Zen and the art of Zistle

Recently, I discovered the joys of Zistle, which bills itself as "The easiest way to organize and trade your cards online." Basically, it's a free card trading website, created by "collectors for collectors," which allows you to inventory cards you want to trade and helps find trade partners to get the cards you want. You can also pay to add Zistle Gold, their premium service, but they also provide a seven-day free trial of Zistle Gold.

Once I registered, it took a little to figure out how to post up cards. However, once I got the hang of it, I started listing several basketball and football cards. In reality, I could care less about basketball, but I've managed to accumulate a good-sized stack of it through picking up various and sundry sports card collections. So I posted a few of them, along with other cards I'm looking to trade away, and quickly logged in about 1,080 cards - 55 baseball, 516 football, 207 basketball, and 302 hockey - generating 4,078 points.

It wasn't long before I received my first trade proposal from member bdlehman18. He was interested in a couple of my football cards - a 2011 Panini Rookies and Stars Longevity Danny Coale and a 2001 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Antonio Freeman. I already had the Tony Gwynn cards he offered, so after some negotiation, he sent a pair of Tony Gwynns, one a 1993 Fun Pack and the other, a 1999 Upper Deck MVP Swing Time.

I promptly mailed my cards, he promptly mailed his, and the next thing I knew, I had a PWE sitting in my mailbox and the deal was painlessly completed.

My second Zistle trade, this one with BucCollector, was a little more involved. I sent him a mix of basketball and hockey cards, which included a 2010 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Akinori Iwamura, 1973-74 Topps Dave Bing, 2000-01 Topps Heritage Jason Collier RC, 1993-94 Hoops East Team Photo, 2013-14 Upper Deck Artifacts Evgeni Malkin, and then 2007-08 Upper Deck Artifacts Sidney Crosby, Evegeni Malkin, Jordan Staal and Marc-Andre Fleury, 2010-11 Upper Deck Artifacts Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal, 2002-03 Atomic Johan Hedberg and Alexei Morozov.

From BucCollector, I received a trio of 1974 Topps cards, both of the Washington and San Diego Padres variety. While the Willie McCovey card has the San Diego Padres listed, as it should, the Johnny Grubb and Dave Hilton cards feature the Washington "Nat'l Lea." It was assumed to be pretty much a done deal for the Padres to be purchased by a Washington, D.C. group, but it fell through. It was then that Ray Kroc, of McDonald's fame saved the San Diego franchise (and not Bud Selig), keeping the team in San Diego.

I also received three Tony Gwynn cards, including a 1988 Fleer Baseball's Best, 1990 Donruss All-Star Error, 1988 Topps Tony Gwynn/Benito Santiago, as well as a 1987 Fleer Limited Edition Steve Garvey

You do have to be careful when you post feedback, however. You can give a range of 1 star, for a bad trade and up to 10 stars for a great trade. Unfortunately, when I went to post feedback, I had intended to give BucCollector a 10 and thought I clicked on all 10 of the stars, but accidentally hit 9 of the stars instead. Easily enough corrected, I found out - you just post up a message to one of the moderators and they'll help you fix it.

And then I had yet another trade offer, this one from halos17, a Martin St. Louis hockey fan. We agreed on the trade and I sent my cards out into the U.S. Postal system. Due to other obligations and issues, halos17 had a delay in getting his cards into the mail.

When he did get my package in the mail, he included these 2009 OPC Black Back cards of Jake Peavy and Adrian Gonzalez, as we agreed, while I sent a couple of Martin St. Louis Artifact hockey cards.

 

But, talk about being a very conscientious collector!

 

 

Beside the cards we agreed to, he also included these Tony Gwynn cards with the above note.

 

Overall, I'm sort of taking a shining to trading on Zistle. Once you figure out how it works, it's a fairly easy and effective trading tool to get rid of, and to find needed sports cards.