Want to Trade? Mystery Cache
Tzinny: Checked here and it is gone. Elected not to replace.
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Size: 
(micro)
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From about 1977 - 1987, I was an avid baseball card collector. Whenever I had some extra money, I used it to buy packages of cards and enjoyed going through each pack to see what players were included. The gum was OK too.
Part of collecting cards was trading with friends. I would spend hours with my buddies negotiating trades for both superstars and common players. Sometimes you wanted to trade for players you followed and sometimes the purposes of trading to fill a particular set.
I remember one day in June 1982 when I was with my friends Nick and William. They were also avid collectors and were two of the most difficult guys to trade with. We all met that day at Nick's house and we each had our shoebox filled with cards, organized and ready to trade.
I was a Cub fan while Nick was a Philadelphia Phillies follower and William was a fan of the Big Red Machine, the Cincinnati Reds. I made a few small trades with both Nick and William but then they got into a serious trade discussion.
Nick wanted the top player for the Phillies, Mike Schmidt, but started out with a lowball offer to William. William immediately countered by requesting Reds catching star Johnny Bench and stating that any trade for Schmidt must include Bench. Nick hemmed and hawed and finally agreed to consider dealing Bench.
Nick asked William if he had White Sox pitcher Britt Burns as that was the only White Sox player he needed for that season. William checked and sure enough he did have Burns (and the card was autographed) and agreed to include him but now wanted the deal to be two for two. Knowing Burns was not a high demand card but was important to Nick, William requested that Nick include his Baltimore Orioles Future Stars Card. Nick looked at the card and realized that this card included highly touted rookie Cal Ripken. Nick did not think Ripken would amount to much but did not let William know this.
Nick tried to get some additional cards tossed in but William held out and they finally made the 2 for 2 swap. Nick obtained Mike Schmidt and Britt Burns while William left that day with Johnny Bench and The Orioles future stars card.
As it turns, only Brit Burns of these four players did not make the Baseball Hall of Fame so both Nick and William ended up with a good deal. Here are pics of the cards so you can see what they each ended up with.
NICK's new cards:
WILLIAMS' new cards:
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pbhyq or zhttyrf...bbx bbx...