Shout Out to Shoebox Cards!

lamontcarter

At the suggestion of a few guys over on the vintage forum I decided to take a stab at a 41 Play Ball set. I was at the Fort Washington show tonight and picked up a nice looking raw common. At the end of the night after looking through piles of g-vg Play Balls, I stopped by Shoe Box's booth and noticed they had a nice raw #21 "Charlie" Keller. I picked up for $65 (I think it has a shot at a 7) and as I was putting it in my bag, I pulled the other card out and made a quick comment to the effect of "I was able to find one other decent one tonight." As I was putting it back in my bag the guy (not sure which of the guys is Wayne Varner) said let me see that. I handed it to him and he asked to also see the card he just sold me. He puts the two together and sure enough the one I had bought earlier in the night was about an 1/8th of an inch shorter top to bottom. Definitely Trimmed! I took the first card back to the guy I bought it from and showed it to him compared to the one I just bought from Shoebox. He concurred that it was trimmed, was apologetic and gave me my money back.

Nothing exciting I know, but a thank you to Shoebox cards for helping me out.

Take care

Scott

alohaet

Nice story. I have bought cards from Shoebox and never had a problem. But again I only buy graded cards.

Ed

lamontcarter

Thanks Ed. I'm with you regarding buying only graded cards as well but I have my 6 free submissions to use up from my membership renewal so I decided to try some raw. Lesson learned tonight, if I go back on Sunday I'll make sure I bring the card I bought from Shoebox with me!

Thanks.

Scott

Griffins

Shoebox is Wayne and Bill. Bill is in a wheelchair and has strawberry blond hair. Easy to tell the difference between them. Both are two of the nicest guys around.
About 2 years ago at the SF Labor day show I handed Wayne my want list. He looked at it for a minute and then said he'd seen one of the cards on another dealers table. On a Saturday morning he walked away from his booth and walked up and down the aisles with me until he found the seller with the card I needed (a '57 Bakep error). I thanked him, bought the card, and then went back to Wayne's table. He wouldn't accept as much as a cup of coffee for his efforts, a thank you was enough.
Earlier this year I started on a Sport Kings set in PSA 5. Shoebox had one they graded as Ex, and after talking to Bill on the phone I bought it. Totally messed up my 5.0 average when the card came back a PSA 7.
Great guys, I strongly recommend getting on their mailing list. Nicest catalog, great service, and a class act all around.

Scott- great choice in sets- you'll enjoy this one a lot.

lamontcarter

Griffins
I was talking to Wayne then. Agreed, a very nice man. He actually offered to go help me find the dealer I bought the card from. I told him I appreciated the offer but that he had done enough already as I didn't want him to be involved in case the guy gave me a problem. Thankfully it didn't happen.

Thanks for the suggestion on the set. It's a really nice set and I'm excited about the undertaking. Looking at ebay, SMR seems to be a little off even in lower grades as evidenced by:

Greenberg

SMR is $145

Stone193

Nice story Scott
I'm on the other end of the world and know only what I get on ebay now but it's nice to have a good show to attend and get that kind of help.

Best story in a long time!
Thanx for sharing
mike

lamontcarter

Thanks Mike
Now that I think about it I remember a dealer who had 5 or so board games from the 1950's and 60's on a shelf behind his table. I'm not sure if any/all were baseball related. i know you collect them so if I head back on Sunday which I think I will, I'll grab a card from the guy and shoot you a PM.

Regards,

Scott

Griffins

Greenberg is going nuts right now on a lot of issues due to an influx of Jewish collectors- it's a bit of an abberation and you should be able to wait it out.

lamontcarter

Thanks Griffins. I noticed that the seller had "Jewish" in the title of the auction above as well as in another one of his 41 Play Balls. I'll put that one on the backburner.

Scott