Making Over $50 on One Fatima Card -- Same Exact Certification #

Just a little tidbit about how I sometimes make summer money with baseball cards. Here is a 1913 T200 Fatima baseball card I just bought. Notice the PSA certification number:

I bought this one via bid last night for $106.50, quite cheap for a 1913 Fatima, in PSA 1.5 Fair condition. The PSA certification number, if you don't want to click the pic--and you should; it's a nice card--is 19195087. So, last night, $106.50, Cert. #19195087.

Of course, before you agree to spend that much money, you research online how much that card has sold for recently on ebay, to make sure you don't overspend. Specific bids on ebay can inexplicably go crazy; I saw just last night some T206 PSA 2s go for almost $40 (you can get them typically between $23-$28) and I saw 3s go for over $50 (you can commonly get them for $35 to $45, max) and so on. Well, one of the ones I saw had sold via bid on May 9th of this year, just a few months ago. Here it is:

This one sold for $157.50. Same card, same condition, same grading company. (Same ebay company, too.) I thought this was rare, since 1913 T200 Fatima cards themselves are pretty rare, so I looked a little closer. You can, too, just click the pic. You might notice the same thing I did. This wasn't just the same card--a 1913 T200 Fatima Cincinnati Reds in PSA 1.5 condition--but it was literally the same exact specific card. Look at the certification number. Exactly the same: 19195087!

What're the odds of that? That means that someone on May 9th--just two months ago--bought this exact same card on a bid from this ebay company for $157.50 (plus $6 shipping). But something happened. Either he didn't actually pay for it, so the same company had to re-post it for bid, or he did pay for it, but either because of financial hardship or something else, sent it back to the same exact ebay company he bought it from to begin with, which re-posted it, and I bought it via bid for $51 less than the original buyer bought it for just two months ago. $150 or so is a decent, common price for a Fatima in this condition, so my $106 bid is a steal. In fact, the original buyer in May spent $157.50, plus $6 shipping, plus another $3.50 or so when he mailed it back to the company to sell for him. At 15%, this company made $23.62 off of him when he bought it, plus whatever profit it makes from the $6 shipping, since it definitely doesn't take $6 to ship this one card to the winner. Then it re-posted it for him and made another $15.97 from the sale to me. So this poor guy spent $157.50 to get it, and got just $106.50 - $15.97 back from it, so $90.53. So $157.50 - $90.53 is $66.97, plus another few bucks for shipping it back to be re-sold. So let's say $70. So this guy lost $70 on this same exact, same certification number, card. In less than 2 months. It takes about a month to mail it to an ebay company: let them itemize it, list it, let it be bid on for about a week, itemize the sale of it, wait a max of 5 days for the winner to pay for it, and then another few days for that to clear through PayPal for the guy to get his money. So that means the original guy owned it for less than a month before he decided to send it back to the ebay consignment company to re-sell for him, at a $70 loss. That sucks!

To maximize a profit, I won't sell this one anytime soon. (It's my only Fatima, so I hopefully won't sell it at all.) I'll wait until the end of the baseball season, and I sell via a different ebay company, anyway. A card in this condition normally sells for $150+. This one, and a Fatima PSA 2 that sold for a crazy-low $126, are the only two out of dozens in my research, in a 1.5 or 2 condition, that I saw sell for less than $150. Sometimes you make more by not selling, and waiting a little. And since I spent $50 less than usual, it won't have to re-sell for much more for me to see a profit from it. I'm confident that it'll sell for about $150+ when (or if) I'm ready to let it go.

Ken Griffey Jr. 1989 Fleer Rookie Card in PSA Gem Mint 10

Photo: front and back of Griffey's 1989 Fleer card

Not much to say about this one. I got it recently after being on a bit of a Griffey kick lately. I got this one, a 1989 Topps Traded and a 1989 Mother's Cookies, #4. All rookie cards, all perfect 10s, all to be put on here soon.

This one I got for $30 and PSA says it's worth $30. I usually make a profit from my buys, but every now and then I break even or take a hit. On this one I broke even. I don't expect it to drop too much, but it probably won't gain much, either. In 2002, this one sold for about $64 and it now sold for $30, so that's a drop, but I don't see it dropping further. PSA indicates that this exact card in my collection may be from the Dmitri Young Collection, so that's very exciting, and led to me taking a chance on it.

I'm Okay with this Non-Trade

Photo: Frazier, Robertson and Kahnle, from this mlb.com page.

The Sox didn't need Todd Frazier and David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle (who has serious promise) for what the White Sox must've been asking. Chicago got Tyler Clippard, who's an okay middle relief guy, but also #30 prospect Blake Rutherford, lefty Ian Clarkin and OF Tito Polo (an awesome name) from the Yanks, who by making this trade continue to get older as they deal away their young prospects.

Boston's bullpen is already amongst the best in baseball, so shelling out serious prospects for two more relievers is a questionable move. Robertson is tempting because he's solid and he's signed through next year, but I'm a little concerned with how frequently he moves around. He's been traded a lot, which means he's a good player but not someone who must be held onto. He was a free agent signing recently as the Yanks let him go, but why was that?

As for Frazier, he's barely hitting above the Mendoza line for the year, and has hit about .233 since June. He's got good power numbers and he's solid at third, but he's also a free agent at the end of this season. His pull swing would work well at Fenway because of The Wall, but it won't work as well at Yankee Stadium, where it's deeper to left. He's not better defensively than Marrero, and his average isn't better than Marrero's or Holt's, and the Sox already have players who can give you the occasional dinger, as Hanley showed in the 15th inning at 1 a.m. this morning, which I actually saw because I'm on vacation. In fact, if Ramirez, Betts and Bradley can hit like we know they can, the homers they produce will more than compensate for whatever Frazier could've given them. 

So to trade even more prospects from a prospect-depleted system for a guy who you may have for just half a season, who isn't better defensively than who you already have, and who won't produce more homers and RBIs than guys you already have in the lineup (if they get on track) doesn't make sense to me at all. And it also doesn't make sense to get two more relievers and disrupt a bullpen that's already one of the best in the majors.

I'd pass on this. This was an okay non-trade for me.

2017 HOF Ballot Part 1

Photo: from bbstmlb.com

Votes	Player	Percentage
315	Jeff Bagwell	71.6%
307	Tim Raines	69.8%
296	Trevor Hoffman	67.3%
230	Curt Schilling	52.3%
199	Roger Clemens	45.2%
195	Barry Bonds	44.3%
191	Edgar Martinez	43.4%
189	Mike Mussina	43.0%
150	Lee Smith	34.1%
92	Fred McGriff	20.9%
73	Jeff Kent	16.6%
68	Larry Walker	15.5%
51	Gary Sheffield	11.6%
46	Billy Wagner	10.5%
31	Sammy Sosa	7.0%

Above you have the players still eligible for the Hall of Fame. These guys have struck out on past voting, with the percentage they got during last year's vote.

In 2017 I expect Bagwell, Raines and Hoffman to get over the 75% hump, though I don't expect any of them to go crazy and reach, say, 95%. Bagwell has those whispers of PEDS use, but now that Piazza is in, this shouldn't be a problem. Piazza's whispers were louder, though one look at Bagwell in his rookie year, and then him looking like King Kong in later years...well, whatever. As I've said before, the writers can't moralize when they vote, as many of them would fail morality tests of their own. And Bagwell has never been accused by MLB for using PEDs. So he gets a pass with me. One of the best sluggers, defenders and taker of a walk that you're likely to ever see.

Key stats: Career .408 on-base %; 449 homers and 1529 RBIs; .540 slugging %; .948 OPS; 128 HBP. Top-50 career in every positive offensive stat, and JAWS says he's the 6th-best 1B ever. 'nuff said.

Raines, as I've written before, was overshadowed by Rickey Henderson his entire career, and there was that vial of crack cocaine that shattered in his back pocket in a slide at home, all caught on national television. Oops. (I'm pretty sure crack was on MLB's banned drug list at the time.) But he's worthy of the HOF, and would've been in already had he not played at the same time as Rickey.

I'm not crazy about closers making the HOF, but Hoffman does have over 600 saves. Not too many closers deserve it. Mariano will in a few years, and maybe the writers are waiting to put him in first. He deserves it more than Hoffmann, as did the Eck. I'm not convinced of Hoffman's dominance, exactly, but he should get in for career value at the position. Lee Smith should not, because Hoffman dominated more than Lee Smith ever could. I never felt Hoffman was elite during his entire career.

Clemens and Bonds are this generation's (and maybe all-time's) kings at their positions, and should eventually get in. I'd rather see that sooner than later. Neither has been accused by MLB as having used PEDS, though of course both did. I'll fall back again on my stance that writers should not moralize. They were the peak value and career value greats, and should be in, although they were also both greatly disliked by ballplayers and writers while they played. But look at the numbers.

Mussina and Schilling both deserve to be in, as well. I have played that tune before and won't again now. They're both all-time great pitchers and are ranked 28th and 27th by JAWS. I'd take Schilling over Mussina anyday. The Moose might be a Veterans Committee (or whatever it's called now) pick.

The rest are a no-go, even Sosa. Caveat there, as he and McGwire straight-up saved baseball in the mid-nineties and are now treated as lepers. But baseball bureaucrats have the right to be hypocrites.

Next up: New players on the 2017 HOF ballot.

Mantle ($1.135M) and Musial Rookies Sold This Week

Photo: from psacard.com

This is what a million dollar card looks like. Specifically, this is what a $1,135,000 card looks like. Of course it's a Topps 1952 Mickey Mantle, in PSA 8.5 condition, and it's beautiful. It sold just today at auction. This is a record for a '52 Mantle--and it'll fall soon. A 1952 Mickey Mantle in Perfect 10 condition is due to be auctioned soon. It'll threaten to become the most expensive card ever, outselling the T206 Wagner. Stay tuned for that!

Also selling this week:

Photo: from psacard.com

A beautiful 1948 Bowman Stan Musial RC in PSA 9 condition, this week for $45,289. Or, more than half what most professionals make for a whole year. Shockingly under-rated player and card. Musial cards are so under-rated that even I can afford some mid-grades with no problem. That's a sin.

So click on the pics and see these beautiful cards! (Go to psacard.com and go to the bottom of the site for the market news. Click on the Mantle pic there to see the back--also beautiful!) And wonder what you would feel like if you had them--or the money to afford them.

Mookie Betts Autograph and Ball

My better half got me a Mookie Betts autographed ball last Xmas. Here it is:

It came with a certificate of authenticity (COA), but it was from the same ebay company that sold it. You probably know that you can't trust a COA from a company that certifies its own product, unless that company is a professional and trusted authenticator, like Beckett, JSA / DNA, etc. This company wasn't one of those. My better half, who has never bought an autographed collectible, didn't know that, and was also understandably pacified with the COA itself. The COA said:

"This certificate of authenticity guarantees the Rawlings Official Major League Baseball signed by Mookie Betts to be 100% genuine, being hand signed [sic] in person by Mr. Betts himself."

Sounds good, right? But what exactly is guaranteed to be genuine here? If you read it closely, the thing said to be genuine isn't the autograph, it's the baseball itself. Again, it says that the COA "...guarantees the ... baseball signed by Mookie Betts to be 100% genuine..." Whether by mistake (which I prefer to think) or by design, the COA sounds like it says it guarantees the autograph to be authentic, but it doesn't. It says the ball is a genuine Rawlings, which of course it is. Rawlings is the sole company that makes baseballs for Major League Baseball, and the commissioner's name is on it, but don't you want the COA to be for the autograph?

So I emailed the ebay company and asked if there was another COA or LOA (which really is what that was--a letter of authenticity; a certificate is usually a label or a card) that authenticates the autograph itself. The guy said No, but that he guarantees the autograph, or he'll give the money back.

I should mention here that the ball with autograph cost $70. Most Mookie Betts autographed balls, without a 3rd-party COA (like JSA) costs over $100, so this was a bargain. The ball looked really good to me--no smudges, dirt, cuts, etc. The autograph looked really good, too--no smudges, or blips, etc. Nice and clean with a good flow and solid contact.

After about an hour of research on ebay, comparing this to other authenticated Mookie Betts autographed baseballs, I decided this one was also genuinely his, and that I should send it out for authentication. (I did this just after I opened the gift on Christmas Day, before we continued opening things, because I'm an obsessive loser like that.)

So I saved up, because this stuff isn't cheap, and after a couple months I sent it to JSA (one of the three major 3rd-party authenticators, and JSA never sells anything--it only authenticates.) It took them about a month to say that it was, in fact, an autograph signed by Mookie Betts himself.

This cost $55. Not bad.

Then JSA sent it to Beckett, which grades the ball and the autograph. I wanted this done because this was the first autographed baseball bought for me by my better half, and because the ball and autograph looked good enough to grade, to better estimate its value and to protect them.

(I am violently upset with myself for allowing balls with Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek autographs to fade from the sun. Now I have to replace those. Daniel Bard also--infamously, among my friends--autographed a ball and then smudged it to hell when he gave it back to me. I got back in a long line with a separate baseball to get another autograph, but got stopped just before I got to his table by an overly strict woman who said he was leaving. When I explained what happened, and that I'd been in line twice, she said she didn't care. [This was at Pawtucket's HotStove, where new players sign for free, usually in the beginning of January, when it's about four degrees. And the PawSox don't turn on the heat, either. Luckily Daniel Bard turned out to be...well, Daniel Bard. I still have the damn ball, too. Anybody want it?)

But I digress. So Beckett took another month to grade the ball and autograph--and its website somehow managed to screw up my account info., so that they had to mail me a separate invoice, and the regional sales manager had to email me when the ball was done and it was coming back to me.

This cost another $40. And I paid $18 to reimburse them for shipping and another $10 for insurance. By the end, you can see this isn't cheap: $70 (which my better half paid for the ball) + $55 + $40 + $18 + $10, for a total of  $193, plus the $28 I paid to ship and insure, for a total of $225.

Yeah, $225 to authenticate, encapsulate, grade the autograph and grade the ball. And that's with no guarantee that the ball and autograph were graded highly! (I've sent over 100 cards to SGC to get graded and slabbed, with no guarantee of what they'll say it is. Suffice it to say, I've won some and I've lost some. One big win was the Jim Bottomley 1933 Goudey, which you can find here.)

Now the ball looks like this:

As you can see, all's well that ends well: JSA said the autograph was authentic, and Beckett said that the ball and the autograph were both a perfect 10! That means that, by definition, even Mookie Betts himself won't have a Mookie Betts autographed baseball (or, to be more precise: an autograph and a baseball) in better condition than mine! I can actually say that nobody in the world--Yes, not even Mookie Betts himself!--will have a better Mookie Betts autograph, nor a better ball to have the autograph on!--than mine.

If he ever turns out to be a Hall of Fame player, this will be worth a ton. As it is, it's worth about $500, from some internet sales on authenticated and graded autographs and baseballs, on ebay and other sites, including auction houses. And Betts hasn't been to an All-Star Game yet, nor a playoff game. Once he does...

So here's another picker success, done in tandem with my better half. We spent $225 and it's worth about $500, for a profit of $275. Not bad, even by the standards of the Pickers themselves.

Don't worry, honey--I'm never going to sell it! But it's good to know the value in case we ever have to, right?

Picking A 1933 Goudey HOF Jim Bottomley

Here's a before and after story about being a baseball card picker--the purchase, grading and valuation of a good baseball card.

I bought an ungraded 1933 HOF Jim Bottomley on Ebay in a screwdown case. Here's a picture of it from the listing after I bought it:

I spent $36.51 and paid $3.50 shipping, for a total of $40.01. (Notice the penny extra on the bid.)

I took a chance here--not something I typically do with money in general. But the Goudeys are one of the Big Three sets. The 1909-1911 T206s (which I've written about many times), the 1952 Topps and the 1933 Goudeys are the most-collected and sought-after sets. Any card from these sets will sell for more than average; HOF cards from these sets will be worth a premium value. And highly-graded HOF cards from these sets will be worth good money. A card in decent condition (even, in most cases, in poor condition) from these sets will re-sell, no problem. So if you want to collect a card and try to make a good profit at the same time, these are the cards to get. (I would throw the 1888 Old Judges and the T205s in this category as well. And any card, really, between 1900 to 1933.)  The trick is to buy one at a low price--ungraded cards can be bought for even cheaper--and then to send them away to SGC, PSA or Beckett to get them graded.

But doing so is taking a chance. No matter what you guess a card will be graded, it sometimes seems these guys grade the cards almost at whim, defying any reasonable explanation. (I have proof of this.) But if you want to increase a card's value, you have to get it graded. Out of all the companies, I think Beckett is the best for cards after 2000. PSA is best for cards 1960-1999. And SGC is best for all cards prior to 1960. It seems that overall card values back me up with this.

So what to buy? I've bought ungraded T206s and written about those before. But I'd never done so for a Goudey and I wanted to try. So if you're going to do that, you need to buy a popular player or a HOFer. But many of those are out of my price range. (Ruths and Gehrigs are worth hundreds or thousands of dollars.) I decided upon a HOFer nobody but serious fans know (and who shouldn't be in the HOF but for Veterans Committee shenanigans) and to get it raw, which means ungraded. The ones available during the limited time I allowed myself (because I could so easily go overboard with this and there goes the mortgage) were scant, and I settled on this guy.

Anyway, I sent it to SGC during its December Goudey/Play Ball/Diamond Star Special of $8 per card. (I also sent a HOF Rabbit Maranville Goudey, which I knew was in terrible condition; I was lucky to get that graded in Poor condition.) Because this venture is all about value and profit, you wait until the grading company has a sale on its grading. By chance, this sale came up right when I bought the card. Normally SGC charges $10 per card from this era.

So a few days ago (the website publishes your results when they're done, even before you get it in the mail) it was graded a 5 Excellent--which is really good for a 1933 Goudey, as they were handled a lot, and they're old, and they fray and literally disintegrate, and the corners round easily. The card, now graded, looks like this:

My Beckett Graded book shows the highest graded 1933 Goudey Jim Bottomley to be an 8, and I've got a 5. Not bad for $40! Book value? $150!!! Because you often can't get book value on cards, I looked up recently sold SGC 5 graded 1933 Jim Bottomley Goudeys on ebay. (I checked off the "sold listings" box; just because someone's asking $300 for the card on ebay, that doesn't mean it's worth $300. People ask insane prices via "Buy It Now" on ebay. But if a card has sold recently at a consistent price, that card is worth that price.) A PSA 5 (same exact grade and conditions, and PSA and SGC are equally respected) sold on January 10th, 2016 for $159.99, which shows the book value of $150 to not only be accurate, but maybe even a little low.

So I spent $40 on it, and paid $8 to get it graded, plus a couple bucks for shipping and insurance, for a total of $10 more. In summary, I paid $50 and it's worth at least $150---three times what I paid. Not bad! Even if I sent it to a 3rd party (an ebay company I do business with) and got the 87% he gives, and spent maybe $5 to send it to him, my profit is around $75-$80. Not bad for one card! It all took just minutes of my time, mostly sitting on my butt at my computer, and my post office doesn't usually have any lines, either. I could seriously make some part-time income doing this.

Rosenthal's HOF Picks and Mine -- Trammel, Schilling and Mussina

Mine, from an earlier blog:

Griffey
Trammell
Bonds
Clemens
Piazza
Bagwell
McGwire OR Sosa
Schilling
Mussina
Martinez OR Hoffman

Rosenthal's MVP Ballot:

Bagwell
Bonds
Clemens
Griffey
Hoffman
Martinez
Mussina
Piazza
Raines
Schilling

Notes:

Our lists are essentially the same, except that I chose Trammell and McGwire (or Sosa) and Rosenthal left those guys completely off his ballot. He chose Raines, who I left off my ballot for reasons explained in my blog, linked above. He also chose Edgar Martinez AND Trevor Hoffman, while I was only willing to choose one of those guys, because a) Martinez essentially pinch-hit 4 or 5 times a game (even David Ortiz has played the field more--and better--than Edgar) and because b) Hoffman essentially pitched one inning every three days or so, on average. In other words, these guys were specialists who simply didn't play as often as everyone else.

Alan Trammel, a shockingly underappreciated player (by me, too, until recently, and still by Rosenthal), played the field, every game, at a high level for a very long time, and was one of the top shortstops ever, according to JAWS. Even better than Jeter, and other HOF shortstops. His numbers (below the JAWS stats) show that he was better than your average HOF shortstop.  In other words, he should be a HOF shortstop. (You should view his stats at baseball-reference.com, here.)

That means more to me than a guy who pinch hits a few times a game and never fielded. And you can't say that Martinez played his position well, and it's not his fault he didn't play the field as a DH...except that Edgar Martinez was a truly awful defensive player, to a very heavy, negative degree (look at his page at baseball-reference.com). He was so bad that, yes, he was a DH because he couldn't field, not because everyone else was already on the field and you had to hit him somewhere. The Mariners correctly kept him off the field because he was a defensive liability, to the tune of over -9.7.  That's bad. And Hoffman? His heaviest workload as a closer was in 1996, when he pitched 88 innings. (You can see his baseball-reference page here.)

Overall I'm okay with Rosenthal's picks. I'd rather he have chosen Trammel over Raines, but as I mentioned in my blog entry about my picks, I feel Raines is HOF worthy as well. But not as much as Trammel. Sportswriters have dropped the ball on Trammel for the 15th (and, alas) last time. But I'm confident the Veterans Committee (or whatever it's called now) will fix that wrong in a hurry.

Lastly, baseball-reference.com's JAWS says that Curt Schilling is the 27th best starting pitcher in baseball history, and way ahead of the HOF average pitcher. And Mike Mussina is 28th!!!

Mike Trout

Photos: Fronts and backs of my 2011 Mike Trout Bowman rookie cards, from my collection.

So, as promised, here are the Mike Trout RCs I spoke of in my last post.  As I mentioned, I don't typically buy recent cards.  Like, ever; I mostly do T206s, 1933 Goudeys, the 1887-1890 Old Judges, and Topps and Bowman HOFers pre-1960.

I made an exception this year for these three Mike Trout RCs, plus the Bryce Harper RC shown recently, and a Paul Goldschmidt and Jose Altuve RC, because they were very cheap, in mint condition, and of undervalued, under-rated players I believe have a good chance to be stars for a very long time.  Goldschmidt's RC values will go up, especially when he hits free agency and plays for a team collectors care about.  I mean, nobody cares about the Arizona Diamondbacks these days.

Anyway, as I also mentioned, the Mike Trout / Bowman situation was confusing, and took me awhile to come to terms with.  In essence, there are rookie cards that are actually rookie cards, and rookie cards that Ebay sellers say are rookie cards but that aren't, and rookie cards that people believe are rookie cards because they were released during the same season as the player's actual rookie cards, and rookie cards that are not rookie cards because they're prospect cards.  A rookie card is not necessarily the first card released of that player by a major card company.  (Those are now prospect cards and minor league cards.  This is confusing for those of us old enough to remember when the prospect cards from the, say, 1980 and 1981 Topps sets were the actual rookie cards.  Now they aren't.)  A rookie card is the first card made of a player once MLB has decided that he has made enough at-bats, or has pitched in enough games, to qualify as a rookie player.  This can often be a few years after the player has been in the big leagues, and long after his cards have started to appear.

So...the Mike Trout cards shown here (in the first photo, starting at the top and going clockwise) are:

a) ungraded Bowman Draft #101
b) Bowman Chrome Draft #101, graded 9.5 Gem Mint by Beckett (I love that case, by the way, though I don't like the BCCG case, which is also Beckett, just to add to the confusion)
c) Bowman Chrome #175, graded 9 Mint by PSA.

Though the swinging photos of the drafts are the same, and though the number on the back, and the design on the back, are the same, these are different cards.  One's a Chrome, and one's not, and that's just the way it is.  Everything else about them is the same, except the Chrome's picture is maybe not as bright and clear.

The first card, the Bowman Draft, cost me $19.38, including shipping.  I'm frankly taking a chance on it, hoping it'll be graded a 9 or 10.  If it isn't, I've got the other two that are, and this one's a gift for one of two people I know will love to have it, regardless of condition.  They're not as serious about this as I am.  It'll cost me about $7 more to get it graded, shipped and insured, so the total I'd invested in it by then would be $26.38.  At that figure, this card needs to grade an 8.5 to break even.  These values have risen recently in the Beckett Graded guide, and I believe they'll continue to do so.  By the time the next issue comes out, it may only need to grade an 8 for me to break even.

The next one, the Bowman Chrome Draft #101, graded 9.5 Gem Mint by Beckett, has a book value (BV) of $100.  It cost me $50.50, which includes shipping.  This card has also increased in value recently, and I believe it will continue to do so.  You can never assume you can re-sell something for the BV, but I believe this card will come close.  Often you're lucky to get 50% of BV when re-selling, but I believe I can sell this at one of my summer yard sales for $75, which is 75% of the BV.  If I were a baseball card picker, which I suppose I am, I would make a profit from this card of at least $25, especially from baseball fans or card collectors who don't like to use the internet.  Lots of those come to my occasional yard sales.

The last one, the Bowman Chrome #175, graded 9 Mint by PSA, I paid a little more for: $58.51, including shipping. Its BV is $80, which has also gone up recently.  Only a $22 profit on this one, if I ever need to re-sell it, but I believe it'll be worth more by that time.

So why the exception for Mike Trout?  Why buy all three of his Bowman RCs?

Well, first, go to his baseball-reference page here, and take a look at these numbers.

In the only four full years of his career, he's finished 2nd in the MVP voting and has won it once.

He bats leadoff (a move I don't like, and it hasn't helped the Angels) and hits lots of homeruns and drives in a lot of runs, and steals bases and walks (and Ks) a lot, for silly high on-base percentages. As an example of how well he does these things, in his MVP year he led the league in runs scored and in runs batted in.  That's very, very rare, to do that in the same year.  That's a Ruth / Mantle / Williams / Mays thing to do.  Of those, only Mantle and Mays had the same combination of speed and power.  But Mantle ruined his knees and ankles and Mays only showed off his speed on defense after awhile.

Ah, yes--the defense.  He makes acrobatic catches normally.  He doesn't have a great throwing arm, but he can run and go get it as well as anybody.  His first two years he was a web gem about to happen.

Every season he's played, he's led the AL in WAR and in Offensive WAR.  He's been in the top-4 in Slugging % and in OBS.  Top-3 in Runs Scored, Homers, Triples and Walks.  Top-2 in Runs Created, Adjusted Batting Runs and Adjusted Batting Wins.  And Base-Out Runs Added and -Wins Added. And Top-3 in Putouts as an Outfielder, which means he can really go get 'em, and his pitching staff gives up lots of flyballs.

An average CF in the HOF will have 27 Black Ink statistics.  He's already got 20--in just four years. An average HOF CF will have 144 Grey Ink stats.  He's got 77--in just four years.  An average HOF CF will have a 100 HOF Monitor.  He's at 75 already.  The HOFer will score a 50 in HOF standards.  He's at 31 after four years.  He's already the 40th best CF to ever play, and is compared favorably to Mantle, Frank Robinson and Jimmie Foxx.  His 7-year peak is almost that of the average HOFer--in just four years.

And when next baseball season comes around on April 1st, he'll be 23 years old.

And he's the one the ballplayers themselves say is the best right now.  They talk about him like the real old-timers talked about Ruth and Honus Wagner.

Mike Trout 2011 Bowman Draft RC

Photos: from my own collection

Here's a Mike Trout Bowman Draft rookie card.

This is not to be confused with the 2011 Mike Trout Bowman Chrome rookie card, or the 2011 Mike Trout Bowman Chrome Draft rookie card.  Both cards with "draft" in the name are #101, while the Chrome is #175.  Go figure.  What I can tell you is that when I went to bid on these, and the many dozens of other options that showed up, I had to look at my Beckett Graded book to see which one was which time and time again, since the three different cards also have different values.  I had to stop a few times and adjust my eyes, and it doesn't help that the listings on Ebay are often misleading or flat-out incorrect.  The sellers didn't seem to know what they were selling, at times, since some said they were selling a Bowman Chrome when they were actually selling a Bowman Chrome Draft.  There were many other misleading tags as well.  Crazy. And, oh yeah, there are tons of bunched-together listings in the Beckett book, and they tended to blur together after awhile, too.

I also had to look at the established Mike Trout rookie cards from cardboardconnection.com, which lists the actual rookie cards of every important player.  This is now necessary, since there are so many cards that say "rookie" or "RC" on them, but they're not actual rookies, they just got released in the player's rookie year.  That makes it a rookie, right?  No, because there are so many subsets from the same card company that not each of them are considered rookies.  Plus, there are a lot of "prospect" cards, which used to mean rookie, but now doesn't.  And some players have a rookie card even before their rookie year or their prospect card--see: Mark McGwire's Olympics card, which is his rookie.

For those who're wondering, Mike Trout's only rookie cards are: 2011 Bowman Chrome #175; 2011 Bowman Chrome Draft #101; 2011 Bowman Draft #101; 2011 Bowman Sterling #22 (Good luck! That one's BV is $150 for a NmMt 8 and $500 for a Gem 9.5 / 10); 2011 Finest Baseball #94 and 2011 Topps Update #US175.  (See how the Chrome and Topps is #175?  That's because Topps owns Bowman, but all the Bowman Draft sets and subsets are #101.)  That's a lot to see, and blur through, while you're sorting out listings by condition, cost, reputation and listing accuracy--the last of which was terrible!

And thank you to Cardboard Connection for providing those separate rookie and prospect listings.

By the way, did you know that prospect cards are released before the rookie cards, so you'll see them before you see the rookie cards, which used to be the ones you'd see first?  And some prospect cards are traded and bought like they're rookies, and are often worth much more than the rookie cards!

Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous Bryce Harper entry, I don't usually buy recent rookie cards. Bryce Harper is an exception worth taking a chance on.  Mike Trout is an exception you have to take a chance on.  Trout is a no-brainer, like Pujols was, but more so, because Pujols was so obvious, and so alone in the field of new players at the time, that he didn't even have to be awesome to be the one to buy at that time.

Mike Trout is different because he is shoulders above some very impressive newer players in the past few years.  Bryce Harper also stands out almost as much.  But there's also Paul Goldschmidt, the most underrated player in baseball, who's finished second in the MVP voting the past two straight years, and who noticed?  Very quiet player who plays for a very bad team; had he played for the Yankees, we'd be talking about him like we do Trout and Harper.  (I've been trying to get a Goldschmidt rookie, too, though I have far surpassed my holiday spending.  But a Mint Condition Goldschmidt Topps Update RC is only $10--and that's Buy It Now, not even bidding.  (Bids tend to be a few bucks cheaper.)  Anyway, I feel Goldschmidt is a sleeper, and I'm going to get his rookie now while it's cheap.  I just did the same with Jose Altuve's, which is just plain cheap; I got 7 Altuve Bowman RCs for $7, including shipping.  Ungraded, sure, but I gave to a friend the one with a few corner dings, and I'll send the best of the others to get graded and take my chances.

And we haven't talked about Rizzo, or Correa, or Arrieta, or any of the other ones.  These last 3-4 years have been amongst the best three to four year stretch for rookies since the early 90s.

Anyway, Mike Trout stands way above all of these guys, and the collectors seem to know it, since his ungraded Bowman cards sell for about $20 when bidding, and over $30 for Buy It Now.  Lots of buyers are Buying It Now, too, which tells me they're in very high demand, since experienced Ebay shoppers would rather spend $10 more just to know they can get one.

I spent $19.38 for the one pictured above, and that includes shipping.

So I'm taking a chance, because once I send it away, it has to be graded an 8 or better for me to break even.  In fact, an 8 is just $20 BV, so I'll lose out a little bit because I have to pay for it to be graded (I wait for the $5 or $7 specials from SGC) and I have to pay about a buck combined for shipping and insurance.  (I send 10 cards at a time to SGC, because it costs the same to ship and insure 1 card as it does 10 cards, so you may as well do 10.)

Since I'm spending another $7 to $9 or so on the grading, shipping and insuring, I need this card to get graded at least an NmMt+ 8.5, worth $25, in order to break even.  I have no idea whether this card is that or not, as I have long ago decided that I'm not going to drive myself crazy predicting a grading company's grade for a card, since I have conclusive evidence that they're often wildly off their own grading scale, and so it's basically a crapshoot.  This is especially true of newer cards.  (I've been very good at grading T206s--but the grading companies have been much more consistent with their grades for those, too.)  Even cards from the mid-80s have been graded one or two grades different than I'd predicted.  Why's my 1980 Rickey Henderson RC an 8 rather than a 9--which is a difference of about $275 in Ebay bidding value?  Couldn't tell you.  What's the difference between my Rickey 8 and the previous Rickey 7 it just replaced?  I don't know.  The corners and the gloss and the centering are the same.

Will this one break even?  I don't know, but here's why it's worth the chance for me, and also why I bought a 2011 Mike Trout Bowman Chrome RC and a 2011 Mike Trout Bowman Chrome Draft RC:

--Trout's RC values have increased lately and, I believe, will continue to do so.  For a long time.

--My Trout Chrome RC is a 9 and the Chrome Draft RC is a 9.5, so I've got my Mint condition Mike Trout rookie card situation covered.  (Those deals will be blogged about when they come in.)

--If this one is a dud--say, a 6 or 7--I can give it as a gift to either a relative or a friend of mine.  Neither takes this anywhere near as seriously as I do, and would love to have a Trout rookie of any grade.

--Worst possible scenario: I can sell it at the occasional yard sale I have every other summer, and I can get $20 to $25 for it, no problem, especially from older folks who love baseball but hate the internet.  And there's lots of those!

And that's why I bought an ungraded Mike Trout rookie, and would do so again, for either the relative or the friend who doesn't get this one.

Sorry for the long entry!

2016 HOF Ballot

Photo: Ken Griffey, Jr. from his Wikipedia page

I know I promised a lot of blogs about last year's HOF ballot and winners & losers, and I really dropped the ball on that (pun intended).  I'll follow through this time.  I think.

The ballot: Garret Anderson, Brad Ausmus, Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Luis Castillo, Roger Clemens, David Eckstein, Jim Edmonds, Nomar Garciaparra, Troy Glaus, Ken Griffey Jr., Mark Grudzielanek, Mike Hampton, Trevor Hoffman, Jason Kendall, Jeff Kent, Mike Lowell, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Mark McGwire, Mike Mussina, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Lee Smith, Sammy Sosa, Mike Sweeney, Alan Trammell, Billy Wagner, Larry Walker, Randy Winn.

My 10 picks, and the order of my vehemence (c'mon, that's a nice phrase):

1. Ken Griffey, Jr. (of course)
2. Alan Trammell (yes; see recent blog entry)
3. Barry Bonds
4. Roger Clemens
5. Mike Piazza
6. Jeff Bagwell (I know the sniff of steroid scandal surrounds these last four, but none of them ever failed an MLB drug test, or got suspended for PED use. And it's time the writers got off their high-horse.)

These first six are no-brainers, in my opinion.  And repeat after me: Baseball writers are not judges or pariahs.  Baseball writers are not judges or pariahs.  Baseball writers are not...

The next four should go in, but I'm ambivalent about them, in almost equal vehemence. I'd be okay with none of the four getting in, but the stats show that they should:

7. Mark McGwire OR Sammy Sosa (Repeat after me again: Baseball writers are not...McGwire gets the nod from me because of his Gold-Glove caliber defense at first.)
8. Curt Schilling (May place ahead of McGwire and Sosa, whose stats are better and who made bigger overall impacts during the regular season.  Schilling's numbers are better than Mussina's overall, but not by as much as you would think.  Voters aren't supposed to consider the post-season while voting, but...How could you not with Schilling?)
9. Mike Mussina (I see him as a Veterans Committee pick many years from now.)
10. Edgar Martinez OR Trevor Hoffman (The writers see these guys as part-time players, almost.  In truth, Hoffman might have a better shot than Edgar.  But the closer role and the DH are positions, nonetheless, even if a typical closer pitches just 75 innings a year and the DH essentially pinch-hits 5 times a game.)

I still can't justify Tim Raines getting in, though I mentioned last year that if he hadn't played at the same time as Rickey Henderson (and if that vial of coke hadn't shattered in his uniform pocket when he slid into home that day), then he'd be in the Hall.  I still believe that.
  
Lee Smith, as I said last year, was simply not a dominant closer.  Period.  Eckersley and Rivera were, and they're in the Hall.  Hoffman was not dominant like those two were, ever, but he was more than Smith was, every year.  I'm not sure he was dominant enough to make my Hall.  Probably at some point.  Not this time.  The writers will vote him in, anyway, because they won't vote in the steroids-stained, despite their innocence in MLB's court of law. But he should get in before Billy Wagner does.  Wagner probably doesn't belong at all. Same goes from McGriff and Sheffield, though Sheffield was probably more of an overall force than McGriff.  Had either played for the dominant teams of their time, however, each would be a lock for the Hall.  But whispers surround them as well, especially Sheffield.

I'll have to research Jeff Kent's numbers, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't among the top-10 best-hitting second basemen of all-time.  I hear that when Kent played with Bonds on the Giants, a reporter asked everyone else on the team not named Kent or Bonds to vote for the most-hated man on the team.  Every player said it was Kent, and it wasn't close.

Had Nomar never been drilled in the wrist that day, he would've been better than Jeter, especially in peak value.  But baseball is full of what-ifs.  He broke his wrist and he faltered.

1909 T206 HOF George Davis

The Card

Photo: T206 George Davis, front and back.

For those interested, I bought this card for $36.33, including shipping.  T206.org says it's been selling recently at about $43, which is a very common value for a Hall of Fame T206 of a nondescript player in Poor condition.  (Poor condition T206s of the big boys--Cobb, Young, Walter Johnson, etc.--still run a couple hundred bucks.)  Anyway, that's a profit of $6.67.  Not much.  The Beckett Graded Card Price Guide (7th Ed. 2015) says it's been selling at about $50, which is a little high, on Ebay, anyway. That's a value of $13.67, which is a little better.

I'm just happy to have a T206 HOFer.  I have about 15 of those now, most of them in Poor or Good condition, because that's what I can afford, ya know?  This card is in good condition, for a Poor.

The Player / The Person

Photo: George Davis, while with the Chicago White Sox, from The Sporting News

Shockingly, the Veterans' Committee got it right when they inducted this guy into the Hall.  Normally the Committee's inductions are abysmal, especially players inducted from this era.  I've looked at a few of those lately, and when I checked Davis's card in my collection and I looked at his stats (via baseball-reference.com, just click it here to see), I was expecting more of the same.

But I was pleasantly surprised.  You may have to know a bit about the time to appreciate Davis's stats.  At a glance, they're not impressive.  He led the league in an offensive category exactly once: 135 RBIs in 1897 for the New York Giants.  (McGraw and Mathewson wouldn't join the Giants until later.)  This is a lot, but for the 1890s, pretty common for a league leader.  What impressed me a lot more was that between 1904 and 1908, the Chicago White Sox let him play full-time, in most of the team's games, although his offensive stats were way below the league's norms.

There's only one reason possible for this: Defense.  From 1890 through 1902, Davis's offensive stats are good, but not great.  They are, though, impressively consistent.  And consistency in 1890s baseball, for 12 years, is very rare, whether it's offense or defense.  The stats will pile up, as they did. So for peak value, Davis was not one of the best players in the league.  But in career value, he was.

And then came 1904-1908 with the White Sox, and those rather unimpressive numbers.  True, the game changed a little, but those are still bad stats.  Why would he still be allowed to play full-time? Could his defense have been that good?

Yes.  Turns out, it was.

His overall WAR (wins above replacement; click on the stat on the webpage if you're unfamiliar with it) was higher in 1904, 1905 and 1906 than it had been in any of his more impressive offensive years. This can only be due to his defense.  Any dWAR (defensive wins above replacement) in the positive is good.  (This happens a shockingly low amount of times, even for good players today.)  Anything above 1 is really good; anything above 2 is Gold Glove worthy.  Davis was a very good defensive player during his good offensive years (consistently between 1 and 2), but when his offensive skills eroded after 1903, when he sat out, due to problems with injury, salary, and constantly jumping between the Giants and the White Sox, and back (jumping teams was VERY common in the early 1900s, but his case was still odd.  Read about it at his Wikipedia page here), he must've realized that if he was going to still play, his defense had to get even better.

And for a few years, it did.  His defensive WAR, from 1904-1908, when his offense was terrible: 3.4; 2.8; 3.0; 2.9; 1.3.  With his average to below-average offense, but his incredible GG (before there was a Gold Glove Award) defense, his overall WAR from 1904-1908: 7.2; 7.2; 6.3; 4.6 and 2.1.  A 5+ is all-star worthy, and his defense alone made him 2 levels above that.

Over his 16-year career, the league averaged a .919 fielding percentage for the positions he played. Davis's fielding percentage was .936.  At shortstop, the league's was .923 and his was .940.  

If you're defending 17 percentage points higher than everyone else in the league, that's HOF exceptional.  Combine that with 1,545 runs scored (56th all-time), 2,665 hits (69th all-time), 453 doubles (100th all-time), 163 triples (33rd all-time), 619 stolen bases (17th all-time), and 1,440 RBIs (63rd all-time), and you're a Hall-of-Fame player.  JAWS says he's the 4th-best shortstop of all-time, and that's going head-to-head with Honus Wagner (#1), A-rod (#2) Cal Ripken (#3), Robin Yount (#5), Arky Vaughn (#6), Ernie Banks (#7) and Ozzie Smith (#8).  Derek Jeter, if you're curious, is #12, ahead of Barry Larkin, Lou Boudreau, Pee Wee Reese and Bobby Wallace (a contemporary of George Davis's)--but behind Alan Trammel (#11)!  [Take a look at Trammel's stats here and you'll be as amazed as I was.  I assure you, nobody--including the announcers and players who were around him--realized he was that good.  Alan Trammel, shockingly, is wildly deserving of the Hall of Fame. But that's another blog entry for another time.)]  All of these guys, by the way, were way above the average HOF shortstop's stats.  Normally shortstops can field, or they can hit, but they can't do both.

So why a blog entry about George Davis, who nobody in this generation (and in this century) has ever heard of?

Because he wasn't inducted into the HOF until 1998, and he died in 1940.  It came 58 years too late, but finally someone dusted off his stats and saw the HOF.  

Well, it started with Bill James, as these sabermetric things often do.  I'll let the Wikipedia page tell it:

In a 1995 book, baseball author Bill James referred to Davis as baseball's best player who had not been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.^[7]Also in 1995, Davis was featured in David Pietrusza's television film "Local Heroes" in the segment "Knocking on Cooperstown's Door."

In 1997, baseball researcher Frederick Ivor-Campbell said that Davis was "the most neglected player of the 19th century. He's definitely the best eligible player not in the Hall, and he's a lot better than a lot of guys already in."^[8] Around the same time, Davis was rated the 21st best baseball player of all time in the official baseball encyclopedia, Total Baseball.^[8]

Davis was up for a vote before the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee in 1998. Before the committee voted, sportswriter Dave Anderson wrote an article in The New York Times on Davis's Hall of Fame candidacy. He pointed out the work of Cohoes city historian Walt Lipka, which favorably compared Davis to almost all of the shortstops in the Hall of Fame. Anderson supported Davis's election, saying, "It's as if he were discarded nearly a century ago into a time capsule that was forgotten until now... For too long, George Stacey Davis has been his era's most forgotten best player."^[9] He was selected for induction that year.^[4]

Prior to his Hall of Fame induction, a Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) chapter in New York put out a call to locate a descendant of Davis to be present at the induction ceremony and announced plans for a historical marker in Cohoes.^[10] As a great deal of time had passed since his death, no relatives could be located, but a group of about 50 people from Cohoes traveled to the ceremony in support of Davis.^[1]

Me again.  I don't know if George Davis was the 21st best player of all-time, but he certainly belongs in the Hall.  He was light years better than Phil Rizzuto, Joe Tinker, Rabbit Maranville, and lots of other marginal candidates who probably shouldn't be in the Hall, but who are.  Davis got in so late that nobody was around to even honor his plaque.

And why was that?  Well, that's not so Hall-of-Fame worthy, but hey, don't judge:

Davis returned to the minor leagues for one season as player-manager of the 1910 Des Moines Boosters.^[6] He managed a bowling alley in the early 1910s. He was the Amherst College baseball coach from 1913 to 1918, then he became a car salesman.^[3]

The circumstances of his death remained a mystery until baseball historian Lee Allen discovered its details through a campaign to track down historical baseball players, run in part in The Sporting News. Davis was admitted to a Philadelphia mental institution in 1934 suffering from paresis due to tertiary syphilis. He died in the institution in 1940.^[3] Davis was survived by his wife Jane, who was said to have been angry at him when he died. They had no children. His wife spent $41 to have him buried within a day at nearby Fernwood Cemetery.

Me again.  Yeah, so no kids to have kids to honor his HOF plaque 58 years after he died of syphilis. Of course, you can get syphilis many ways, then and now, but...well, his wife was really pissed at him, and buried him the day after he died, apparently sans wake and funeral.  And it was a quickie burial, costing just $41, which sounds to me like someone dug a hole in the cemetery, threw him in, and filled up the hole.  Maybe even without a coffin, and definitely without a chaplain or onlookers.

And that pretty much says it all. 

Cult Baseball Players edited by Danny Peary

Interesting book that I'd hoped would be as good as The Glory of their Times.  It wasn't, through no fault of its own, exactly.
 
Glory was told to Lawrence Ritter by the ballplayers themselves (and then edited by Ritter). This book is written by professionals in other endeavors, like yours and mine, about their favorite ballplayers.  Because of this, and because the writers are usually writers themselves, this comes across as maybe better-written, but not as interesting, as it's not from the ballplayers' POV.

But there's a certain coolness in that as well.  It made you think of your own associations with ballplayers, if you've had any.  I have: Wade Boggs nonchalantly picked up and returned my baseball to me--without signing it; Matsuzaka ignored me so rudely that people around me openly wondered what his problem was; Jason Bay blanched and stammered in front of me at Fenway Park.  Not because of me, but...Well, you'll have to buy the thing that publishes it.  And that's what I mean about this book's coolness: It made me want to write about my own memorable experience with a ballplayer.  And then sell it to be published, of course, cuz that's what I try and do.

So here are pieces written by Elmore Leonard, without his iconic dialogue and violence; by Tim McCarver, who's as long-winded in print as he was on the Fox telecasts, and many others.

I recommend reading it in the winter, as I have, because it reminds you that there is in fact a summer, when games like baseball are played.  But also because the book is only sometimes about baseball; at times it is more about the players, the times they played in, and those who they played with.  It reminds you that there is more to life than what is currently going on in front of you, which in my case has been days and days of snow-blowing, followed by today's 40s, which will be followed by tonight's single-digits and Wednesday's 5"-8" of snow.

But that's okay.  Baseball is right around the corner.  Spring training is happening right now.  And the lives of those who play it go on and on, even off of the field.  It's important to remember this.

Having said that, my first game this season is April 14th, at Fenway.

About 53 days away.  And yes, I'm keeping track.  There's more to the ballplayers than what happens on the field, but the field is where we see them, and--right or wrong--is often all we care to know about them.

The Dolly Stark Situation

Photo: The Dolly Stark Southern League T206 card, from BMWcards.com.  This is not the exact card in the story below.  BMWcards, by the way, is a company that sells really high-end, really high-quality, great-conditioned and highly-graded cards.  In other words, I can look, but I can't buy.
 
I almost bid on a Dolly Stark, which is a tougher-to-find Southern League card, and worth more than other commons in the set.  I can't tell you how many times I've bid on a Dolly Stark card.  So often, it's become a bit of a thing with me.  I have to get one--but not go crazy to do so.  This one was an SGC 30 2, which means it was graded by SGC, and graded a 30, which is SGC's way of saying it's in Good condition.  A 2 also means Good condition.  Good, in this case, is an actual grade, not just someone saying it's in good condition, if you know what I mean.  I'm a bit stingy, because I'm a bit poor, so buying a T206 in Good condition is okay with me.  It's not for most serious collectors. 

So I looked it up in what I call The Book--Beckett's Graded Card Price Guide.  It says that this exact card, in this exact condition, has recently sold for, on average, $80.  (This is not the same as saying it's "worth" $80, but it's as close to an immediate, go-with-it value you can get on short, convenient notice.)  When I saw it, the bid was $27. 

(Side note: Do not ever buy an item like a baseball card as a BUY NOW on Ebay, because if there's something wrong with the item--and there usually will be, or it wouldn't be BUY NOW, it'd be auctioned--Ebay will not reimburse you, and neither will the seller.  Only static items, like baseball card plastic sleeves, for example, or anything else you'd buy off a shelf or a rack, should ever be bought as a Buy It Now.) 

Anyway, I knew the bid would go up, but I hoped not by much, and a common card usually won't escalate tremendously.  I had my bid all set after there was less than one minute to go.  (I place my bid when there's a specific number of seconds left; not tellin' ya what that is.)  My bid was for $41.51, because the shipping was $3.50, and I didn't want to spend more than $45 total, even though the value was $80.  I try not to pay more than half what a card is worth, including shipping.  But as this Dolly Stark situation has become personal at this point, I splurged by a few bucks.  With 5 seconds left, the bids went from $27 to over $30 to over $40, etc., finally settling on $63.00.  That's not bad, spending $66.50 total for a card "valued" at $80--a savings of $13.50, but that was more than I wanted to spend on one T206 card, even though it was a Southern Leaguer (which are more rare and more expensive) and a personal situation, too.  There were other cards I was looking at, and I needed to save my money. 

Plus, once you've settled on a dollar amount you're willing to spend, you absolutely cannot go over that amount.  If you do, you will again, and suddenly you've gone Ebay crazy and spent your mortgage.  Craziness.  So I never sent my bid for this card.  The Dolly Stark situation still remains a personal thing.