Post your best story! The Buy that got away

[Fballguy]

The buy that got away for me occurred 15 years ago when I sold my Priceline stock when it hit $10 a share.

$1,957 a share as of this morning.

Thanks for asking.

[scooter729]

Originally Posted by Fballguy

The buy that got away for me occurred 15 years ago when I sold my Priceline stock when it hit $10 a share.

$1,957 a share as of this morning.

Thanks for asking.

Ouch - glad to see I have company. Sold my 200 shares of Amazon stock in the 90s when it was in the same $10 range. Now about $1,400 per share. Just your everyday $280K I missed out on - nothing to see here.....

[packs]

Originally Posted by scooter729

Ouch - glad to see I have company. Sold my 200 shares of Amazon stock in the 90s when it was in the same $10 range. Now about $1,400 per share. Just your everyday $280K I missed out on - nothing to see here.....

I remember hearing William Shatner tell Howard Stern he got paid for his commercials in Priceline stock and sold it all when the company briefly tanked only to lose out on something crazy like 10 or so million dollars.

[Yoda]

It was the mid-nineties and I was at the National, being held that year in Atlanta. I was perusing the wares on offer when I spotted Kevin Struss at the SportsCards Plus table and went over to say hello, which I did. Kevin is an old friend. There in his case was a T206 with the familiar orange background. Yes, it was him, Honus himself, positioned handsomely in a PSA 4 holder. While in a state of disbelief, I asked Kevin if I could hold it and he happily obliged. So I can truthfully say I have held the Holy Grail. But then things got interesting. He explained that the card belonged to Mastro who had purchased it from an older woman in NJ and and was looking for a quick sale.
The more we talked the more I sensed that perhaps some kind of deal could be struck. Memory fades, but I believe he was willing to consider cash and trade (I had a stack of beautiful just graded '14 Cracker Jacks, including Jackson. to offer up). To make a long story short, we reached a number of around, astonishingly, of $150,000, which would have been the deal of the century. At the time, I was a dealer, Full Count Baseball Cards and to complete this surreal transaction would have taken all my cash and some star cards. I just couldn't do it and walked away, regretting it to this day. Of course, I still wonder who the lucky person was who captured Honus.

[Aaron Seefeldt]

Originally Posted by Yoda

It was the mid-nineties and I was at the National, being held that year in Atlanta. I was perusing the wares on offer when I spotted Kevin Struss at the SportsCards Plus table and went over to say hello, which I did. Kevin is an old friend. There in his case was a T206 with the familiar orange background. Yes, it was him, Honus himself, positioned handsomely in a PSA 4 holder. While in a state of disbelief, I asked Kevin if I could hold it and he happily obliged. So I can truthfully say I have held the Holy Grail. But then things got interesting. He explained that the card belonged to Mastro who had purchased it from an older woman in NJ and and was looking for a quick sale.
The more we talked the more I sensed that perhaps some kind of deal could be struck. Memory fades, but I believe he was willing to consider cash and trade (I had a stack of beautiful just graded '14 Cracker Jacks, including Jackson. to offer up). To make a long story short, we reached a number of around, astonishingly, of $150,000, which would have been the deal of the century. At the time, I was a dealer, Full Count Baseball Cards and to complete this surreal transaction would have taken all my cash and some star cards. I just couldn't do it and walked away, regretting it to this day. Of course, I still wonder who the lucky person was who captured Honus.

Hey John, Bill showed me that Wagner the first time I ever went to his home. Great card!

Mine that got away: A friend/collector, in the late 1990's offered me his Baltimore News Babe Ruth. He sent it to me and I had it in my hands but it was missing the upper left corner, clipped off. He wanted $15K for it. I had the money but just couldn't get past the clipped corner. I passed and sent it back. Doh!

[Paul S]

One summer in 1966-67 when I was in my early-mid teens, I spent a few summer weeks sorting tons of cards at Goldfadden's house. Cards were all 50s-60s. Commons, semi-stars and stars who would go on to become HOFers. I was nonplussed, as I pretty much already had just about all of them (from Brick and Mortars - for nickels, dimes and quarters - all I ever bought from Goodie at was pre-war, at his store. ADCO). He didn't pay me much at all, but I didn't mind...until out of nowhere up pops #311! Now, the going rate for that card at the time was around $38, and I always wanted it badly (I was a transplanted NYer in LA). That was a lot of money for me. So I didn't even bother to ask. Alas, in hindsight, I'm sure I could have put in on lay-away, but that never occurred to me then.

[Fballguy]

Originally Posted by scooter729

Ouch - glad to see I have company. Sold my 200 shares of Amazon stock in the 90s when it was in the same $10 range. Now about $1,400 per share. Just your everyday $280K I missed out on - nothing to see here.....

It was my first time buying stock. Had just gotten married and didn't have a lot of money. My wife and I decided to invest some of our wedding money. Only about $2,000. We picked four stocks based on an article she read in the Sunday paper. Priceline was one. The others were tech stocks or something along those lines. I remember Sun Microsystems. Can't remember the other two. Those three all went in the tank pretty quickly so we decided to sell our 100 shares of Priceline to recoup what we could. We weren't into losing money at that point and pulled the plug quickly.

Could've been a great beginners luck story. Instead it's a great "one that got away" story.

[hcv123]

Originally Posted by scooter729

Ouch - glad to see I have company. Sold my 200 shares of Amazon stock in the 90s when it was in the same $10 range. Now about $1,400 per share. Just your everyday $280K I missed out on - nothing to see here.....

At least you guys were in the game!! I had Amazon AND Apple on a short watch list and never pulled the freagin trigger!! Ouch!