Best eBay hidden treasure

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Posted By: Matthew

Just wondering what some of the best hidden treasures you guys have found on eBay.
I once got outsniped on a full sealed case of Sweet Caporal packs.
It was at about $500 with 2 minutes left.
I bid $1000 and got the high bid at about $700.
Still had high bid with 10 seconds left and made an insurance bid of $3500.
Got outbid with 2 seconds left.

Other than that I have never even been close to a score.

But I figured you all might have some nice stories of hidden treasures you had found. Maybe something was mislisted or not mentioned at all, but shown in a picture.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I love hidden treasure on ebay...

I got this postcard of Billy Sunday playing baseball in a big stack of real photo postcards on ebay...there was no mention of Sunday in the listing, but I could clearly see the "W.A Sunday" on the card in one of the pictures. Total cost of the lot was $60 - I ended up relisting just two of the postcards of a horse driven popcorn wagon and got $150 for the pair.



I also got a baseball certificate signed by Kennesaw Landis that wasn't even mentioned in the lot of baseball ephemera that I won for a whopping $5. I have never sent it in to be authenticated, but everyone I have shown it too thinks it is real.



I won two snapshot photos of a game at Comiskey c1930 for $10 and when I got them in the mail one said "Ruth at bat" on the back and the other said "Gehrig at bat. I paid only $10 for those...they may not be worth a whole lot, but it was a nice surprise and certainly treasure to me.

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Posted By: Joann

OK Dan - so one of them got a hit or something, right? I (ahem) don't know who batted in which order, but they batted consecutively, right? Looks like someone made it to first though?

Neat stuff. I never get ebay steals like that. Probably because I don't poke around in the corners or buy stacks of things. I just walk down Main Street (aka MLB pre-1930 Singles category) and wait for bargains to rain out of the sky!

J

Edited to say: I think I'm losing my marbles. I swore I saw the same guy at first in both photos when I first looked. Edited to make the comments relative to the photos in Dan's post.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I never noticed that until just now....I wonder if the shots were taken in consecutive at bats?

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Posted By: Silver King

I don't think they are in consecutive order since the batters box in the lower picture looks untouched. It looks like the infield was just watered in the bottom picture. I love the two pictures, it's kind of like playing one of those games where you have to find 10 things different between the pictures.

robert shaw

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I won on eBay a collection of letters from the advertised likes of Joe Garagiola, Bill Freehan, Bobby Thomson, a few common Pre-War players, etc. When I got the letters, there were unadvertised signed handwritten letters from Tommy Bond (first pitching triple crown winner in 1877) and Jack Glasscock (4 pages). The Bond letter, written to Ford Frick, described the uniforms players wore in the 1870s and thanked Frick for a pass. Included was a carbon copy of Frick's earlier letter to Bond. It took me a while to figure out what was the Glasscock letter. The letter was the longest, Glasscock's writing was messy and dense and he didn't sign it at the end (he signed within the regular text), so I put it off for last inspection. I lay down on a couch and started looking it over. When I saw the writer mention playing dates like 1887 and 1890, I thought "What a second, here."

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Posted By: Ray

One of my very first purchases on Ebay was an antique cookie tin for 99 cents. I opened it up and found two "Honus Wagner" cigarette cards. Also included in the tin was a "Babe Ruth" card. It had him standing there and it had a pretty blue border to it. I think it said "Read The Baltimore News" on the back. There was also a very small card of a man named simply "Plank". It was a close up shot of him and he had an "A" on his jersey (it looked like a portrait as opposed to some action shot) with a pretty blue background. I think later on down the road I'll put these up on Ebay when I run into "financial difficulties which force me to sell." Until then, they'll be in my grandpa's attic...

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Posted By: Joe D.

Dan,

I think they are consecutive photos.

In photo one: the guy sitting in seat 4F is putting mustard on his hot dog.
In photo two: the hotdog is half eaten and the gentleman has a mustard stain on his collar.

I don't think more evidence is needed than that


seriously - very cool photos.


edit to say:
awesome story David. Must have been an exciting pickup.

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Posted By: Jason L

I like that game as well - Can you spot Waldo in the top photo?

Another clue as to time passge between exposures is the large difference in the amount of batters box chalk between the two photos...wouldn't think both sides would disappear that much after only one or even two batters

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Posted By: Jay

I'm not sure if this applies but I once bought a raw T206 SLer for 30 bucks that from the iffy scans looked perfect. I assumed it was trimmed. I then traded that card for a Matty PSA 4.