Cashing Out With Trout

I've been absent from Blogger lately, keeping busy by binge-watching Dead To Me, hand-counting every card in my collection to see just how close I am to 100,000, and spending time with the family. My daughters' last day of "school" is tomorrow and it's been a tough three months for them. Both of them had the same second grade teacher (two years apart) and neither one had her for a full year - which is a bummer because everyone adores her. And they won't even get to see her next year because she's leaving our school district, which we're all kind of upset about but between you and me I'm a little bit relieved because this woman is so frickin cute that I sat out at least one parent/teacher meeting.


Also my wife and I will celebrate our 15th anniversary exactly one month from today. I've been selling some cards on eBay in order to scrape up some cash for a decent gift. 

This is the big-ticket item. I've never sold a single card for so much money. Heck, I had a Mike Trout prospect card - a blue refractor autograph BGS graded mint 9 - and didn't get nearly as much for that card. Because I was an idiot and sold it during the two-month period when he wasn't Mickey Mantle. 

In a way I'm redeeming myself for that major mistake. I pulled this card out of a $20 blaster. I had it graded and planned to keep it in my collection until he retired, likely as the greatest player in baseball history. It was a $500 card two years ago and I hardly gave selling it much thought. I knew it hadn't hit its peak. But with the baseball season in limbo and Trout's place in the hobby - and the game - pretty much set in stone I don't know how much higher a non-numbred, non-autographed card could go. So I accepted a best offer and cashed out. 


The buyer had a user name which indicated that he was a true fan of Trout and the Angels, so I'm happy to send it to someone who will appreciate the card rather than profit off it (he says while profiting off of said card...) Since we're dealing with feeBay I will have to cough up 10% of the sale price. In order to cover the cost of the listing I had to sell this:

And this, and this, and this:

And these:

Yep, I broke up my 1988-89 Fleer Basketball set. I kept some superstars like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Hakeem Olajuwon. However the spike in everything Bulls-related after The Last Dance made me throw in the towel: I still needed both Michael Jordan cards, the Scottie Pippen RC, the Dennis Rodman RC, and the Horace Grant RC (not to mention Reggie Miller's RC.) 

The good news is, even after paying these fees and saving for my wife's anniversary gift I still have room in the budget for a "big piece" or two. It won't be an epic Shoebox Legends-level flip but I plan to add some quality cards to my collection. There are still some legends I need to cross of my 1956 Topps need list. I'd like to add some high-end autographs from Panini Immaculate Collection. And I'm targeting a classic rookie card of a Hall of Famer. Guess I'll have to settle for a 'virtual' card show instead of attening the National this year. We'll see how it goes.



Thanks for reading!

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