Trade with Wax Stain Rookie: It Took Me a Year, but I Finally Got This Card!!!!! (Sidney Crosby Mirror Emerald /5)

It took me over a year, but I finally got my hands on this card!!!!!!!!!!!

On July 4, 2012, in a post titled "My Best Hit Ever?" Dave from Wax Stain Rookie proudly posted on the contents of a couple boxes of 2011-12 Certified that he purchased from his LCS at a discounted rate. Each box contains four guaranteed hits, and hit number four out of the first box was a Sidney Crosby Mirror Emerald Prime Jersey numbered 5/5. So, yeah, "Best Hit Ever?" was not much of an exaggeration.

Now, I'm a Crosby guy, and being a Crosby guy, I knew that my chances of obtaining this card were slim, but I just had to throw my hat int he ring, just to give it a shot. After all, if you have the opportunity to even so much as inquire about a card like this of your favorite player, you take that chance, no matter how for out of reach it may be. A couple e-mail were exchanged, but ultimately, just as I expected, I didn't really have anything worthy enough of this card. And truthfully, I didn't.

He did, on the other hand, see a few "lesser" items that he wanted, and we were able to work out a trade that ended up with me receiving a rookie-year Evgeni Malkin jersey card and a rookie-year Jordan Staal autographed card, which was pretty awesome!

So, anyway, months and months down the road, Dave still had the card in his possession. We were in the process of hammering out a trade which started soon after I announced my new collecting goal of UND alumni. Those cards will be seen later. We settled on an easy 3-for-3 deal, and I figured that would be that, when Dave surprises me with a question.

"Any interest in my Crosby game used /5 that I pulled last summer from 11-12 certified? I am hoping to trade it for a Crosby auto some day."

My eyes immediately lit up and I began scrambling through my collection to try and find something that would satisfy his request, but unfortunately, all five of my Crosby autos were items I was not willing to part with. So, the next thing I did was to hop on to Ebay, and see if there were any that I could purchase at a decent price, just to trade away.

I got lucky, finding a 2006-07 Flair Showcase card signed by Crosby, with a price that fit my budget, with just 30 minutes to go. The opening bid was high, which kept a lot of people away, and after placing my bid, and watching as nobody else came along, the card was mine. Then I just had to wait for that one to get here, open the envelope, look at the card for a few seconds, then place it in another envelope, and send it on its way to Nova Scotia.

The very same day that I sent Dave his cards, the ones he sent me arrived in the mail.

After wanting this card for well over a year, it is finally mine:

This card gives you a great-looking prime jersey swatch of the jersey seam, and the nice thing here, is that it's pretty well-centered, giving equal attention to the two colors of jersey material, as well as the seam that connects them.

Here's a look at the back of the card, which features one of its most important elements: the serial number.

Sometimes, it's not so much the card itself, as it is the journey to get that card. In this case, both elements apply.

Plus, there are still the other elements to the trade that we had already been working on.

The first is a Zach Parise Glacial Graphs card from 2005-06 Upper Deck Ice. The autograph is signed right on the acetate surface of the card, and unlike a lot of autographed cards from 2013-14 Trilogy, there isn't any kind of fading on the ink. This is my first autograph of Parise's, and not only that, but it's a ROOKIE YEAR autograph. Very cool.

Along with that, he also sent me the regular rookie card of Parise from the base set of 2005-06 Ice. Like the autographed card, it is done on an acetate material, but it is also serial numbered, 55/999.

Finishing off the three-card UND Alumni lot, is an autographed card of Ed Belfour from 2011-12 Elite. Like the Parise, this card is signed directly on the card, but unlike the Parise...

There's an autograph on the back, as well. This is from the Passing the Torch insert set, which features a past goaltender/current goaltender combinations, and this one has current Dallas Stars goaltender Kari Lehtonen on the back.

There were also a few other Penguins thrown in for good measure, including one Sidney Crosby card I didn't have. Also, How can you make a card of Mario Lemieux in a set called "Destined for the Hall," when at that point, he was ALREADY in the Hall?

That closes this trade out. I know when Dave pulled the Crosby, one of the things he wrote was that while he kind of wanted to just hold on to the card, he realized that there were some hardcore Crosby fans out there who would appreciate the card more than him.

Trust me, Dave, the card is in good hands.