General Forum

Wow ,we have some right place at the right time moments here. The best i ever did ( and it wasnt that good) was at a local flea market we have here. A guy had a few monster boxes and shoe boxes full of cards. It was 88-to 95 topps. A random assortment, i looked at them and the guy asked if i was interested in it, i looked at a few cards and told him i would pass. I bought a 2 dollar item and he tells me that i could have all the cards for 18$. I thought about it and said why not ill take a chance. I got 7 derek jeter 1993 topps rookies and 1 gold rookie. Not bad but nowhere near as good as you guys.

Last year at the Expo in Toronto I was looking through a table that was almost all hockey (like I said the Expo in Toronto) when I picked up a stack of Vintage baseball. Going through it I came across a 1962 Post Canadian Mantle. It had a hole in it from one of those one hole punch things that stores and restaurants use to punch cards (you know buy 10 coffees get the next coffee free). I hold it up and show the guy and say "That is just a shame." He asks if I'd still buy it, and I reply that I would but of course not at a high price. The card is actually in awesome condition except for the punch hole. He says "Give me 2 bucks for it." I look at him and ask him "Are you sure?" Not trying to talk him down but this is a vintage Mantle for Pete's sake. I am actually making sure he knows what he is asking for the card. The Beckett value on this card in poor condition is $40. It tops out at $400. He says, "You're right it has a hole, make it a buck. 99% of my business is hockey so its no good to me." Shocked I hand the guy a loonie and walk away. Traded it on Beckett for a crapload of Tigers. In retrospect I actually feel a bit bad, he, as a hockey only guy, obviously had no idea what he had. Then again as a card dealer...shouldn't he have known his inventory? Also in retrospect the little devil on my left shoulder says I should have got more. There was a 1962 Post Canadian Koufax in the same pile. Maybe he would have given it to me for a Twoonie?

How about a Collecting Score turned profitable?

Well, I was doing another show, big one on LBI in NJ. I had collected boxes and boxes of RCs all makers. The show was a really good one, I was doing great....when along comes a well-dressed fellow asking about Glavine, Sheffield and other RCs. I had all my RCs on display boards to look at....he picked it clean, and I'm ready to total up....when he said "Do you have anymore of any of these?" Well it turns out I had 25-100 count boxes of all of them under the table, "How many of each"?, I said....He wanted them ALL, as he took out rolls of cash....OoooooK, turns out he hit it big in Atlantic City and stopped in on his way back to his summer rental. As Phil Rizzuto always said "HOLY COW"

~BOB~

Well, mine are nowhere near what I've read but I think still cool. First one happened years ago at a flea market. I was helping a guy sell stuff and this guy wanted to trade. He asked if I liked baseball cards. When I said yes he showed me what he had. 2 1906 T-206 white border cards. My reaction gave away how excited I was lol. They are in decent shape, commons but still cool to me. The other one I was looking on listia. This guy had a card listed as rare 1/1. Turned out it was true, a common leather and lumber parallel (which I can't find on here lol) which I think is cool. I've lucked out with other cards I pulled. One is an Upper Deck multicolored Tony Gwynn patch card, the other is a Topps Mickey Mantle bat relic. Like I said, great moments to me!

A few months ago, Beckett ran a giveaway for a Ken Griffey Jr. patch auto numbered to 10 from Immaculate. As you can imagine there were thousands and thousands of entries. I had a few hundred myself (entries were easy to get) with something like a .01% chance to win.  I won and now am the proud owner of my first Griffey autograph. His autograph is as sweet as his swing.