I don't always do things by the book...

...but sometimes I do them by the letter.

The other day on TMM I talked about a rare trade I made with a Blowout member.  Generally that's been my fault because sometimes it's just easier to try to buy something from a guy than to see if I have an extremely specific Bryce Harper autograph.  But occasionally things DO work out because lightning struck a second time, as you'll see shortly.  

A particular member listed some nice stuff for sale or for trade.  I really took a liking to one of his cards and sent him a link to my trade bait.  Though it hasn't garnered me a ton of trades yet (despite including a lot of useful stuff!) it proved effective here--he decided he wanted a dual autograph (which I picked up on the cheap in a Blowout lot, incidentally) and one of my Bryce Harper base RCs, which I certainly won't miss (overrated until proven not a punk-ass).  

You would have thought this guy was a blogger/trader just like you guys because just for fun, I figured out the Beckett "value" and noted that I came out ahead.  You know what that means?  We both got exactly what we wanted, and to hell with "book value."  In short, it was an outstanding trade.

Ok, enough excitement over making a trade on a board that primarily involves selling--what did I get that I'm so excited about?  Have a look at THIS:

Rick Porcello 2009 SP Authentic By the Letter auto (#69/85)

It certainly seems like I've been amassing a lot of letter manupatch autos lately, and I hope that trend continues.  This is a very cool card of a guy I hope follows Justin Verlander's career path, because if he can even be 75% of what Verlander offers, Detroit would have a nightmare of a rotation, especially with the potential emergence of Jacob Turner.

Anyway, that explains the reason I went hard after a Porcello card, but there's a lot to like about more than just the player.  Although it's not a team color, the "E" boldly stands out with a nice signature down the largest portion of it, a natural spot for the autograph of just about anyone short of Bo Hart and Mike Olt.  My only real knock on the card is that the nameplate doesn't spell the player's last name or even the team name, but instead "Rookie," which is pretty lame.  That's fine with me, though, because I really don't need ANOTHER nameplate project right now.

For those of you who are interested, this is my fifth Porcello in the Tigers PC, and third autograph overall.  To see all of them, please head right on over here.

So once again, here's to trading!