Trade with Instagram Friend - Keegscards : 2014 Topps High Tek : Mike Trout Low Tek Diffractor Autograph (9/15) BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

Now this is the way to end a week with an acquisition of a card that I ended up following from a website to a social media site and didn't even know it until I decided to alter my collecting habits.

I first found this on eBay while doing one of my searches for graded Trout cards. The price was high but I put it on my watch list to see if the cost would go down. It did a couple of times but not enough for me to pull the trigger. I had already earmarked some cards to sell that would pay for this but the amounts didn't match up so I had to wait. Then one day the auction closed but I searched and saw that it went unsold. Left it on my list to see if it would pop back on but it never did. Though I am not the biggest fan of the High Tek brand I really love this Low Tek inserts. They have signed and unsigned versions and with this signed one being limited to only 15 I wanted to add it to my collection which is sorely lacking in Trout autographs. It being graded as gem mint was the cherry on top. But alas all that didn't matter now because the chance to pick it up had come and gone...or so I thought.

Almost a month passed and I saw an exact copy of this card on a razz site on Instagram and I joined in hoping I could win it at a much lower cost than the going rate was on eBay. The razz never filled so I never had the chance to win it. I contacted the razz runner aka Keegsrazzes to see if he would razz a couple of my own cards. I "sent" him a Urias card and a Jeter card which he promptly put the Jeter up on a razz and it received the expected traffic. While talking to him I found out this Trout card was his in fact his and not someone else's, Upon further back and forth I found out it was the exact same card that was on eBay that I missed out on. I still wanted the card and he approached me about a trade/purchase for it. I wanted to sell the the Urias by razz as that would save me some fees that would have been taken out if I put it up for sale on eBay. So I had a certain value I assigned to it. Of course since I picked it up for nothing as I used eBay bucks back in January to acquire it this was all "house" money in my eyes. We agreed instead of him sending me my share from the Jeter razz that he would keep that and I would send him the Urias and in turn he would send me the Trout. In my eyes this was a no brainer of a trade.

While Urias might turn out to be a stud I am moving away from collecting his cards which made the card I sent Keegs expendable and considering I didn't pay anything for it I really had no emotionally attachment to it. While I liked the Jeter card I was not in love with it and picking up another Trout gem mint autograph trumped both Jeter and Urias. After weeks of first seeing this card I can now finally call it mine with an extremely easy trade. Thank you again Keegs for the trade and may it be the first of many.

Nine of Fifteen

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin