Month: August 2017

eBay – 1961 Topps Ron Santo Rookie Card

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I made the mistake of looking at older cards on eBay the other day. I’ve always wanted to get some older Cubs cards and I figured Ron Santo would be a good place to start. I stumbled across his 1961 Topps rookie card and put a bid of $16 on it. The following morning I noticed it was about to end so I kept an eye on it. With about a minute and a half to go in the auction, someone bid $20 on it. I bumped up my bid to $20.50 and ended up winning it! Shipping was another $2.95. That is currently the most money I’ve spent on one card.

It was packed pretty well, but the seller used a tad too much tape on the outside package as well as the cardboard surrounding the card. I carefully cut the tape with a box cutter and thankfully didn’t hurt the card. The card came in a card saver type soft sleeve. I removed the card and put it in a penny sleeve inside of a top loader.

As for the card itself, the corners and edges are in really good shape. There is a noticeable horizontal line running across the front of the card from his hands to the right edge of the card. It doesn’t appear to be a fold but something has left a mark. The centering is definitely off-center, but that doesn’t bother me as much as the pesky line on the photo. The seller had it marked as near-mint which seems about right all things considered.

I’m pretty happy finally having a Ron Santo card especially since this is his rookie card. Hopefully the other cards will be a little cheaper as they go up in years. 🙂

Cards in this order: 1961 Topps Ron Santo RC #35

eBay – Sammy Sosa 50-card lot

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I ran across a Sammy Sosa 50 card lot on eBay the other day. I put a bid of $5.50 on it just for kicks as it had not only rookie cards but many cards I don’t have in my collection. I had no thoughts I’d actually win the auction but darn it if I wasn’t the highest bidder. Shipping was another $5, but I was getting 50 cards so not a bad deal.

They arrived today in a small bubble mailer with 2 hard shell plastic cases. I don’t mind duplicates of some cards, especially rookie cards. I was a bit frustrated by the condition of some of the cards. There was a decent amount of corner damage on the Topps and Bowman rookie cards. There were 9 – 1990 Bowman RCs and every darn one of them has multiple corners that are damaged. I know I could buy a lot these RCs PSA 10 graded for around $10-$25, but I’m sticking to raw cards for now.

The seller never stated the condition of the cards nor did I ask, so it’s not worth complaining about. There are still a lot of cards in better shape that came in the package. The only Sosa rookie cards I need now are the Leaf and O-Pee-Chee. (I suppose a nice mint Bowman would be nice since these aren’t very good!) One card I wanted that I didn’t know would be in the lot was the 1990 Star Charlotte Rangers card. Not only did I get 1, but I got 6 of them and most are in decent shape.

Here’s a few of the other cards that came in the package.

For some reason I really like these Sportflix/Sportflics cards that show different images as you tilt the card. (hard to capture on camera)

This final card is a 2004 Playoff Honors Prime Signature Insert #21. It has serial #2197/2500. That’s the only Sosa card I have that has a serial #. Oddly, despite it being called a signature card there is no signature. Still nice to have a ‘limited’ card though.

Here’s the full list of cards I got.

6 – 1990 Star Sammy Sosa #61 Charlotte Rangers
1 – 1990 Donruss Sammy Sosa #489 RC
3 – 1990 Topps Sammy Sosa #692 RC
9 – 1990 Bowman Sammy Sosa #312 RC
3 – 1990 Fleer Sammy Sosa #548 RC
3 – 1990 Score Sammy Sosa #558 RC
2 – 1990 Upper Deck Sammy Sosa #17 RC
1 – 1990 Score Sammy Sosa Rising Stars #35
1 – 1990 Sportflics Sammy Sosa #81
1 – 1991 Upper Deck Sammy Sosa #265
1 – 1993 Flair Sammy Sosa #22
1 – 1994 Sportflics Sammy Sosa Movers #MM7
1 – 1995 Stadium Club Sammy Sosa Extreme Corps #497
3 – 1996 Sportflix Sammy Sosa UC3 #104
1 – 1997 Upper Deck Predictor Sammy Sosa P9
1 – 1998 Pacific Invincible Team Checklist #5 Sosa/Grace/Sandberg/J. Gonzalez
1 – 1998 Topps Gold Label Class 1 Sammy Sosa #83
1 – 1999 Fleer Tradition Going Yard Sammy Sosa #13 (fold out card)
1 – 1999 Topps Sammy Sosa HR 39 #461
1 – 1999 Upper Deck MVP Power Surge Sammy Sosa #P2
1 – 2000 Bowman’s Best Sammy Sosa Best Performers #90
1 – 2000 Metal Heavy Metal Sammy Sosa #GS1
1 – 2000 Paramount Double Vision #23
1 – 2001 Fleer Tradition Diamond Tributes Sammy Sosa #DT21
1 – 2001 Upper Deck Ovation Superstar Theatre Sammy Sosa #ST6
1 – 2004 Leather and Lumber Sammy Sosa #34
1 – 2004 Playoff Honors Prime Signature Insert Sammy Sosa #21 #2197/2500
1 – 2005 Throwback Threads Generations Duke Snider/Reggie Jackson/Sammy Sosa #G1

eBay – Kris Bryant Rookie Cards

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Sometimes I spend a long time just browsing eBay for various cards to get an idea what is out there and how much things are. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been trying to acquire some Kris Bryant rookie cards. However, I have very few dollars to allocate towards the expensive autographed cards right now. I’m happy trying to acquire the base cards and whatever is affordable to me.

One of the cards I’ve wanted the most is the 2015 Topps #616 Kris Bryant card. They seem to average around $13-$20 on eBay in raw form. I put in a search for it and they seemed about the same price. I came back to it a little later and a new listing popped up. It said $4.99 buy it now with free shipping. Say what? Obviously I thought it was too good to be true, so I looked at the photo and description and it seemed to be in great condition. Since it was a new listing, I pulled the trigger before anyone else snagged it up. There’s no way it would be around very long!

I was super excited to have purchased it for such a great deal. Just for kicks, I looked at the seller’s other listings in case there was another good deal to be had. I noticed there was a new listing for a different card in there so I figured this person was online right now adding items. I reloaded a few minutes later and more cards appeared. All of a sudden, there were 3 more Kris Bryant cards that I wanted that popped up for a great price! I added them to my cart and bought them ASAP!

Here’s what I ended up with:

2015 Topps Kris Bryant RC #616
2015 Topps Update Kris Bryant Home Run Derby RC #US78
2015 Topps Update Kris Bryant All Star Game RC #US242
2015 Topps Update Kris Bryant Rookie Debut #US283

Now even though the #US283 card says RC on it, I think it’s considered more of a rookie debut and not an official rookie card. However, it’s one of my favorites because of the background of clouds and blue sky.

The cards arrived a day early and I was quite impressed with the packaging. A bubble mailer was used for the outside package. Inside the package I found the cards wrapped in a piece of cardboard taped with handles for easy opening. After I opened the cardboard, the cards were in a plain-white envelope. Inside I found 4 cards in penny sleeves that were tucked away in a 138pt top loader nicely sealed with a team bag. They even wrote thank you on the envelope! Very well done and I hope to do business again with them in the future should they have more Bryant or other Cubs cards that I am interested in.