Trade with Plain Gray Swatch

Collecting a high-value player like Sidney Crosby can be difficult at times. His hits are high dollar, and his autographs can be tough to come by, so when I find a fellow blogger pulling one out of a pack, I jump at the chance to grab the card. As I've found out, though, Crosby cards can go one of three ways. A collector doesn't want to part with it because it is such a major pull, he/she will immediately try to flip it on Ebay, due to the potential return value, or in rare instances, the collector will be indifferent to it, and more than happy to trade it away.

Luckily for me, this fit into the third category.

Roy-Z from Plain Gray Swatch pulled was a dual jersey card of Crosby's out of 2012-13 Upper Deck Artifacts from their Treasured Swatches insert set, and was more than willing to trade it to me.  Upper Deck, in my opinion, doesn't seem to make an effort to differentiate the color of their swatches on cards that have multiple relics, and don't really try that hard to even make their patch swatches multi-colored, so to pick up a card with two pieces of a different color is definitely a bonus.

We added a little bit of extra sauce to the trade, too, which also landed me jersey cards of Borje Salming and Tony Gwynn for my Hockey HOF Relic Project and Baseball HOF Relic Project. Salming's name doesn't mean much to non-hockey fans, but to those familiar with the game, he made a huge impact, as one of the first top-notch European players in the NHL. Prior to his arrival with the Toronto Maple Leafs, there was a belief that Europeans didn't possess the toughness needed to play the North American syle of the game. Salming proved them wrong, and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996. His card is from 2009-10 Upper Deck Artifacts. Gwynn is recognized as one of the best hitter's of the modern era, finishing his career with 3,141 hits and a .338 batting average. Gwynn won the National League Batting Title eight times and was a 15-time MLB All-Star. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007 and has a bronze statue outside of PETCO Park, which has an address of 19 Tony Gwynn Drive. The card is from 2010 Century Collection, and in addition to the jersey swatch, it also features a postage stamp from 1939, which celebrated the centennial of baseball.

Roy also threw in a few Cubs extras, including an Anthony Rizzo rookie card from 2011 Topps. The only one I have is in my set, so it's definitely nice to have one to add to the player collection. He seems to be the go-to Cub for Topps this year, so I'm sure I'll be adding plenty more of his cards to the collection as the season goes on. Duane Underwood and Josh Conway are 2012 draft picks by the Cubs, it'll be a little while to see if these pan out, and Nick Basto is a White Sox prospect, but nowhere on these cards do they differential Chicago NL from Chicago AL, so it can be tricky to know who goes where.

This was a fantastic trade that added quite a few great items to my various collections. If anyone else has any Crosbys, Cubs, or Hall-of-Famer relic cards for trade, please let me know.