...and I thought I was having a bad year

Last night, as I was laying in bed, waiting for the wifey to finish brushing her teeth, I received a response from an ad I saw placed:  50 complete sets of baseball cards.  Ok, I'll bite.  I start asking what sets, how much, where located, etc.  We end up texting, and he says the sets are complete, he lives 20 minutes away from me, and the sets are 1980 Topps, 1981 Topps, 1985 Donruss, etc. and he said he had lots of doubles.   I was asking how much he wanted, and he said 3-5.  I thought he was saying he wanted $3-$5 each.  Later, he said he had been offered 2-8 for all of them, but he could meet in the middle.  He said he knew it was cheap but times were tough.  I asked again to make sure all sets were complete, which he assured me, for good measure ... aside from a few common missing cards.  He said he had a few awesome error cards too.

Ok, so I guess he was saying $300-$500 to begin with.  My first thought was, why not take the extra effort to put in those two little zeros behind the numbers to avoid any confusion? 

Anyway, It was at about 11:30 at night, and he said he was probably meeting someone that night by driving to someone so they could buy them.  I told him I'd probably grab them if we could get to a right price.  My wife pleaded with me not to leave that late, so I told him it would have to wait until the morning. 

With visions of Rickey Henderson rookie cards dancing in my head, I headed downstairs to watch some netflix goodness, then finally made it to bed a bit past 1.  I told the guy we could get together at a specific location at 8, but wanted him to text me to set it up. 

8am came along, and he said "still down for meeting?"  I said sure!  He said "ok, be there in 15".  So I asked ... "wait ... what are you driving?  Do you know how to get here?"  No response. 

Hmmmm....

Then 25 minutes later, I get this email that says "at the major intersection next to mcdonalds in the gas station with the car wash.  phone died.  I'm waiting on the side in my car"

I was thinking who on earth does this ... leaving with a dead phone, meeting at a location that I had no idea where it was to meet? 

I wrote him and said "I don't know where that is?!  Could you still come here?  I can't go out there because I'm in the middle of my work day."  Then I told him the location again.  He wrote "On wifi at the gas station now ... will be in a gray car in 1 min at your location." 

I bring some cash, and meet him.  He seems like a normal nice guy at first glance, and is driving a new Toyota ... very nice ... except the window is smashed in and covered with plastic wrap. 

He pops open the trunk, and it is filled with long boxes.  Some marked 1987 Fleer, 1982 Topps, 1981 Topps, 1980 Topps, etc. 

Sweeeeet! 

I pop open the first box - 1982 Topps and google the card # of Ripken ... not there. 

Crap.

I bust open the 1980 Topps set ... no Rickey.  NO RICKEY!  87 Fleer ... no Bonds.  89 Upper Deck ... no Griffey. 

Sorry dude, all the good cards are taken. 

He then said there were some awesome cards, like Johnny Bench.  I told him while Bench is a cool HOFer, it really isn't worth anything.  Oh, and btw, his "awesome error cards" he mentioned were actually factory mis-cuts ... aka worthless, damaged cards from the factory.

I'm so glad I didn't meet him at midnight.  I'm so glad I didn't meet him where he first wanted me to meet him.

I asked what he'd take for them, keeping in mind they are all commons.  He asked for an offer and I told him basically a 10th of what he wanted. 

"I can't do that dude." 

No problem.  Still a nice guy.  I ask him more about the history of them. 

This is where is gets interesting. 

He said he got them from his step dad.  I told him that he should ask him for the star cards (he paid his step dad $150 for everything!)  He said he hasn't talked to him in a long time.  Why?  Because his step dad cheated on his mom with HIS (the guy I met) secretary a few months back.

He took off with her, and the guy I met lost his job over it.  Shortly there after ....

His wife left him without telling him why, and hasn't heard back from her

His car caught fire and burned to the ground

His second car hit a deer

The insurance co. told him it was fine to drive, which he did ... and the engine blew.

His rental car got broken into, and someone stole his guitar on loan from a store, his stereo and several otehr things

He then proceeded to tell me that there was MUCH more to it, but he'd leave it at that. 

To which I thought to myself I better leave him at that as well so I don't catch whatever he had!!!

With all the belly aching I've been doing this year because of how horrible things have been going, I admit ... this poor fella has been through much more.  Of course, it makes me wonder if/what his part was in all of this, but regardless, sounds awful. 

So needless to say, I didn't get the cards - but heck, I got good blog-fodder out of it. 

To the guy I met this morning:  If you are out there reading somewhere, I sure hope and pray things get better for you!

First post in a while

The company I run has made life very busy for me over the past month, so I have not been able to post hardly anything at all!  Here is an update of the show, as well as other dealings:

- All the unopened boxes I had purchased are now gone.
- I purchased many cool cards (for sale - hit me up!)

namely: 

4,000 baseball cards from the 1950's to the 1970's, namely, a binder full of 50's-60's cards, 58 mint graded mid/late 70's hall of famers (TCMA/SSPC), a binder of 66 Topps, a binder of 67 Topps, a binder of 72 Topps, a binder of 74 Topps and a complete set of 1975 Topps.  Also a box full of misc 70's cards

340+ jersey / autographed cards

Over 250 of those little boxed sets from kmart/toys r us/etc (these are all gone now)

A few other miscellaneous things.  My office looks like a card shop blew up in here ... but that is how it should be, right? :) 

I think the next thing I'm going to be putting up for sale when some of the above is gone, is in my closet.  I have nearly 3,000 stars, rookies and inserts from 2006 to 2010.  I could probably go pretty cheap on them as well, so we'll see what happens. 

My favorite Holiday next weekend...the card show is in town!

I absolutely love the third weekend of January.  It is simply wonderful.  It is the time of year the big sportscard show comes into town!  It is one of the very, very few times, I unman my desk during work time for a few hours and drive out of my comfort zone to a far away land known as downtown Houston, to search for cards and collectibles I can either have fun with, sell for profit or both. 

It is also a wonderful time that I can take my son with me.  He is 9 years old and has gone with me for probably 5 years in a row or so.  It is a time where he looks for star wars things (though I suspect he'll be on the lookout for legos this time!), we get our hot dogs and orange sodas and shop!  The past few years, my dad has gone with us too since my folks have lived here.  I typically try to go when it opens on Friday afternoon to stay until night to get the best cards, and then again on Sunday morning and stay until the afternoon to get the best deals. 

Years past, I have scored some cool deals on vintage cards, massive amounts of cheap-o complete sets, autographs and one year - even graded britney spears cards with a piece of her clothing on them.  I figured at a buck a pop, someone out there would want them.  Sure enough, some guy in Canada bought them all from me. 

One year, I picked up 5 Pete Rose autographed bats that I was able to sell pretty easily.  Another year, I picked up autographed balls of Thomas, Snider, Kaline, and a few other folks - they didn't sell too quickly. 

I absolutely love going there and diving into the boxes.  I always feel like I would be much better suited with having 5 of me going out and looking at the same time.  Can't wait to see what I come up with this year!

Topps Complete Sets for your College Tuition

So, admittedly 2012 has not been the best to me so far just yet when it comes to work. Very many hard things to go through, that have made me pull out my hair. I just noticed that I had not made a blog posting in a very long time ... since last year, in fact! I know it has been less than 2 weeks, but that seems to be an eternity.  

I was just thinking about a deal I made a while back, and it stemmed from what many parents/grandparents did back in the 80s/90s.  They bought their child/grandchild baseball cards in hopes of paying for their college tuition.  It was seen as a solid investment, thanks to the skyrocketing interest and prices in baseball cards from that time period. 

Well, I ran into such a person - it was a college kid who realized his topps sets he was given (one a year from 1983 to 2006, I believe) wasn't quite going to pay his way through Harvard, so he wanted to unload them. 

And unload them, he did.  He sold them for what a few college books from your local community college would go for.  That is a far cry from putting you through college.  Could you imagine?  That was the mentality back then though.  What a bummer to realize the true value of cards are a mere fraction of what you thought they would be worth! 

It was fun to have that run of Topps sets.  I didn't hang onto them for long, as I had purchased a large collection the day before, for about $1,000 that had many jersey/autographed cards and then sold everything as a lot for $2,000 to someone else.  I was able to keep some pretty cool stuff too, which is always nice! 

Man, I love wheeling and dealing!

Since I started this blog, I have had lots of folks come over personally or grab cards via mail - one even from the Netherlands. So far, everyone has been super happy with what they have gotten from me. I have even gotten some repeat "customers". While I wouldn't call myself a dealer, I will confess that as a child, I aspired to be one. There was a baseball card shop in California where I grew up called "The Bullpen". The owner Mike was my hero. I was able to see him since moving to Texas several times while visiting my folks when they still lived in Cali. It was fun to know that even while nearly 15 years had passed, he still remembered me. Ah, I still remember that free stick of bubblegum from that pack of 1985 Topps he offered me which nearly split open my tongue whilst chewing.

Merry Christmas! An Update on my Bounty

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope santa got you what you wanted.  Here in the tanmanbaseballfan household, we try our hardest to not make it about the gifts, but rather, about the birth of Jesus.  While our kids are excited about the presents, they seem (thankfully) to understand that that isn't what it is about.  We are sitting here watching some tv, playing legos / dolls, and about to eat breakfast in a bit, probably watch some church on tv (we normally go, but I don't see us making it this morning) and then open up the rest of the presents.  We don't do "santa claus" here - the kids know full well that the gifts are from us.  There is no way in heck that I'm going to give some fictional character the glory for making toys that hard earned money bought! 

Anyway, onto the cards - I had a few folks come over this past week that bought several of the boxes of opened stuff for cheap.  It was fun because they were all pretty excited about their new cards.  A couple folks even came over again to get some more from me.

So, what are some of the key cards I have found?  I found a good amount of some stars, rookies, serial numbered cards, and others.  I even found some Yu Darvish cards!  He is the talk of baseball this week, so that was fun.  Cards so far have ranged from 1981 Donruss, to 2009 Bowman.

This year, as with all years, I feel incredibly blessed before even opening one gift.  This year, I have a garage full of cards that I plan to go through today ... just like I have pretty much every day this past week.  What a lucky duck I am!

As a final word - I recommend trying to help others in need today, in some way, shape or form.  I am offering some free cards to kids without presents today, and hope that you do the same.

Merry Christmas!

I got a little creative...

In trying to sell some of these unopened boxes I have, I posted an advertisement on the internet.  Here is what it looks like:

Baseball Cards 4 Christmas - Open up some packs with your kids!

This year, treat you and your kids to some baseball cards! I have many factory sealed, unopened boxes of baseball cards. Shown below is 2010 Upper Deck, but I have several other types to choose from as well. All boxes are from $30 to $45 each, depending upon what you get. Some of the boxes I am selling will have five autographed rookie baseball cards! They are a blast to open up.

Contact me for more information - Merry Christmas!