Not "Waiting 'til Next Year" for this trade...

I don't know about you but I've always found it a little difficult to trade with another Cubs team collector. As I a kid, I wouldn't trade away my Cubs even for future Hall of Famers. No Jody Davis for Nolan Ryan trades going down. No Dwight Smith for Rickey Henderson.

As I got older and more and more cards were produced, I learned to let go (at least of duplicates) to build my collection even bigger. And now that I have a blog, I've found a couple other Cubs collectors that are willing to trade!

Tom over at Waiting 'til Next Year made the whole trading with another collector of your favorite team one of the easiest trades yet. If you haven't checked out his blog yet, you should. Don't worry. Despite his blog title being a saying synonymous with Cubs fans, his blog isn't limited to that. He just made a 7 games in 7 days at 7 ballparks roadtrip. Who hasn't wanted to do that?!? He's got a pretty neat bobblehead collection and posts one every Monday. His posts have been increasing as the year progresses so I'd bet a few more followers would encourage him even more to keep going!

As for the trade, Tom asked for a few Archives and Reprints to help him complete his set. I had also just finished my Topps Series 2 break so I threw in a bunch of Cubs from that as well. At the time, I was in the middle of a few trades and my Want List wasn't as up to date as I wanted it. So as a fellow Cubs collector, I just asked for some Cubs dupes he had. I primarily collected Topps before so I was lacking in a lot of the other brands from the '90s and '00s.

I had no idea Tom would send as many as he did and I am grateful! Apparently, I missed out on some good stuff between sticking to just Topps and my hiatus from the hobby. Here are some of my favorites from the stacks he sent:

The only card to feature the infield fly rule??

Pretty sure every kid my age wanted a Starter jacket like this back in the day.

Who I still think of anytime someone mentions the current Jose Bautista.

Who doesn't love an old clunky cell phone picture?

Horizontal card of a laid out catcher and he caught it? Nice!

Sandberg? Check. Gold? Check. Winner? Definitely!

Newly signed #1 Draft Pick Albert Almora

This is probably less than 5% of the whole package because there were easily 150 cards.  I think he hit just about every brand from the past 20 years.He sent Bowman. Donruss. Fleer. Upper Deck. Score. Pinnacle. Stadium Club. Fleer Ultra. Leaf. O-Pee-Chee. SP Authentic. Finest. A&G. Fleer Tradition. Heritage. Bazooka. 

Don't forget to check out his blog and see if you can't help him out with some of his set needs!

Thanks for the great trade, Tom!