I'm at a crossroads.
I had two rules when I started this blog. One was to use this space as a place to acquire cards that fit my collection while offloading the ones that don't. The other was to never talk about where I've been and why I haven't posted in awhile. The latter feels like such a bloggy blog thing that I just never wanted any part of it.
That being said, I've hit a bit of a rut when it comes to the card thing. It's starting to feel like my traditional methods of making trades with people through the blogs is starting to dry up. I've reached out to some people in recent days about offloading some of my cards and it didn't get a ton of responses. I've had an increasingly difficult time convincing people to claim their prizes from contests. I feel like a lot of people have moved on from posting/updating their blogs on a regular basis but are actively trading through TCDB. I have a couple of questions...
1. Is this a good idea? As it, will logging my tens of thousands of dupes into the TCDB database prove to be worth my time? I have avoided doing this for years because it sounded like a big time sink, but if it means moving more cards out of my home, it could be worth it.
2. What is the best way to trade through TCDB? I already have my personal collection logged there, which is one hundred percent not for trade. How can I get my "for trade" cards up on the site without having to field offers for the stuff I don't want to move?
If anyone has experiences (positive and negative) with the trading side of TCDB, I would greatly appreciate your responses.
The cards today, by the way, are from some recent pickups. I bought a blaster of Diamond Kings at Barnes and Noble (for some reason, this is apparently the only retail store to buy cards in the Portland area now) and pulled a couple of Cardinals inserts. The Court Kings card is from the much more expensive but still same-looking NBA equivalent. I like this design, but the Dame card is literally the only one I've seen from the set so far. Apparently, the only other Blazer cards in the base set are three distinct Keon Johnson rookie cards. That's weird, Panini.
It is time consuming to enter your cards, but in the end it is worth it. It is very easy for me to check my tradelist for Cardinal duplicates that I can send your way. Just remember when you enter the cards to mark them for trade, not add them to your collection. If you need any help, feel free to shoot me an email.
ReplyDeleteI have never actively uploaded too much of anything on the site although I have an account on it. I kind of use my blogs want list to track with Rays cards I have but it just seems like I was less enjoying getting new cards and more enduring the headache of logging them into my site. I feel like for me with TCDB it might be a little easier to do with easier ways to input many cards at once, but it still requires a lot of time and effort which I don’t have much of. It might work for you, so go ahead and enter those dupes and the worst that could happen is a few trades.
ReplyDeleteAs for the trading drying up I feel ya. Seems like I ran out of new stuff/inserts/jersey cards in 2020 and haven’t really replenished anything. Haven’t been able to find too much of anything in the wild, so all im left with is base cards which 75% of the guys I trade with already have. Just feels like if I were to trade with someone team for team that they would be underwhelmed with what they get.
You can keep your keepers private, so you won't get offers for them. Just have your public lists your wants and for trade.
ReplyDeleteIf you're worried about it taking too long, don't bother with overproduction era.
It is very easy to enter traders in TCDB if they are all from the same set. Entering 50 cards from 2018 Topps just means scrolling through that checklist and clicking those 50 boxes. If you are trying to enter a bunch of disparate cards, that will take a long time because of how TCDB is set up. Enter your newer traders and have a big want list and you will definitely get some good trade matches.
ReplyDeleteIf your cards are sequential, you can even add a range of cards. (eg add from card #5 to card #101). I previously had my traders sorted by player, this alone made me invest the time to sort by set as I was essentially entering thousands of disparate cards.
DeleteI've only ever had 1 or 2 people try to trade cards in "my collection". Typically having cards on the trade list creates matches for other traders. I spent a bunch of time uploading my dupes, even though I knew most of them were not super attractive. Everyone is looking for the inserts.
ReplyDeleteI've never been burned on there, everything has been super easy. You will get the occasional offer that tells you that other people value cards vastly different than you, but its not too bad.
You can list right on your profile page how you want to trade i.e. pwe/bubble mailer/etc. if you think it helps.
How do you guys handle your want lists? I have a lot of "wants" as a team collector. (It's easier to handle this as a set collector, of course.)
ReplyDeleteGo into that set, hit "add/update wantlist" then you just click the cards you want. you can even sort by "just cardinals" and then select from there.
DeleteThen it'll notify others when cards they have for trade appear on someone's wantlist. Or you can see who has added those cards for trade.
You can also add all "missing" cards of a given player so all Yadi's (or whoever) you don't already have in your collection show up on on your want list. I find this to be super useful.
DeleteI've made about 250 trades on TCDB, 99% of them being PWE swaps. It's been a lot of fun. I also have only loaded in about 2,000 cards for trade. I would say maybe start with a small portion of cards and see if you get any bites versus uploading 10K cards and then having them sit. My best luck with trades is when I load some newer cards from a blaster or something in there and people need them.
ReplyDeleteI could probably do even more trades if I had a better want list. My want list on the site is basically all Tino (which is rare I get a new one from the site), then all cards of Gleyber Torres, Aaron Judge, and a few prospects. Then when a new set comes out, I'll select a few Yanks from there to add to my want list.
I have a pretty big stack of Cardinals and Blazers going for you, I've just been bad about sending out. Hoping to do so soon and that this gives me a kick in the butt to finally send out.
I'm still in the phase of just adding my PC onto the site, but the information in these comments will help when I do decide to add trade material.
ReplyDeleteI am in the middle of what will be a very long process of adding in all my cards to trade. It definitely takes some time, but it's worth it to make it easier to find cards to trade for people. Looking forward to when it's done but it will be many months.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to trade with you again, though I'm not sure I'd have much that you'd need. Once I'm done uploading my cards for trade, it should be much easier to figure that out for all my blog trading buddies, as well as for people on TCDB.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that TCDB has a trade matching feature. It can generate a report list of members who want cards on you For Sale/Trade list and also have cards on your Want list available to trade in turn. It makes finding trade partners a lot easier.
ReplyDeleteEntering the cards I had was so much of a pain that I had to quit. Too much fidelity with variants and other bullshit that I didn't care about.
ReplyDeleteI must have missed this post when you originally posted it but I'm in on TCDB 100%! Happy to help if you any questions. Feel free to email!
ReplyDelete