Wesley and Brian were best friends who had been collecting baseball cards together since they were 5 years old. Every year on their birthday and for holidays, they would exchange cards with each other or buy new packs to add to their growing collections. Now at 12 years old, the sum total of their baseball card collections combined equaled 87 cards.

One sunny Saturday afternoon, the boys decided they wanted to carefully organize and categorize their cards to better appreciate all the players and stats within their collections. They dug out all the worn shoeboxes and disorganized binders that held their duplicate cards and rare finds from the past 7 years. Dumping the contents out on Wesley’s bedroom floor, they got to work sorting through every card.

“I’ll start by putting all the cards in alphabetical order by player last name,” said Brian. He started carefully picking up each card, reading the name on the front, and placing it in the corresponding spot in the growing row on the floor. Many of the cards were in rough shape from being shoved in boxes for years, with edges worn down and corners dog-eared. A few of the very rare and valuable cards were placed in protective plastic sleeves that Brian’s mom had bought for them.

As Brian alphabetized, Wesley began categorizing the cards by team. He noticed Brian had significantly more cards from West coast teams like the Dodgers, Giants, and Athletics while his own collection contained more East coast and Midwest teams. After about an hour of diligent sorting, they had organized over 80% of their collection when they came across an unexpected dilemma.

“Hey, wait a minute,” said Wesley, “I just found two of the same Ken Griffey Jr. rookie cards from the same 1989 Leaf set. But we only bought one pack that year, so how is that possible?”

Brian scratched his head. “That is strange. Unless…you don’t think someone accidentally gave us duplicate cards at some point, do you?” They rummaged through their boxes again and found not one, but three other duplicate cards – all of which they clearly remembered opening from packs on different occasions.

“I bet Jimmy Wilson from down the street swapped out our rare cards last time he was over here while we weren’t looking,” deduced Brian. Jimmy was notorious for cheating at sports and games whenever he could get away with it.

Determined to get to the bottom of it, the boys decided to do a full accounting and inventory of their entire collection. They created a comprehensive spreadsheet on Wesley’s mom’s laptop, painstakingly logging each player’s name, year, manufacturer, and condition of every single card. After cross-referencing their records from past years, it became obvious that somewhere between 5-10 of their most valuable cards were unaccounted for.

Armed with their evidence, Wesley and Brian marched right down the street to confront Jimmy. At first he denied everything, but when shown the duplicate cards and missing records, he finally cracked.

“Alright, fine! I may have switched a few of your best cards for some of my doubles last time I was at Wesley’s. But they’re long gone now, I swear! I traded them to Timmy Jones for some of his Pokémon cards,” Jimmy confessed.

The rascals knew Timmy had recently moved out of state and would be impossible to track down. They begrudgingly accepted they had learned a valuable lesson about properly safeguarding their collections and not fully trusting even their closest childhood acquaintances. From that day on, they instituted a strict policy of keeping meticulous binders of every move their cards made and never letting items out of their sights during visits from other kids.

Their collection was now properly organized and inventoried at 87 cards total. While disappointed about the missing “swap cards”, the experience brought the boys even closer as they gained an understanding of responsibility and looking out for each other. They enjoyed many more years carefully adding to and appreciating their baseball card collection together well into high school. The hobby fostered fond memories of their childhood and kept them bonded through all the ups and downs of growing up.