Wednesday, April 14, 2021

This one takes the cake

I have been using COMC since 2012, and in that time I feel like I've seen most of what the site has had to offer, the good, the bad, and the ugly, if you will.

Despite all of the ugly in the last year, I still use the site on a fairly regular basis. I currently have 185 cards sitting in my account, and have been adding to that number a couple of times a week for over a year now. I search the new listings for a few players on a daily basis, and do some more extensive general searches once or twice a week.

As I'm sure many have experienced, general searches often lead to rabbit holes, where one is likely to encounter items that he or she didn't initially set out to look for. Such was the case the other night, when a series of unplanned clicks led me to what may be one of the more "interesting" listings that I've encountered on the site in the last nine years:

Now I've seen some rough looking cards on the site over the years, most of which have been on the rarer side, this poor Hank Sauer though, well, I'm fairly certain that it now holds the honor of the being the most beat-up piece of cardboard that I've ever seen on COMC. And what's more, it's not rare! This is card #45 in the set, so it's not one of those mythical "high numbers", or an "SP" as the kids are so fond of saying. It's not Hank's rookie. It's not error of any kind. And yet there it is, sitting on the site with a $2.75 price tag. [Two to things to note: 1). Apparently I'm too old to figure out how to do a screenshot, and 2). The price will show higher if you're not signed in]

I find it interesting too that this card has probably been on the site for more than a few years now, because COMC hasn't accepted non-rare items in this kind of condition for at least the last 5-6 years. So not only did it's owner pay to ship it to them, but they paid for it to be processed, and because it's priced over the 75¢ threshold, have been paying a penny per month in storage fees for as long as it's been on the site. The storage fees for five years alone, would be over fifty cents, which is about fifty times more than the card is "worth".

I'm sure that some would disagree, but to me, what's left of this card is nothing but recycling. Again, it's not rare, more copies of it exist than there are interested parties in owning one, and that number will only continue to increase with time. I almost never care how people spend the money that they've earned though, so if someone wants to drop almost $3 on this, who am I to say whether it was right or wrong? I would hope that they've done a little research before clicking on that Buy Now button though, as much nicer copies can be had for less, even on the very site that's currently housing this curiosity(?).

24 comments:

  1. I would pay 10 cents for it, but not much more. That's a pretty ridiculous listing for sure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A dime might be worth it just to get a post out of it, but then again, I got a post out of the card without having to buy it, so...

      Delete
  2. I am very mixed on this card. Most of my would say "NO way Jose" at even thinking about buying the card, but a small part of me would be tempted just for the tiny novelty of it. Not worth almost 3 buck for though. Not even $2. Now a buck or less at either free shipping or while purchasing a few other cards to share the shipping costs maybe. Officially (according to my trading card database records) I do not have this card. So it would make a nice placeholder. It is very unlikely though as it is on my borderline of how much paper (and card) loss I am willing to accept. It is however a good candidate for the "Poor Old Baseball Cards" (POBC) guy. I think he mostly does Facebook and self publishing now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll be buying a copy at some point too, but since I know that much nicer copies can be had for less money, I wouldn't even consider this one for a placeholder.

      I've not heard of the POBC guy before, so I guess I'll have to go see what his deal is.

      Delete
  3. Yeah, it's a novelty. I'm not signed in and it's $3.42 for me. There's a still-ragged but much more intact copy right next to it at $1.12.

    Speaking of COMC, their toploader buyback thing sounds interesting, I have tons of toploaders I don't need, but I wonder how many I would have to ship to even break even on shipping at $0.10 per . . .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, and you can some fairly decent ones for around $2.00, which seems fairly reasonable.

      Probably quite a few. As others have mentioned, you're probably better off selling them on eBay. People are paying ridiculous sums for beat-to-hell toploaders right now. If I didn't need all of my crappy ones for shipping (trades), I'd be taking advantage of the current situation by selling mine too.

      Delete
  4. I clicked on the seller. He has 102 pages of cards uploaded on COMC, so that penny-per-month he pays is probably a drop in the bucket.

    By the way, I miss many things about how COMC used to be, but one of them is all the cards I could get for less than 50 cents. That's impossible now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Depends on how many of those cards are actually selling though. Given the sites troubles, I'm a bit surprised that more sellers aren't trying harder to move things.

      And yeah, the days of buying cards (genuinely good cards) for 25¢ are long gone. I miss that too :(

      Delete
  5. That card is horrible, lol. I just added a benjamin to my comc account, and like that it was gone. Those will have to sit in inventory for awhile.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You must've found some really good deals then!

      Delete
  6. For someone just wanting to own a copy on a whim why not. But yeah otherwise you have to ask yourself why you'd by that card. Good post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The only scenarios that I can think of where someone would buy this card for that price would be: 1) For the novelty factor, and 2) Someone buying things from the site while heavily intoxicated.

      Delete
  7. I'm not into to grading but I'd love to see somebody send it to PSA for grading. Would PSA grade it? Has PSA ever graded a card in this condition (or worse)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From what I've heard, I don't think they would assign a grade to it, they'd just slap an "Authentic" label on it, and call it good.

      Delete
  8. That card made me smile. I wouldn't pay more than 10¢ for that card... and the only reason I'd drop a dime on it would be to add it to my damaged card pc as a conversation piece.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It made me cringe, doubly so after I saw the price.

      Delete
  9. Reminds me of an ebay listing for a cereal box that was used for bb gun target practice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you encountered such a listing? If so, that'd make for fun filler post as well.

      Delete
  10. That's pretty funny. Looks like a wallet card that was in a wallet for like 50 years. I'm not a big COMC fan at all and keep my browsing and interacting on the site very limited. Just not my cup of tea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hadn't even thought of that, but you're right, it does!

      Delete
  11. I’m certain he threw that in there as click bait to get people to his sellers page. Ha! Not a bad idea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Perhaps, but his prices aren't conducive to people sticking around for very long.

      Delete