COMC Shuffle #13

Another week, another ten randomly selected cards from last year's COMC hoard!


1970 Topps #380 (Error)

No need to adjust your eyeballs, as this card is as off as it looks. When it comes to errors, I usually am only interested in blank backs, but I made an exception for this one. Tony showed up in a batch of Challenges that I was doing, and I immediately fell in like with him (do people still say that?). I added the card to my watch list, and then spent the next month checking in on it every single day, just impatiently waiting for it to be added to the site. Such efforts rarely pay off for me, but in this instance it did, as I logged in one morning to find that it had been added to the site during the previous night -- and not only had it not already been bought, but the price attached was considerably lower than I had expected it to be. When I saw that it was there, and that it was only $0.95, well, as you can probably imagine (especially after that build up), I could not hit that buy it now button fast enough!

2015 Topps High Tek Pattern 1 Grass/Waves Confetti Diffractor #18

I haven't been pursuing it as much as I was last year, but I have the want to fill up a page of these Tim Brown's. I'm no matholigist, but I believe that once the goal is completed I would then own roughly 10% of the to /99 print run. Without looking, I think I'm sitting at seven right now (4 from COMC, 2 from a card show, and 1 from eBay).


2014 Panini Prizm Red, White, & Blue Prizms #12

I got a mention from Trevor a few weeks ago in connection with this card, and now that's it come up in the Shuffle, the least I could do is reciprocate the shoutout :)

Also, I have no idea why that middle card scanned so poorly, but it don't look like that in person.


1952 Bowman #72

This was just one of those "it's too cheap not to get" kind of purchases. It doesn't really fit into any particular collection right now, but I'm hoping that inspiration will strike at some point, and I'll find a use for it.


2009-10 Upper Deck 3D Stars #3D-AR

I don't what the deal is with this set (and I don't really care), but some of the cards have just one player, while other's, like this LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy, have two. LaMarcus is who you see when the card is at rest, which I'm assuming is just because his last name comes first alphabetically, as Brandon was a much bigger name at the time.


1998-99 Topps Stadium Club Triumvirate - Luminous #T11c

One of my favorite players of all-time, on a card from one of my favorite insert sets of all-time... I believe that's called a "win-win"!


2012 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures #JO

Fun fact: John went to the same high school (different years though) as Otis Redding and Little Richard. Fun fact #2: Otis Redding and Little Richard went to the same high school!?!?


1968 Topps Game #15 blank back

Here's a bit of a rarity. Not only is this the first blank backed Topps Game that I've ever seen, but it also appears to be the only one that COMC has ever had. For the longest time I was buying blank back lots of say, 1975 Topps baseball, with the goal of trying to get as many from specific sets as I could, but also still picking up the occasional outlier like this. Like everything else card related, my focus has shifted quite a bit, now when it comes to blank backs I'm primarily interested in trying to get just one example from as many sets as I can.


1954 Topps #23

I had never heard of Luke Easter until I read an article about him last year (which I of course can no longer find). He seemed like a really interesting person, and was probably one of the great "what could've been if it hadn't been for injuries" guys. Because of these things, I decided to try and get a few (or all) of his cards. I got this one during last year's Spring Sale, and haven't gotten any more since. I have found that other than his '54 Topps, COMC is not a good place to get his cards, and I just never think to look on eBay, hence the owning of only one card.

2014 Panini Prizm Orange Prizms #105

It looks like Dan wasn't too impressed with today's post. I guess I'll just have to try harder next week then!


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How I spent my eBay bucks

I was the recipient of some very generous packages during December, most of which still haven't been shown here on the blog, before I start getting to those though, I thought it might be a good idea to catch up on something from October, namely how I spent my eBay bucks certificate.

I'm not one to keep track of how much eBay bucks that I've accrued over any particular period, so it's always a surprise to see how much, or how little, I've earned during one of the three-month stretches that you get to stockpile as much as you can. This past October I was very surprised to see how much I had earned, especially since it was by far the most I had ever earned.

I guess before I get too far along here, I should point that lest anyone think that I'm bragging here, I'm not, as this large sum of bucks wasn't earned from copious amounts of buying, no, they were gotten thanks to copious amounts of selling -- which is something that's been necessary for me to do since March in order to supplement my monthly hobby budget.

In the three months leading up to October, it seemed like eBay was offering up incentives to sell on an almost weekly basis, most of which were of the "Get 10% back in eBay bucks if your item sells in the next 10-14 days" variety. Because of their frequency, I didn't end up listing a single item during that three-month stretch that didn't qualify for one of those offers, including the most expensive card that I owned, so thanks this to strategy, I earned quite a few bucks.

As many of you know though, there is one downside to acquiring so much eBay bucks, and that is that you only have a month to use them. For me this has always been difficult, even when I only have like a $1 to spend, primarily because of everybody else spending their respective bucks like a drunken sailor. I know I should be treating it as found money, but I can't, I spend it just like I would if it was coming out of my pocket, so because of that mindset, I am unable to overpay for anything just so I can use it... which seems to be much against the norm.

I was able to use it at all, of course, about half of it ended up being spent on birthday/Christmas presents, but I did manage to find a few things for myself too:

Full disclosure -- and you might want to sit down for this -- I have never been a fan of Gilligan's Island! Shocking, I know, but the show just never appealed to me, and this even after me trying to get into it multiple times across multiple decades. Dawn Wells is of course best known for her portrayal as Mary Ann on the show, although personally, when ever I hear her name, I always think of The Town That Dreaded Sundown.

But no matter what you associate her name with, she is a name, a very recognizable name, therefor her autograph tends to sell for a bit. I have bid on, and made offers on, multiple copies of this card over the last couple of years, always coming up short... until now! I made somewhat of a low offer on this one, the seller countered, I countered back, and the seller accepted. After trying, and failing, so many times to get this card, I can't tell you how much of a relief it was to finally be able to cross it off the checklist.

I would like to think that I was fairly familiar with Mr. Barney's football career prior to getting this card, or at least as familiar as one can be with an athlete's career that ended before you were born, that being said, I was completely unaware of his second career in music -- which apparently has been successful enough, that among other things, he (and former teammate Mel Farr) provided the backup vocals for Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On".

No offense to Mr. Yeager, or to any of my readers who happen to be Dodgers fans, but for me this not one of the more exciting autographs from the Golden Age sets. He played during what is probably my least favorite era of baseball (not counting the current era) and I'm not a Dodgers fan (not a hater either), but I needed it for my set, and it was cheap, so...

I will say though that I do like the image that was used for this card, it really emphasizes the added pharaoh's beard, a safety feature that Mr. Yeager himself was responsible for.

Even though I've lost a lot of interest in set collecting over the last couple of months, I still wanted to try and complete the 1999-00 HoloGrFX AuSOME parallel set, and not just the base parallel set, but the insert version too. It has been one of my favorite parallel sets since it came out, but even with that being said, I've recently started to question whether or not I even want to bother to complete it. I guess even if I do give up on it, I'll still have a few really cool cards from the set, including this Tim Duncan parallel from the 24/7 insert set.

I haven't really ever discussed it here, but Shawn Kemp's 1990-91 Fleer rookie, has been my favorite card for just about as long as I can remember. If anyone's curious as to why it is, well, it's a very uninteresting story, so I'm not going to bore anyone with it (at least not today). For the longest time I was content to just own a couple of copies, now I want 'em all! Since deciding this, I've acquired two such lots, which has gotten me to nearly 100 copies owned, it sounds like an impressive amount, except when you take into account the fact that there were probably over a million copies, literally, of this card produced... if only I had started hoarding them back in the 90's.

As mentioned at the top of the post, I've got a bunch of a packages to catch up on, as well as a piece about some cards that I've been quietly collecting since last March. I also have a new COMC series that I'm hoping to get up and running in the next two weeks, and there's still all the stuff to get to that I got at the card show in November. I don't know if any of these upcoming things sound interesting or not, but I thought it would be good to let everyone know what to expect over the next month or two -- sounds like a lot of card stuff though, so I'll have find a way to work in some non-card items, otherwise I'm going to end up getting burned out awfully quick!

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Drinking the Kool-Aid

I got back into card collecting around 8 or 9 years ago now, and in that time, it seems like the hype over 1/1 cards has grown by leaps and bounds.

Living in a bubble of sorts, hype of any kind is not something that I'm ever effected by, because I just don't pay much attention to things that excite and/or rile up other people -- and it's not because I don't care about anything, it's just that modern human's tend to get far too emotional over the most trivial of things, which is something that I just don't need in my life -- I've already got my own problems with anxiety to deal with, I don't need anyone else's.

As far as getting overly emotional over insignificant things goes, most modern card collectors are no different, especially when it comes to 1/1's. Some will tell you that it's the only worth chasing, and that they are the only thing of real value -- and on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have collector's who are of the Chicken Little mindset (the sky is falling), and will tell you that 1/1's are just one of the things that are leading the hobby to ruin.

Personally speaking, I've never really paid much attention to them, and other than a couple of cheaply bought printing plates (at a card show last year) -- which according to some, aren't even true 1/1's, even though they say one of one on the back -- I had never owned any.

With all that being said, I decided earlier this year that I'd like to own a "true" 1/1, and not because I was getting caught up in the hype, or because I felt like I needed one to validate my collection, no, I just wanted to get one, plain and simple.

After the decision to get one was made, it didn't take me too long to figure out that there were only a few sets that I would actually want a 1/1 from, which was nice, because it meant that there would be a whole lot less searching to do. I did eventually encounter one small problem though, you remember how I said that I just wanted to get one, well... I ended up getting two instead!

I've professed my love for the 2018 Classics set enough over the last couple of months, that it shouldn't come as a great surprise that I'd try to acquire something like this Elvin Bethea from it. This is the base 1/1, there are also the Optichrome 1/1's, but those tend to go for a lot more than the base versions. I actually tried to get one of the Optichrome 1/1's (different player though), but it was being sold by Probstein on eBay, and I didn't want to get caught up in a bidding war with one of their shill bidders, so I let it go... a decision that I'm still questioning like three months later.

There was some interest in this card from multiple other bidders, but I still got it for less than the limit that I had set for myself. There were actually three or four of the Legends 1/1's up for auction during the same week that I won this one, I knew that I could only get one at the time though, so I went with Elvin -- mostly because you don't see him show up very much (if at all) in modern sets, and if that wasn't enough, I really love the picture that Panini used for this card, I mean it looks like he's got a broken thumb on his left hand and a big 'ol cast on his right arm (god knows what was broken)... talk about playing through the pain!

After getting this card, I briefly thought about going for the rainbow, but even though I love the set something fierce, I can still say that it has some really stupid parallels. I mean I really dig the colored borders (black, blue, gold, and orange), but my interest is completely lost once you get to things like different colored backs, faux blank backs, full name on the front, no name on the front, etc. -- needless to say, I won't be chasing the rainbow.

Me finding this 2012 Golden Age Bill Walton black mini was a complete fluke, as I had been looking at something else and decided to look at the seller's other items, and there it was. This seller actually two of the 2012 black mini's, the other being the Titanic. The seller had them listed so that they were going to end within minutes of each other, and I was actually going to try for both, but once they got down to around the ten minute mark, I knew that with the bids being placed I would only be able to get one -- the Titanic was cool, but being from Portland, I kind of had to choose Bill, it would have been kind of like turning my back on the place of my birth by not doing so.

I had always hoped that I was going to pull one of Golden Age black's, and considering that I did open multiple boxes of all three years, it seems like I should have, but no, I had to go and buy one... but I'm okay with that! As a quick aside, since you can see half of Dan Issel's face in the background, would that mean that this is a Dan Issel 1/1 as well?

Also, I had to take a photo of this one (the scans were coming out terrible), which caused some glare to appear on the top of the card, I mention this only because I don't want someone to think that there's any discoloration, since that's what it kind of looks like in the picture.

I didn't know if anyone cared about the back or not, but here it is anyway. I think it's pretty neat, and you can see the 1 of 1 near the top left -- speaking of top left, you can sort of see the 1 of 1 on the front of the Bethea on the top left as well.

Now that I've accomplished what I set out to do, at least as far as getting a 1/1 goes, I can honestly say that I don't know if I will be attempting to get any more... unless another cheap one of the legends come up from the 2018 Classics... or one of the retired players from the 2013-14 Prizm basketball... or...


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COMC Sundays: 2012 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures

As mentioned in my previous post, today will be the start of a new weekly series that will focus solely on items obtained from COMC. For the time being these items will be from last year's 200+ cards that I have fallen woefully behind in showing.

Since I've had all of this stuff for over six months now, I don't imagine that I'll have a ton to say about most of it, so most of these are probably going to be light on words (not this one though).

Before getting started, I also wanted to remind everyone that everything you'll be seeing in these posts was paid for with earned credit from doing the challenges. I mention this because I don't want anyone to see anything here -- especially some of the expensive stuff -- and think "yeah it must be nice Mr. Moneybags", which of course... couldn't be further from the truth. In actuality, I don't have much of a life, so I have plenty of time to do challenges and earn credit, so much so, that I haven't had to add any out of pocket money to my account since they started 3 or 4 years ago now. Sometimes it pays to not have a social life!

If you've ever read my blog before, you shouldn't be too surprised to find out that were quite a few cards from the various years of Golden Age in last year's accumulation. And you also shouldn't be too surprised to hear that that's what I'll be kicking off the series with:

Jim Palmer: Hall of Famer, won three Cy Young's, owner of three championship rings, and as I have just learned... never gave up a grand slam during his 19 years of professional play.

As a quick aside, I can't remember where it was that I read it (probably Twitter), but I saw someone recently complaining about pulling a Jim Palmer auto. They were going on and on about how disappointed they were, which I thought was odd, because I was always under the impression that Jim Palmer was kind of a big deal, but apparently not to this person, or to some of the people that commented on his lament. So I guess it might be an unpopular opinion to the modern collector, but getting this Jim Palmer auto was still considered a pretty big deal to me.

Maury Wills: Led the NL in stolen bases for six straight years, seven All-Star appearances, and owner of three championship rings.

Mickey Lolich: World series Champion, World Series MVP, and is one of the two (Dale Murphy being the other) best players to come out of Portland (OR).

Frank Tanana: His skill on the basketball court led him to be recruited by more than a 100 colleges, #1 overall pick in 1971 MLB draft, and a three time all-star.

Ron Blomberg: First designated hitter in MLB history.

Bobby Allison: I'm not a race fan, and don't much about it's history (reading about racing is terribly boring to me), but I did see that he was a three-time winner of the Daytona 500... so that's something right?

Nancy Lopez: I know even less about golf than I do racing, and reading about it isn't something that I'm going to be able to do much of, even if it is supposed to be for research purposes. A quick scan of her Wikipedia page tells me that she won a bunch of tournaments, of which I have no idea how important any of them were. Her being named the Associated Press female athlete of the year in 1978 is pretty impressive though, as that's not something that a lot of people can say that they have done.

John Dean: I absolutely loathe politics! But Mr. Dean was a part of a fairly significant event in American history, Watergate, so it's still kind of cool to have his autograph. Even though I'm not a fan of racing, golf, or politics, I'm still glad that Panini added all these people to their checklists, as I probably wouldn't have been nearly as interested in the sets had they not had such a diverse group of subjects.

Barbara Eden: Le purr! But seriously though... she's of course best known for her role as Jeannie on I Dream of Jeannie, although she's also got close to a hundred other movie and television credits to her name. Of all the Golden Age autos, she had been the one that I had wanted the most, so when I came across this reasonably priced (and newly listed at the time) copy, I couldn't click that Buy Now button fast enough. I got it for about $10 less than the going rate on eBay too, which made it just that much better.

These first couple of Golden Age posts were going to have some of the memorabilia cards in them as well, but with my recent financial woes, I decided to stop working on that part of the sets. I have already started selling some of them, so it doesn't make much sense to me to show something that has already been sold or is destined for sale. The decision to sell them and focus more on the autographs, wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, probably because a) The autograph's are much more important to me, and b) I always knew that I wasn't going to be able to complete the 2012 and 2013 memorabilia sets thanks to the Titanic and Hindenburg cards (the last Titanic that came up sold for over $800), and this is one of those sets for me that's either all or nothing.

Looking ahead to next week: 2013 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures.


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A good buy

I don't know if anyone else ever does this or not, but sometimes when I'm searching eBay... and I happen upon something that I already own... and it's something that could be considered somewhat hard to find... and that something seems to be getting a lot of bids, I'll go ahead and put it in my watch list just to see what the final price ends up being. I mention this because two weeks ago just happened to be one of those times.

Before continuing, I'm going to take a quick trip back in time. It was right around three years ago (late as usual) that I discovered Panini's Golden Age, and completely fell in love with the brand. I can't remember now how it is that I came to find out about the sets, but almost immediately after doing so, I ordered a couple of boxes from Steel City Collectibles... and if I hadn't been completely hooked before, I definitely was after opening those boxes.

After the boxes had been opened, I started spending a lot of time searching the usual haunts in my attempt to find the best deals on cards -- autographs in particular -- from the sets that I didn't have... and Sportlots was of course one of those usual haunts.

The site had a pretty good selection, most likely because the sets were still somewhat new at the time. If I remember correctly, a lot of the prices were a bit on the high side... apparently that part hasn't changed too much in the last three years. There were two cheap autographs that really stood out though, both of which were being offered by the same seller.

The cheapest of those two autos, and the one that's the subject of this post, is the poorly scanned Carl Bernstein shown above. At the time, I couldn't find any sales records on eBay (or anywhere else), which told me that it might not be one of the more common autos in the set, so since you're seeing it, and I'm talking about it, you've probably already figured out that I ended up buying it (along with the other auto that the seller had).

Fast forwarding back to the present, or rather to two weeks ago when I was doing my usual weekly search for Golden Age on eBay, and I just happened to see the first Carl Bernstein auto come up since I had bought mine three years ago. The card seemed to be getting some attention, so into the watch list it went, and not because I have any intentions of selling it mind you, sometimes I just like to know what I have.

I should probably point out too, that when I say I haven't seen another one in the last three years, that's referring to auctions, as I rarely look for stuff in people's stores. So I'm sure a few others have come up as BIN's, but I'm pretty sure that this was the first one to come up for auction during this particular time period that I'm talking about.

After a couple of days, and many bids, the card ended up selling for $79, which might not seem like a lot to some of you, but three years ago when I bought mine, I only paid... $6! So in retrospect, that was a pretty good buy.

And even though it has nothing to do with this particular post, I know a few folks might be curious to know what was the other autograph that I had purchased from that seller, so here you go:

This was bought for $8, it routinely sells on eBay for anywhere between $35-$60, so I guess one could say that that was a pretty good purchase as well.

One other quick piece of info about these, is that even though the seller charged like $2.50 for shipping, both ended up being sent via PWE in just penny sleeves... with absolutely nothing else in the envelope to protect the cards. To say that I was annoyed at the time (and even still a little now) would be a massive understatement, and I definitely let seller know about it, who replied by asking me what the big deal was? Because they always shipped like that, and had never had any problems, which only ticked me off more. They did arrive unharmed (a minor miracle), but I still wasn't ever going to be buying from that seller again, and to this day, I still haven't.


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A change of plans

I recently received a package from Matt (the seemingly tireless owner and operator of the Sport Card Collectors empire), which was a good thing. What wasn't a such a good thing, was me taking over a week to let him know that I got it :(

Matt, being the good dude that he is, didn't seem to take any offense to the slight. Still, I've got a bit of a guilty conscious (especially after reading Julie's post last night), so I'm going to bump today's originally planned card show post (I was struggling to write it anyway) and give my public thanks (I already did so on Twitter, but the blog's more important) to Matt a little sooner than later.

A couple of month's ago when I got those dud boxes of Golden Age, Matt was one of the few people to claim some of the many duplicates that were contained within those boxes, and in exchange, he ended up sending me some Golden Age that I didn't already have... including this wonderful Juan Marichal Newark Evening News.

I'm not a big fan of the Headlines set, but I've still been collecting them Nonetheless. Being able to mark two more off the wantlist is very much appreciated, as I hate the thought actually having to buy any of them.

This Buck Weaver DeLong Gum was by far, my favorite card in the package! As an aside, I recently decided I wanted to own an original DeLong card, after checking the eBay, I found out something kind of surprising (sarcasm)... they're a bit on the pricey side, especially the one's that don't look like they've been through the wringer. Maybe someday...

With the addition of Hack here, I only need three more B for E's to complete the set.

Photo wise, this might be my favorite of the 2013 Headlines set.

Some of you may have noticed a recently added "Mini's" tab at the top of the blog, Matt is partially responsible for said tab being added. I had been procrastinating on going through all my Golden Age mini's and separating them by the different backs for the longest time now, but after Matt mentioned having some available, I decided to finally break down and make the list (not fun by the way). It ended up being worth the time though, as Matt sent some really great stuff.

As you'll see more clearly in a moment, there was quite a mix of backs.

Save for the Ty Cobb back, I think I might have all of Bill Walton's 2012 mini's now.

John Dean is the owner of the Ty Cobb back, which at one per box, were the hardest (not counting 1/1's) back's to get. I really don't think that I will ever be able to complete that set, but it's still fun to get them when I can.

Please forgive the crooked 2013's.

The Nadja back belongs to Al Simmons, for anyone that cares, those were one-per-box backs in 2013.

Tommy Smothers can't believe that he's gotta face two Hitman Hearns'!

A nice mix of back's here.

There were also a couple of 2014's to be had...

... and they too contained a nice mixture of different back's.

And if all the Golden Age above wasn't enough, Matt also sent along a dozen A&G mini's as well.

All the A&G's hail from 2013-15, and all are very welcome additions to my miniscule collection of Ginter miniatures.

Thanks again, Matt! All the cards were really great, and more importantly... they were all set needs. And hopefully I won't take so long to acknowledge the receipt of any potential future packages from you (or anybody else for that matter).

I also wanted to mention that I will be spending a lot of my free time over the next two weeks trying to help my mom out with some projects around her house, so some of the longer posts that I had planned on doing (card show stuff, comic book stuff, etc.) might have to wait a couple of weeks. I've been trying to stick to a regular posting schedule, so if you happen to notice some really short posts popping up, it's just because I probably won't have a lot of energy (mentally or physically) left to work on anything more significant.


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2017 Black Friday Boxes #4: 2012 Panini Golden Age

Well, we've finally made it to the last box, which is nice because I'm getting a little bored with writing about the same topic over the last four posts. The last box was another of the 2012 variety, I have long since completed the set, and there aren't a lot of inserts to be had in the inaugural edition... but those possible case hit original Goudey's are just too much for me to resist, so that's why I ended up with the two boxes of 2012.

As usual too, the base cards and the minis are being excluded... well sort of. You'll see what I mean by that at the end.

My streak of only getting the yellow pennant toppers continued with this box, but at least I got a pretty good one this time. And even though I'm not actively seeking these out, but on the off chance that I ever do go after all of them, it was nice to get one that I didn't already have.

Amazingly, both the Batter-Up's were set needs.

The Truman Headlines was a duplicate.

This Jayne Mansfield Newark Evening World Supplement was needed as well. As a quick aside, my compliments to Panini for the photo selection on this one :)

Ugh, another Rusty Staub bat relic! I have nothing against Mr. Staub, but if you recall from the first post in this series, I pulled one from that box as well, which wasn't terribly exciting since I already had one. Being in possession of three now, I can't help but wonder how many more it would take to reconstruct the bat.

Even though Ron LeFlore isn't the most exciting autograph from the checklist to pull, I at least needed it, and that's the first time that I've been able to say that during these four posts.

The LeFlore auto came in the second to last pack, and it shouldn't be too much of a surprise to hear me say, that going into that final pack of the last box, I wasn't expecting anything to make up for what had been up 'til that point, a pretty disappointing quartet of boxes. It shouldn't be too surprising to hear as well, that as I was starting in on that last pack, I was doing so amidst the strongest feeling of buyer's remorse that I have ever known.

So anyway, as I'm opening the pack, I notice a white border amongst the normal French vanilla colored borders... which was mildly interesting, but not much, as I have pulled a white bordered parallel from the 2013 edition, and after looking for info on that one at the time, I found there wasn't much interest in them.

Here's who that white border belonged to. Again, while different, I was just thinking that it would be similar in value to the 2013's, aka nothing that would make up for these bad boxes.

Upon turning the card over, I found that not only was it a white bordered parallel, but a short print as well. Now that made it a little more interesting, but not much, as I also have a 2013 white bordered short print that as far as monetary value is concerned, has very little.

Here's the Bobby Jones parallel next to the regular base card, when their side-by-side you can really see the difference.

So out of curiosity, I started looking around online to try and find any info on the 2012 white border short prints. The only place I could find anything was on the Cardboard Connection site, which to my surprise, said that they have a print run of just /10. That's certainly rarer than the 2013's that I been comparing them to.

While it's kind of fun to have something that is apparently pretty rare, I'm not made of money, and these boxes weren't very good, so my thoughts very quickly turned to seeing if I could sell it and recoup some of the money that was spent on the boxes.

After more searching, I couldn't find any of these (there are ten different short prints, I believe) listed anywhere for sale, nor could I find any mention of one ever selling period, which made me even more hopeful about getting some of my money back.

Not knowing what kind of price to put on it, I decided to shoot for the moon and listed it with a $200 BIN or best offer, and to my surprise... I had an offer within two or three days! The initial offer was for $150, which wasn't bad at all, but I am human ( I think), so I of course tried to get a little more and countered with $175, which was excepted immediately by the buyer.

At one time, I thought I was going to try my hand at completing master sets for all three years worth of Golden Age, but after finding out about all the 1/1's (literally a couple hundred for each year), and of course, now knowing of the 2012 white border short prints and much they can sell for... that thought of master sets seems absolutely ludicrous.

The four boxes (with shipping) set me back $109.25. After eBay and PayPal fees, plus shipping costs, the card netted me roughly $145 (I also used that Groupon offer, where if your item sells in like two weeks or less, you get a $10 gift certificate... which I did). So when all was said and done, I ended up making around $45 in profit, plus I got one needed relic, one needed relic, a couple of needed inserts, and was able to get a couple more cards closer to completing two of the base sets. The idea of opening boxes, only to turn around and try and profit from the contents doesn't do a whole lot for me, but in this instance, it kind of felt like a necessity, so I'm glad it worked out alright.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, these most likely will have been my last boxes of Golden Age. From here on out, it just seems to make more (financial) sense to buy any of the cards I still need individually, as opposed to trying to play the lottery by buying more boxes


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