Most Honorable/Ethical Situation you've dealt with...

[mintacular]

Just wondering in all your years of collecting if you ever had a deal happen whereby you made a mistake, etc. and someone on the other end "did the right thing" and helped fix the problem. I guess I'm thinking of examples when a big $ card came back altered and the seller refunded you when they could've ignored you. Or maybe an instance when you had some rare backs or high #'s etc that you did not know about, and instead of taking advantage or your ignorance they offered you more than the original selling $. I guess there might be a lot more horror stories the other way around, but I also know there must be some examples when morality trumped profit. After all, at the end of the day they are just baseball cards.

[Ladder7]

delete, i misread the definition

[Mark]

Deleted because overtaken by events.
Mark L

[mintacular]

I believe 'Ladder7' is being faceitious (sic)

[scooter729]

I submitted cards to one of the two big grading companies, and received back not only my cards, but also someone else's cards in the mail (probably $2K - $3K worth of cards that got packed in the shipment with mine).

I notified the grading company and returned them. My next several orders were done at no cost to thank me for the honesty.

[steve B]

Hanging out at a shop one time around 1980.

There was a small box of cards that had been offered to the shop and they'd looked it over. Late 40's, early 50's, maybe some earlier? Mostly in somewhat worn condition.

I got to preview it since I was one of the people that hung out constantly and was working on a 48 Bowman set.

There were some leaf baseball, and I noticed one that was one of the singleprints. When I made mention of that the shop guy got concerned and checked all the leaf cards. There were a few sps. Which changed the offer quite a bit, but the worry then was that the seller would think they were actually worth even more because of the change so soon after the original offer. But the box had been shopped around to a couple other places and they didn't want to be way low either. So the call was made. The seller was very happy, everyone else had missed the SPs so the new offer was a whole lot more.
I didn't get anything directly, but the shop was always very good to me.


I wasn't involved, but I saw another guy I hung out at take an altered coin back roughly 15 years after he'd originally sold it. No reciept, nothing except it would have been uncommon enough that he remembered the coin. Customer said it had come back as altered, he looked at it and agreed, then they both tried to recall the selling price. Which they both thought was roughly the same ammount. check written problem fixed. Total maybe 10 minutes. I learned a lot from that.

Steve B

[JamesGallo]

I had a pile of stolen cards returned to me by a fellow board member. He was not out any money but put in a lot of time and agravation, so I am very thankful. I bought a card from him the next show I saw him at. It was nice to give him some of my money.

James G

[iggyman]

I don't have any mushy Walt Disney Hannah Montana story to share. But I'm going to throw this sad tale on the table. In the Heritage 2010 November Dallas Signature Sports Collectibles Auction #7028, I won lot #80364. It was an E92 Dockman graded partial set of 11 with both Honus Wagner poses ( http://sports.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=7028&Lot_No=80364 ). Here is a pic, as shown in the auction:

3338433385

I was really happy with the purchase, since I thought I got it at a respectable price, the cards had nice eye appeal on the front, plus I've always had a lust appetite for the E92 Wagner(s). I paid in a prompt manner (the next day via E-check) and waited and waited and waited. I called Heritage a couple of times, both times I was told the cards would be shipped the next day. Finally, after waiting until mid December, I called again and was finally told the truth. The cards were lost/misplaced (stolen(?)) somewhere in the shipping department. Within a week I had a refund check from Heritage. Somewhere, someplace...........perhaps in Kansas, eleven Dockman cards reside which at this point have bad karma.

Lovely Day...

[deadballera]

A friend of mine years ago was at a garage sale and found a box of cards that an older woman was selling. In looking through only some of the cards (Mostly 50s and 60s, with Mantles, Koufax, Mays, Nolan Ryan)..he asked how much. She said something like $5 for the whole box. He said that she had some good cards in there and wouldn't feel good about $5. He said ended up giving $50.

[scmavl]

A fellow I bought a Campanella card from on ebay emailed me after I had paid to say he had just noticed a small wrinkle on the otherwise EX/MT card. So he was sending me the one I bought, PLUS an extra uncreased card (the same one) at no charge. The centering was a little worse on the free one, but hey... I couldn't ask for more honesty.

[rdixon1208]

Not too long ago I sold a few cards on ebay and accidentally shipped one of them to the wrong person. When I contacted the person that I sent the wrong card to, he was very helpful. I sent him the address of the correct buyer and he shipped the card to him for me. It was great.

Just about a month ago a good friend of mine bought a PSA 9 Roy Halladay RC on ebay. The seller accidentally sent him a PSA 10, which is worth about 5X more (I think). He contacted the seller and sent the card back to him. The seller sent him the PSA 9 and gave him a full refund on the transaction. Everybody got to sleep well.

[Tim Kindler]

My story involves board memeber David Halpen. A few years back, I bought a W600 Ed Abbatichio off of him for $500, I think. I loved that card and had it for over a year until I needed to sell it to fund another card that I have treasured even more. Anyway, when I put it up for sale on the BST, another board member (I apologize that I can't remember who alerted me to it, but Thank You) alerted me that he thought my card was stolen from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I did some research on the Hall of Shame website, and sure enough the red markings on the back fit the description of items that had been stolen and then the markings were slightly changed to cover up the specific markings from the Hall of Fame. I contacted David who said that he bought the W600 and other cards in a lot from Mastro a few years earlier. Now I'm not blaming Mastro either because it is believed that the items with these markings were stolen many years ago and have probably changed hands many times with most of the parties being like Mastro, David, and I having no clue that they were stolen. David felt so bad about selling me a stolen item, even though he had nothing to do with the theft and he was sort of a victim too, that he bought back the card from me at the price he sold it to me, and was going to talk to the Hall of Fame about somehow returning it to its proper place. This means David will be out some serious money by doing the right thing. I don't know how David's pursuit with the Hall of Fame turned out, but I just thought that someone who did such a graceful and polite thing should be recognized. Thanks David!

Tim Kindler

[wrapperguy]

Some of you old timers may remember Dan Knoll, a Chicago area guy who was a Cubs collector and serious jersey expert. Dan had a shop in a mall in the hayday in a southwestern suburban of Chicago. Woman walks into his shop with a Kareem Abdul Jabbar jersey and says her late husband used to work at the now defunct Chicago Stadium and was given this jersey by someone from the Lakers. She asked $100 and told Dan to think about it while she shopped at the mall. Dan makes a few phone calls, finds out it is the real McCoy, and pays her $1,500. We need more guys like him in the hobby.

[bh3443]

I ran shows from the 70's through 2008 and I loved my business. I have many friends that set up as well as attended my events over the decades.
After a particularly busy 1989 show in Westboro, Mass, my friends and I started to gather the trash and there were a lot of empty wax boxes and cases everywhere because the new UD, Topps, Donruss, Fleer and Score BB was out.
I kicked what I thought was an empty case of 89 UD, and it was very heavy.
Upon opening it I found thousands of gem mint high end 50's stars in glass screw downs inside. i mean it had EVERYTHING like Bowman Mantle, Mays Ford rookies, and thousands of superb cards.
I secured the box in the office I used, and got out my brief case to locate the phone number of the dealer that owned them. I got in touch with him and returned his collection to him that afternoon.
This type of scenario happens once in a while when you promote shows.
I have lived my life doing the right thing like this.