What is the best card you ever traded for?

[NateMack]

I was thinking about a trade I made a couple years ago when I acquired a 52 Bowman Mantle and a 56 Topps Mantle in one trade. This was mind blowing to me! I never imagined when I restarted collecting that my collection would be half of what it is today, and I for sure never thought I would own these cards.

Story goes, I started a conversation with a fellow trader about some of the sets I was working on and he mentioned that he had those 2 cards that he was willing to trade. He in return was looking for a large group of cards so he could make trades with other people. I proceeded to lay out several hundred cards (mostly commons with some HOFers) from the 50's to the 70's and asked if it was what he wanted. He said ok, and the rest was history... Or at least history for me!!

So, I wonder... What was your greatest trade? And what did you have to give up in return?

Thanks for sharing,
Nate Mack

[pawpawdiv9]

My 1 and only trade --was last year
I got a sgc 55/4.5 1948/49 Leaf Jackie Robinson and gave my 1952 Berk Ross- SGC 60/5 Mickey Mantle and 1952 Berk Ross- SGC 80/6 Ted Williams plus 150$ cash

I believe those cards were still selling on Ebay afterwards

[1963Topps Set]

I have mentioned this story before. During the summer of 1971, I was being tutored in Math at a teachers house with other students. A girl there wanted my 1971 Topps Mets team card and offered me an older card for it. I jumped at the deal because I wanted the older card. That card was 1968 Topps Kooseman / Ryan rookie.

Also during the summer of 1973, I traded a 1973 Topps Willie Mays for an entire shopping bag loaded with 1970 Topps cards!

[chris6net]

I was at a card show in Brooklyn in the late 70,s . I had a job with the promoter helping set up tables as a teenager. This show was bi-monthly and my face was very known so Dealers that set up there would ask me to watch there table while they went to get something to eat and would usually offer me something off their table (great memories). Anyway the first Price guide book by Beckett/Eckes had just come out that week and whatever was available at the show sold out in hours and the rumor was that the price guide would not be available for several weeks after the initial printing and I happened to have an extra. A guy walks in and sees me with a guide in my hand and offered me 3 cards. All 1957 Topps. Mantle, Mays and Aaron. He explained that he promised the book for a friend and needed it bad and every dealer was out. I still have the 3 cards and they are in N-MT condition

[PowderedH2O]

Summer of 1976: We lived down the street from New Orleans Jazz player E.C. Coleman. A friend wanted to get an autograph and I had the only EC card around. He ended up trading me from a box of cards his dad gave him a bunch of cards which included a 1960 Topps All-Star Mickey Mantle and a 1952 Topps Ed Mathews. A few years later I traded the Ed Mathews for a stack of early 60's HOFers including Mantles, Aarons, Mays, etc. All for one 1975-76 Topps basketball common.

[philliesphan]

T-206 Proof of Kitty Bransfield. The colors simply pop-

[wolfdogg]

1888 N172 Old Judge Dummy Hoy......

[kailes2872]

I was at a show as a 10 year old in 1982. I had a complete 1981 set in my binder and was sitting in the lobby. A teenaged kid walked up and asked if I would be willing to make a trade. He needed to complete his 81 set and would trade me a '58 Ted Williams in exchange. I spent about $20 for the set and was pretty proud of it but after thinking for a minute, I decided to do the deal. I cannot remember how many cards he took - it was less than 50 and did not include Fernando or Raines or any major stars like Reggie, Schmidt, Rose, etc.

Of course, in my wisdom, I went proudly into the show ready to sell Ted(??). I ended up making a 3-1 trade where I got a 74 Ryan and two other cards that I can't Remember. I ended up with a 69 Bench at that show, although it slipped through my fingers like Sand - probably for a some late 70's star. So, what started out as a good trade turned badly in a hurry.

Although it wasn't card for card, another deal as an 8 year old at a show goes down as the world's worst deal. In second grade, our teacher's aide saw that I collected cards. She asked me if I wanted to trade. My shoebox of 1980 Topps were my prized possession and I had no desire to part with them. However, since she was a family friend and went to our church, I decided to do it.

A couple days later she came over with a shoebox from 70-75. Multiple Aaron's Mays', Clemente, Gibson, Kaline, Brooks and Frank Robinson, Brett, Yount, Schmidt - every superstar from that era - many times multiples. In addition, she brought Basketball and Football from those years as we. Tall Boy Alcindor, Wilts, Wests, Oscars, Dr. J on the Squires, Unites, Staubach. It was every single card of significance in those 6 years. All in fantastic condition - especially the 74s and 75s

Fast forward to about a month later. I gave away a bunch of the doubles to friends - especially Mays and Aaron - but the collection was still awesome. I wanted to go to a card show because I had heard that my cards were valuable. Forget the fact that I was 8 years old and my only need for cash was to buy baseball cards - like the ones that were so generously given...

Melanie went with me to the show. I walked and went to the first table I saw that said they were buying. A guy proceeded to pick through all of the super duper stars and pulled out about 75 cards. He offered $8. He had a 1980 Topps set that I desperately wanted and I tried to play hardball and ask for $14 (the price of the set). He said $8 was the best I could do. So, I took it. I then found the next table that had a buying sign. I sold him the remaining cards in the box for $5. I then borrowed a dollar from my mom to buy the 1980 Topps set from the first table that I went to - so it was almost a trade. I then proceeded to okay games daily with my 80 cards (especially George Brett) to the point where corners were so rounded that they looked like the circular cards by the time I was done.

Although my $14,800 for $6,100 + $2,000 in stuff I kept is tough to top in the grand scheme of bad deals. I can say that my penchant for bad deals goes way back and leaves emotional scars. When I first did the bad deal last August, my wife told me (only half jokingly) "you are the only guy that buys $2,000 worth of cards for $15,000 and sells $2,000 worth of cards for $13 (of course in 1980 they didn't carry that much value but it was pretty funny and spot on)

The only good thing about that deal in 1980 is that it left a permanent mark. As I got older, I would go to card stores and show the boys all of the cards that I used to have. One evening while looking at what they were worth on EBay, my wife uttered the words that she now regrets "I wish you would stop whining about cards that you sold 30 years ago. If you want them, just buy them back!" Within 2 weeks I had bought all sets from 1971 to 1984. Over the last 2.5 years, I have made it back to '56. She reminds me that she was only talking about the cards and years in the shoebox.

[carlsonjok]

It's not nearly as significant as many of the above examples, but I got back into collecting in 2011 and, for that year only, collected the Topps Flagship set. That was the Diamond Giveaway year where you could put in codes at the Topps site and win virtual rings. Get enough unique rings and you could win prizes. I got enough rings to get a special factory set.

I ended up flipping the set for a 1971 Mays, Clemente, Aparicio, and Yastrzemski.

[metssoxx]

Back in the early days of OBC, when we were on Prodigy, one member and myself decided to reverse the worst trade in Mets history, so I sent him 100 Jim Fregosi (all years) cards for a Ryan rookie. It didn't reverse the curse on the Mets, but it was a lot of fun trying to find the Fregosi's.

[tjv815]

Cool thread. I was 12-13 years old. Back in the fall of 1984, maybe spring of 85, I traded two Don Mattingly rookies away. Both were heavily off-centered. I let the pair go for a 1955 Ted Williams. I still have that Williams card and I love it!

[egri]

This wasn't exactly a trade, but when I was in fifth grade I was really in to the Topps Heritage sets (that year's design was based on the 1957 set) and when my neighbor's son got in to card collecting as well, I fixed him up with some of my duplicates. A couple days later, my neighbor came by with what was left of his card collection from when he was growing up, as a thank you for what I'd done. They were mostly 1967-68 Topps, with a 1957 Wilmer Mizell thrown in. There were maybe 10-12 cards total. Fast forward about a decade, after I had been out of the hobby for a few years, and I decided to send off some of those old cards to be signed. That got me back in to collecting, and I haven't looked back since.

[CurtisFlood]

Traded a Bench Rookie for a 400 count box of Sandberg, Boggs, and Gwynn rookies. I have no idea where the card fairy sent that man from, but that was a time when those three had some value. I told the guy it was a bad deal for him but he said he didn't care, he wanted that Bench Rookie. I can only assume the man bought large lots of rookies when they were ten cents apiece or something. I've never figured that one out.

Traded a 90 Upper Deck BB Wax Box for a very nice 1966 Mantle.

Traded a few mid grade Mantle cards for a beautiful 1953 Jackie Robinson.

My worst was as a twelve year old. 1961 Mantle for a 1961 Bob Nieman. I had two Mantles and did not have that Bob Nieman and I had to have it.

[HappyJack41]

Late 80's as a kid, traded a 1986 Topps Jerry Rice rookie for a 1966 Topps Mantle.....over time now, I won the trade

[Hot Springs Bathers]

In 1986 I got lucky when McDonald's put out their football cards. There was a different color scratch off each week for four weeks if my memory serves me correctly?

We had the Dallas Cowboys and the All-Star sets each week in our area. I went to the two local stores and the managers allowed me to actually take home cases, sort out team sets and return them??? I put together many set of Cowboys and All-Stars. I then responded to ads in the Sports Collectors Digest for trades. It was pretty easy though I remember the Saints having a tough color, maybe blue?

I took some of these free to me sets to a card show and traded for a 1953 Topps Mantle, a 1953 Topps Paige and a 1951 New York Yankees yearbook.