Since the beginning of the year, the creation of the equipment system has been something that has almost created a second trade economy. Although the trading of equipment for players happens all the time, its clear that valuation for the cards has fluctuated so dramatically that you almost have to take it day by day.

With recent insert sets requiring equipment exchanges to get rarer variants, and manager cards for collecting all team parallels, things have shifted a bit into overdrive. People want to not only stack their own lineups with equipment, but they also want to complete the exchanges to get what they need for the full team sets.

The craziest thing about this is that the counts on equipment cards are still quite high for a number of reasons. They are not in short supply, especially with all the accounts out there who have received equipment awards for leveling up, but not executed any exchanges. The issue is what you have to give to get the perfect combo that you need.

There are two pieces of universal equipment at each level that have been proven to have more value than the others available. The cleat and fielding glove cards are required for any player exchange, which means more people need those than the other pitcher or batter specific equipment. If you have a stockpile of those, dont just give them up without making sure you get adequate payment in return. You probably wont get 2:1 unless you are lucky, but you might be able to get some lower level equipment cards in tow.

Right now, the most in demand equipment is Black, but recent uses of Gold for the fire sets has upped the economy there too. With so many purple player cards floating around, more users are looking to upgrade their lineups. The same could be said about teal to purple, but with counts as high as they are on both levels, shredding teal cards for purple is not the most efficient way to complete your set.

As the season progresses, and more users start to look to upgrade to the silver and gold levels, you can imagine that value will increase. Right now, with both top levels not able to be traded when players are completed, I have seen people try to hoard the black 3x cards in hopes to get some nice return there, instead of upgrading to silver and losing the trade-ability of the card.

When more insert sets start to use the card exchange to fulfill the requirements of completing a set, it would be easy to see more and more people start to hoard equipment when they can find it cheap. If you want to be on the forefront of what might be coming, it cant hurt to try to throw a few equipment cards into your counteroffers.

Hopefully at some point, exchanges of equipment for higher equipment will happen. I have so many blues and orange that I want to get rid of, and shredding a handful for a shot at better levels would be nice.

Lastly, Series 2 is likely on the way in a very short time frame here. When the new cards hit, and they will hit eventually, there are going to be a lot of people looking to get the better players into top boosted form as quickly as possible. Look for a surge in equipment value during that time.

In the end, the trade economy will be driven by demand, as it always has been. If the Bunt team makes the card exchange a huge focus, the value of the equipment cards will skyrocket. If it is used more sparingly, the value of the cards will depend on the way the boosted base cards perform after the exchange happens. Either way, I love watching the volatility of the market, as this is what makes trading on the Topps apps so much fun.