Trying to stay positive

In my Blog Bat Around post, I mentioned some of the most valuable cards I pulled over the years - and I mentioned how many of them were sold for less than peak value. Jon commented that bloggers like myself far too often lament the unfavorable transactions and rarely mention the favorable sales.

So, in the interest of balance (and to remind myself that I'm not completely incompetent at this whole sports card thing) here's a list of ten cards I sold at or near peak value. Nearly all of these were sold in either 2020 or 2021. I'm sure I've got some other successful sales in the archives, but figured I'd focus on the sports card spike during Covid.

In ascending order:

2012 Topps Russell Wilson RC
Sale Price: $32.00

Russ was still seen as a top-10 quarterback and future Hall of Famer when I sold this card. I think he's got some good years left in him, but his popularity has definitely taken a hard hit. As of this posting, you can buy a PSA 9 copy of this card for under $20.

Speaking of PSA 9s..

Julio Urias 2013 Bowman Sterling AU PSA 9
Sale Price: $43.09

Prospectors are always cautioned to avoid pitchers but I liked Urias because he was very young (debuted at age 19), left-handed, and a Dodger. He also shares my birthday. I gave up on him after injuries halted his progress (shocker), kicked myself for doing so after he won 20 games, and felt relieved to have sold this single when he was charged with domestic violence (again).

A BGS 9.5 copy of this card recently sold for $17.50. Want an ungraded copy? It'll cost you a dollar.
 

Christian Yelich 2013 Topps Chrome Update RC
& 2015 Topps Museum Auto #d/399
Sale Price: $71.00

I was a fan of Yelich, but worried that his sub-par 2020 season was the beginning of a decline. He hasn't fallen as far as another player I invested in pre-pandemic and bailed out on just in time, but his RCs won't sell for anything near this amount today - even if you throw in an autograph as I did here. Yeli's base Chrome RC can be had for less than the cost of a large coffee. If you want the autographed version, a gem mint copy or refractor can be had for around this price.

I somehow landed this Bad Boy for pocket change in 2015 back when 4 Sharp Corners had bargain slabs:

1988 FLEER #45 ISIAH THOMAS PISTONS HOF PSA 9 K1634890-215

$3.39

It was purchased before I'd really planned to build the set (thus the lack of direct scan) but I sold off some of the PSA 9 singles during the pandemic because ... well, at those prices, it would be silly not to. Earliter this year I got a PSA-slabbed Michael Jordan All-Star for around this price. MJ's nemesis can be had in this grade for about $25 today.

1983-84 O-Pee-Chee Wayne Gretzky PSA 9
Sale Price: $305.00

I spied this card ungraded at my LCS (long before they moved down the street from me). The slab cost more than the card itself, and the $30-40 total was a wise investment. I had no intention of selling it, but pandemic pricing sent high-grade copies of all-time greats soaring to new heights. That included the Great One, whose singles practically quadrupled. $305 isn't necessarily a peak price; while many PSA 9 copies sell for under $200 today one copy recently sold for $400. 

1996-97 Kobe Bryant SP RC PSA 9
Sale Price: $306.01

Another fortunate 4 Sharp Corners pickup - I bought this with Christmas money in 2014, before I had any plans to rebuild a basketball collection. In that same order I bought a PSA 9 John Stockton Fleer RC - and amazingly both were cheaper than an SP RC of Jarome Iginla!

1748675 - 1988 FLEER #115 JOHN STOCKTON RC JAZZ HOF PSA 9 K1748675-424

$16.14

1

$16.14

1634172 - 1994 SP #181 JAROME IGINLA RC PSA 9 H1634172-715	$18.69		1	$18.69
1596449 - 1996 SP #134 KOBE BRYANT RC LAKERS PSA 9 K1596449-622	$10.19		1	$10.19

I'd planned to keep the Kobe card, especially after he tragically passed away in 2020. However a year later, the prices of this fairly common rookie card were soaring and I decided to sell. The most recent PSA 9 example sold for $50 so I think I made the right decision.

Henrik Lundqvist 2005-06 SP Authentic RC Auto BGS 9.5
Sale Price: $475.00

I managed to splurge on a few Future Watch autos over the years including this "King" Henrik, which I bought in 2012 for $160. Despite my disdain for the Rags, I liked Lundqvist and was happy to have this card in my high-end hockey PC. Once he retired, I decided to cash out. The pandemic was unofficially done by the time I sold this in early 2022, but the prices remained high. One recent eBay auction for a BGS 9.5 ended at about $270, while another copy sold for roughly the same price as mine.

Kris Bryant 2013 Bowman Chrome Ref. Auto BGS 9.5
Sale Price: $600.00

I loved this card. It was one of my absolute favorite singles of one of my favorite players. I did not buy it to resell. This was supposed to stay in my collection forever. However, I started to panic after his injury-riddled 2018 season and even though he rebounded in 2019 I must have sensed something ominous on the horizon - because I sold this card in January of 2020. Bryant's stock has sunk lower than Yelich due to a never-ending string of injuries. I still root for the guy and occasionally scoop up his low-end parallels, but I'm glad I was able to sell this when I did. A South Korean seller recently sold two copies of this card for $99.99 each. I'd consider buying it back at that price.

Jaromir Jagr 1990-91 O-Pee-Chee Premier RC PSA 10
Sold for $625.00

This one was wild. Another prescient purchase from 4 Sharp Corners, back when I was hoarding high-grade rookie cards of legendary players. Jagr was five seasons away from completing his incredible NHL career (he's still an active player in his homeland!) when I picked this up in a 2013 Black Friday sale:

261334213355 - 1987 FLEER UPDATE GLOSSY #U-68 GREG MADDUX RC PSA 10 B1473136

$41.27

360784314860 - 1990 O-PEE-CHEE PREMIER #50 JAROMIR JAGR RC PSA 10 H1464622    $34.39

If the Maddux had fetched $400+ during the pandemic I would have sold that one, too. Actually, I sold this card two times - the initial auction ended at $405 but the seller didn't pay so I relisted it. Only when the relisted auction exceeded $500 did the first buyer pay his $405. I immediately refunded him and watched as the relist soared past $600.

This for a run-of-the-mill base card from 1990. Probstein has sold a bunch of 10s recently for about $150 each. Covid was crazy, man. 

Mike Trout 2011 Bowman Chrome RC BGS 9.5
Sale Price: over 1k

I wrote a blog post about this gem shortly after it sold, for more than any single card I've ever sold. But, as I said in the Blog Bat Around, it's not the most valuable card I've ever owned. I just happened to sell this at the right time. Since this was a pack pull from a blaster, the $20 I spent (plus the grading fee) easily makes this the most profitable transaction of my collecting life. Even though Trout's place among baseball's best is secure, this card can be purchased in this grade for half a grand today.


There you have it, my ten most successful sports card sales. Unfortunately, I may need to add to this list soon.

Years ago, back when Corky was still blogging, he wrote that he had to sell his 1933 Goudey Lou Gehrig PSA 3 to pay for the medication that he needed to stay alive. That gutted me as a lifelong collector. I could only dream of owning such an incredible card, and any illness that required such a sacrifice must have been an incredibly painful ordeal to endure.

I've been so fortunate to have avoided the hospital for most of my life. No major illnesses or surgeries, even though I don't exercise and I eat like a lazy teenager.

My wife is not so lucky. Mrs. Collector has stage 4 colon cancer. Her chemotherapy treatments start in May. 

As a result, this will be my last post for a while. Card collecting is on an indefinite pause as of 5/1. I will try to complete the Athletics series as promised, but it might be the only posts I manage this summer. The family needs me more than ever.

Take care, everyone. Thank you for reading.




~

Slabbed Single Sunday

I've added about a dozen new graded cards to the collection so far this year - not counting the 1956 Topps set build which is just a handful of cards away from 75% completion. The initial plan was to get three or four posts out of my recent COMC pickups and eBay flips but the mini-stories weren't substantial enough on their own. Instead you get a 4-in-1 post, starting with:

The most expensive card from my COMC order was this mid-grade sunset season food issue of the legendary Hank Aaron. I've had this on my wantlist for a while and didn't see anything else worth spending $29.99 on, so I grabbed it. I've now got three vintage graded singles (plus a bat relic) of Hammerin' Hank; I should have four but the 1962 Topps card I bought on COMC a few years back was rejected by PSA for 'recoloring' 😡


This won't make sense to most of you. but I'm working on a project to acquire at least one PSA-graded baseball card (in EX 5 or better) for every year from 1950 to 1980 and have every team represented within that mini-collection. So I would need one Senator pre-1961 and another one post-1961, one St. Louis Browns card and one Orioles card, one Brooklyn Dodger and one Los Angeles Dodger, and so on. [If I decided to seriously pursue this project, the 1956 Topps set would count toward years but not teams.]

I haven't had a PSA membership in several years, and I've missed the fun of picking up cheap vintage singles on COMC, sending them in to PSA, and stashing (or selling) the newly-slabbed and graded cards. Unfortunately, like a lot of companies, they jacked up their prices during Covid and priced out the working class collector like myself. And you don't get any free submissions with a basic membership anymore.

So, when COMC offered a PSA grading special right around the holidays, I cashed out my Christmas bonus and submitted some cards. Here are some of my favorites:

All of these were COMC pickups, and came back at grades I was pleased with (though I was hoping for higher on the Sheldon Jones.) The Boyer and Dryden are modest upgrades over the amount invested, but I planned to keep both regardless. Apparently I have a good eye for 1953 Bowman Color cards; years after picking up a Billy Loes that graded out a Near Mint 8, another sight unseen purchase graded high: 

This was probably the best ROI of any single in my PSA-via-COMC order; it's probably worth twice the total of the card + grading fee.

I also had a 1953 Bowman Color Gus Zernial that graded a 6 - but I sold it on the site and bought these:

$18 for a high-grade vintage single of a well-known baseball lifer, and $13 for an old friend...

..though I didn't notice until scanning this that the bottom left corner of the case (top left in this scan) is a bit cracked. Still, I'm happy with this "trade".

Not everything I submitted was a winner, however. A 1933 Goudey single that I thought would be a 2-3 graded out at a 1.5. The Johnny Mize 1948 Bowman I bought on a whim was nowhere close to mid-grade (got a 3 on that one) and the other Gus Zernial I submitted came back a 5:

If I do another blog series this year it will be on the history of the Philadelphia/KC/Oakland Athletics, but I've got to get my audience back first. A lot of my regulars have been busy, or are no longer blogging.

BGS slabs seem to have fallen out of favor with graded card collectors. I haven't bought any in a while but I always like the way modern cards looked in their holders. There was one COMC seller practically giving away dozens of former Boston Red Sox prospects who never stuck, and I was tempted to grab a couple at these prices:

For the price of two Red Sox I instead opted for a low-numbered refractor of an active pitcher/DH who has missed significant time recovering from Tommy John surgery:

Brendan McKay probably won't make much of a major league impact but I couldn't resist adding this to my Blue Rays mini-collecion for well under $10. It pairs nicely with the pack-pulled Evan Longoria I sent to BGS about 15 years ago.

Can you tell it's time for me to get a new scanner? The McKay scan makes the gold BGS label look silver, and the more recent scan of this Longo (on the left) is far worse than the scan from my Sports Card Tour post six years ago (on the right).

My phone isn't much better, as I will demonstrate shortly. Not sure if it's the lighting in my card room or the camera itself, but card photos from my phone often come out blurry.

Here's a Michael Jordan All-Star card I picked up for my 1988-89 Fleer set. Scan on the left, phone pic on the right:

This classic card didn't cost me a dime out of pocket; the $65+ shipping was paid for by my eBay flipper friend. I'd sent him a bunch of cards to sell on his store page (okay, I did have to pay shipping for that) and he spent the proceeds on this at my request. He's the reason I plan to attend a card show next weekend; some of the cards he's sold for me were pickups from his local shows and I'm planning to return the favor. If I find some vintage singles - slabbed or unslabbed - for my PC, that's a bonus.


If I go, I'll have at least a couple post-show blogs to cover my pickups. If I don't, then perhaps I'll start that Athletics series a little sooner.

Thanks for reading!



~

Something Something Kupp and Bowl

A dramatic incident occurred last Friday, which prompted me to quit my job. I'm leaving at the end of February.

Do I have another job to go to? Not yet! Fortunately I have a large selection of sports cards that can be sold to fill any gaps in my income. Such as..

A couple years ago I purchased four 2017 Panini Prizm rookie cards on COMC - Leonard Fournette, Kareem Hunt, Christian McCaffrey, and Kupp here. Hunt was the most expensive; I'd paid $2.75 for a Silver Prizm parallel of the NFL's leading rusher as a rookie.

McCaffrey's Silver Prizm parallel set me back $2.00 at the time - which turned out to be a bargain after his All-Pro season in 2019. However he's had two injury-shortened seasons since then. This is why NFL teams are advised against drafting a running back in the 1st round, especially in the top ten. 

On that note, Leonard Fournette was the most promising Jaguars prospect in forever and I thought he'd get a ton of carries so I picked up his Silver Prizm parallel for $1.85.

I'd forgotten how much Kupp's card cost, until he capped off a record-setting 2021 season with an MVP performance in Super Bowl LVI. Scrolling through my COMC purchases page-by-page I assumed I'd find it somewhere in between $1.85 and $2.75. Not quite.

There's no way anyone could have predicted that at the time, I certainly didn't. And I bought this card to keep it in my collection; the only one of the four Prizms I got rid of was Hunt - for obvious reasons.

My wife is a bit of a Rams fan; her mom has two Giants season tickets and offered to take her to the Rams game earlier this season. When she got back from the game, the first thing she reported was "Cooper Kupp is really good!"

She proudly cheered for the visitors even though she hasn't followed them nearly as much as she did when Jim Everett was their star. 

She also liked the "Greatest Show On Turf"-era Rams, and I managed to find this Kurt Warner jersey for her even though I hadn't yet met her when they won Super Bowl XXXIV. My daughter wore the Warner jersey on Sunday while we* cheered for the Rams.

*To be honest I was secretly cheering for the Bengals, mostly for Joe Burrow.

source: Packast

However I was happy for Kupp, Andrew Whitworth, and Aaron Donald. And, with my employment status unsettled at the moment, I decided to take advantage of the Rams' win - something I wouldn't have been able to do with Bengals because I have zero cards of Burrow or Ja'Marr Chase.

I listed the Kupp Prizm on eBay, along with a Matthew Stafford RC and some other cards. Card flipping is not something I do often, though it might be cool to pull off a 100x profit. It hasn't sold yet, and I won't worry if no one bites. I'll just list something else if I need to. Or I'll ace the interview I have scheduled for tomorrow, take a new job (at a higher salary!) and pull back all my cards from the Bay.

On second thought, I haven't bought any 1956 Topps singles in a while.. and I do still need Willie Mays.. and Roy Campanella... and about 150 other cards in the set. Hmm...

One last thing about the big game.. my daughter asked me how many times the Rams have been in the Super Bowl. "Five". I said.

"And how many times have the Packers been in the Super Bowl?" She asked me.

"...five." I replied sadly, upon realizing the Rams had equaled the Pack. 

Also, Davante Adams can ask to be paid like the best receiver in the game... but that doesn't mean he is the best receiver in the game. I love ya 'Tae, but Cooper Kupp caught ya. And he's got a ring.

Thanks for reading!



~

Investment Update!

I just made my biggest single-card purchase of the year (which you'll see at the end of this post) and since it's a red-hot rookie card it got me thinking about some other cards I purchased as investments. Some I sold way too soon, some (not many) sold at the right time, while others are still in my collection - appreciating (or depreciating) in value.

On the rare occasions when I sell cards it's almost always to raise money for other cards. COMC 'flipping' is much easier than eBay and since the big Black Friday sale is coming up I thought it would be a good time to revisit some of my hits and misses in flipping cards on the site.

Let's start with my first year as a regular user of the site, 2014...

I hadn't started using the site frequently until July, and I only flipped four cards that year. Here they are:

The Madbum was a win, coming right after the Giants' third World Series title in five years. That was negated by selling too soon on the Hater and Altuve - which lists for $17+ on the site today.


In 2015 I sold 2,790 cards on COMC - far more than every other year combined. 50 of those cards were flips. Here are three of the more notable ones:

Yup, sold that one way too soon. The hype may have died down on Aaron Judge, but I'd gladly pay $70 to have that card back. 

Back in my prospecting days I grabbed a few Bobby Bradley cards, including this low #d parallel. I'll know in a year or so if this was a hit or miss; Bradley got called up to Cleveland this past season.

I picked up this Leon Draisaitl parallel when the Oilers were unsure if he was NHL ready. There was no indication he'd develop into a 50-goal, 100-point scorer, but that's exactly what happened. Now this rookie year card lists for $48.75 - nearly ten times more than I sold it for. Oops.


Moving on from the horror show of 2015 into 2016..(like that wasn't an awful year, too) 64 of the 389 cards I sold that year were flips. I ventured into vintage this time..

Why on Earth would I not bring home this high-grade Fergie? At least I kept his Fleer Greats auto. 

This Tommy Henrich was beat. But if Shane had started his 1950 Bowman set build back then, I would have brought it home and sent it to him. Sorry, Shane! :/

At least Fuji benefited from my poor judgement. (Note to self: stop selling Yankee cards!)


In 2017 I sold slightly more singles - 419 - and made twice as much cash/credit. Was I finally starting to figure out this whole flipping thing? You decide..

Dammit Chris, what did I tell you about selling Yankee cards? I should have brought that sucker home and had it graded. Oh well, at least I made a decent profit. 

You're going the wrong way! It's sad that Cory Schneider wasted his best years on a bad Devils team and now that they're.. still bad but kind of promising.. he's no longer an NHL-caliber goalie. 

Here's another instance where keeping the card would have been much more valuable than the meager profit I made. The cheapest copy on COMC today is $13.25, and the one I had was much cleaner. I mean, look at this beauty:

Let's just move on to last year, shall we? I stopped sending cards to COMC by 2018, and so all but four of my 28 single-card sales were flips. I think I finally got it right:

I had to charge a balance on my credit card to pay for this gem. I'm just glad COMC didn't hold up the transfer of funds for 45 minutes. That's happened to me before, thankfully not when I had my eyes on a flippable card.

These Thunder Clap gold medallions are so rare that I probably could have asked for more - but I didn't want to be greedy. Since I'll never "own" one again (they're all sold out on COMC) let's take a closer look at this Carter card:

Here's a pair of memorabilia cards #d to 99 that I bought/sold for about the same price:

One more from last year's batch:

I bought it before Hunt was suspended for beating a woman and I was happy to get rid of it afterward. 


In 2019 I have flipped a grand total of five cards. That might become six after this weekend, though I would be happy to bring that card home. We'll see how it goes.


Now, for my latest investment.. this was a card I considered buying during one of COMC's previous sales. I can't remember if it was Black Friday or Spring Cleaning 2019, all I know is that it was listed at around $20 and I passed. 

Cut to this month, when I had to sell my 1962 Topps Hank Aaron card and pay $20 to secure a graded copy because they were selling so freakin' fast! So basically I gave away the Aaron because I didn't buy this when I should have. 

All's well that ends well, as I'm now the proud owner of a Luka Doncic Panini Prizm rookie card:

Doncic has been dominating in his second year with the Mavs. He's averaging nearly a triple-double per night and he's second in the NBA in both points and assists. And he's only 20 years old! I can't imagine how much better Doncic could get.. but it's possible he hasn't hit his ceiling yet. (And as Michael Jordan once said.. the ceiling is the roof.)

When I bought this card, Luka had just dropped 35 on the Warriors in a blowout victory. In the time it took for the seller to ship it and the Post Office to deliver it, he scored 30 against the Cavaliers and then out-dueled the league's leading scorer James Harden with 41 against the Rockets. 

Doncic and Dallas face Kawhi and the Clippers tonight. We'll see if I've now cursed the kid or if he can continue his wicked hot streak. 


And with that, I'm going to take a bit of a blogging break until December 1 or so. I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and more importantly (ok, not quite) I hope you all find some great deals on COMC or wherever you do your Black Friday shopping. 

 
Thanks for reading!


~