A Mojotronic Trade of Moose Proportions

I’m not nearly as good at clever trade post titles as many of the other bloggers out there. Deal with it.

Some time ago, I posted the results of some mid-aughts NPN returns and lamented the current state of the once-fruitful No Purchase Necessary world. Apparently no one else misses NPNs because I wasn’t able to draw any more NPN stories out of anyone.

But what I was able to draw was a trade request from our oldest blogging friend: Mojo from the fantastic MojoBeard card blog. He wanted the sweet Jacoby Ellsbury rookie jersey auto I had received for the price of a stamp from 2005 Bowman Sterling’s NPN program and, surprisingly, he had some Royals autos to trade me. On a side note, it’s proven pretty difficult to work out trades for my Royals On-Card Auto Collection because it’s such a specific (and difficult to catalog) collection. I think it’s time to expand my collecting habits a bit to facilitate more blog trading! But that’s a post for a different time.

Here’s what Mojo sent my way for the Ellsbury RC auto:

Luckily his last name is pretty short...

A fantastic card that I’ve been tracking on eBay for months. I think I’ve decided to take a shot at completing his entire last name. I guess technically these aren’t on-card, but they’re on-something-not-a-sticker so I’m counting them. It at least shows some forethought from Upper Deck as to what the autographed card will end up looking like. You may notice some stickiness on the toploader there from the packing tape Mojo used to hold the cards together. It took about 15 minutes to pry them apart, but they arrived quite safely! Still, I think next time I trade with Mojo, I’ll be sending him some sweet blue tape!

I wish someone would copy this set again (a la Masterpieces). Awesome.

Along with the Butler auto, Mojo sent along this rookie from Topps Gallery. I missed out on this set entirely but I love it, of course. Masterpieces was great too. Hard to go wrong with canvas and paint! Butler’s “rookie” cards are all from 2005. He’s got autos in at least 3 different Topps products that year, though he wouldn’t play in the majors until 2007. I love Butler and think he’s on his way to being one of the great 1st basemen/DH of our time… too bad he’ll be on another team in 3 years. This is my first of his rookies though- the other cards I have of him are all from 2007 (his… “untrue” rookie?).

Stickered, but still my first!

And here’s the real gem of the trade. Moose autos are hard to find at a price in my range and this is my first. Being that it’s a sticker, I’ll probably sell it to help fund the purchase of a 2008 Bowman Chrome auto before it leaps out of my range for good. Rumor has it Moustakas may be in the majors by June, so I’d better get on it!

All in all, a fantastic trade. Thanks to Mojo for making it happen and my apologies for taking so long to send the Jacoby in return!