Opinions needed

frankhardy · July 24, 2006 8:45AM

Back a few weeks ago, I bought a very large Albert Pujols rookie card lot on Ebay. Let's just say that I paid over 4 digits for the lot. The transaction went very well. I received the cards in about 3 or 4 days. As I looked throught the cards, I was not exactly overwhelmed by the condition, but all in all, they were ok. I sent off 19 of the cards to PSA. I just got the cards back today. I received one PSA 10 among many 9's, and a few 8's. Well, one of the cards came back trimmed. Sure enough, I compared it to other cards, and it is definitely short from side to side. I will admit that it was not one of his most expensive rookie cards. It was a Rookie Diamond King with a high BV of $50.

Here is where I need opinions. I have not left feedback on the transaction yet. What would y'all do. I am not thinking about leaving him a negative. I don't think that would be fair. But, I did receive a trimmed card. I know that this card is a small percentage of the entire lot, but it is still a pretty decent card. If I would have been overwhelmed with the condition of the rest of the cards, I would just let it go. Since I wasn't, I am just not sure what to do.

XanaduNow · July 24, 2006 8:50AM

Have you contacted the seller and told him/her about it? I'd do that first and see what they have to say about the situation. Depending on how they respond I think will help you in determining what your next course of action is. Either way, I think right now they deserve the benefit of the doubt and should be given a chance to rectify the situation somehow.

Just my $0.02

lawnmowerman · July 24, 2006 8:51AM

Email him, let him know you know it was trimmed. Come to some sort of agrreement on a $ figure for the card. Then ask for the amount refunded to your paypal account.

frankhardy · July 24, 2006 8:53AM

I just emailed him letting him know of the situation. I just asked if he had any suggestions about how we could solve the problem.

CDsNuts · July 24, 2006 9:01AM

Judging from the transaction, he probably wasn't the one that trimmed it and he likely didn't know it was trimmed. Otherwise, more of the cards would have been trimmed. If he doesn't want to do anything about it, I really wouldn't get too upset since it seems like you got a lot of good cards at a fair price.

Lee

Stone193 · July 24, 2006 9:06AM

frank

This is a hard one?

I agree, that the card is minor. Do you have a link to the auction.

Was there misrepresentation? Were they ALL listed as super duper minty fresh guaranteed 10s?

With the results of the PSA sub - do you feel like you got value?

If not - then I agree - contact the seller and see what they say.
Good luck
mike

slatsme · July 24, 2006 9:20AM

Off topic, yet on topic...How can you guys tell if a card his been trimmed, is at that obvious? Merely asking b/c I wouldn't be able to tell a trimmed card from another.

RichG · July 24, 2006 9:53AM

I agree with CD nuts. More than likely he wasn't the one that did the trimming. Because of this, the seller might even think that you were the one that trimmed it in hopes of getting a better grade. I could see myself thinking that if I was the seller and some buyer emailed me claiming that the card I sent him was trimmed.
Rich

baseballfanatic · July 24, 2006 9:57AM

10 and 9's and you are not overwhelmed with the condition? Fresh pack pulled cards are now garnering 8's! You wait until the cards come back from PSA to leave feedback? Wow............

RichG · July 24, 2006 10:09AM

baseball fanatic is right, and I missed the fact that you waited to receive the cards from psa before leaving feedback for the seller. If condition is that important to you, you should not have been so cheap and bought the cards already graded.
Rich

MorrellMan · July 24, 2006 11:34AM

Shane - you must be in red heaven with Pujols now. Good for you with the lot of cards you picked up.
Four figures could be anywhere from a grand to ten grand. What percentage of the cards were the 18 you sent in? I have to agree that mostly 9s on a raw card purchase, even modern, represents a pretty nice lot.

The issue of the trimmed card, though, seems to be why you brought this to post - my opinion is that feedback isn't a solution. Sounds like you did exactly the right thing in sending him a cordial message informing him of the card that was rejected. There are a lot of variables in the way you approach this, and I don't know enough about how the deal was negotiated to address that. Good luck.

Edited to add: the responsible thing is to let the seller know about the card. It's up to him what he feels is the right thing to do. I would certainly not be demanding anything, nor do I hear in any of your posts that you are demanding anything. The seller just needs to be informed, and personally, I would wait to see what the seller chooses to do. I've had sellers just ignore my emails when I inform them that I was less than completely satisfied, and I've had sellers try to make some sort of reparation. In either case, I was not at all wishing to return the cards, but was just informing the seller of how the deal ended up for me. I don't know enough about modern cards, but I believe the term from PSA is "evid of trim" which is not the same as saying somebody took scissors to the card. Is this an issue that is known to have some short cards?

2dueces · July 24, 2006 11:49AM

I got something for you to think about. What if the seller says send them all back...
Are you willing to give up all the 10's and 9's for a $50 card? If you paided 4 figures for
Albert Pujols rookie cards and got 10's and 9's I would be safe to say that selling these
cards individually would bring a pretty nice profit. Am I wrong? To me it sounds like you got a
pretty sweet deal that you should be happy with. JMO.

Eddo33 · July 24, 2006 12:14PM

<< <i>I got something for you to think about. What if the seller says send them all back...
Are you willing to give up all the 10's and 9's for a $50 card? If you paided 4 figures for
Albert Pujols rookie cards and got 10's and 9's I would be safe to say that selling these
cards individually would bring a pretty nice profit. Am I wrong? To me it sounds like you got a
pretty sweet deal that you should be happy with. JMO. >>

Eddo33 · July 24, 2006 12:20PM

I agree with 2 Dueces. You shurley made out by getting the cards graded. The seller may want you to send the whole lot back if you got it for a good deal and then what........................ I know its easy for us to say because we didn't spend 4 figures and too be honest I would be pissed to, but it sounds like you made out so I would let it go and watch Pujols lead the Card's to the world series and take home another MVP award.

Eddie K

storm888 · July 24, 2006 12:25PM

"I agree with CD nuts. More than likely he wasn't the one that did the trimming.
Because of this, the seller might even think that you were the one that trimmed
it in hopes of getting a better grade. I could see myself thinking that if I was the
seller and some buyer emailed me claiming that the card I sent him was trimmed."

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Rich:

I love the way you think !!!

storm

Southerncards2 · July 24, 2006 1:38PM

Just tell him you work at sgc because you dont mess around with people who work at sgc becasue they RULE!!

frankhardy · July 24, 2006 11:15PM

When I emailed him, I was very cordial and told him that I did not think that the he actually did the trimming.

As far as leaving feedback after getting them back from PSA - believe it or not, that was not intentional. I always leave a bunch of feedback at once. Feel free to bash me on that one. Even though I ALWAYS leave feedback, I don't always do it promptly.

As far as the grades, here they are. Now, that I actually counted them up, I made them sound better (in my original post) than they actually were.

1 06427979 2001 TOPPS TRADED T247 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 8
1 06427980 2001 TOPPS TRADED T247 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 7
1 06427981 2001 TOPPS TRADED T247 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 8
2 06427982 2001 TOPPS CHR. TRADED T247 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 9
3 06427983 2001 FLEER 451 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 10
3 06427984 2001 FLEER 451 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 9
4 06427985 2001 DONRUSS ROOKIE R97 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 8
4 06427986 2001 DONRUSS ROOKIE R97 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 9
5 06427987 2001 UPPER DECK 295 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 9
5 06427988 2001 UPPER DECK 295 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 8
5 06427989 2001 UPPER DECK 295 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 9
5 06427990 2001 UPPER DECK 295 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 8
6 06427991 2001 TOPPS STARS 198 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 9
7 06427992 2001 DONRUSS RDK-3 ALBERT PUJOLS ROOKIE DIAMOND KINGS Not Holdered, Did not meet Minimum Size Requirements
8 06427993 2001 TOPPS GALLERY 135 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 9
8 06427994 2001 TOPPS GALLERY 135 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 9
9 06427995 2001 BOWMAN 264 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 8
9 06427996 2001 BOWMAN 264 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 8
9 06427997 2001 BOWMAN 264 ALBERT PUJOLS N/A 8

That comes to 1 PSA 10, 8 PSA 9, 8 PSA 8, 1 PSA 7, and 1 not holdered.

Now, do you see why I wasn't overwhelmed. Again, I was satisfied, but by no means overjoyed.

I forgot to mention also that there were 6 of the cards in the 25 card lot that I didn't even send in. They would have gotten 7's probably.

I paid $1450 for the lot. I watch a lot of Pujols stuff. Back before he was injured, if I paid that price then, I could have made real good money. Right now, he has cooled off a little, and I would probably break even. I plan on keeping them for a little while, anyway.

lostdart58 · July 24, 2006 11:57PM

<< <i>Off topic, yet on topic...How can you guys tell if a card his been trimmed, is at that obvious? Merely asking b/c I wouldn't be able to tell a trimmed card from another. >>

Reading your query made me chuckle........................................I am visiting my sisiter in Albany NY...........we went into a small cardshop yesterday.....there were two raw Nolan Ryan rookie cards in less then steller conditions...........I was explaining some facts to my sisiter about the hobby and pointed out the two Ryan cards to her saying that they had been trimmed. She ALSO asked me how I knew they were trimmed..............................Now the fact is I have never seen before yesterday a Ryan rookie card in person since I was a kid. ( I probably owned one or more back then)...........................but I have seen enough of the card on the web, and ebay etc. to know that these cards were both trimmed.

rbeaton · July 24, 2006 11:57PM

<< <i>7 06427992 2001 DONRUSS RDK-3 ALBERT PUJOLS ROOKIE DIAMOND KINGS Not Holdered, Did not meet Minimum Size Requirements
>>

The above does not mean that the card was trimmed, only that it was factory cut too small. If PSA thought it was trimmed it would say:
Not Holdered, Evidence of Trimming.

Robert

muchuckwagon · July 25, 2006 12:11AM

There is a big difference between "Not Holdered, Did not meet Minimum Size Requirements" and "Not Holdered, Evidence of Trimming".

Based on this, I don't feel that the seller should be responsible for refunding any of your purchase.

frankhardy · July 25, 2006 12:21AM

Really? I did not know that. I thought that it meant the same thing as trimming.

I do know that when I compared the card to others, it was VERY short on the side. So, are you saying that it could have came from the factory that short on the side? If that is the case, then y'all are right. I will make the correction with the seller.

fdnyladder7 · July 25, 2006 12:25AM

Whether or not the seller knew it the fact remains. It's ungradeable thus worthless. Any half-decent seller would make partial restitution for this one flaw. ESPECIALLY with the probability of a Neg looming. It would be foolish otherwise.

*It was wise of you to forego feedback til grades popped. I learned this a long while back after getting stung.

RichG · July 25, 2006 1:01AM

fdny:
Like i said earlier, if I'm the seller I'm going to honestly consider the fact that the buyer was the one who actually trimmed the card in an attempt to get a better grade. Plus, I would also have my bullet to use with regard to feedback. As far as I'm concerned, I'll only offer a refund if the item gets damaged or lost during shipping.
Rich

Kurtman9 · July 25, 2006 1:15AM

<< <i>Really? I did not know that. I thought that it meant the same thing as trimming.

I do know that when I compared the card to others, it was VERY short on the side. So, are you saying that it could have came from the factory that short on the side? If that is the case, then y'all are right. I will make the correction with the seller. >>

I don't know about modern, but vintage cards, especially from presentation sets, varied in size. Don Johnson (mariner) knows quite a bit about that subject as he owns a 1963 Topps presentation set and has submitted hundreds of those to PSA. If PSA said did not meet min size requirement, they're not saying it's trimmed, just too small to holder. PSA can tell the difference with their highly trained experts, just ask BigHurt.

Opinions needed

Comments