Golden Cub

Like a lot of collector's, I have quite a few saved searches on eBay, some going back over ten years, while others date back to just a couple of weeks ago. Many saved searches have been deleted over the years, either because I eventually got whatever it was, or I just lost interest in the item, and of course, new searches are always being added -- I think there's a limit to how many you can have, but I've yet to reach it (probably because of all the deleting).

And I don't know how it is for everyone else, but is seems like more often than not, that when I get the daily emails for items that match my searches... they rarely seem to match? Often times it's just stuff that shares a word or two with my search, and that's it! If this ever happens to you, than you know how frustrating it can be, especially if it's on a search that doesn't yield results very often (if ever), you get all excited, and are immediately let down once you crack open that email -- this too is something that happens to me on a fairly regular basis!

So imagine my surprise, when a couple of weeks ago I received a result amongst my daily emails for an item that hadn't popped up on the site in literally years, and wonder of all wonders, the emailed listing actually matched my search!?!?

You are looking at one of the most, possibly even THE most, hard to find autographs from the 2014 Golden Age set. This card was a short-printed redemption, which obviously is already going to be rare, but than when you take into account the fact that this set came out in July of 2014, and Mr. Banks passed away in January of 2015, well, that doesn't leave an awful lot of time for these cards to be signed. From what I've read - and I don't know how accurate the message board posts on the subject are - it sounds like they're might be less than 50 of these floating around, which would explain (if true) why this is the first one to come up in over two years.

I knew that if one ever did show up again, that it wouldn't be cheap, and I was right! It was listed for $89.99 (+ $3 for shipping), which is an awful lot for me right now, thankfully though, the seller was also open to best offers. Since I was seeing this listing just a couple of hours after it went live, I knew I'd have to act quick (I honestly don't know how it was even still there?), so I put in an offer, which was countered within mere minutes -- and even though it was a good counter, I still pressed my luck by submitting a counter to the counter, which was accepted after a very long two-hour wait.

Those couple of hours felt like an eternity, but it was worth it, because in the end I got my much desired card for $67 (plus that pesky $3 for shipping), which was still a lot, but it was a little more doable than $89.99.

Technically speaking, I didn't have, and wasn't going to have the money for this, but that's why god invented credit cards. I did have a plan though, which was to list a bunch of stuff for sale real quick, and hopefully have the money by the time the credit card bill was due. For the record, this is a terrible way to do things, so if any kids are reading this, don't do like me, go be financially successful so you'll have money on hand to pay for such things! That being said, the plan did work, as I did sell five things (including one that I didn't really want to) over the next two weeks, so when the bill comes, I will be good for it. I am glad though that I didn't have my heart set on going to a card show this month, because this purchase would've negated such a want.

As great as it was to have such a long standing search like this yield a positive result, I'd be completely okay if no more of my expensive much wanted items showed up on eBay for the next couple of months, that way I'd have a chance to build up a bit more of a reserve.


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