Trade with Fellow Blogger : Luis of Big L's Collectibles

Luis of Big L's Collectibles reached out to me a week or so ago inquiring about doing a trade together. Luis and I have met before and he even won a contest I ran last year. Even with a past relationship we have never done a trade before. He asked if I was interested in any of 3 cards he picked up on trade that he was not attached to and of the three, I was interested in two.

The main card for me was this BGS gem mint graded autograph of Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox. He was always on my wish list to acquire but with so many other cards I wanted/needed he kept getting pushed back. So much so that I hadn't even looked for an autograph of his in over a year. I wasn't looking for a gem mint card but my love for them makes this one a major perk/bonus.

1 / 5

Check another autograph of my wish list.

The other card Luis had that I wanted was a 2012 Allen and Ginter mini frame autograph of Angel Jered Weaver. Now this card I had seen on eBay for quite some time but never pulled the trigger as other things came up. This is my favorite year of A and G as they are black bordered. I have never had any luck getting Jered's autograph in person so getting this card eliminates that need but if I ever do then it would be a bonus.

With that I was content with our trade. We agreed on those two cards in exchange for autograph cards of Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Maury Wills, Johnny Podres, Paco Rodriguez and a blank ball for autograph purposes. The wife and I headed up to his work place and during one of his breaks we met up and did the exchange. Only "problem" though is that Luis threw in more cards. Ugh. Even though I have a lot more inventory than I did a year ago I don't have much in "excess" cards to throw into trades. As a bonus he gave me all of this :

Signed 8x10 of Manny Mota

2014 Topps Chrome of Jose Ramirez

2013 Bowman Chrome of Dylan Cease

Zach Lee in minor league form

And surprisingly the biggie of the bunch even though it is a non autograph. Luis must have read my mind as I was looking for this on eBay recently.

2013 Bowman Chrome Purple Recfractor Parallel

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Even though I stopped doing the "rainbow" collections of the Dodgers I decided that I was going to do it for the two super prospects in the Dodger organization, Julio Urias and Corey Seager. The idea is to get them all in gem mint form but at worst they had to be in mint or looked to be in mint then work myself up if  need be. I was on the hunt for purple but now with Luis throwing this in I don't have to worry about that. I can tell from the naked eye that the centering is not the best BUT if it can score at least an 8.5 which I think is reasonable, everything else looks up to par to earn a 9 overall. We shall see as BGS will be in town in a couple of weeks.

For me this was a very nice haul but I feel kind of bad as I think I did not give enough on my side of the trade with all the bonus cards/photo. Next time we meet up at the Stadium I will give him a few bonus cards to make the trade a little more equal. Nevertheless, thank you again to Luis for reaching out to me on this trade as I would have never known that he had these cards available. Our first trade and hopefully not our last.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin