Over the past few years, I've gone from being an enjoyer and collector of cards, to a hardcore hustler of cardboard crack. Anything I could get my hands on, I would flip for profit. Not that there is anything wrong with that - we all have to make money somehow, and it might as well be doing something we love!
I have always kept aside the Canseco cards. The collection had gone from going to card shows as a child and buying single Canseco cards that I didn't have, to, mindlessly tossing anything that had Canseco's name on it in a separate pile from collections I bought.
It is funny how times change! I remember vividly standing at a baseball card show at the age of 12, going through a big pile of Canseco cards. An older lady and man who, in my memory, seemed to be in their 60's (they were probably in their 40's!) were carefully watching me go through the cards. I put the pile of my carefully picked Canseco into their hands.
"Would you accept $9 for these?"
The lady snorted and turned to her male counterpart "Did you hear that Rob? He is asking if we'd sell these for $9." She then preceeded to laugh, so I walked away with my tail between my legs, and not a single Canseco richer.
I'm not saying that was the turning point of when I stopped putting thought into the collection. Heck, there was a good 12 years or so between the time I was a kid to being an adult who got back into cards. I even remember when the big hurricane hit over here. There was no electricity, and I ran out of things to do. So for the first time in years, I pulled out my Canseco collection and started sorting. What fun!
I kind of envisioned myself in my golden years of retirement sorting baseball cards for fun, with the Canseco collection first on the list. Well, after I sold out of pretty much everything, I sold the Canseco collection, as it was really not anything that I had put too terribly much thought, effort or investment into.
Then, one day, it bit me ... hard. I wanted to get back into collecting Canseco! I thought to myself "what kind of collection could I come up with, within the budget that I had sold the collection for?"
This idea is very intriguing to me, so I've been speaking with a few folks who are Canseco fans. If it is one thing I know now, it is that while I used to almost apolegetically tell people I was a Canseco collector, there are fans who will pay BIG money for some of his rarer cards. As a matter of fact, one Canseco card marked as a 1/1 with a normal bat piece in the card went for over $450 ... with 18 or so bids! This was no fluke! The card didn't look all that impressive, either.
So sure, I have my work cut out for me. Perhaps I'll focus on cards I enjoy looking at, instead of ultra mega rare cards of him. I think my wallet will thank me. I've decided to focus more on the rarer lower dollar cards though (for now, anyway ... ain't no way I'm gonna drop $500 or so on a 1/1 regular looking bat card!). As I still have about 3,000,000 cards to go in my deal with my friend, I'm anticipating replenishing 75-85% or so of my existing Canseco collection for free.
Growing up, I was an avid reader of Beckett monthly. The articles would soothe me throughout the long, cold off-season. I would see articles of people who are "super collectors" of a certain player.
I remember seeing one kid who had 9 1989 Upper Deck Griffey rookies, and thought to myself "how the heck does that happen???" I dreamed that one day, my Canseco collection would propel me into the pages of my most beloved magazine.
That dream came to a screeching halt.
Enter: AJ. Check his site out at www.cansecoking.com - he boasts something called the "Perfection Collection". Why? Because it is, well, pretty much perfect. After checking out his stuff, and realizing that he already had been in Beckett, I realized that I will never be magazine worthy. That's ok though, it is great to be able to enjoy looking through his collection online. Whenever you have a custom license plate AND a tattoo dawning Canseco's #33, you deserve the title.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Bagwell & Biggio Rare 90's Mirror Cards! - The Boomerang Effect
Less than a month ago, I picked up a large collection of rare 90's inserts. I sold them off very quickly, and found the buyer reselling some of the cards that I liked out of the collection, so what did I do? I bought them back!
They are real beauties. 1997 Pinnacle Certified Mirror Red / Blue / Gold Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio's - They are all for sale, and, cheaper than what you will find them for on ebay, so if you are interested, let me know!
Here is the eye candy ...
They are real beauties. 1997 Pinnacle Certified Mirror Red / Blue / Gold Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio's - They are all for sale, and, cheaper than what you will find them for on ebay, so if you are interested, let me know!
Here is the eye candy ...
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Selling My Childhood...
The past few months have been quite a whirlwind. I've sold everything. Then I bought a collection of cards, and sold it. Then I bought another collection of comics and ...and sold it.
Right now, any and all lingering cards from deals and purchases are gone! If his name isn't Canseco, I don't have a card of him right now, aside from a few cards I'm holding for someone until this weekend.
The past few weeks alone, I scored a killer card collection and a killer comic collection that I had written about. Each was a HUGE rush to get, but now they are gone. Sure, I have plenty of other stuff to sell, but as far as cards, there is basically one thing left: my Canseco collection.
I don't know why I get like this, but if I don't have any sports stuff to sell, I start selling pictures on my walls...anything! The blaring thing that sticks out right now is the Canseco collection. The collection I have worked on for the better part of 25 years.
There are about 3,000 cards, several autographed 8x10's, a few autographed baseballs, game used cards, etc. All of which is for sale. I spent an hour or two today taking pictures, doing some videos, etc.
I have put in a small cubby in the hutch of my desk the picture I took with Canseco, the ball he personalized for me, and a few of my favorite cards I have of him. On the wall next to me is the autographed bat my wife got me, and a few autographed 8x10's of him.
Here are a few pictures of what I'm keeping:
Hopefully this makes me look more like a fan, and less like a serial stalker! (Seriously, y'all - it was getting out of hand. Too much Canseco stuff on my walls.)
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the collection I have up for sale is at $999.33 obo on ebay with $40.40 shipping. Pictures and videos of everything are there as well: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=271294755208&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
Feel free to make an offer!
Right now, any and all lingering cards from deals and purchases are gone! If his name isn't Canseco, I don't have a card of him right now, aside from a few cards I'm holding for someone until this weekend.
The past few weeks alone, I scored a killer card collection and a killer comic collection that I had written about. Each was a HUGE rush to get, but now they are gone. Sure, I have plenty of other stuff to sell, but as far as cards, there is basically one thing left: my Canseco collection.
I don't know why I get like this, but if I don't have any sports stuff to sell, I start selling pictures on my walls...anything! The blaring thing that sticks out right now is the Canseco collection. The collection I have worked on for the better part of 25 years.
There are about 3,000 cards, several autographed 8x10's, a few autographed baseballs, game used cards, etc. All of which is for sale. I spent an hour or two today taking pictures, doing some videos, etc.
I have put in a small cubby in the hutch of my desk the picture I took with Canseco, the ball he personalized for me, and a few of my favorite cards I have of him. On the wall next to me is the autographed bat my wife got me, and a few autographed 8x10's of him.
Here are a few pictures of what I'm keeping:
Hopefully this makes me look more like a fan, and less like a serial stalker! (Seriously, y'all - it was getting out of hand. Too much Canseco stuff on my walls.)
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the collection I have up for sale is at $999.33 obo on ebay with $40.40 shipping. Pictures and videos of everything are there as well: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=271294755208&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
Feel free to make an offer!
Friday, September 27, 2013
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:
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!.
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!.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Such a Strange Sensation
Well, here I am - at my desk, blogging. Aside from 8 of the 9 1986-87 Fleer BGS Graded cards I have sitting on my desk that I got the other day, I am cardboard free.
These past few months have been a whirlwind of wheeling and dealing. All of the collections I have purchased, all of the card show transactions, etc. Everything is gone.
Well, let me back up a bit here - I do still have my Canseco cards. I actually just put up the bulk of that collection for sale too. I have some sort of a problem - whenever I sell out of stuff, I can't just be content. I have to keep trying to sell. The last time this happened, I started selling the pictures on my walls in my office!
I am going to amend my initial statement of running out of everything with this: I still DO have about 3 million cards that my friend has. I have access to them only whenever he gets them ready for me - generally in lots of 100-200k at a time. So don't go sending donation checks to me yet since I am cardboard destitute. Wait, scratch that ... if you are feeling the desire to ... do it!
But either way, as of now, my house does not look like a card shop exploded in it, for the first time in a long time!
It is funny to think that very recently, my garage was stuffed with cards AND comics, and now it is looking sparse ... comparatively, that is. It is also strange to think that mere days ago, my office was nearing impossible to navigate successfully to the computer without some sort of a game plan, thanks to all the boxes that were all around.
I'll use the rest of this blog as a bit of therapy - mainly because it is bitter-sweet. A few days ago, someone asked me if I had a collection to sell. With only the "gravy" cards I had left - that is, the cards that sparked interest in me from collections that I did not want to sell immediately, I told him I did have a large lot ready to go.
I took several videos, and he was interested. Lots of big name players, and even some cards in the $50-$70 range. Most were of the $1-5 variety though. It was an impressive lot, and I thought that I wouldn't find a buyer for all of them at once, due to the price being so high.
After mulling it over, he said he would sleep on it, and so I went to bed. I went to bed with excitment ... could I really be on the cusp of having run out of EVERYTHING? How would that feel? What would I do? I don't know what really excited me so much about running out of everything. Perhaps a sense of accomplishment; that I had made all kinds of purchases, and though it was all profit anyway, that it was success upon success, if that makes sense.
When the buyer said yes, I was elated! Before that happened though, I wound up pitching in other miscellaneous things, and ended up settling on a bit lower of price, but I was satisfied. That satisfaction quickly turned into irritation, when it took me the better part of the afternoon packing up the entire collection.
After all was said and done, the 62 pound package was packed, insured and sent off to the new owner. I spent the rest of the evening, and today wondering "did I do the right thing? Did my lust for conquering a 100% empty level cloud my judgement?" There was, after all, good money to be made on those cards. It was for some reason also rewarding to get down to a record low # of listings on ebay as well, though, I don't know why.
It could, perhaps, go either way - I could say yes, it was a good move because it could have taken countless hours and several months to move everything or $200-$800 extra dollars perhaps. But on the other hand, it plays perfectly into the game I play whenever dealing cards. I love being able to see what I could get as a lot, then end up breaking the lot over and over again, and tracking how much further I can get with the financials if I do the work myself.
As a matter of fact, part of the meloncholy feel I have from this sale is that it prematurely ended a few of the "games" I setup on my spreadsheet to see how far I could go in terms of making the biggest return on my investments. Now, after selling it all, it is just like this one big mass deal that can scarcely be separated to make sense of what financials should go where.
Yes, I love, love, *loooove* my phone caCHINGing whenever I have an offer or make a sale on ebay. it is so much fun.
I guess in the end, this is a lesson for me. While I did succeed, and ended up doing what I was going for, I learned a lesson - that it isn't just about selling; it is also about the thrill of finding the buyer and making the sale. Almost like watching something that you plant, grow successfully into something big, strong and beautiful.
So I guess I'll leave it at that. Thank you for listening ... errr ... reading. This has been good therapy for me. On to my next deal! I've been interrupted (and thankfully so) a few times in this blog by my phone caCHINGing at me...perhaps we are close to dealing away those fleer bgs graded cards sooner than later!
These past few months have been a whirlwind of wheeling and dealing. All of the collections I have purchased, all of the card show transactions, etc. Everything is gone.
Well, let me back up a bit here - I do still have my Canseco cards. I actually just put up the bulk of that collection for sale too. I have some sort of a problem - whenever I sell out of stuff, I can't just be content. I have to keep trying to sell. The last time this happened, I started selling the pictures on my walls in my office!
I am going to amend my initial statement of running out of everything with this: I still DO have about 3 million cards that my friend has. I have access to them only whenever he gets them ready for me - generally in lots of 100-200k at a time. So don't go sending donation checks to me yet since I am cardboard destitute. Wait, scratch that ... if you are feeling the desire to ... do it!
But either way, as of now, my house does not look like a card shop exploded in it, for the first time in a long time!
It is funny to think that very recently, my garage was stuffed with cards AND comics, and now it is looking sparse ... comparatively, that is. It is also strange to think that mere days ago, my office was nearing impossible to navigate successfully to the computer without some sort of a game plan, thanks to all the boxes that were all around.
I'll use the rest of this blog as a bit of therapy - mainly because it is bitter-sweet. A few days ago, someone asked me if I had a collection to sell. With only the "gravy" cards I had left - that is, the cards that sparked interest in me from collections that I did not want to sell immediately, I told him I did have a large lot ready to go.
I took several videos, and he was interested. Lots of big name players, and even some cards in the $50-$70 range. Most were of the $1-5 variety though. It was an impressive lot, and I thought that I wouldn't find a buyer for all of them at once, due to the price being so high.
After mulling it over, he said he would sleep on it, and so I went to bed. I went to bed with excitment ... could I really be on the cusp of having run out of EVERYTHING? How would that feel? What would I do? I don't know what really excited me so much about running out of everything. Perhaps a sense of accomplishment; that I had made all kinds of purchases, and though it was all profit anyway, that it was success upon success, if that makes sense.
When the buyer said yes, I was elated! Before that happened though, I wound up pitching in other miscellaneous things, and ended up settling on a bit lower of price, but I was satisfied. That satisfaction quickly turned into irritation, when it took me the better part of the afternoon packing up the entire collection.
After all was said and done, the 62 pound package was packed, insured and sent off to the new owner. I spent the rest of the evening, and today wondering "did I do the right thing? Did my lust for conquering a 100% empty level cloud my judgement?" There was, after all, good money to be made on those cards. It was for some reason also rewarding to get down to a record low # of listings on ebay as well, though, I don't know why.
It could, perhaps, go either way - I could say yes, it was a good move because it could have taken countless hours and several months to move everything or $200-$800 extra dollars perhaps. But on the other hand, it plays perfectly into the game I play whenever dealing cards. I love being able to see what I could get as a lot, then end up breaking the lot over and over again, and tracking how much further I can get with the financials if I do the work myself.
As a matter of fact, part of the meloncholy feel I have from this sale is that it prematurely ended a few of the "games" I setup on my spreadsheet to see how far I could go in terms of making the biggest return on my investments. Now, after selling it all, it is just like this one big mass deal that can scarcely be separated to make sense of what financials should go where.
Yes, I love, love, *loooove* my phone caCHINGing whenever I have an offer or make a sale on ebay. it is so much fun.
I guess in the end, this is a lesson for me. While I did succeed, and ended up doing what I was going for, I learned a lesson - that it isn't just about selling; it is also about the thrill of finding the buyer and making the sale. Almost like watching something that you plant, grow successfully into something big, strong and beautiful.
So I guess I'll leave it at that. Thank you for listening ... errr ... reading. This has been good therapy for me. On to my next deal! I've been interrupted (and thankfully so) a few times in this blog by my phone caCHINGing at me...perhaps we are close to dealing away those fleer bgs graded cards sooner than later!
Saturday, September 7, 2013
SOOOLLDDDDD
For the past few months, I've been selling off a massive collection I purchased. It was fun, but was getting cumbersome and, well ... old. After rapidly selling through my 3,000 count boxes of stars, rookies and inserts, I was still left with about 50,000 cards.
It wasn't just one collection though. It was comprised of a lot of other little collections that I have been accumulating.
- HUGE collection sorted mainly by players
- Leftovers from a few other collections I had purchased
- What was left of a hoard of newer complete sets
- Over 200 in person autographs
- 125 or so jerseys / autographs
A guy I have done big deals with in the past picked up some cool '86-87 Fleer basketball BGS graded cards, including a Jordan rookie. I love me some Jordan (who doesn't?) so I looked into considering doing a deal. Not only did we trade his BGS graded fleer cards, but he also bought some super nice lots I had of Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton. These included the 93 SP Jeter, a 93 Stadium Club Jeter PSA 9, a Jeter autographed baseball, a Pujols autographed baseball, 9 Pujols rookies, a Pujols autographed baseball card and Josh Hamilton '99 Topps Traded autographed card.
Now if you know me, you know that I love all 3 of these players. This is just proof that I am pretty much not attached to anything! Things seem to get old pretty quickly for me, Plus, I am in love with starting fresh with something. In my book, the thrill of the hunt ALWAYS trumps the pleasure from having a card.
Here are the new beauties!
It feels a ton better having this tiny stack of cards on my desk, rather than 30+ boxes scattered all over my office! Plus, I *may* have a buyer for the cards above, minus the Jordan - we will see.
So, aside from several autographed baseballs I'm holding for another buyer at the end up the month, I am left with 1 final box of stars/rookies/inserts, and a gravy lot.
What is a gravy lot? You might ask ...
Well, this is a lot that I generally end up with when everything else is gone. It is cards that I may pull from collections to keep for a while. The majority are baseball, and I would guess there are about 6,500 or so of these cards. I'm selling them all at $1,500. It may be difficult to find a buyer for them due to the price, but it is very much so a money making lot.
It is really strange to have so few cards right now! It is somewhat exhilarating to have almost gone through everything, and will feel odd if I ever am able to get through the rest of these. I really hope I can, but with these, I'm not in too terribly much of a hurry because it is really cool stuff that I haven't had much time looking through.
Keep in mind, I'm not counting the 3,000,000+ cards I still have coming to me from a deal I made a while ago...I'm talking about in my home right now.
So, now that I have all this room, I decided thursday evening to start organizing and cleaning my holders. After years of buying collections, I have not done it before that I can recall, so I figured I would tackle it.
It took a while longer than I thought.
You don't realize how many of these things you accumulate over the years! I will probably sell off a bunch of it. Heck, I think I have dozens of penny sleeve packages from deals I did 5 years ago. If I haven't used them yet, will I ever?
It wasn't just one collection though. It was comprised of a lot of other little collections that I have been accumulating.
- HUGE collection sorted mainly by players
- Leftovers from a few other collections I had purchased
- What was left of a hoard of newer complete sets
- Over 200 in person autographs
- 125 or so jerseys / autographs
A guy I have done big deals with in the past picked up some cool '86-87 Fleer basketball BGS graded cards, including a Jordan rookie. I love me some Jordan (who doesn't?) so I looked into considering doing a deal. Not only did we trade his BGS graded fleer cards, but he also bought some super nice lots I had of Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton. These included the 93 SP Jeter, a 93 Stadium Club Jeter PSA 9, a Jeter autographed baseball, a Pujols autographed baseball, 9 Pujols rookies, a Pujols autographed baseball card and Josh Hamilton '99 Topps Traded autographed card.
Now if you know me, you know that I love all 3 of these players. This is just proof that I am pretty much not attached to anything! Things seem to get old pretty quickly for me, Plus, I am in love with starting fresh with something. In my book, the thrill of the hunt ALWAYS trumps the pleasure from having a card.
Here are the new beauties!
So, aside from several autographed baseballs I'm holding for another buyer at the end up the month, I am left with 1 final box of stars/rookies/inserts, and a gravy lot.
What is a gravy lot? You might ask ...
Well, this is a lot that I generally end up with when everything else is gone. It is cards that I may pull from collections to keep for a while. The majority are baseball, and I would guess there are about 6,500 or so of these cards. I'm selling them all at $1,500. It may be difficult to find a buyer for them due to the price, but it is very much so a money making lot.
It is really strange to have so few cards right now! It is somewhat exhilarating to have almost gone through everything, and will feel odd if I ever am able to get through the rest of these. I really hope I can, but with these, I'm not in too terribly much of a hurry because it is really cool stuff that I haven't had much time looking through.
Keep in mind, I'm not counting the 3,000,000+ cards I still have coming to me from a deal I made a while ago...I'm talking about in my home right now.
So, now that I have all this room, I decided thursday evening to start organizing and cleaning my holders. After years of buying collections, I have not done it before that I can recall, so I figured I would tackle it.
It took a while longer than I thought.
You don't realize how many of these things you accumulate over the years! I will probably sell off a bunch of it. Heck, I think I have dozens of penny sleeve packages from deals I did 5 years ago. If I haven't used them yet, will I ever?
Monday, July 29, 2013
Some cool pickups!
So, I've been on a bit of a buying binge!
When I was in San Antonio on vacation with the family, I met up with a guy on the way out of town, on our way home and picked up these beauties:
We will forget the fact that on the way, I backed into a concrete wall. It's ok - I was only going a few miles an hour, and besides, I didn't buy the cardboard-mobile for her pristine looks! The back fender was disjointed, and I was bummed, but decided to take a knee to it, and it popped back in place. Now, she has a matching scar next to what my wife did to her a few years back.
Anyway, back to the cards ...
I flipped them pretty quickly, which was kind of nice because it helped pay for a bit of the vacation! Plus, I don't know why, but I always have some sort of satisfaction in having owned some of these cards before - I don't always have to own these items myself to feel fulfilled. If only I can be that way about eating! You know - take a bite of cheesecake, then spit it out instead of swallowing.
Jordan Brown, a baseball player for the Marlins called me up and talked to me about the USA autographed baseball I had. He said he was interested in trading for it, and mentioned he was talking about it with his hitting coach ... Tino Martinez! How cool is that? Martinez resigned today, apparently, due to some internal problems.
Anyway, I ended up selling it to someone else, but thought it was cool that I got to talk to a ball player for a while about it...who called me ... AND who spoke to Tino Martinez about my ball.
With my family out of town this weekend, I found myself doing a lot of buying ... and talking to my dogs, but that is neither here nor there.
I was trying to clean out my office a bit, and remembered a purchase from January's card show that was overshadowed by meeting Jose Canseco. A 1986 Mother's Cookies promo with Jose Canseco and Will Clark that was signed by Canseco!
It has just been sitting behind an always open closet door of mine, so I decided to get creative. A month or so back, I grabbed a framed movie poster of Mandy Moore that was autographed. I took it out, rolled it up, and put the Canseco item in its place. it was much smaller than the poster, so what I did was I ended up pulling a few Mother's Cookies cards from my collection, and put them in at the top! These cards were obtained by me as a child by trading with neighborhood friends, a kid from my little league team and opening Mother's Cookies boxes with my dad. With all that said, here it is!
This may just be Canseco's biggest rookie card ever! The cards I put in there will serve as a reminder of how fun it was collecting cards as a child. My Canseco collection are the only cards I have left from my childhood. Nothing else is off limits when it comes to selling!
So, back to my buying spree. Here are a few other items I bought this weekend!
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| Autographs of HOF'ers Lefty Gomez, Steve Carlton, Don Sutton, Lefty Gomez and Billy Herman. The Herman has an AWESOME inscription. I've never seen one like it! |
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| Yogi Berra Autographed Baseball |
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| Ralph Branca / Bobby Thomson Autographed Baseball - Thomson hit a homer off Branca in the 1951 Playoffs to give the New York Giants the win against the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was dubbed "The Shot Heard 'Round the World". |
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| Jim Palmer - An inscription that I think has something to do with his alma mater. |
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| Don Drysdale! |
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| Sandy Koufax!!! |
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| Pee Wee Reese |
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| 1996 Orioles team signed baseball with Cal Ripken Jr. |
I also picked up nearly 10,000 cards which are mostly 2013's. This is a bit of a gamble here, because I don't know too much of what is in them.
I am still waiting for my autographs and cards to come in. I can't wait! I may possibly check out someone's 75,000 card collection this evening or week. Apparently it is supposed to be all stars, rookies, inserts, etc. So we'll see what happens.
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