Trade #5

Say Hello to Bobbi. She's not really named Bobbi, of course. In fact, now that she has her beloved guitar, I've nicknamed her 'Jimi'. She didn't get it. Hopefully she will one day.

Bobbi/Jimi saw the guitar I got from my last trade and just about dropped her jaw on the floor. She didn't so much offer me anything as much as she asked what I wanted. Heh. I told her I wanted a business location for my wife. I think she thought I was serious.

Now without a doubt the guitar was the most popular item that my students fawned over. I got all kinds of offers. Originally Bobbi/Jimi offered a 1966 Fleer Pete Rose card. I found that kinda cool, but knew the guitar was worth more, especially since it was a Fleer card, not Topps. Another kid offered a football signed by Dan Marino, and I almost took it, but something told me to hold out. I think I knew that Bobbi/Jimi could do better. One thing I knew was that she really wanted that guitar. She kept asking if I'd made a trade yet, kept telling me she had wanted to learn to play guitar for a long time, etc. etc. So I decided to wait a bit. Let it sit. Let it simmer.

I held onto the guitar for two weeks even though I got all the good offers on the first day. When Bobbi/Jimi did up her offer (with her dad's help, I might add), I did some quick research and found out that my guitar was worth pretty much the same thing that her offer was... somewhere around $50 or $60. Maybe a little more. It was hard to tell because her offer's value depended a great deal on its condition. Without getting a good look at the thing and some real time to do research, it appeared that I was basically making a sideways trade. But don't worry. I had a plan.

So what was her offer? A 1966 TOPPS Pete Rose card AND a 1992 Hall of Fame Fotoball. That's Fo-to-Ball, not football. A Fotoball is a baseball with both an autograph and an imprinted colored image of the guy who signed it. They are made exclusively by Major League Baseball for special events... like getting inducted to the Hall of Fame, for instance. This one was a double Fotoball. It had both Rollie Fingers and Tom Seaver's image/autograph. It even came with a certificate of authenticity. My research said the Fotoball was worth about $25-$30 and based on it's condition the Pete Rose card was worth about $40-$60. So, high end, I'd be making a little profit, but low end it was a sideways move.

I sat on the offer another two or three days, thinking, thinking, thinking. In the end, two things made up my mind to trade my guitar for Bobbi/Jimi's Pete Rose card and Fotoball. They were:
1) She REALLY wanted it, and I just couldn't stand to break her heart. Besides, it was just stepping sideways.
2) Though a baseball audience would be much smaller than a guitar audience (and boy was it!), I knew that baseball fans can tend to be, well... fanatic. If I could just find the right person, they would probably be willing to offer something really cool.

So based on my heart and my gut, I made the trade with Bobbi/Jimi, and her smile says it all.

For those of you wondering what her dad had to do with this... apparently he has lots of baseball memerobilia, including a couple of the Fotoballs and more than one Pete Rose card. Once again, extras/doubles of something becomes trash in someone's mind and I reap the rewards.

Well, in this case, what I reaped was the potential of rewards. Did it pay off? You know how to find out. For now I'll tell you only this: I had exactly 1 offer for two weeks, and it wasn't a very good one. And then... bam! Paydirt.