Hi all, I'm the seller in question. A fellow eBay user tipped me off to the discussion on this forum. I'm a little floored and, frankly, humbled by the interest.
The Gehrig cards are all different. The one posted now is the last of 4 or 5 that I had from that series.
The story of how I came into the cards is legit. My Grandpa spent his entire life across the river from NYC, and as a huge baseball fan in general, and a Yankee fan specifically. The cards were part of a box he handed over to me before he passed in 1998. There were a number of postwar cards in the mix, in addition to what I've listed more currently.
I spent much of my life being a reasonable dedicated card collector, but I've reached an age and a point in my life where other things are just more important to me. Accordingly, I'm making an effort to downsize not only the card collection, but a lot of the rest of my life in general.
I'm well aware of the grading process and how it works. Am I leaving money on the table by not having the cards graded? No doubt. Do I care? Not especially. I work a full-time job and a part-time job, 60 hours per week. There is an upfront time and a cost involved with grading that I'm not inclined to incur. I'm perfectly content to release these one, or two, or a small lot at a time, in the little spare time that I have. It's good progress toward my downsizing, a productive effort, and a little extra money in my pocket.
This may strike some of you as strange, but I don't care if the cards go for $5 each or $5,000. If the buyer gets a great deal and chooses to have the cards graded and subsequently flip them or add them to a collection, more power to you. They're obviously doing you more good than they are me, sitting on my closet.
I still have about 4 transactions for which feedback has not come in, but the feedback I have received has been 100% positive, and buyers have specifically mentioned in the feedback that they've had the cards graded and they've come back legit. I'm happy that they're happy.
Before each listing, I look at my card vs. images of graded cards to look for obvious signs of reprinting, but that's the extent of it. Specifically to the Scammer 101 handbook comment, I include that disclaimer because it's honest. If that's your faithfully held opinion, you're certainly entitled to it, but it seems to me a scammer would go out of their way to hype up what they have as legit, then quickly bail. I'm still here with happy buyers.
But the fact remains that eBay provides three options for describing a card: "authenticated", "reprint", and "unknown". Unknown is the description that best fits, and my disclaimer is an honest extension of that.
I hope this clears up some questions. Again, thank you for the discussion and the interest.
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