Price of Freedom? Around 10 Bucks...

About a month after I started this blog and fell completely off the wagon and became an uncontrollable wax ripping fool, I bought a 5,000 count box. By late August the box was completely full and I have been on a trading frenzy ever since. When I began blogging it seems I instantly found traders for a lot of teams, I think I sent away all of my Brewers, Dodgers, Braves and Cardinals before my fifth post, but some teams took a while to find a steady trader for. I think I sent Yankees packages to 3 or 4 people before I finally settled on Drew’s Cards as my Yankee destination while other teams like the Blue Jays, Braves and Orioles have a bunch of excellent traders. There were a few teams that I just couldn’t seem to get rid of, though. It took a while, but I found Grade A traders who collect the Diamond Backs and Giants, so now I have traders for every team in MLB except four. Naturally I take all of my Rays cards, so the odd teams out were the Athletics, Pirates and Rockies. I have NEVER done a trade involving any of those 3 teams and I had a ton of cards stockpiled. I didn’t like the idea of having just one column full in the 5,000 count box, especially since it only represented 3 teams that no one wants. On Monday while I was at the card shop I picked up 3 white 400-count card boxes. When I got home I stuffed one with the A’s cards, one with the Pirates and in the third box, I crammed every Rockies card I owned, relics and all. Then, I looked online and found addresses for children’s hospitals in Denver, Pittsburgh and Oakland. I e-mailed each hospital first to make sure it was okay and each time I got a quick response that said it wasn’t just okay, it was encouraged. I enclosed a letter in each box, and shipped them our Parcel Post (to save money). In the end it cost $2.25 for the boxes and about 8 bucks total to ship them for a total of around 10 bucks. I probably could have bought 3 more packs of cards with that 10 bucks, but I would probably have just pulled more Rockies and A’s cards anyway. The bad news is, for the time being at least, I am out of trade bait. I have no cards from this decade (except Topps Heritage, in order for set builders) and I am totally out of relic cards all together. The good news is, the 5,000 card box is now filled with commons from the 70’s and 80’s, all nice and arranged numerically, for set builders. The better news is that even though there are still cards all over my living room, dining room, bedroom, bathroom, closet, etc.-they are all cards that I want, that mean something to me in one way or another. No longer is the house cluttered with Rockies cards that I don’t want and I can never get rid of. Plus, there is a chance that those cards just might brighten some kid’s day. That would be nice, but either way, I am FREE!!!