Trade With State of The Hobby...I'm Your Average Card Collector: Kershaw and Snider Present The GREATEST Trade Ever.

I treasure every trade I've made, but good god this one is just on another level entirely. That's no slight against my previous dealings....keep reading, and you'll soon see why I've dubbed this the GREATEST trade ever. Anyhoo, I completed my first trade with Jon of State of The Hobby...I'm Your Average Card Collector. He posted some amazing, sick trade bait way back when, and I quickly jumped on a pair of cards I absolutely had to have. After many moons of picking up chunks of cards for him, I was finally able to put together a small army of hits that was thankfully enough to pry the two cards away from him I so desired. You can see what I sent his way here. My bounty is below. And damn, I'm still delighted by it.

The Duke of Flatbush! This is my first certified autograph of the Dodger legend and Hall of Famer, and second overall, as I traded for a TTM Snider signature once upon a time. To top off an already fantastic card, it's a triple relic/auto, and numbered 97/99. Any Duke autograph is, well, a work of art. I am beyond thrilled to own this card. I've wanted a certified sig of Duke for some time, and to finally own one is a tremendous feeling.

Clayton! Auto! Relic! Exclamation points!!!!! Serial-numbered 46/99 - the base version, not a parallel - this bad boy marks Kershaw autograph number fifteen, and is a welcome addition to my Kid K Kollection. It's my third Clayton Tribute autograph, with the first two of the 2009 iteration of this high-end product.

Jon threw in three cards simply because he's a swell guy, and my favorite of the three, by far, is the above Russ Martin jersey swatch, which I did not own. It serves as Martin hit # 53, and pairs exceptionally well with the gold parallel /50 I picked up off of the Bay a while back.

The other two "throw-ins" were the below 1971 Topps Don Sutton (my first '71, and these are even better looking in person, as it's difficult to beat a black border) and 1959 Topps Solly Drake.

Thanks for the absolutely incredible trade Jon! I'm glad you enjoyed your end of the deal, and I look forward to our next swap, perhaps for those high-end Russ Martins you have. I've got a few Brandon LaFells that are pretty nice and have your name on them.