Slab-tober

This is going to be one of those posts most card bloggers loathe: a showoff post (gasp!) that involves selling a significant card (gasp!!) to buy graded cards (GASP!!)

I wasn't even sure I wanted to share this with the group, but this was years in the making. As you may recall I sold my Alex Ovechkin SP Authentic RC, shown here:

total received: $6,008.75

I also consigned two other cards which sold for a combined $820. In total I raked in just shy of 7k. Setting aside 3k for home improvement projects and Christmas gifts left me with just under $4,000 to build my graded card PC.

Behold ! My Summer of slabs September of slabs Slab-tober spoils!

total spent: $1,224.00

I'd never considered acquiring RCs of Mario Lemieux or Patrick Roy, they were condition sensitive and out of my price range. Mario is super undervalued compared to Gretzky's RC but his OPC is hard to find centered (did the best I could but it's still 80/20) Roy's RCs often have a speck of blue ink in the name bar. Took me a long time to find a centered copy with no ink speck. 

total spent: $447.83

This was somewhat of an impulse buy. I had planned to purchase a 1987-88 Fleer Michael Jordan in Near Mint condition, but I wasn't satisfied with the centering - and it's a $600+ card. Considering I don't like Mike (and never have) it seemed like too much money to spend on a pure investment. Instead I spied this Mint condition card of the guy who went #1 ahead of MJ in the 1984 draft. I was always an Olajuwon fan, and the only reason I never owned this card was because Star made everything confusing for me. 

Honestly I'd rather have this Akeem card, but it isn't his first Star card. His first Star card is waaay out of my price range, and both/all of them have card backs that look like unlicensed knockoffs. 

Total spent: $346.50

Here's a couple of LT rookies. I always liked Tomlinson, and his RC was $60 more than Taylor's. The OG LT strikes a thoughtful pose on his '82 Topps single, which is appropriate since I've thought long and hard about how a player's off-field character factors into my collecting choices. Short answer: it's complicated. Perhaps I'll dig deeper into this topic one day. 

Total spent: $647.20

Add A-Rod to that discussion. Ergh..I got those plastic display stands so I wouldn't have to scan slabbed cards, but the lighting in my card room is horrible. Ebay's authenticity wrappers are distracting and  unnecessary. I haven't broken the seal on any of them, but it's tempting. 

Total spent: $597.03

No character issues with these legendary aces. These '60s singles were roughly the same price, yet Koufax didn't have to pass through eBay's authenticity program. Perhaps because it was purchased from a Canadian seller? Palmer was one of the few 1960s-70s greats that wasn't represented in my PSA box. I actually prefer this second-year single to his '66 Topps rookie card. 

Total spent: $452.53

Joe Montana's rookie card is an infamous part of my collecting life. In my early teen years it was a 'grail' card, one that I could only afford because the owner of my LCS was friendly with my mom and allowed me to make payments. It took me all summer, but I paid off the shop owner and had my Montana card. Shortly after, when Mom argued with me about my sports card "obsession" and accused me of caring more about my cards than my family... I ripped it up right in front of her.

Mom stared at me slack-jawed, and after a second or two she said "well, that was dumb."

For a long time I thought about replacing the Montana RC, but whenever I saw one it brought back that unpleasant memory. It was time to patch that hole in my collection. 

And that brings the total to $3,715.09. There was also a Jack Eichel rookie card and a Terry Sawchuk that I'll scan up and discuss some other time. The pictures from my phone are just too blurry :/

Obviously this all happened at the worst possible time. It seemed frivolous to spend so much on trading cards, but that's how long it took to re-slab the Ovechkin, get it back from Beckett, consign it with 4 Sharp Corners, and receive my payout. Acquiring these cards in particular has helped me focus on which cards I would prioritize in order to consider my collection 'complete' and after this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, that list is much shorter. 

I've got a post or two planned to track my vintage base and modern-ish rookie card collection and where these news slabs slot into those lists, plus that project on overlooking(or not) great players with bad reputations. 

Thanks for reading!


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10 x 14 = 8 (an eBay trade)

For reasons that should be clear to most collectors, I decided to divest myself of many Brett Favre items in my collection. Why it took me this long to do so is a whole different discussion.

I listed 14 of my 15 Gem Mint Brett Favre rookie cards (held on to the Stadium Club RC) for $500 or best offer. If I'd included the Stadium Club card I probably could have sold the lot for $500. Regardless, I accepted an offer of $376 for these:

 

 

 

 

After shipping and fees I received $332.74 for this 14-card lot. I listed two Fave inserts individually:

The 1997 Bowman's Best Cuts Atomic Refractor sold for $21.49 ($18.27 after fees/S&H) As for the 1999 Flair Showcase Legacy Collection parallel (#d to 99) the auction was won by someone with 1,100+ feedback for a high bid of $48.00. The buyer never paid or replied, so I kept the card.

Fortunately, the winner of the Brett Favre memorabilia lot followed through on payment.

I still have an autographed jersey and career timeline print, along with a stack of magazines that didn't sell. This lot sold for $235.99. After shipping and fees I pocketed $203.69. 

Offloading a significant portion of my oldest and largest player collection earned me a grand total of $554.70.

So what did I receive in this eBay "trade"? 

Two cards.

The first one was the Jack Hughes Young Guns RC mentioned in my previous post. 

This beauty set me back $188.57. [programming note: the Young Guns series will debut next week.]

With the balance, I was able to purchase a card that had been missing from my collection for far too long. The one affordable vintage single that always eluded me due to price or condition issues, or both.

I've looked at dozens of Robin Yount rookie cards in the past and even owned a couple copies. But I could never find a PSA 8 to pair with my George Brett RC. Until now.

This copy was well-centered, and the 'blue puddle' is not present. And I almost nit-picked myself away from it. There's a red print line to the left of the 'B' at the top of the card:

And a little bit of wood grain residue on the card back:

After much deliberation I decided to purchase the card, with the assumption that I wouldn't find a better example of a PSA 8 Yount in this price range. $366.09 after tax and shipping was less than most 8s sell for. The red line on the front is barely visible in-hand; I doubt I'd notice it if I hadn't seen it in the zoomed scan.

These two cards cost a total of $554.66, which left me a balance of...

 cents. Perfect. 

Thanks for reading!

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Comparing CuJos

I'm headed out to a bar to meet a co-worker friend (you may remember him as "young guy") and my blog is sort of in limbo at the moment (potential overhaul but no time yet) .. but I wanted to share something with you all.

 I listed five cards on eBay recently. Four of them sold. This one didn't:

 

This is a third period parallel of borderline Hall of Famer Curtis Joseph. If you look on his blocker pad you'll see it's numbered to ten. My wife and I bought about a dozen packs of Be a Player that year and one of us - probably her - pulled this card. I listed this for $34.99 with a Buy It now price of $49.99, using a sold copy of a Jose Theodore third period parallel as a guide. No one wanted to give me $35 for this CuJo. However...

The Mrs. pulled this card from a box of 1996-97 Black Diamond hockey 25 years ago. These Run for the Cup inserts are tough pulls, but as you can see on the back...

...there are 100 copies of each. I had never considered selling this card because a) it's not technically mine, and b) the Oilers were always my second-favorite team. But the economy is kinda weird right now, and neither of us have the passion for card collecting that we once did. I'm starting to think of the giant piles of sports cards and memorabilia my daughters would inherit upon my passing. They wouldn't know what to do with all the stuff. What's valuable? What's not? Hell, I don't even know anymore.

Just for the heck of it, I looked up recent sales of Run for the Cup inserts. This is the only one I found:

Obviously Messier is an all-time great while Joseph is, in my estimation, the greatest goalie of all-time .. who is not in the Hall of Fame. (No cups, no Vezinas, never led the league in goals against average, shutouts, or wins.) So I listed the CuJo card at $199.99 with a Buy It Now price of $499.99.

I did not get $500 for this card.

I got $570 for this card. That will pay for my night out tonight... and add another $500 to the kids' college fund.

Can anyone explain why a card numbered to 10 wouldn't sell for $35 but a card numbered to 100 of the same player would sell for so much more? I doubt we're sitting on any other hidden gems but I might have to double-check.

As for the blog, I'm thinking of changing the name and theme this summer. But I'm also working on a novel and a short story, and the family's schedule has been brutal lately. Maybe after the playoffs...

Have you sold any cards for much more than you were expecting?

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

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The first $50

I'm ten days out from my 15th anniversary with the Mrs. and nearly all of the "play money" I set aside from the sale of my Mike Trout RC has been emptied out of my PayPal account. It did not go the way I expected at all. Shoebox Shane advised me to focus on one or two high-value cards and I really did try...but I ended up with a lot more than two cards.

Most of my purchases will arrive at the end of this week, and I'll likely recap them all sometime around the 17th. However I decided to spend $50 (plus tax) at COMC, knocking a few cards off of my watch list. I don't plan to request shipping until I've got 200 cards in my inventory (I'm at about 150 now) and I don't want to wait that long to discuss these cards. 

Initially I'd planned to pick up an Immaculate on-card auto of a Hall of Famer for $24.99. One of the 49 copies sold on eBay for over $32 and I was afraid that the COMC copy would have sold out as a result. It hasn't, but I got my Panini Immaculate Collection fix in other places (or tried to, anyway - that's a story for another post.)

Instead I spent my COMC cash on PC and set needs. A quick search for graded 1960s cards turned up this Al Simmons for my mid-grade 1961 Golden Press set build:

$8 down, $42 to go. Once this is in hand I'll have 12 of the 33 cards in the set. I'm still missing all of the big names (Cobb, DiMaggio, Gehrig) and there's a slight chance I'll add a couple more high-grade HOFers to my collection by the end of the week.

I've had my eye on these Conlon Collection color masters for quite a while. One COMC seller has a bunch and I finally made an offer on Frank "Home Run" Baker here. I added it to my inventory for $8.20, about 10% off the asking price of $9.

This Dustin Pedroia manupatch wasn't on my watch list for 100 years but it sure felt that way at times. I've kept an eye on it since 2018 and it just wouldn't budge below $5 - until last week when I snagged it for $4.65.

Thanks to CrazieJoe (and an assist from baseballcardstore.ca) I finished the 2003-04 Topps Pristine base set. I'm not bold enough to tackle the serial-numbered rookie portion, but I didn't hesitate to add a Devil #d/699 to my collection for $1.11. 

My Brett Favre box is running out of room and I planned to prioritize other player collections - until I came across this 2002 Topps Pristine refractor #d/349. The seller was asking $9.99 and I might have picked it up at that price. When it went on sale for $6.10 I threw it in my cart faster than one of Brett's bullet passes to Antonio Freeman. 

This Tremont Waters Panini Prizm green parallel was a bit of an impulse buy at $1.19. The G-League Rookie of the Year went to high school in my home town and, tragically, his father was found dead in a hotel that's about 20 feet from my mom's house (we used to play Wiffle Ball in this parking lot.) I was actually browsing Tacko Fall cards when I saw this color-matching gem pop up. If both Fall and Waters make the Celtics rotation I might have to switch allegiances from the Bucks, lol.

Here's a pair of on-card autos from 2018-19 Upper Deck Chronology. I've glanced at the $5 and under offerings from this set and Brian Bellows was one of the biggest stars (no pun intended) available. The green North Stars jersey featuring the 1991 Stanley Cup final patch caught my eye and led me to spend $3.80 in credit. I nearly got both Bellows and Nelson Emerson for $5 total; Emerson's messy signature set me back just $1.31. 

More Whalers here with a Ray Ferraro Canvas insert. I have no idea when Upper Deck started sneaking retired players into what I thought was a parallel set, or why they picked "Chicken Parm". Regardless, as soon as I saw it I added it to my watch list.. and then someone bought it an instant later. So I quickly snatched up the next-cheapest copy for $2.80.

Ferraro was the Whalers' #2 center for many years, behind this Hall of Famer:

Until now I did not have a rookie card of "Ronnie Franchise" and one of my goals with this windfall was to fill that hole in my collection. I had always hoped to pick up a graded copy but I just couldn't justify spending triple-digits on a slabbed single. And so I examined my options on COMC, picked out the best-looking copy in my price range and made an offer. It's a bit of a gamble at $12.75, and I won't know if it paid off for a few months, but at least I can cross this off my shopping list.

If my math is correct that's a total of $49.91. Can't exactly call this a COMC Blaster.. a COMC Megabox maybe?  

This is the last time I'll be spending money at COMC until at least Black Friday, and I'll be happy to bring home some longtime residents of my watch list.. eventually.


Are you still shopping on COMC? Has your opinion of the site changed due to their indefinite shipping delays?



Thanks for reading!



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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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