The deals keep coming

I've mentioned on here more than a few times that, while I do have a Twitter account, I spend very little time actually using the site. A couple of minutes (at best) a day is about all I can normally take, and as of late, I've been finding better uses for those couple of minutes each day; and just skipping the site entirely.

I'm not sure if this would be considered a "hot take" or not, but my biggest problem with the site is that I just don't find the majority of it's users to be all that interesting. And that's not to say that I am mind you, but at least I don't spend the entirety of my days tweeting out the same thing over and over, day after day. I don't know about anyone else, but it feels like every time I log in, I just see the same things being brought up, if not from the same people, then from the same types of people.

When it comes to card stuff, the repetition of topics is especially bad. Near as I can tell, there are basically four topics: A). How do you think this card will grade?/I'm unhappy with the grade that this card got! B). Something something... investment. C). Look at this latest mistake from Topps and/or Panini. And D). Something something... high prices/Something something... priced out of the hobby! 

The latter of those four talking points can be found with multiple variations, including the always extreme "Welp, I guess since I can't afford to collect what I like anymore, I might as well sell everything and find a new hobby... lots of teams and players available... DM for prices". I often wonder about these people, not for very long of course, but I am sometimes mildly curious to know what it is that they collect that they can't find any affordable pieces for. I mean if you collect literally any player/team/set, you can still find affordable base cards to add to the collection, things haven't got that bad. Seeing as how they are just another boring Twitter person, I never find myself caring enough to actually engage them in conversation, but it does give me pause for thought... at least until I scroll down a couple of more posts and happen upon on another person tweeting out the exact same thing!

I myself have had absolutely no trouble finding highly desired items at affordable prices in recent months. Heck, I haven't even had to "find" them, as they've been popping up almost daily in saved search emails. In fact my only real [first world] problem with collecting lately has been tying to decide which of these good deals to get now, and which to save to my eBay watchlist and hope that they're still available in couple of weeks time, when I can either, get my next paycheck, or sell some no longer wanted thing. Money is still terribly tight, but a couple of bucks here and couple of bucks there, is usually doable -- within reason. 

You've already seen a few of these much wanted cards in my last couple of posts, and I've got a few more here for today...

A few weeks ago I did something highly unusual and checked my email on the phone while eating lunch. I realize that this is probably a common action amongst pretty much everyone these days, but not for me, normally when I'm eating, I just eat, that's it. Anyways, back to my strange behavior that day. By checking at that time, I found myself there only minutes after having received that days round of saved search notifications from eBay. There were quite a few that day too, but two in particular caught my eye, and even more so after I saw that they were being offered by the same seller (COMBINED SHIPPING!!!). Oh, and the BIN prices on both were about half of the normal going rates, too!

Given it's oval shape, the the 1934 Carreras Film Stars set is one of the more unique tobacco sets to have been produced. It's also notable for containing a number of images that can't be found in other card sets, Mae West's offering being one of them. Despite having been a larger than life personality, the tobacco companies didn't do her any favors, as a lot of her cards from this era are terribly boring, and certainly weren't fitting for someone of her stature.

This card alone would've made my collecting day, but as mentioned, the seller had also just listed another one of my top wants from the set:

I always wonder how people go about pricing things, as Jean Harlow was a considerably bigger star than Mae West, and yet this card was only about half the price of Mae's. I'm not complaining of course, just curious how that works. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that less and less people are caring about such names with each passing year, or that Mae West's impact on current pop culture is more noticeable than Jean's, who knows? Either way, I got two cards that I really wanted for very little money (mUcH lEsS tHaN a BlAsTeR). 

Life goal: Find someone who looks at you like Jean's looking at Duke!

I needed a regular sized card for scale, so I just grabbed the top card from a stack, which just so happened to be this Pacific Legends Duke Snider. I didn't realize how well the pairing worked until I was cropping the scan. I don't think it would qualify as one of Bob Ross' "happy accidents", but in lieu of a better phrase, I'll just go with it.

Aside from the Sylvia Sidney that I already had, there are still a handful of cards from the '34 Carreras set that I would like to get. I have no problem waiting for them to show up at the right prices though, as it was certainly worth it for me to do so with these two.

Bonus content:

Since I was already gonna buy the two Carreras from this seller (they're called homeplatecards by the way), I figured I might as well see what else they had to offer.

I really don't want to start working on any more sets again, but there are two in particular that seem to be slowly chipping away at my resolve, one of which is the 1910 Helmar Seals of the United States and Coats of Arms of All Countries of the World set (or just the T107 set for card nerds). I like everything about this set, the images, the colors, the history, and heck, I'm even gaga for the backs -- which are all the same, but still...

This is only my second card from 150-card set, so I'm hoping that I can resist the urge to collect it, because otherwise I'd have an awful long way to go towards it's completion.

At the rate things are currently going, I could be doing these kind of posts for the foreseeable future (I won't though, I think you all deserve a break from the non-sports posts). Strange Twitter people may not be able to find anything reasonably priced to collect at the moment, but I'm currently dealing with quite the opposite problem. Unlike those folks though, I will not be selling off my entire collection to escape it. Being inundated with deals is a good problem to have, and I don't see myself growing tired of it anytime soon.