i have been in dire need of a feel-good story for quite sometime due to what has been transpiring in the hobby. well, it finally went down this week -- and not a moment too soon. verbosity is a downfall of mine when i get rolling, so apologies in advance. but this story includes a friend/fellow CU member, so it's worth sticking around for.
Jordan Spieth has been my favorite modern-day golfer since 2013 when he burst onto the tour scene by winning his first tournament at 19 years of age. since then i've been fortunate to see him play a number of times in the flesh and acquire his John Hancock multiple times along the way. in doing so, i quickly found myself gravitating toward his style on and away from the course.
so when it finally came time for his face to appear on cardboard, i was ready to embark. needless to say, his master set is an interesting one. there are only 8 cards, with over half of them depicting him in a throwing motion with a baseball in hand. why, you ask? sadly, there hasn't been a golf release since 2014. as such, the only recognized cards of his come from SIFK sheets, a Beckett cover card, and the 2016 Topps baseball(!) set.
now for the -- to the best of my ability -- abridged version of the story.
you'd think 8 cards would be easy to knock out. not so much. the absolute bear -- and my personal holy grail -- was a /5 red refractor. for what seemed like an eternity, the pop report stagnantly read as follows: two 10s, one 9, two unaccounted for. one dime and the nine were housed in collections of competitors on the set registry. so when i say i had been waiting over two years for a card to finish my set, i literally mean one specific piece of cardboard. what was going to happen first, the surfacing of this exact card or me pushing up daisies? that became a legit question as time passed.
then, it happened.
the good news: the PSA 10 red hit the open market. the bad news: my good friend.......fellow CU member......fellow Spieth collector........Kyle, aka LarkinCollector........caught it before i did, thus i instantly became torn. i'll never forget the morning he brought it to my attention via text. i quickly offered anything from my collection if he'd let me have at it, but he wanted no part of that. he simply gave me the green light, which came as no surprise.
so as i painstakingly strategized, i did so with mixed emotions. i was preparing to snipe the hell out of this card, but my amigo was on the verge of experiencing a similar torture and that did not sit well with me.
so the auction ended. i won. not only did i win, but i did so to the tune of ~6.5% of my snipe. i had every reason to be the happiest i've been since rejoining the hobby, but i wasn't quite there for the most glaring reason.
then, it happened.
wait, what happened? didn't it already happen?
i received an email the very next morning.
the sender of this email was a guy named Steven Lambert. it came through the PSA registry system, and i knew exactly who he was. he was -- at the time -- residing in the #1 spot on the Spieth master. i really had no idea what he was going to say to me, but i didn't waste time finding out.
paraphrasing & condensing................."i retired my Spieth set and just sold one of my two PSA 10 red refractors last night. i see you need one. are you interested?"
complete and utter disbelief.
i immediately informed him that i was the winner of his red, and that i had someone he needed to contact for the other. hours later, a deal was consummated for his 2nd red unicorn. the new owner: Kyle. truthfully, i was more ecstatic that morning than i was the night before when i won my card. at long last, juju of the best possible kind.
and at long last, the card that completed my set and vaulted me to the top spot:
I picked these up in the last couple weeks. The 1969 All Stars are upgrades to the ones in my set. All others are new additions to sets I'm working on. Most were bought during the recent eBay Bucks promotions
James
@galaxy27 said:
i immediately informed him that i was the winner of his red, and that i had someone he needed to contact for the other. hours later, a deal was consummated for his 2nd red unicorn. the new owner: Kyle. truthfully, i was more ecstatic that morning than i was the night before when i won my card. at long last, juju of the best possible kind.
I promise to keep my oratory a bit more brief ...
There really isn't a whole lot else left to tell, I already had my eye on another whale when this card popped up for auction, knew I couldn't swing both, and that it was a Grail card for @galaxy27. So it was an easy decision for me to bow out given I still had a couple of the more common colored parallels to go after for my Spieth run and I expected the Red to go for 3-5x what it did.
But Tuesday morning, when I get a text from Stephen saying 'sir i received an email today that you might be interested in', my mind was racing as I texted back my intrigue. First of all, no one addresses me as 'sir' and most certainly not any of my buddies in the collecting community, so I knew it was serious. In my email inbox a few minutes later was a forward, innocuously titled 'Spieth card' with no commentary and my jaw dropped when I read it. A few text and emails later, I didn't even need to negotiate as the seller offered me the other for nearly 15% less than what the Stephen's sold for. I responded with my address and said I'd send Paypal immediately. So, of course, for the first time I can recall, there were issues with Paypal that evening, no matter what browser or device I tried I kept getting a 'Server is starting' error message when trying to log in. Finally after 20-30 minutes, right before I needed to leave for a few hours, it worked, got tracking info the next morning, and it arrived today.
Here's 20% more of the entire production run and the other half of the PSA graded 10 population ...
PS: I offered to balance out our purchase prices with the discount given for mine and was immediately shot down.
Not a card purchase but I won't be buying cards for several months. For my 25th wedding anniversary this coming Tuesday. I'm replacing my wife's original set.
I hope me and mine make it there !! Approaching 20 years myself- wife loves her original rings so trip overseas is what she wants And as Ramses once said- " So let it be written, so let it be done"
Last couple of scans then I gotta sleep before work tonite
Teks are amazingly easy IF you spend time looking at them to gem. That's IF you make the time
I've perfected the "rush job" technique and Mint 9's are the punishment
Don't get me wrong- I went 5 for 7 on this sub for Gem 10's on Tek- just missed easy flaws
I'll show the gems when I get that far
,
,
,
@jfkheat said:
I picked these up in the last couple weeks. The 1969 All Stars are upgrades to the ones in my set. All others are new additions to sets I'm working on. Most were bought during the recent eBay Bucks promotions
James
Oh my goodness. That Killebrew is a blazer! Me want!
The Worst 79T Box I've ever seen - guy paid $2000 at the BBCEx at the National and then got people to "buy in" a pack per person. I didn't see what he charged - my guess? Maybe 75 to 80 per pack?
@galaxy27 said:
i have been in dire need of a feel-good story for quite sometime due to what has been transpiring in the hobby. well, it finally went down this week -- and not a moment too soon. verbosity is a downfall of mine when i get rolling, so apologies in advance. but this story includes a friend/fellow CU member, so it's worth sticking around for.
Jordan Spieth has been my favorite modern-day golfer since 2013 when he burst onto the tour scene by winning his first tournament at 19 years of age. since then i've been fortunate to see him play a number of times in the flesh and acquire his John Hancock multiple times along the way. in doing so, i quickly found myself gravitating toward his style on and away from the course.
so when it finally came time for his face to appear on cardboard, i was ready to embark. needless to say, his master set is an interesting one. there are only 8 cards, with over half of them depicting him in a throwing motion with a baseball in hand. why, you ask? sadly, there hasn't been a golf release since 2014. as such, the only recognized cards of his come from SIFK sheets, a Beckett cover card, and the 2016 Topps baseball(!) set.
now for the -- to the best of my ability -- abridged version of the story.
you'd think 8 cards would be easy to knock out. not so much. the absolute bear -- and my personal holy grail -- was a /5 red refractor. for what seemed like an eternity, the pop report stagnantly read as follows: two 10s, one 9, two unaccounted for. one dime and the nine were housed in collections of competitors on the set registry. so when i say i had been waiting over two years for a card to finish my set, i literally mean one specific piece of cardboard. what was going to happen first, the surfacing of this exact card or me pushing up daisies? that became a legit question as time passed.
then, it happened.
the good news: the PSA 10 red hit the open market. the bad news: my good friend.......fellow CU member......fellow Spieth collector........Kyle, aka LarkinCollector........caught it before i did, thus i instantly became torn. i'll never forget the morning he brought it to my attention via text. i quickly offered anything from my collection if he'd let me have at it, but he wanted no part of that. he simply gave me the green light, which came as no surprise.
so as i painstakingly strategized, i did so with mixed emotions. i was preparing to snipe the hell out of this card, but my amigo was on the verge of experiencing a similar torture and that did not sit well with me.
so the auction ended. i won. not only did i win, but i did so to the tune of ~6.5% of my snipe. i had every reason to be the happiest i've been since rejoining the hobby, but i wasn't quite there for the most glaring reason.
then, it happened.
wait, what happened? didn't it already happen?
i received an email the very next morning.
the sender of this email was a guy named Steven Lambert. it came through the PSA registry system, and i knew exactly who he was. he was -- at the time -- residing in the #1 spot on the Spieth master. i really had no idea what he was going to say to me, but i didn't waste time finding out.
paraphrasing & condensing................."i retired my Spieth set and just sold one of my two PSA 10 red refractors last night. i see you need one. are you interested?"
complete and utter disbelief.
i immediately informed him that i was the winner of his red, and that i had someone he needed to contact for the other. hours later, a deal was consummated for his 2nd red unicorn. the new owner: Kyle. truthfully, i was more ecstatic that morning than i was the night before when i won my card. at long last, juju of the best possible kind.
and at long last, the card that completed my set and vaulted me to the top spot:
Great read for sure that involves some great board members. Thanks for posting Stephen.
@NGS428 said:
With the recent news in the hobby, I have come to enjoy something other than a 10 much more. Recent pickups below!
Griffey basic set is really the only set I've been finicky about over needing 10s for everything. I think much like you I'm re-evaluating. Love that 1998 Donruss.
@NGS428 said:
With the recent news in the hobby, I have come to enjoy something other than a 10 much more. Recent pickups below!
Griffey basic set is really the only set I've been finicky about over needing 10s for everything. I think much like you I'm re-evaluating. Love that 1998 donruss.
Thanks! Yes, the Donruss looked as good as any 10’s I have seen. The 03 Ultra was $5 from the same seller as the others (combined shipping 🙂) so I figured at only 3 higher I should snap it up and go from there.
I have always felt a nice 9 is a much better value than a 10. It’s tough to abandon that “registry mindset” but if you just focus on finding the nicest cards you can save a lot of money that way.
@NGS428 said:
With the recent news in the hobby, I have come to enjoy something other than a 10 much more. Recent pickups below!
Griffey basic set is really the only set I've been finicky about over needing 10s for everything. I think much like you I'm re-evaluating. Love that 1998 Donruss.
I love the Griffey pickups. I got these back on a recent sub something a little different.
I love the Griffey pickups. I got these back on a recent sub something a little different.
>
If you come across any Clemens or Garciaparra give a holler - SLUP items are one of my favorite 90's non mainstream issues I like card collecting- always looking for more
,
,
,
,
These are the last of the Mint 9 that came back. Took me a full 2 minutes of looking at Nomar to see where the issue was. For me that's an eternity. Minor surface issue above the N and on the right edge near it prevented a Gem 10 . The Mac is the type of series where Gem 10 will be difficult. Horrible cuts , rough edges and damaged corners out of sealed packages are common. These were sold on QVC back then and you can imagine the shipping issues the sealed boxes went thru. Happy with the Mint 9 trying to get the series in all Mint 10 /Gem 10 grades.
,
,
,
,
I'll be starting on scanning all my Gem Mint 10 that came back as well as an upcoming box break ( 2007 Finest master box)
The card is from the Mitcham Foods Footballers set published in 1956. When I saw the photo on eBay I was shocked at the corners and the edge you mentioned is exactly what made me suspicious.
Condition just seems to good to be true for a card that is over sixty years old.
Comments
Very nice, I've got that set as part of my 2001 70s Decade master.
if any wish to see any of the rest of the stack ill scan some more in the morning
Bought this Campy for the centering and the colors are great.
Bought a series 2 hanger box and got this.
I collect hall of fame rookie cards, https://www.instagram.com/stwainfan/
Dipping back to the minors for this one...
Added to my 1987-1989 Set: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/showcase/album/4007
Nic
Guides Authored - Graded Card Scanning Guide PDF | History of the PSA Label PDF
Great pickup! Such a tough card with the blue border. This is a beautiful example.
Currently Collecting:
Flickr: https://flickr.com/gp/184724292@N07/686763
Picked this Sweetness up in a recent buy.
Thanks! It looks even better in hand. New case but there are a few marks on it.
Nic
Guides Authored - Graded Card Scanning Guide PDF | History of the PSA Label PDF
Another Yadi 10 for my rookie set!
Nice Griffey and that Butkus & Sweetness follow ups can't be beat either
From some freebie Panini VIP packs sent to me by a friend. Hard to tell but its the Neon Green jersey
,
,
,
,
,
i have been in dire need of a feel-good story for quite sometime due to what has been transpiring in the hobby. well, it finally went down this week -- and not a moment too soon. verbosity is a downfall of mine when i get rolling, so apologies in advance. but this story includes a friend/fellow CU member, so it's worth sticking around for.
Jordan Spieth has been my favorite modern-day golfer since 2013 when he burst onto the tour scene by winning his first tournament at 19 years of age. since then i've been fortunate to see him play a number of times in the flesh and acquire his John Hancock multiple times along the way. in doing so, i quickly found myself gravitating toward his style on and away from the course.
so when it finally came time for his face to appear on cardboard, i was ready to embark. needless to say, his master set is an interesting one. there are only 8 cards, with over half of them depicting him in a throwing motion with a baseball in hand. why, you ask? sadly, there hasn't been a golf release since 2014. as such, the only recognized cards of his come from SIFK sheets, a Beckett cover card, and the 2016 Topps baseball(!) set.
now for the -- to the best of my ability -- abridged version of the story.
you'd think 8 cards would be easy to knock out. not so much. the absolute bear -- and my personal holy grail -- was a /5 red refractor. for what seemed like an eternity, the pop report stagnantly read as follows: two 10s, one 9, two unaccounted for. one dime and the nine were housed in collections of competitors on the set registry. so when i say i had been waiting over two years for a card to finish my set, i literally mean one specific piece of cardboard. what was going to happen first, the surfacing of this exact card or me pushing up daisies? that became a legit question as time passed.
then, it happened.
the good news: the PSA 10 red hit the open market. the bad news: my good friend.......fellow CU member......fellow Spieth collector........Kyle, aka LarkinCollector........caught it before i did, thus i instantly became torn. i'll never forget the morning he brought it to my attention via text. i quickly offered anything from my collection if he'd let me have at it, but he wanted no part of that. he simply gave me the green light, which came as no surprise.
so as i painstakingly strategized, i did so with mixed emotions. i was preparing to snipe the hell out of this card, but my amigo was on the verge of experiencing a similar torture and that did not sit well with me.
so the auction ended. i won. not only did i win, but i did so to the tune of ~6.5% of my snipe. i had every reason to be the happiest i've been since rejoining the hobby, but i wasn't quite there for the most glaring reason.
then, it happened.
wait, what happened? didn't it already happen?
i received an email the very next morning.
the sender of this email was a guy named Steven Lambert. it came through the PSA registry system, and i knew exactly who he was. he was -- at the time -- residing in the #1 spot on the Spieth master. i really had no idea what he was going to say to me, but i didn't waste time finding out.
paraphrasing & condensing................."i retired my Spieth set and just sold one of my two PSA 10 red refractors last night. i see you need one. are you interested?"
complete and utter disbelief.
i immediately informed him that i was the winner of his red, and that i had someone he needed to contact for the other. hours later, a deal was consummated for his 2nd red unicorn. the new owner: Kyle. truthfully, i was more ecstatic that morning than i was the night before when i won my card. at long last, juju of the best possible kind.
and at long last, the card that completed my set and vaulted me to the top spot:
Stephen, what a great story and what a great card! Congrats on the #1 spot. Good to see Jason wearing the right jersey!
Yaz Master Set
#1 Gino Cappelletti master set
#1 John Hannah master set
Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
Hiya Stephen
To be honest, I think this story deserved its own thread.
Really good fortune, nice story and glad it worked out for the both of you.
This is more of a "find" in my pile of stuff.
Still trying to organize and work on what to display.
A long, long, long time ago, I was considering doing the 66T set in Vg-Ex.
Well, it never happened - but I was surprised how many HOF'ers I had picked up - to include but not posted a 66T Palmer that resides in a holder.
Added this to the HOF RC stash.
Anyone else score any ‘73s from Probstein’s recent set break? It contained some really nice cards!
Some pickups I got around to scanning. First, some in person autos:
I really love the look of Cordero's auto. Next, a couple of RCs of Patriots all time greats:
Yaz Master Set
#1 Gino Cappelletti master set
#1 John Hannah master set
Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
I picked these up in the last couple weeks. The 1969 All Stars are upgrades to the ones in my set. All others are new additions to sets I'm working on. Most were bought during the recent eBay Bucks promotions
James
@jfkheat That Reggie is phenomenal!
Hiya Dan
I remember around 1992, a gas station near my house had packs of Line Drive AA and AAA.
They're some of the best "cut" cards I'd ever seen - I thought why can't Topps do as good of a job?
BTW - I miss Gronk this year. Nice card.
I promise to keep my oratory a bit more brief ...
There really isn't a whole lot else left to tell, I already had my eye on another whale when this card popped up for auction, knew I couldn't swing both, and that it was a Grail card for @galaxy27. So it was an easy decision for me to bow out given I still had a couple of the more common colored parallels to go after for my Spieth run and I expected the Red to go for 3-5x what it did.
But Tuesday morning, when I get a text from Stephen saying 'sir i received an email today that you might be interested in', my mind was racing as I texted back my intrigue. First of all, no one addresses me as 'sir' and most certainly not any of my buddies in the collecting community, so I knew it was serious. In my email inbox a few minutes later was a forward, innocuously titled 'Spieth card' with no commentary and my jaw dropped when I read it. A few text and emails later, I didn't even need to negotiate as the seller offered me the other for nearly 15% less than what the Stephen's sold for. I responded with my address and said I'd send Paypal immediately. So, of course, for the first time I can recall, there were issues with Paypal that evening, no matter what browser or device I tried I kept getting a 'Server is starting' error message when trying to log in. Finally after 20-30 minutes, right before I needed to leave for a few hours, it worked, got tracking info the next morning, and it arrived today.
Here's 20% more of the entire production run and the other half of the PSA graded 10 population ...
PS: I offered to balance out our purchase prices with the discount given for mine and was immediately shot down.
A card I pulled from a cello pack a few years ago.
Back from re-holdering.
Hiya Kyle
Great story and congratulations on the grab.
Is there a 1/1 for that card? And if so - has anyone outed it?
There's at least one 1/1 version and I might know an owner
Nice Seaver
A few slabs back from PSA. Scanning catch up this'll take a few days to get it all
,
,
,
Friends with Greg Norman of course
Sorry off subject- awesome 10 !!
OK more scanned slabs caught up. Red Sox Pedro 10's I keep = the 9's I turn over
,
,
,
,
Just picked up this beauty. Always wanted one. PSA 7.
Not a card purchase but I won't be buying cards for several months. For my 25th wedding anniversary this coming Tuesday. I'm replacing my wife's original set.
A 77 Brock.
I collect hall of fame rookie cards, https://www.instagram.com/stwainfan/
BRYAN- congrats buddy
I hope me and mine make it there !! Approaching 20 years myself- wife loves her original rings so trip overseas is what she wants
And as Ramses once said- " So let it be written, so let it be done"
Last couple of scans then I gotta sleep before work tonite
Teks are amazingly easy IF you spend time looking at them to gem. That's IF you make the time
I've perfected the "rush job" technique and Mint 9's are the punishment
Don't get me wrong- I went 5 for 7 on this sub for Gem 10's on Tek- just missed easy flaws
I'll show the gems when I get that far
,
,
,
Congratulations Bryan - very nice.
Thanks Jeff, Mike. I love cards, but I love my wife more than anything.
Oh my goodness. That Killebrew is a blazer! Me want!
Agree with the Garvey fan I looked at the flip to make sure it wasn’t a Heritage card!
Don't want to make a separate thread for this.
The Worst 79T Box I've ever seen - guy paid $2000 at the BBCEx at the National and then got people to "buy in" a pack per person. I didn't see what he charged - my guess? Maybe 75 to 80 per pack?
Multiples of OCs and yellow ink PDs.
NO Ozzie, hardly any HOFers!
Great read for sure that involves some great board members. Thanks for posting Stephen.
With the recent news in the hobby, I have come to enjoy something other than a 10 much more. Recent pickups below!
Only 3 higher.
Nic
Guides Authored - Graded Card Scanning Guide PDF | History of the PSA Label PDF
Griffey basic set is really the only set I've been finicky about over needing 10s for everything. I think much like you I'm re-evaluating. Love that 1998 Donruss.
Currently Collecting:
Flickr: https://flickr.com/gp/184724292@N07/686763
Thanks! Yes, the Donruss looked as good as any 10’s I have seen. The 03 Ultra was $5 from the same seller as the others (combined shipping 🙂) so I figured at only 3 higher I should snap it up and go from there.
Nic
Guides Authored - Graded Card Scanning Guide PDF | History of the PSA Label PDF
I have always felt a nice 9 is a much better value than a 10. It’s tough to abandon that “registry mindset” but if you just focus on finding the nicest cards you can save a lot of money that way.
I love the Griffey pickups. I got these back on a recent sub something a little different.
A second year card.
I collect hall of fame rookie cards, https://www.instagram.com/stwainfan/
>
>
Feel free to contact my email Kyle always happy to help a fellow registry participant out
>
If you come across any Clemens or Garciaparra give a holler - SLUP items are one of my favorite 90's non mainstream issues I like card collecting- always looking for more
,
,
,
,
These are the last of the Mint 9 that came back. Took me a full 2 minutes of looking at Nomar to see where the issue was. For me that's an eternity. Minor surface issue above the N and on the right edge near it prevented a Gem 10 . The Mac is the type of series where Gem 10 will be difficult. Horrible cuts , rough edges and damaged corners out of sealed packages are common. These were sold on QVC back then and you can imagine the shipping issues the sealed boxes went thru. Happy with the Mint 9 trying to get the series in all Mint 10 /Gem 10 grades.
,
,
,
,
I'll be starting on scanning all my Gem Mint 10 that came back as well as an upcoming box break ( 2007 Finest master box)
Hard to pass on a couple of Acuna RCs under 10 bucks each.
Chipper Jones Basic Topps Set - All 10's for 10
Sam Houston State Alumni Rookie Set
Picked this one up on eBay. The condition of the card blew me away. Sadly, I’m suspicious it was cut prior to sale. I’m going to sub it regardless.
Personal Collection | Willie Woodburn | Legion of Doom
Hiya dad
I think the little specks of paper on the left side may be indicators of trimming.
Not familiar with the card - what year?
Recommend you look at "all" the sides and see if the edge of the left side looks "new" compared to the normal wear on a card?
What set is that from?
And welcome!
The card is from the Mitcham Foods Footballers set published in 1956. When I saw the photo on eBay I was shocked at the corners and the edge you mentioned is exactly what made me suspicious.
Condition just seems to good to be true for a card that is over sixty years old.
Personal Collection | Willie Woodburn | Legion of Doom