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.

Satchell Paige 1953 Topps PSA 3

Sorry to geek-out here, but...My Xmas present to myself. I've wanted this one for a very long time! I sold some cards for over $300 total, threw that in my PayPal, and bought this one for $162, including shipping. This is a much more valuable card than anything I sold, and I got this for $30-$40 less than it's been sold for on Ebay lately. So a nice little turnover.

Happy Holidays to my sports blog readers and collectors!!!

Ken Griffey Jr. 1989 Mother's Cookies RC #4 in PSA Gem Mint 10

Photo: Ken Griffey, Jr. 1989 Mother's Cookies #4 in PSA Gem Mint 10

Not too much to say about this one, except that it's a great picture, and is one of four cards of Griffey produced by Mother's Cookies in 1989. I've got this one, #4, and his #3 will be here shortly. Still on the lookout for a decently-priced 1 and 2. This one is supposedly the hardest to get and of the greatest value of the four. I got it for $30.75, including shipping, and PSA currently values it at $45, for a profit of $14.25---not too bad for a recent card. I've got #s 1 and 2 on my radar, but I'm waiting for their prices to come down. These are a bit more rare, so they won't be up for bid on eBay regularly.

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?

Wildfire Schulte, M101 Sporting News Supplement, March 2, 1911

Photo: Frank "Wildfire" Schulte, Sporting News Supplement, March 2, 1911. From my collection.

This is my other M101 Sporting News Supplement photo, bought for me by my better half for Christmas. You can read about the other one, Bob Harmon, by clicking here.

As I mentioned about the previous one, these very large photos are not considered cards, per se, as there were actual Sporting News cards published after these supplements proved popular with the public.  The photographers must've been amongst the best of their time, because these images are all classically striking.  I wish I could've gotten them all. Unfortunately, I've only got two, and this is the second one I got.

These supplements were just that: included in issues of The Sporting News between 1909 and 1911, which in itself looked more like a newspaper than a magazine, just like it does today.  They were often folded, which is not considered a detriment to their value, but they are extremely thin and therefore very fragile.  Since I had this one bought for me, I don't know how much it sold for (though I could find out easily on Ebay), but Wildfire Schulte was a heckuva player, and popular in his time. He is not a HOFer.

But he did have a Hall of Fame season in 1911. That year he won the MVP, then called the Chalmer's Award. They gave you a great car, since the award was named after the car company, but once you won the award, you couldn't win it, or even be nominated for it, again--a rule not changed until long after he retired. It was a fluke season for him. He led the league in homers (21), RBI (107), slugging % (.534), OPS+, and total bases (308). He scored 105 runs and batted .300. He walked more than he struck out, for a .384 on-base percentage, and he had 173 hits and a .918 OPS. He did all of this for a great Chicago Cubs team, which went to 4 World Series with him. He won two of them.

He was the first player ever to have more than 20 stolen bases, doubles, triples and home runs in the same season. Willie Mays did this next, in 1957.

He never had more than 68 RBIs in any other season; never more than 12 homers; never more than a .769 OPS and never more than a .418 slugging %. Those MVP numbers were also way above any season before 1911, too, though he did also lead the league in homers in 1910, with 10. His career slashline is .270 batting average; .332 on-base percentage and .395 slugging percentage. His offensive WAR was 5.5 in 1911 and 3.5 in 1910. It was never higher than 1.7 in any full season after 1911. (You can see all of his stats on his baseball-reference page. Just click.)

Schulte was a full-time player until 1915, but then spent the next three years with four teams. One wonders what happened to him. His 1911 season was one of the most out-of-context for a player's career, ever. JAWS puts him as the 101st best right fielder ever. He's compared favorably to Jimmy Piersall and Johnny Damon (who were much better fielders, and probably better hitters. Damon definitely was a better fielder and hitter), and Red Murray (a contemporary). In 1916 he and another player were traded for Otto Knabe and Art Wilson--which is not a compliment, as Knabe (another T206 guy, as is Wildfire) and Wilson were not good players. 

He played in the minors (which were not the same as they are today, but that's another blog; though you didn't have to be a worse player to play in the minors, or the PCL, or Canada, or the Independent League, or any of the many other types of leagues at the time, he was.) Overall, he peaked, then fell off the cliff.

I wondered why, so I did a little research. I didn't find much, but I did read that he got the Wildfire nickname when he saw a play by that name, and then named his racehorse the same. I also read that he married in 1911, and then fell off the precipice, but my better half says that had nothing to do with it.

From his Wikipedia page, I can show you that up close he looked like this:

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.

M101-2 Sporting News Supplement Bob Harmon

Photo: 1911 M101-2 Sporting News Supplement Bob Harmon of the St. Louis Cardinals, from my own collection.

First, I had a helluva time getting this picture into my computer, as it would only scan as a .pdf, and then wouldn't load into this software for this website.  I had to scan it again, CONTROL + ALT + PRINT SCREEN, save it into Paint, then crop that, then save that as a jpeg., then bring it to this page. I don't know if you can see the big size of it like you could my other cards written about here.  If someone knows of a better way around this for me--or how I can make my scanner not scan larger images as a .pdf, please comment here and let me know.  Or send me an email, if you'd prefer.  I appreciate it!

Anyway, I saw lots of these images up for bid on ebay from PWCC, where I get a lot of stuff.  I've heard of these before, but had never seen them.  The inages were striking, and I saved them all from my Watch screen on Ebay before I deleted them from it when the bids climbed too high.  In good condition, these can go for hundreds, and a good condition HOFer, like Ty Cobb, can bring crazy prices.  I really wanted a Jake Stahl one of these, and I forget why I deleted it.  I didn't know much about the cost and value of these, and this one climbed over $30, so I backed off.  It was one of the best shots I saw, right up there with Clark Griffith standing on the dugout steps, and Connie Mack standing in his suit.  Truly awesome pics, but they got really expensive.  If only I were rich.

So this one of Bob Harmon is ripped in the lower left corner, as you can see, so it cost me only $9.50. The shipping was $12, but when I won other cards (some Ted Williams and Clementes and a few others), those were only $.25 more after that, so it averaged out to $1.15 for each of the 13 (yes, I know it's crazy) items I got.

These very large photos are not considered cards, per se, as there were actual Sporting News cards published after these supplements proved popular with the public.  The photographers must've been amongst the best of their time, because these images are all classically striking.  I wish I could've gotten them all. Unfortunately, this is the only one I got.

These supplements were just that: included in issues of The Sporting News between 1909 and 1911, which in itself looked more like a newspaper than a magazine, just like it does today.  They were often folded, which is not considered a detriment to their value, but they are extremely thin and therefore very fragile.  Mine would've sold for over $30 had it not been a little torn, and Bob Harmon was just a common player.

He was a tough-luck pitcher who could've done much better, or much worse.  He led the league in 1911 in game starts, earned runs and walks, but finished 23-16 with a 3.13 ERA and was 14th in the MVP voting.  His WHIP was a bad 1.35, and he walked more than he struck out, so this was a rather lucky season.  His luck would not last, though, as he went 13-17 and 16-17 for Pittsburgh a few years later, but with ERAs of 2.53 and 2.50.  He had losing records every year and spent 1917 out of the majors, but returned with Pittsburgh in 1918 and had the best WHIP of his career, a very good 1.06--though he still walked more than he struck out.  He finished 2-7 that year, which proved to be his last.

His career record was 107-133, with a 3.33 ERA and a 1.3 WHIP, but only gave up 1,966 hits in 2,054 innings.  If he could've found the strike zone a little more often, he may have been one of the best, because they couldn't often hit him.

But, then again, had he been much better, I wouldn't have been able to afford him.

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.

Bryce Harper 2012 Bowman Platinum

Photo: from my collection, scanned in.

So, this is Bryce Harper's 2012 Bowman Platinum rookie card, graded in PSA 9 Mint condition.  I got it for $8.51, plus $1.18 shipping, for a total of $9.69.  (This was in a package of 3 other cards from the same Ebay company.  I may write about those cards another time.)  The book value of this card from the Beckett Graded Card Price Guide is $25.  The Ebay selling price lately for this is about $20 to $25.  I got a Mint condition card for even less than half of what I can re-sell it for, which is always what I try to do.  I always buy with an eye to re-sell, if necessary in the future, so I always buy for about half the book value, and for about 75% of the recent Ebay value.  I made out well here.

I normally don't buy baseball cards of recent rookies or of recent new stars because their values can fluctuate wildly over a very short time.  If you take a look at the values of autographed rookie cards, or of prospect cards of the hottest new player, they've often cost hundreds--and thousands!--of dollars, and for what?  For the player to crash and burn, and now his cards are worthless, and all that money is down the drain.

Crazy.

However, Bryce Harper, and--even more so--Mike Trout are rare exceptions.  Trout's Bowman rookie cards are worth hundreds of dollars or more in Mint or Gem condition.  (I just got a Mint at about $50 and a couple of ungraded ones I'll take a chance on at $20 apiece.  If the ungraded ones get graded and turn out really low, I can give them away as gifts to guys I know who'd be thrilled to have them.) I may run an entry about my Mike Trout cards soon.

So why Bryce Harper?  Well, he won the ROY Award a few years ago, and just won the MVP.  Last year he hit .330.  He slugged .649 with over a 1.100 OPS.  He hit over 40 homers (with just 99 RBIs, but he's not to blame if nobody's on in front of him) and walked 124 times for a ridiculous .460 on-base percentage.

He has rubbed a few the wrong way, and certainly he had his cocky and immature moments--but remember a guy who was so cocksure and immature he was called The Kid?  I'm not saying Bryce Harper will even come close to Ted Williams, of course, but he has the tools--if he can stay healthy, mature and not party too much--to hang around a long time and to put up potential HOF numbers.

That's what I'm counting on.  Mike Trout has a better chance to do so, and I'll write about him next.

My T206 Gifts to Myself

Photos: Jimmy Williams and Charlie Rhodes T206s.  These are not the exact same two cards mentioned in the story below.  The two pictured here are in Near Mint condition and worth about $550 each.  And I ain't payin' that.  These pics are from a great T206 card site, PSAcard.com.


So, if you've read the last few entries, you may be wondering: "Did he get any T206s for himself?"

Well, I did, and I'm ecstatic about them.  I got two, and both for the price of what the Grimes or Stark would've cost.

First, I got a Jimmy Williams SGC 3/40 VG T206 card.  This means that SGC, a top-notch card grading company (I only buy graded cards now, which is necessary but sort of sad.  That's another entry for another day.), graded the card at the third-lowest level, which is Very Good.  That's an actual grade, and not just someone at the company saying, "Wow, that's in very good condition."

Anyway, as I explained before, Very Good condition is more than good enough for me, as anything higher than that can get silly expensive.  Very Good cards will look great, and are far better than Poor, Poor/Fair, Fair and Good condition cards.  I'm actually happy with cards in Good condition, though that's the lowest condition I'll buy in, unless we're talking HOF T206 ballplayers.  Those guys are often expensive even in Poor condition, because they're HOFers and everyone wants them, so they're at a premium, even in bad condition.  I have T206s of about 7 HOFers, and they're in either Poor, Fair or Good condition.  Anything higher than that will be over $100 apiece, minimum.  Often, they'd be in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

So, the book value--I use Beckett's Graded Card Price Guide--of this exact Jimmy Williams card, in this exact condition, was $60.  That's a little high for me at Christmastime (and during most other times), but I figured I'd watch the bidding and give it a shot.  I've made a few extra bucks recently--not much, but enough to buy myself one or two affordable (ie--inexpensive) cards for Christmas and New Year's.  Or Thanksgiving and Christmas, if I want to be naughty and get myself another one for New Year's, which I probably will.  And then another a month later for my birthday...

But I digress.  So the shipping for this card was $3.50, and the BV was $60, as I mentioned.  I'd watched the Babe Ruths and Ty Cobbs and the Magie error card and the Grimes card and the Dolly Stark card come and go by now, and I wanted something, so I tried for this one.  (Jimmy Williams was a nobody player--a common card, in the hobby--and by far the least valuable of all the names I just mentioned.)  The highest visible bid was up to just $22 or so.  (If you've bid on Ebay before, you know the highest visible bid is often far below the actual highest bid.) 

I'm old hat at this kind of thing, so I knew that a common T206 in Very Good condition will often hit the $40 or $50 mark.  If it did, I wouldn't bid.  The BV was $60, and the shipping was $3.50, but you don't want to spend the book value price, and you certainly don't want to spend over the BV price.  (If you read the previous two entries, you know what I mean.)  Like the Dolly Stark card, which was more valuable, I didn't want to spend over $45 total.  I mean, I've bought HOF T206s in Poor or Good condition in the $40s and $50s, so I wasn't going to do that for a common card, even in VG condition.

As I've mentioned, you have to have a set dollar figure in mind--including shipping, which is not part of the card's value but yet is still money you have to pay--and never exceed that.  Otherwise, this Ebay thing can get out of hand in a hurry and suddenly you're in debt.

So I put in my max dollar amount, and I wait until the proper number of seconds remain before I post my bid.  (I ain't tellin' you my bid or the number of seconds I wait for.  Cuz I'm silly and unrealistic like that.)  And in the last ten seconds, the bids go from $22 to $23, $24, $24.55 and to $30 before my bid wins.

I've just watched the Dolly Stark sell for $63--admittedly, a fair price, since the BV was $80, but it was still more than I wanted to spend.  Another card, Josh Devore, had sold for $82, and the BV was $150, but still the $82 was more than I wanted to spend, though that one stung a little when it got that high.  (It had been in the $30s for awhile and I was hoping.)  The Magie error card went for over fourteen grand, and I saw Cobbs and Ruths sell for thousands, and I'm still waiting.  (This all took about half an hour, by the way, in case you thought I'd wasted my night doing this.)

I didn't spend the $63 or the $82 because I was able to get a T206 in Very Good condition (same condition as the other two) for just $31, plus $3.50 shipping.  And then, just a few minutes later, I was fortunate enough to get a Charlie Rhodes T206, also in Very Good condition, for just $28, plus $3.50.

Unfortunately, these two cards weren't from the same place, so I couldn't save on shipping, which I always try and do.  But, anyway, the bottom line is that I was able to get two VG condition T206s for a total of $66, including shipping.  Which is why I didn't spend $66.50--including shipping--for the one Dolly Stark card (though that would've been nice, and remains a personal thing with me), or the $85.50 for the one Josh Devore card--both in the same condition as the two I did get.  I'd rather spend $66 total for two VG T206s than over $20 more than that for one VG T206.

That's my Christmas present to myself.  I'm going to pay for those right now and log off from Ebay and not log back in for at least another month.  That's what I do--jump in, buy one or two, and then shut it down for at least a couple of months.  So as not to go crazy and in debt.  I can see why people would get addicted to this and drive themselves bankrupt.

And so that's it.  Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to my readers.  Be good to yourself this holiday season and this New Year's.  Get something inexpensive for yourself, too.  You deserve it!

The Sherry Magie Error T206 Card Sold on Ebay

Photo: The one you see here is valued at $90,000.  Yes.  90 grand.  Or, half the value of a good house.  The super-famous Magie (Magee) error card, from PSA.com.  The card in this picture is not the same exact one in the story below. 


I just watched a Sherry Magie (correct spelling: Magee) error card from the T206 set--one of the most sought-after, rare and expensive cards in the hobby--sell on Ebay.  Just watching, mind you.  Why?  Because it was in PSA 3 VG condition, which means the grading company PSA said it was in Very Good condition, which is an actual grade, and not somebody saying, "Hey, that's in very good condition."  The 3 means that this is the 3rd-lowest grade for a card, which is good if you're a serious, but financially limited, collector like me.  (Most serious T206 collectors are not financially limited.)  So I'm thrilled to get a card in VG condition, but most serious collectors prefer cards at least a good three stages higher, at least Excellent or Excellent-Mint condition.  If I had the money, I'd be the same.  But I don't, so I'm not, and I'm okay with that.

Anyway, Beckett's Graded Card Price Guide says that this exact error card, in this exact graded condition, has sold recently, on average, for $20,000 (Yes, twenty grand for a baseball card of someone you've never heard of.) and that this dollar "value" has gone up since Beckett's last report.  This is not the same as saying that the card is "worth" $20K, but for our purposes here we can think about it that way.

Suffice it to say, I don't (and most of you probably don't) have twenty grand to spend on a baseball card, so I'm just watching this take place.  At about five minutes before the end of the auction, the highest visible bid (if you've bought off Ebay before, you know the highest visible bid is often nowhere near the highest actual bid) is at about $12,000.  Now, this kind of famous card, an error card, a card that every serious T206 collector (including me) wants to have, will often go crazy in the last 10 seconds of bidding, so I'm fully expecting this thing to jump violently and quickly from $12K to $14K (seeing a baseball card jump in seconds by a few grand is a very rare thing to see), and so on, to come close to $20K or, as I expected, to exceed it.

To my utter shock--and, I'm sure, to the seller's worst nightmare--it doesn't.  It sells for $14, 544.  Someone out there just got one of the hobby's most sought-after cards at a savings of over $5,000.  Well, $5,456, to be exact.  Which means the seller, who should have expected the card to sell for something close, if not more than, $20,000, just took a hit of over five grand.

Meanwhile, I just saw a Burleigh Grimes 1933 Goudey, in PSA Good condition, with a book "value" of $50, just sell for $81.26, plus $3.50 shipping.

So some guy got a card at a savings of over $5,000--and he can very easily just re-list it himself sometime and sell it on some Friday or Saturday night, far away from Christmas time when people are buying presents and going broke, for the $20K, and make a nice $5,000 profit for himself by doing absolutely nothing.  Well, besides using a little common sense.  I would never auction off a super-valuable card around Christmastime.  I'd wait until February, or March, when people are depressed and miserable and will overspend.

Anyway, so some guy underspent by five grand and got a world-class card, while someone else vastly overspent on the Grimes card by $33.76, which in its own way is just as shocking.  Overspending by almost $34 on a card that's only worth $50 is an astoundingly financially unfeasible thing to do.

Ebay giveth and Ebay taketh away.  That's the risk you run putting something up for bid.  If you just get a sparse crowd, you're going to lose out, big-time.  The company selling the Magie card was not one of the mega-name card companies I'm familiar with on Ebay.  If it had been, with the established and serious client base those companies have, the card would've sold for closer to the $20K.

Craziness.  But the company's fault for putting it up for bid when it did.  Even if that's what the client asked the company to do (these guys often auction things for someone else, and get a cut of the sale price for doing so; that's called consignment), I can't believe the company wouldn't convince the card owner that he'll lose a few grand selling it now.

If I'd only had the money myself...

I also watched a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #181 PSA 6 EX-MT Condition, sell for $6,100.  Shipping: $20.  (This is the classic card where he's grimacing and looking over his shoulder, his arm on the red Big League Chewing Gum ad.)  The book value: $5,000.  I can't decide if someone overspent by over a grand, or if this is a worthwhile and legitimate value.  A $1,100 profit on a $5K card is a pretty good haul.  This Ruth Goudey card is also one of the hobby's most recognizable cards.  Though not as much as the Napolean Lajoie (who's from RI) 1933 Goudey card.  A Near-Mint one of those recently sold for $60,000.  Yes, $60K for one baseball card.  This company was one of the mega-names, which I think accounted for the profit made by the card.  Sad, but true.  Why the owner of the Magie error card didn't consign it through one of the mega-name companies is a mystery.

Letting Go--1975 Topps George Brett Rookie Card

Photo--George Brett's 1975 Topps Rookie Card.  From amazonaws.com

It's been a very long time, but I have a story about a baseball card:

I've discovered ebay lately, much to my happiness and my chagrin.  Happiness because I now own about 25 1908-1910 T206s, as well as a few 1935 Diamond Stars and a couple of more Goudeys.  (These are all popular, yet usually-expensive, baseball cards.)  I also now own 1 1887 N172 tobacco card in very good condition, and a great Pedro Martinez-autographed, bigger than 18 X 20 photo, in a walnut frame, with "2004 W.S. Winner" after his autograph.  It is one of the most beautiful things I've ever owned.

So why the chagrin?  Well, let me put it this way: I've shut down the account for now, and there are Post-It reminders on my laptop (which I usually type these on) to not bid on anything else for the foreseeable future.  I have become very good at winning bids.  I have a great system.  This is also a good and a bad thing.  The only specific I'll give is that the 1887 card cost $104 and change, and that's a steal for the card.

This was all well and good but for the hit-and-run driver who smashed into the back of my car as I was stopped in front of a side street that led to the parking lot of my job.  I got hit hard, and was dazed for a bit, and got some neck soreness and a fat lip--and just over $4,300 in damages.  The insurance covers most of that, thank God, but a $1,000 deductible still is what it is.  Considering what I spent on ebay, that was the absolute wrong thing at the wrong time.  (Though I admit that I could have been hurt much more than I was.)

So now the second part of the title of this blog entry: Letting Go.  I have to let go of the hopelessness that you feel that someone could smash into your car and drive away, and the woman who was a witness to it--who was, in fact, hogging the whole side street so that I had no choice but to stop to let her out--did not stay for the cop, or at least offer her name and number, or call 911, or anything.  She saw the car that hit me.  She must have seen it drive away, unless she was too busy driving away herself.  So I have to let go of the anger and bitterness of that whole situation.

But I also had to let go of a couple of things I've had for awhile.  I had to sell a couple of things because I needed the cash on hand.  I have some savings, but I have to leave it there in case something else like this happens.  I went through some of my many baseball things--which I don't usually do--and I had to sell a couple of my baseball things--which I never do.  After reviewing what I had, I set aside a second Dustin Pedroia autograph (this one on a baseball; I have a better one on a large autographed World Series photo of him) and about 50 to 75 baseball cards.

Letting go of the Pedroia ball hurt a little bit, but that's why you get duplicate autographs, right?  This one I got at a Picnic in the Park at Fenway a few years ago; the woman I was dating at the time paid for the expensive tickets and took me, and I had the time of my life--as well as many Sox autographs.  (One of my favorite memories was throwing a baseball against the Green Monster for a few hours on a perfect afternoon.  My spot was just to the left of the Jimmy Fund boy in the circle.)  Anyway, the ball (which had George Kottaras's autograph, too, and you can go to the front of the line if you remember him) reminded me of that day, and so I was sort of sorry to see it go.  I have other autographed baseballs from that day, but still.  I sold it for $50.  I would have asked for more, because it sells consistently on ebay for $85-$120.  I asked for $60 and settled for ten dollars less because I sold it to a co-worker, and he's a very nice guy.

Then I called a guy who had come to one of my yard sales this past summer.  We'd talked a bit and he'd mentioned that he liked older baseball cards, of which I have a plentiful supply.  It took me awhile to decide what to part with, and the way the sale went down, I had to part with a card I'd rather not have had to sell, a 1975 Topps George Brett Rookie Card.  This had been given to me when I was about 14, so I've had it for a very long time.  The book value on it was $40 to $80 in Near Mint condition, which my card maybe was, or maybe was just short.  I also sold 99 commons with it, and a 1975 Topps Steve Carlton, Phil Neikro, Hank Aaron, Dave Winfield (book value--$30 to $50), and Robin Yount rookie card (in faded condition).  I got $100 for all of that, which is a pretty fair deal for both the buyer and the seller.  You never get book value for cards.  It's impressive that I even came close.

Anyway, letting go of that Brett card hurt more because I've had it for so very long.  When I looked at it, I remembered the me that I was at that age.  It was also one of the more valuable cards I've had in my collection since I started collecting at age 12 or so.  But I needed the money, and it was all profit, since I didn't pay for any of the 1975 cards.  And I was never particularly fond of the 1975 cards anyway.  They're really hard to get in decent condition because of the color patterns Topps made them with.  And I'm more into pre-1970 cards, anyway.  The 70s, with maybe the exception of the 78s or 79s, were an ugly time for Topps.

Ebay makes letting go a little easier.  If it gets too much for me, I can just buy another one, maybe in better condition, maybe for even less than I just sold it for.  Years ago, it would have been impossible to replace a 1975 Topps George Brett rookie card if you'd sold it.  Now, it's just a mouse click away.

And I feel that letting go, and adapting, is necessary for growth.  And I've never been particularly good at doing that.  Not that keeping that Brett card forever would have been a bad thing if I'd liked it, or if I'd wanted to wait for it to increase in value.  But it probably wouldn't have gone up that much more anytime soon (although all vintage cards increase in value over time, just because they're old), and I never really liked the card in of itself.  I much prefer '51-'53 Bowmans and '52 and '53 Topps, as well as the '44 and '45 cards, and the 1887 N172s and, of course, the T206s.

I'm moving on, and I needed the money, and I like other cards now (and they're more expensive because they're so much older).  I've changed, and not just in my baseball card preferences.  I would not have been able to sell the Brett card 10 years ago, and maybe not even in the last few years.  But that's what you do with free stuff you're not attached to by anything more than nostalgia, right?

It's possibly a short story in of itself: a card given to me for free when I was 14 was sold (with other cards, but the Brett rookie was the creme de la creme of my 75s, and of the 1975 set in general) for about $75 to $80, with all of the other cards selling for about $20 to $25.  It's going to a new home now, and I know that this is inappropriate personification, but I asked the guy to treat it well, and to display it well.  He said he would, though I have my doubts, as he said he has a billion other cards, including many T206s, just hanging out in bureau drawers or something.  (I asked him to call me about the T206s.)  It's fulfilled its purpose for me, as it turns out, and so I hope it's good to someone else, too.

And if it sounds like I have some separation anxiety about it, it's because I do.  But you have to let go, right?  You have to adapt and change?  That's what the hoarders can't do--and I see now that it's possible to be an emotion hoarder, too.

P.S.--If you're interested in buying any baseball cards, send me an email (the address is at the top of this blog page, with all of my other associations) or place a comment, and I'll get back.  Let me know what you need, and if I've got it, we can talk.  The T206s and the 1887 card are not for sale.