tabata idolized Roberto Clemente growing up (how can you go wrong with the choice...especially since Tabata is a Pirate)!

It wasn't all Gypsy Queen in the package though, there were also a pair of animals.

2011 Allen & Ginter:
Animals in Peril.

The Mountain Gorilla looks like he's been eating too many Big Macs!

There was also a Topps Heritage card I needed...

And a whole slew of Topps Diamond parallels (the Brandon Phillips is the easy favorite)!

Thanks for all the great cards Ron - and I'll be sure to start saving up a stack to return to you.  Finally, as always, if anyone else would like to trade - check out my want list and make an offer!