Mining for Gold ... Literally

A few days ago, someone emailed me a list of their baseball cards that they wanted to sell. I took a look over the list, and saw a few cards I was interested in. I called up the seller to ask what he wanted. He mentioned the collection was valued at $20,000 and he was looking for 40 cents on the dollar.

I let him know that no one would pay him 40 cents on the dollar, but I would love to take a look at the cards. He seemed a little stand-offish and said he would call me on Friday so we can setup something. I figured I wouldn't hear from him because he had that kind of "don't call me, I'll call you" tone.

To my surprise, I heard back, and we ended up meeting in a restaurant parking lot. He pulled off into the grass, and opened the back of his truck. After we introduced ourselves to each other what he said next dropped my jaw...

"I must apologize, because I forgot that I had sold a number of the better cards to a dealer about a year ago."

WHAT?!?!? I was NOT happy. Sure enough, the cards that were nowhere to be found were the ones I wanted most. One of which was a Mariano Rivera autograph. URGH!!!!

After I told him that I wished I would have known that before making plans for an hour round trip, I dug into the cards. I mentioned I probably wouldn't be able to pay the prices he wanted for everything based upon our conversation...especially since lots of the good cards were gone, and I would hope to find some cards I could buy from him to make the trip worth it.

He wasn't buying it.

He said he wanted them all, all, all gone. To my surprise, we were able to make a deal with fairly painless negotiating. Aside from the multiple mosquito bites, I was happy as a clam to load everything up into the cardboard-mobile and drive off.

Today, I was able to process through everything, and post everything up for sale that I didn't want to immediately keep...to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. The chaff looks like it is going to easily cover my expenses for everything, and then some. I love when that happens! I'll love it even more when someone actually buys said chaff.

So, with all that said, I wanted to take some time to show off some of the treasures - I made a 3 row box of cards in holders that I'll either list as singles, or sell as bulk. Here are some of the treasures from the box:

Bagwell and Williams - The Williams has an actual diamond on it, and the Bagwell has actual gold in it! A Mo Vaughn card similar to Bagwell just sold for $100.

Old school double rainbow all the way! Certified Mirror Blue, Red & Gold Biggios....

and Bagwells...

and more Bagwells

Correction and Error inserts. The Jeters go for about $50 a pop.

Flair Showcase Row 0 Jeter Ripken Griffey

The Zenith Jeter is an Artist Proof

Certified Blue Jeter Thomas & Chipper

Certified Blue Griffeys

Blue McGwire, Mirror Blue Ripken, nice rare Thomas die-cut

Gold Team Jeters Bonds & Ripken

The 2 Jeters go for about $50 or so each

4 nice David Arias (Ortiz) rookie inserts from 1997 - I didn't even know these existed!

Artist Proofs and rare Silver Griffey

Artist Proofs and Rare Thomas

There are tons more, but those are my favorites. I was super happy with all the 90's inserts! Included in the collection were rookies of OJ Simpson, Steve Garvey, Ozzie Smith, Rickey Henderson and a 1969 Topps Hank Aaron, not to mention a complete set of 1996 Certified Red ... and 94 autographed from 1996 Leaf!.