Laughing all the way to the bank

As many of you undoubtedly know by now, the non-card collecting portion of society absolutely lost it's collective mind a couple of months ago when the news started spreading that the Menendez brothers had been discovered sitting in the background of Mark Jackson's 1990-91 Hoops card.

To say that things were absolutely bonkers for a couple of weeks during late November/early December would be a massive understatement, as the masses started paying obscene amounts of money to acquire a copy of that particular card, a card that any collector knows, was produced by the millions.

Unable to resist this sudden interest in a decades old piece of "junk wax", collector's everywhere started scrounging through long ignored boxes in search of this new, albeit temporary, holy grail. Many would be found, and subsequently many would be sold on eBay, almost all of which were done so for exorbitant sums.

Normally I'm not one to notice trends, or to pay any attention to what ever the latest viral thing is, but in this instance, I did! Of course you'd have to be living under one of those proverbial rocks not to have heard about it at the time, as it truly was everywhere.

Knowing that this surge in prices couldn't last, I too started searching through boxes of long ignored cardboard, my search would yield six copies -- one from my set (I could replace after the interest died down), two from misc. boxes, and three from a 3200ct box that was slated for the thrift store.

I don't know exactly when the peak of the public's interest was, but I suspect that I was couple of days late when I listed my newly found six copies, that being said, all six sold the day they were listed, and after fees and shipping, each card ended up fetching roughly $20!

This really couldn't have happened at a better time for me personally, as I had almost no play money to spend in December (or January), so it truly was an unexpected windfall.

It also just so happened that had I just started watching an auction (on eBay of course) for an item that doesn't come up very often, an item that I very much wanted, and wasn't going to be able to bid on, but now I had money... lots of money!


Try as I might, I could not get a photo without the phone's reflection across the case :(

With my new found riches, the other bidders on this auction did not stand a chance (even though it ended up selling for much less than I expected), so behold, the latest edition to my Golden Age Historic Signatures collection!

It's been like a month now (or maybe a little more), and I still can't believe that this Jerry Lewis auto was paid for with 3 1/2 1990-91 Hoops Mark Jackson's, in pre-Menendez discovery terms, I got this for 35 cents (or less), see... crazy!

I'm assuming (and hoping) that everyone knows who Jerry Lewis is, and how big of a star he once was, because of this assumption, and the fact that this post ran longer than expected (what else is new), I'm skipping the addition of any biographical info. If somehow you don't know who he is/was, there's always the Google.

When the 2013 Golden Age set was released, this autograph could only be had via redemption, but thankfully he honored his commitment to Panini by signing quite a few cards before his passing last year. It's interesting too that the card came from Panini in this fancy case, it's first Golden Age redemption that I've seen come in such a holder.

I know that a few of my fellow bloggers were able to take it advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity, I sure hope that a few of the non-blogging folks who happen to be reading this, were able to as well.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.