What cards did you get for a steal, although you didn't realize it at the time?
 

So in the early80's, I was involved with a mail order auction. Probably something I saw in the classifieds of the Sporting News. I won like four cards for maybe $25 altogether. I felt like, if I won four cards in one auction, I must be such a Rube.
All well and good. One of the cards I won, for like $12, was a 1915 Harry Heilmann ZeeNut. (coupon cut off, naturally). I guess it kind of worked out.

You mean aside from all of them? Certainly anything picked up pre-pandi seems like the world’s biggest steal right now.

Might be easier to name the stuff that doesn’t seem like a screaming deal. Basically for me the only stuff on that list is from the junk wax era. Otherwise, everything I picked up pre-pandi has gone up by 300% or more in the last couple of years. So while it seemed like I was paying a lot at the time, little did I know that I was getting a screaming deal by today’s standards.

Better deal than I thought
 

Picked up 10 1954 Johnstons Cookies in vg including Mathews…. others commons…. but later realized that the Bobby Thompson ( included as a common) was a rare short print in that set!! Nice surprise…

I got a T206 lot in early 2001 for about $600 for 40 cards, which is obviously a steal now, but back then I got the lot and saw that the George Davis card had an upside down back, showing parts of four Piedmont ads. I had no idea of the value, so I went on the Full Count message board and asked about the price.

The first response I got was that it had no extra value, but the person thought it was interesting so they would pay a little extra for it. I believe they said $75. The next person said don't sell to them, I'll give you $300. Then someone offered $400, followed by two people who said they would top any offers. I did not sell the card and still have it

A bought a lot of 1952 hi numbers on ebay, the seller threw in a poor eddie mathews rc!

I also collect postcards, caught this on ebay with a buy it now 2 minutes after it was listed for under $300. I was happy to have ANY ty cobb for under 300. I think i could sell it and make a profit.


Later again on ebay a 1952 topps Mantle KSA 2 for 3400. I thought as long as PSA authenticated it, I would be ok. I jumped in the bidding at the end and was afraid I paid too much.

As Raulus stated anything vintage bought pre-pandemic has appreciated nicely.
Modern, not so much. Imagine stockpiling on unopened cases of 1988 Donruss,
Fleer, Score & Topps?

15 years ago when I was working on my 1st set of T3 Turkey Red's
I won on ebay an ungraded Mathewson for a song, maybe $240. dlvd
My bid was much higher, so was curious why it went so low.
Then I noticed the seller was from England & back then there was no ebay protection
for lost or stolen packages.

It did arrive in the condition as advertised, worn & stained. Had it graded & it fit in nicely in my set.

https://www.qualitycards.com/pictures/12262455.jpg

All of my E121-120 Ruth Cards

Bought a small "lot" at Hillsville Flea market for less than $20. I knew nothing of T206 at the time, just knew there were some older cards in the group. Brought home and it sat on my desk for 3 or more months, until one day I decided to look up what it was. Turns out it was a Broad Leaf Billy Purtell, sent it to PSA , now 2 of them are known, sold for $750, but really wish I had it back. But Alas , I am now hooked on the vintage!

Would you like a '52 Bowman Mantle for $1.00?
 

Sometime in the '80's, a dealer/friend from who I'd bought many times, asked me "How'd you like a '52 Bowman Mantle for a dollar? It's beat up, but it's still a '52 Bowman Mantle." Of course I said, "Sure." Pix are below, but now it could be the single favorite card I own, just as a reminder of a more innocent time.

Cards in a Steal
 

I went to a card show in Dearborn. Michigan in 1987. Gordie Howe was the autograph feature. My daughter wanted to get her Red Wings pennant signed and I had a jersey to be signed. We got there and bought autograph tickets. We numbers 407 and 408 for the line which had not started. Everyone was sitting in the bleachers waiting for Howe and no one was walking around the tables. My daughter and I started looking. She got a couple of grab bags and I got to the last table and saw a stack of 1962 Jello cards. There were 42 cards in the stack with 2 Willie Mays cards. The price was 120.00. I looked through the stack and there were decently cut. I had 100.00 in my wallet. I asked him his best price. He said he hadn't sold anything all day and would take 105.00. I told him I had a hundred in the wallet but, would like to have 20.00 to take my daughter to lunch, He said ok. We then sold our autograph tickets to someone else who had come in. (By then they were into the 700's) We went to lunch.

So, in the stack besides the 2 Mays, was a Koufax, Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks and three that I had no idea are the incredibly tough to find:

Bobby Richardson, Bill Stafford and Curt Simmons.

In the late 1990's, I did a deal for most of Lew Lipset's Sporting News M101-5s that he had advertised for several months. These included Jackson, Cobb, Stengel etc., but the crown jewel was the Ruth RC. Lew wanted $5k for the Bambino but dropped to $4.5 since I was buying a large lot. I subsequently had it graded by Derrek Grady at SGC, where it received a grade of 5.5. It is long gone, of course, sold when I folded the Full Count tent.

My best would be when I picked up a raw Sanella Ruth in mid 2000s for around $30 and sold it at the peak in 2021 for over $2k. I still miss that card and wish I still had it but I needed the money at the time.

Beat up D304 Cobb for $75 back in the 80's. Graded at a "1" - beat to heck, but real. Picked up a second D304 Cobb about 10+ years ago on fleabay (BIN) for under $500 (I think it was $475). Although it graded out a "1", it's much nicer than the first one.

I bought a 30s R card lot in order to get a few Gold Medal Foods cards I needed to complete my set. I paid $126 dollars for it, which is the most I have ever spent on a single card purchase. But I was fairly confident I could sell some of the cards and mitigate the cost. And that definitely proved true. I got the last Gold Medal card I needed - a tough-to-find Firpo Marberry, and was able to upgrade four others in the set and sell the duplicates. I sold about half the remaining cards at the time and recovered my cost. But I wish I still had them. The condition on these cards was prisitine for R cards, and I probably should have gotten them graded. I still have some of the bigger cards from the group. All told, if the market remains, I probably got 15X the value out of that lot.

To sum up according to the point of the original post, the surprise of it was two-fold, some of the cards included in the lot ended up being better players and more rare issues than I thought. And the superior condition of all of the cards was something I didn't realize was as big of a deal as it was until recently.

In October 2015, I bought a T206 Jack Powell with an Old Mill back. It was just another card for my master front/back set. I paid $65. Some time in 2018, I was searching my card backs for EPDG's, because someone here on Net54 had asked if anyone had a certain EPDG back print flaw. My cards are in alphabetical order, so I had to skip through the backs until an EPDG back came along. Nearly all my cards are off backs. So, as I was quickly passing the other backs, I stopped at an Old Mill back, because it just looked different. It turned out to be a Blue Ink Old Mill back. Even after all these years, I still haven't gone back and checked my other Old Mill backs. I have 240 Old Mill's, but only 46 of them are from print group one, which are where the Blue Old Mill's can be found. So I had the card for about 3 years, before noticing the variation.

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=35804https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=35805

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=35806

Agree with the prior post that just about anything vintage i bought years ago could qualify, though I will go with this one as a steal. It surely was a nice card, but never expected even mid-grade versions to appreciate anywhere near as they have. Paid $100 raw for this at a show in the late 90’s. Had it graded a few years ago.

This sounds like a good way to infinity dollars.

WOW; simply WOW! Congratulations and way da go, Michael. --- Brian Powell

PS---Unless he already has the story for his 1962 JELL-O chapter, you must tell or send this story to Ken Marks. This is a beaut!

https://i.imgur.com/GWv0ugr.jpg

A few stories behind each of these cards:

The Aaron RC was purchased off of Becketts Marketplace, back in the Late 2000's. I don't recall the exact price but it was something in the ballpark of $130. I wanted to own the RC of Henry Aaron, I saved my money and was able to purchase it. The Killebrew and Banks RC's were won on Ebay, both for under $100, during the same time period. I couldn't understand how these guys, who were members of the 500 Home Run Club, both so cheap. All of which are in rougher condition, but it matters little to me.

The Koufax, was purchased during COVID. The seller told me that it displays great but measures a touch short of what normal 1955 Topps go for. I have zero plan to grade it, got it for a steal, I'm happy with having it in my collection.

The Minnie, was a throw in from a member on the forum. They were selling 1952 Topps, all lower series. We went back and fourth through a chain of emails, I actually purchased from him twice. Minnie was discussed, but we could never really settle on a price. After I received my second shipment of cards, I noticed the Minnie was in there, and immediately contacted the person, thinking he made a mistake. He told me that because we talked about it so much, he decided just to throw in Minnie for free. This was shortly before his election to the Hall of Fame, so obviously hindsight is 20/20.

This card was a more recent "steal". Basically it was a right time, right place. In April 2020, one random night, but actually very early morning, I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. So I checked the newest eBay T206 listings. One seller had 4 listings. 2 were common Piedmont PSA 4's, 1 was a common Polar Bear PSA 4, and the last was a common front, but a more difficult American Beauty 460 back, and it was also graded PSA 4. Each card was listed for $190 each. I only purchased the American Beauty.

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=35803

1967 Topps
 

When I started working on my 1967 Topps set, I bought several lots of commons off eBay. In one of those, was this Spezio error card. I didn't realize it was valuable until sometime after I added the cards to my set binder.

Sometime in the late 1980s Hawaiian Punch came out with a deal that if you sent in 10 proof of purchases with a SASE they would send you a vintage baseball card worth at least $50, one per household. My family were big Hawaiian Punch drinkers so I sent off the day I found out and eventually gave my best friend the proof of purchases as well as his family weren’t Hawaiian Punch drinkers. When the cards arrived I got a 1952 topps Hank Sauer in NM+ condition, my friend got a 1957 topps Warren Spahn in NM condition. I remembering thinking he made out far better than me, but I was able to trade him a McGwire and canseco rookie for the Spahn card. Based upon how 52s have gone insane pricing wise the Sauer card is the bargain today, but looking back both were bargains since we drank Hawaiian Punch either way and just had to send in the SASEs.

Brandon, never heard of that promotion
& just checked & saw this ad
Wish I wouldda known about it :)

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/jUoAA...s3/s-l1600.jpg

That is so awesome! So only 3 proofs of purchases I know we drank more than that every week.

When I didn't respond directly to anyone, I believe (trying to remember from 22 years ago) that I was contacted by them with $600 and $800 offers. Those two offers definitely happened, I'm just not 100% sure it was the two people who said they would top anything.

Instead of selling, I started searching for them and found three others about two years later in a collection. Unlike the first offer I got, I paid a good price to someone who wasn't quite sure what they had.

The Davis is in the top right:

When I was probably 12 years old at a card show (at a shopping mall, they used to be in the mall!!), I got a 1933 Goudey Mel Ott (the green one) in pretty nice shape for $20. Years later I had it graded and it was a PSA 4.5. I'm not sure exactly what it's worth since I have not looked to sell it, but definitely more than $20!

In 2019, a St Louis auction house advertised on Net54 for a huge card auction he was running with Ruths, Gehrigs, etc. I won two lots, both Wheaties, for $145 + buyers premium + shipping. I thought it was a great deal then. I got Gehrig, Foxx, Rip Collins, Pepper Martin ×2.

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Early pandemic purchase...winter/spring 2020...ebay...best offer...5 blue bird babe ruth's supposedly from original find. I have no reason to not believe this. At this point these were selling for maybe 2-3K each in mid grade condition. These looked nice. I was very nervous as I wasn't accustomed to dropping 14K on an impulse.

They graded 5,5,5,5.5,6.

I sold 2 and basically recouped my investment. Sold 2 more and I kept the nicest one for myself.

Pete, as you know, I now own one of those Blue Birds- what a gorgeous piece. I am glad you found them!

I would have to lean towards 1964 Topps Giant inscribed/signed by Roberto Clemente. Picked it up from Kevin Keating years ago so feel pretty good that signature is good. Never imagined the value would balloon to the present day levels.

me too!!!!! and thanks for helping me return to solvency!!!

Great question
 

My answer is simple. In 2009, I tried to convince my card "partner" to equally invest in a 1986 Fleer PSA 10 Jordan RC. Steve Hart had listed one on BBCX for $5,100. My buddy felt it was a bit beyond his reach. At the time, the entire amount was beyond mine as well. I then pivoted to a Jordan 9 by myself. Back then, 4SC had their annual 20% discount sale going on ANYTHING in their inventory without a cap. If memory serves me well, it was listed for approx $2,000. I picked it up for $1,600. Even below VCP at the time. It turned out to be a great buy, and I know at its peak, it topped out at $67K. A ridiculous run up. Today it is pushing $20K. Basically 12X in 13 years.

1969-70 Topps Basketball
 

Picked up a complete 1969-70 Topps BB set on eBay around 4 years ago. Description claimed it had been sitting in the seller's dresser drawer since he was a teenager and collected them. $275 BIN price.

Cards came wrapped in a paper towel with rubber bands around them. The full set was there, including checklist (which had been checked off, which I find charming). Karim Abdul-Jabbar rookie graded out to an SGC 4. The rest are in a binder, mostly VG-E condition.

Man, so many. One that comes to mind is this 1960 Yaz that I bought raw on ebay for $100 maybe 5 years ago. Thought it looked super sharp.. and indeed it was, and came back an SGC 8 :D :

https://i.imgur.com/H5Dqdmh.jpg

Every card I have ever bought, at least if you ask my wife. Because that's what I tell her. Ha

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I picked this card up 4 months ago and went for a lot less than I and many other collectors thought.
Either we are all wrong and the market value is what I paid (and I paid it with a smile because it bought I would pay a lot more)
Or others say it and mistakes it for the 1921 Exhibit Ruth and thought this was a low grade low eye appeal of it when it was really the more rare but similiar looking (1921 has no border 1923 has border)

Regardless I was very happy to add it to my collection

Although it's a hockey card I picked up a Gretzky PSA 6 Topps rookie for $200 for my PC around 2018. I popped it out and threw it in my safe and didn't think much of it. When the market went crazy around 2021 I looked and 6's were going for $2k so I figured "Why not send it back to PSA and get $1800?" I sent it back in and came back the same 6 and sold it a week later. Crazy that such a common card would go up 1000% in a couple years.

Speaking of 1967 Topps , I once came across a table at a very small local card show and me knowing a lot about the set since it was the first one I put together knew how hard it was to find some of the high number series cards. I already had these for me set I was building but I bought mike Shannon and norm cash cards for $2 each. I bought a total of 10 high number series for $20 total


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I bought a lot of 3 lower condition M116 cards on Ebay around a dozen years ago. I was interested in two of the cards that I didn't have. The third, the Smith card, was going to be a duplicate. When I got them it took a few weeks to integrate the cards into my M116 collection. And when I came to the Smith to see if it was an upgrade I did a double-take, as it had a different team designation than my existing copy of Smith. I checked my reference materials and online and could not come up with any examples. I sent it to auction and it went for well over 200 times its individual cost.

It is still the only known Boston example.

Brian

Do you remember where in Dearborn the show was?

'59 Topps FB
 

My greatest "steal of a deal" was fairly recently. About the start of Covid I bought a complete raw set of Topps 1959 Football from Touchdown Treasures. It was billed as about half NM and half Nm-Mt. I had the bulk of the set PSA graded. Many low pop 9's. Many star 9's including Jim Brown (RIP). One 10, and a multitude of 8's, 8.5's. Within a year I had a top ten set on the Registry. Completely graded at almost 8.50 GPA, and I really did not have to invest too much $$$ for upgrades. The set easily values at $35K+. Maybe even $40K.
I have less than $10K into it. Almost 4X in 3 years. One of my greatest hits in an entire lifetime of collecting. Lucky.

This is one of my all-time favorite cards, because it's a perfectly centered card from a set I adore, showing my beloved 'Tom Terrific' donning his monster-sized mitt, and the photograph makes you wonder, "What in high heck was going on at Shea the moment this picture was taken???????? I mean, he's doubled over in laughter, for cripe's sake!!!!!!"

I spent less than $3 on it and now Mr. Seaver sits ensconced in a PSA 9 slab.


Attachment 572039

Love it!!

Dearborn Show
 

Eric, I believe the show was at Dearborn High.

thank you, I am from the area so just curious.

If it was a Jim Hawkins event....I think he used to regularly host them at the Hyatt (now/still? closed). I don't remember him setting up HS...just not his image. He did do some later shows at Miracle Mile on Telegraph in Bloomfield Hills.

This was bought for a little over 2k, approximately 4 yrs ago. An average deal at the time.
Most Cobbs bought that long ago and back are probably a great deal, if still owned today.

I bought 10 successful Farming m101-4’s at a card show for 20.00 each. Dealer didn’t know what he had and I only vaguely knew myself at the time. They were all kinda rough but my hunch paid off for tune of about 3k

I was scrolling through ebay just over 5 years ago and ran into an "Old Yankees Schedule Lot, including Willie Mays Card". I thought it was weird to include a Willie Mays card with a Yankees lot, and noticed that the card included was a 1951 Bowman Willie Mays RC. The seller had it identified in the listing as a reprint included for free with the scheduling cards.

I was having trouble believing it was a reprint no matter how many times the seller told me it was because I had never seen a "reprint of a 51 bowman" with a print dot on it and this Mays RC clearly had one right on his name. Before I lost it to someone else who was curious, I went ahead and purchased the lot. I wasn't interested at all in the schedules so I was honest with the seller that I thought the Mays card may be real, so they were welcome to keep the rest of the lot.
They were adamant it was a reprint and they surprisingly sent me a refund minus shipping when they resold the schedules the next day...



When the card arrived a few days later, it was exactly what I thought and I still cannot believe to this day I got a Willie Mays RC for only the cost of the shipping! :D :D :D





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https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/5dOosp7ILzoj.jpg?o=1

wow, awesome story