Trade with Johnny's Trading Spot

I am not quite sure how we got this trade started, but somehow, a Gator and a Dawg made a trade.  Yes, pretty soon peace will break out in the Middle East, but yours truly -- a Georgia Bulldog -- and John from Johnny's Trading Spot -- a Florida Gator -- worked out a trade.

First, let me get this out of the way:

This is the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.  Never mind what the universities have said about trying to curb drinking in Jacksonville, either.

This is what it looks like at the end of the game when Georgia beats Florida -- as we did in 2011 (when this photo was taken), 2012 (when the photo above was taken), and 2013 (when the photo below was taken.

I told John I would throw these photos in to our trade.  Surprisingly, he declined.

What I did send him, though, were a bunch of late 1970s and early 1980s Braves cards.  In return, he sent me a bunch of Brewers -- shocking, I know -- that I needed and one bonus card.

Heck, let's start with the bonus card, because, to be fair, it really is the star of this trade:

I love this card.  The 1957 Topps set is iconic -- it's the first set to go to the now standard card size, and the use of photos over art work was innovative as well.  In addition, the set did not suffer as greatly as the 1960s cards do from the excessive close cropping of player photos.  Perhaps that's me idealizing the set, but I do believe that the 1957 Topps set is one that I will have to try to put together soon -- even if the cards are not gem mint.  This Hank Aguirre is a great card to start with (along with the few others I have), and I'm happy John sent it.

Many people don't know that Doug Jones actually came up with the Brewers in 1982 for a brief 4-game stint.  He even got into the inaugural Milwaukee Police Card Set. 

Many Brewers fans couldn't tell you the difference between Odell Jones and Adam's Housecat.  Or Schrodinger's Cat.  Odell closed out his career with Milwaukee in 1988.  He had a weird career -- debuted in 1975, pitched from 1977-1979, showed up in the majors again in 1981, gone from the majors in 1982, showed up for two years in Texas in 1983 and 1984, gone in 1985, pitched in Baltimore in 1986, gone in 1987, then pitched in 28 games -- including 2 starts and a save -- for Milwaukee in 1988. So, I guess 1989 Score counts as a sunset card for him.

Then, there was some help for one of my third-tier player collections for a collection that really needed the help.  And no, he is not a player collection for me just because he bears a passing resemblance (no pun intended) to Brett Favre.

To close out the highlighted cards, I turn to the instant-tint glasses and mustache look sported by Eden, Wisconsin's native son, Jim Gantner.

I'd say that Gumby made those glasses look good, but wow, there is no sugarcoating the fact that those things never looked good on anyone.  Ever.  It got worse when Gantner shaved his mustache later in his career -- he looked like everyone-in-Wisconsin's Uncle Jimmy sitting on the end of the bar working on his fifth beer of the day by the time lunch on Tuesday rolled around.

Johnny sent a bunch of other cards to help out my Brewers collections as well.  For that, I thank him and I appreciate the good-natured banter that we had about Georgia/Florida over e-mail as well.

Thanks, Johnny!