Friday, January 13, 2023

One card at a time

Given some of the prices that I've encountered over the last few months, I think I may have chosen the wrong time to start working on my Post sets again. Mind you, I don't regret doing so, as I have been enjoying the "hunt" (despite the lack of successes), it's just that prices seem to be a tad higher than I had anticipated. And I know, the BOOM is still very much alive and well, I just didn't think that those folks would be caring too much for the Post cards; apparently I was wrong.

So far, I've had zero luck on eBay when trying to bid on lots, and zero luck when trying to bid on any bigger names/HOFers. I have however, had two recent successes when bidding on random needs from sellers that I've already gotten other things from, and was just trying to take advantage of their free combined shipping offers. Sam Taylor being the first of these. According to the TCDB, this card has a "dark blue hat" version and a "light blue hat" version; mine being the former. Maybe someday, if I have absolutely nothing else to collect, I will chase down the other version, but for now, dark blue hat is good enough for me.

It's funny how differently two cards from the same set can scan. Sam scanned fine, but Frank looks like 💩 (looks great in person though). I should probably just stick to photographing any future cards. Anyway, Frank isn't a short print, but does seem to command a few bucks more than your average common from the set. Why I don't know? I got a pretty good deal on this one though, it was the only Post card from this seller that didn't have a lot of bidding activity, and since I had already won three other cards (for my Portland Beavers collection) from them, I figured I might as well try to add a card to the '61 Post set as well. The box version, which this is, is supposed to say Charlie Gehringer, but instead cites a Charley Derringer as having been a former Tigers second basemen. This error was corrected for the mail-in version.

I mentioned not having any success on eBay when it comes to big names from Post, but I did just recently land a pretty big name from a Jell-O set...

This win came via a COMC auction on eBay, and represents my first 1962 Jell-O. Roger's got a few problems, but I couldn't be more pleased to have gotten him. And the good news was, being from COMC, I was able to use store credit to pay for it, thus avoiding sales tax (and the $4.95 shipping price). The bad news is, I won't be seeing him in-hand anytime soon, as I just got last years stuff, and won't be requesting another shipment until after the next Black Friday promotion (free shipping). I didn't want to wait that long to show him though, so just try to look past the watermark for now. 

Unless my (public) prediction from a few years ago about the BOOM lasting 5-10 years is wrong (I'm actually starting to think that I should've said 10-15), I think I'm gonna have to be content to play the role of the tortoise in this Post race; which is fine, I've gotten much more accustomed to moving slower as I've gotten older. And who knows, maybe all of the hares will get theirs in the next year or two, and then move onto another "hot" set. I know, probably not, but a fella can dream, can't he?

14 comments:

  1. Congrats on that Maris, nice win for your 1st Jell-O. I already see some decline in that boom, hopefully this is the last year of it. The flippers (retail blasters) are slowly dwindling away at shows as most people are not dealing with them (more than a show or two). The Jax show puts them in a separate room from the long time dealers/vendors.

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    1. I really hope that you're right about that :)

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  2. Don't know what your per-card limits are, but I feel like I see small lots go for around a dollar a card fairly often. Look at this guy's recently sold for example: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=gdyboy&_oac=1&LH_Complete=1

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    1. I've seen their listings before, but have yet to try and bid on any.

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  3. I have a rather well-loved '61 Post #156 that I'm offering you in a TCDb trade proposal. No obligation to accept of course.

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  4. Found a couple Giants HoFers for decent prices when I was doing the "what else can I gang onto this" thing on ebay last week. Is so weird how they just kind of fall into your lap.

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    1. Things rarely fall into my lap anymore, but I'm always happy to hear when they do for others.

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  5. Your Post set builds remind me of my Kellogg's set builds. The big difference is I've totally paused my search. Every now and then, I'll take a peek... but I just can't justify spending the big $$$ dealers are asking. Hopefully things return to 2019 prices sooner than you predicted.

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    1. I don't collect the Kellogg's, but everyone does keep saying that the cards have jumped in price. I never thought that the masses would be interested in those or the Post sets.

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  6. Nice Maris! I have the Post version that was inserted in issues of Life magazine (I think). Was shocked at how cheap it was. I'll have to go through my cards and see how many Jell-Os I have - I know it's not many.

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    1. I still need that one, but yeah, it is a lot cheaper than one would think.

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  7. That's right, slow and steady wins the race! Nice pickups!

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