Annnd We're done...

A quick follow up to yesterday’s post. After I posted on the blog I sent him one last message letting him know that I had left negative feedback and why I left it. Surprisingly he responded rather quickly with his explanation

“Every single one looked the same. I have been out of town a lot and have a ton of emails coming in. I was under the impression you were returning the card as you said you were and once it was received back you would get a refund.”

 

I had to respond to him regarding this. I pointed out that he had multiple Suzy Hotrod autographs for sale with each auction having a different autograph and the crappy autograph was cheaper. And asked how the picture was posted to his auction if he didn’t have that specific card. I also pointed out that I had cancelled the return on Saturday and had even emailed him after I cancelled the return explaining why I decided to keep the card (It would be stupid to pay to return the card to get my money back and just go and buy another card that looked exactly the same) and that I only wanted the card he posted.

 

I don’t expect him to respond, I caught him in a lit about them all looking the same, plus he obviously did read through his emails if he knew that I had requested a return/refund. I am done with this seller, nothing he can say will change the way that this unfolded and I definitely will not be purchasing anything from him in the future. Though I wouldn’t be surprised to see him posting the Suzy Hotrod autograph for sale at a higher price before to long.

A Bad eBay Experience

On September 26th I came across one of those opportunity purchases, this was actually my first opportunity purchase this year, and even though I set a goal of cutting these types of purchase out completely I didn’t listen to my inner voice.

 

While searching through some Allen & Ginter’s autographs a recommendation for various Goodwin Champions autographs appeared so I decided to take a look. One of the suggestions was a 2013 Suzy Hotrod autograph and for some unknown reason I found myself interested. I used to watch roller derby all the time but it just doesn’t show up on television anymore but to be honest if it was on T.V. I would watch every chance I could. It is just the ultimate sport; roller skates, physical assaults and a scoring system that nobody seems to understand.

 

So I got caught up in finding out about Suzy Hotrod and once I was that deep I just had to buy an autograph and of course once you buy an autograph you have to add a relic too. I looked through the autographs and Suzy Hotrod has a rather messy autograph so when I came across this solid signature I hit the BIN for $4.99 plus $2.95 shipping. The price was about a dollar more than what most of her autographs were selling for at the time, the same seller had one of her regular signatures for $3.49 BIN but I wanted the better looking autograph.

 

Next up was the relic. There are base relics and multi-colored relic cards so I decided to go with a dual-colored piece from one of her red Gotham Girls traveling team jerseys. This one was $2.99 plus $2.95 shipping. At the time this was about average for her relic cards so I felt I got a good price.

 

After I purchased the cards I realized they were from the same seller so I emailed him to ask if he would be willing to combine shipping for both cards. His response to me was essentially “Tough” and that once items are paid for he cannot combine shipping, which is B.S. because I did it just a couple of weeks ago and it was a situation where he didn’t want to take the extra 30 seconds and it meant an additional $2.45 in his pocket. But, none-the-less I can accept this because I did pay for them separately and life goes on.

 

Days go by and the tracking number is not showing that it was even shipped and I was a bit concerned. It finally shipped on October 3^rd, seven days after I paid. OK, I am now wondering if the seller was just being a jerk and making me wait because I asked for combined shipping.

 

I get the cards on October 6^th and I open the relic card first and it looked good, I opened the autograph card envelope and notice the autograph is Hotrod’s regular crappy autograph and not the beautiful autograph that I purchased. I double checked the auction to make sure that the description didn’t say something like “You will not receive the card pictured” but nothing like that so I emailed the seller explaining the mistake. When you email a seller regarding an issue a case is automatically opened through eBay so I figured it would get the seller’s attention. I sent a follow up email with a picture of the card I received to show the difference between autographs. I waited and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond so three days later I expanded the claim to get eBay involved. They attempted to contact him and they didn’t get a response so they offered me the option to return the card and get a refund using the aBay Buyer Protection or keep the card. I emailed the seller one last time hoping it was just a mistake that he seriously missed, and waited until Sunday before cancelling the refund option and just leave negative feedback.

 

The card on the left is the card that was pictured in the auction and the card on the right is the card I actually received. What led me to purchase this card was because the signature lines were separated and she actually wrote "#55" where she normally signs "Hotrod#55" all together and the "55" usually looks like anything but "55"

 

 

In the end I decided to keep the card instead of accepting a refund and buying a new one because for some reason Suzy Hotrod’s autographs have doubled in price in just two weeks, even her relics have jumped 50% too.

 

I am really disappointed, the autograph on the card I purchased is very unique compared to her standard autograph. It got me thinking about what happened and I figured it was one of four reasons from the seller. When considering the options I am betting on is either #2 or #4.

 

 

1. He used an image he found on the internet for the auction not realizing there was a difference. But this one seems less likely because he was selling another Hotrod autograph with the crappy signature for less money so he obviously knew there was a difference.

2. He accidently switched the packaging and sent the nice autograph to the other buyer. This seems like a possibility and he wasn’t responding out of embarrassment knowing he couldn’t get the other card back from the other buyer to correct the mistake.

 

3. He didn’t send me the card to be a jerk because I asked for combined shipping. This is a possibility but most people are not this vindictive, especially when you consider this guy has over 17,000 feedback with 99.9% positive. If he got upset and jerked over everyone who had any sort of after sale request I am sure his feedback would be much lower.

 

4. He saw the rapid price increase in the week before he sent out the card and decided to hold the better looking autograph figuring he could get a significant premium over what I paid so he sent out the crappy autograph and is ignoring my/eBay’s messages expecting negative feedback anyway.

Tyson- Peck & Snyder Style

In 2012 Leaf filed for a trademark for two names “Peck & Snyder” and “Maxx”. Leading collectors in to the belief that Leaf would be producing baseball cards under the Peck & Snyder name and racing cards under the Maxx name.

 

Following the Civil War the Peck & Snyder Sporting Goods was founded (1866), at the time Base Ball was considered part of the country’s healing process and Peck & Snyder did what they could to ensure that the athletes were equipped properly.

 

In order to get the company name out to the public in 1869 they began producing advertisement cards with Base Ball team pictures on the back, teams like Cincinnati Red Stockings, New York Mutuals, Chicago White Stockings and Philadelphia Athletics. These became the first baseball cards as we know them today. Later tobacco companies like Old Judge and Allen & Ginter followed suit in the late 1800s. By 1895 the Peck & Snyder Sporting Goods company was purchased by their friend A.G. Spaulding and became a part of collecting lore.

 

This is what the original 1869 Peck & Snyder Cincinnati Red Stockings front and back looks like.

Now in 2014 Leaf is working on a modern Peck & Snyder set, which will be a multi-sport set. To get things going they have released a 45-card preview set which are being sent to dealers and there are only 250 preview sets being printed, though the cards are not numbered. The cards are based on the original 1869 advertisement cards, they are 3 5/16 x 2 3/8 in size, with an advertisement on the back (Seen below). The images are sepia in color and the images have been “antiqued” to appear old. Some of the athletes includes on the checklist; Johnny Manziel, Andrew Wiggins, Blake Bortles, Hulk Hogan, Shaq, Gordie Howe, Larry Bird, Frank Thomas and Kris Bryant.

 

I picked up the Mike Tyson card for $3.08, most cards run $2.50 to $5.00 each. The cards are really cool and I may eventually pick up the Hulk Hogan card but there are no other players that I collect. This is the back of the Tyson card.

A Presidential Oddball Of Sorts

I came across a card that I was pretty excited to see, an American Heroes Gerald Ford relic from Tri City Sports Poland (or TCSP) . These cards are from TCSP’s Five Year Anniversary promotion and they were randomly inserted in to various boxes of TCSP product during 2013. I know that the company has had customer service problems and many of their cards are pretty poorly designed but I really like the American Heroes design.

 

The release is made up of three subsets; Relics (#/100), Autograph-Relics (#/2) and Autographs (#1/1). The checklist contains 4 Presidents (Nixon, Ford, Carter and Regan), 2 actors (DeNiro & Pacino) plus Bruce Springsteen and John Gotti.

 

The card is thick and a heavy plastic, almost feeling like a heavy duty credit card. The back has a write up about Ford during his 3 years as President along with the TCSP hologram and the card numbering to #/100, mine is #87/100.

 

Most of the cards from this set start at $19.99 and run up to $40 but when I came across this card it had a starting bid of only $1.99. I am wondering if the seller set the price incorrectly by accident and that they really intended to type in $19.99. I won the card for $3.25 plus another $2.50 for shipping.

 

I am looking to add the other three Presidents to my collection as well as Al Pacino as long as I can find them all for reasonable prices. I expect to pay more for Regan and the actors but hopefully I can pick up Tricky Dick and Carter for less than $10 each.

 

I have since added a Robert DeNiro relic for $3.22 shipped.

A Touch Of Flag Class

One of the cards that had made my Most Wanted list was the 1956 Topps Flags of the World Tibet #52. As a Buddhist I feel a connection to Tibet and it’s nearly 1,400 years of Buddhism history.

 

I have been hunting for this card for a while, it isn’t that the price is too high (usually running around $6-10) I just am always looking for a better deal. The deal finally showed up in a 3-card lot. For $6.99 shipped I was able to pick up the Tibet flag but also the Burma flag and the Pakistan flag.

 

The cards are beautifully illustrated with the flag waving over locations or events that represent the country. For example the Burma card depicts an elephant being used for logging, which has been a tradition in Burma (now known as Myanmar). Some interesting illustrations include South Korea with a combat scene, the Philippines with Douglas McArthur and Cuba with cigar rolling. The back of the cards list some facts about the country along with pronunciations of common terms. There are also some noticeably missing cards of communist countries like East Germany, Romania and North Korea plus the Soviet Union is listed as Russia.

 

Back to the reason I purchased this lot, the Tibet flag. The Tibetan flag was designed in the early 1900s and includes quite a few components, which all have a unique meaning. While many of the flags in the set are accurate the Tibetan flag is more of a representation of the actual flag and I am willing to bet that this has to do with Tibet being an isolated nation and without access to the Google machine it was much more difficult for the artist to find complete and correct information. I have included an image of the Tibetan flag and you can see that the flag is not really orange with some blue bands, a white section and some squiggly lines.

I originally thought that the cards were minis where they are in fact larger than standard sports cards. Here is a 2013 Topps Update Mike Zunino card stacked on top of one of the 1956 Topps Flag cards. They don’t fit a binder so I have to figure the best way to display the card. Here are the backs of the cards too.

 

Box Break: 2013-14 Panini Immaculate Basketball

First I would like to thank Tracy Hackler and Panini for holding the contest, otherwise I would have never had the opportunity to open such a top-end box of cards. The box comes in a cool tin, with sleeve, and inside is a velvet-like inner pack which holds the gold colored box.

Each box contains one numbered base card and 5 numbered hits made up of autographs, patches and relics. Some of the top hits are 1/1 Logoman autograph patches, booklet cards, Insignia patches and Game-used Nameplate Nobility patches but the top of the heap, be all-get all hits are the Sneak Peek shoe relics. These Sneak Peek relics contain a large sneaker swatch  of star players like Kyrie Irving, Shaq, LeBron James and Kobe with the cards all numbered to either 1/1 or #/2 and even the cheapest cards are running a couple of hundred with most selling well over $1,000.

One thing to remember though is that these boxes are high-risk/high-reward. If you are lucky you can make out big but if you don’t have a four-leaf clover growing out of your butt you will have buyer’s remorse. Don’t get me wrong I don’t want to seem ungrateful, this was a unique experience, and I pulled cards from my two favorite teams but if I paid for the box I would have been disappointed.

 

First up is the Joakim Noah base card Gold Parallel #/10

 

A Kendrick Perkins jumbo relic #/75 from my least favorite team, the OKC Stolen Sonics

 

A Bill Sharman autograph #/99

The card has chipping along the green bottom

 

A Michael Kidd-Gilchrist Sole Of The Game shoe relic #/35

 

A Gary Payton Scorers Club autograph #/49

This card is very cool with the gold auto on black paper

 

Finally, an Alex Len Rookie Patch Autograph redemption

 

I collect Suns and Sonics so I got two cards for my collection, including the amazing Payton autograph. I also got a shoe card, just not the kind I was hoping to pull. So there you go…

A Box With A View

A little over a week ago I got an email from Tracy Hackler letting me know that I won one of their seek & find contests, I found 6 Panini logos located through various photo galleries, my prize was a box of basketball cards. Now I normally do not open basketball cards but stick with the occasional singles of Suns players but instead of selling the box I decided to open it to see what I got.

 

Of course it helped that it was a box of 2013-14 Immaculate Basketball and I figured I would never get the chance to open a $450 box of cards. You only get a preview of the Noah base card, you will have to wait until tomorrow to see what else I pulled.

Desert Ink

Last night the Arizona Wildcats went up to Eugene, Oregon to play the #2 Oregon Ducks in a game that was expected to be an easy win by the Ducks. After Oregon’s domination of 3 of their first 4 games, including a trouncing of then #7 Michigan State, it looked like only UCLA and Stanford were their only speed bump at a shot at a National Championship.

 

In honor of the very surprising Arizona 31-24 win I decided to go with some of my favorite Wildcat autographs.

I begin with my favorite Wildcat football player Chuck Cecil. His 109-yard interception return against ASU in 1986 was voted as the Greatest Football Play in Wildcat history. He went on to be drafted by the Packers in 1988, he also played for the Cardinals and Oilers and is currently the Titans Defensive Secondary Coach.

 

Next up is Trung Canidate. He was part of the successful Dick Tomey era, also known as the Desert Swarm years. After a solid college career he was drafted in the First Round by the Rams where he backed up Marshall Faulk. He was later traded to the Redskins where he backed up Clinton Portis. Sadly his best season was a 600-yd season in 2003 (1,095 career yards) and has made it on to the Rams list of Top 10 Draft Busts.

 

From a draft bust in Canidate to a draft bargain in Nick Foles. He came to Arizona in 2008 redshirting behind Willie Tuitama, in 2009 he split time with Matt Scott but the next two seasons he got better each year. He was drafted by the Eagles in the 3^rd Round of the 2012 NFL Draft. In his time in Philly he has thrown for 5,568 yards with 39 TDs and 9 INTs and looks to be the team’s QB of the future.

 

Matt Scott replaced Foles in 2012 and proved to be a decent quarterback taking the team to an 8-5 record and a win over Nevada in the New Mexico Bowl earning MVP honors. He went undrafted in the 2013 NFL Draft but was signed by the Jaguars to their practice squad. This year he was released by the Jags but was signed by the Bengals a day later. He was cut by the Bengals prior to this season and is currently unsigned.

 

My final autograph is Ka’Deem Carey. His 366-yard game against Colorado in 2012 is a Pac-12 record and his 1,929 rushing yards that same year led the nation. He was drafted by the Bears in the 4^th Round this year and is currently backing up Matt Forte.

 

I am looking to add a couple of Wildcat autographs in Willie Tuitama, Rob Gronkowski and Tedy Bruschi still.

Farscape Comic Card Pickups

One thing that collectors have gotten used to over the past decade has been the closing of card stores at an alarming rate. The same can be said about comic book shops, they are closing just as quick due to the availability of most collectibles online. Occasionally this can work out in our favor, though still disappointing none-the-less.

Not long ago I heard that a local comic book shop was closing and they were discounting much of their stock so I headed up to take a look. I am looking for 2 issues of Mars Attacks Judge Dredd and was hoping to find them pretty cheap. While I didn’t find the Mars Attacks books I did find some cheap Farscape cards.

 

Farscape is one of my favorite shows, even though it has been off the air for 11 years. During the shows 4 seasons and follow up Peacekeeper Wars mini-series Rittenhouse released 6 different sets. One set for each season plus “Through The Wormhole” (a set covering all four seasons) and a lenticular set called Farscape In Motion. Throughout the 6 sets there were costume cards, autographs and sketch cards.

 

I picked up two costume cards, an autograph and a sketch card and in all I spent $16.95 (including tax). Normally costume cards and autographs run $8 and up with the main characters selling for a premium and sketch cards are usually well over $25, so I found an amazing deal.

 

My favorite Farscape character is Zotoh Zhaan a Delvian priestess or Pa’u, played by Virginia Hey. The Delvians are blue, peaceful plant creatures. They are very Buddhist-like so her character spoke to me. The two costume cards I picked up are C3, from Season One, and CC12, from Season Two.

 

The autograph card and sketch card are of Rygel, the deposed leader of the Hynerian Empire. Rygel’s character could best be described as a child. Everything he saw was his, everything you saw was his and everything he hasn’t seen is his. He was just an egotistical little guy who moved around on a floating sled and was voiced by Jonathan Hardy.

I picked up a couple of other Farscape cards recently, more about them later, and I am still looking to add a couple more relic and autograph cards. I am focusing mainly on Chiana and Scorpious, my second favorite character and one of the main bad guys, respectively, plus any sketch cards I can find for a reasonable price.

Return Of The Club

When I came back to collecting in 1992 it was Stadium Club that was my weakness. I was handing over cash like I was buying heroin all in search of the elusive Shaq rookie card or a Beam Team insert. When baseball season rolled around my addiction spread to pulling anything connected to Ken Griffey Jr.

 

Between 1991 and 2003 Stadium Club was a hobby staple, the glossy full-bleed cards were pure beauty in your hands. In 2007 Topps released 2007-08 Basketball and in 2008 they released 2008 Baseball, both high end products containing a hit per pack but the cost priced the release out of many collectors bracket and Stadium Club disappeared a second time. Now it is back for a third time and has been shifted back to a mid-range product with boxes selling around $100 and like Finest it now is made up of mini-boxes, 3 minis, with one autograph per mini-box.

 

Back are the beautiful full-bleed action shots, Beam Team and Triumvirate inserts. Parallels include Rainbow Foil (1 per mini), Gold Foil (1 per Master), Electric Foil (1 per Master), Foilboard (#/25) and Members Only (1 per case). New inserts include Legend Die-Cuts, Future Stars Die-Cuts and Field Access, along with their parallels. Autographs are made up of Base Autos, Lone Star Signatures, Beam Team Autographs, Co-Signers and 1991 Buyback Autographs.

I couldn’t be more excited about the return of Stadium Club. I am definitely grabbing singles here and possibly even busting a box.

Some cool cards are already showing up, I think the Beam Team cards are among my favorites.

The Members Only parallels #/8 are drawing a lot of attention too.

One of the huge upsides is that the autographs are on card and there are plenty to choose from ranging from rookies to vets and retired though it does suck that many of the top end autographs are redemptions.