Card(s) you wish you purchased
 

There is another post about cards you wish you hadn’t sold. What about a card (or cards) you wished you had bought?

About 15 years ago I had an opportunity to buy a mid size collection of vintage baseball cards, with HOFers. Price was fair, but I didn’t jump at it. That collection is probably worth 10 fold what he was asking 15 years ago.

Lesson learned: If the price is fair, jump at it.

About seven years ago, I came across a signed 1953 Topps Bill Antonello that I needed for my project. The seller was asking $70, and I thought that for a guy whose entire MLB career lasted 20 games, he was California Dreaming. Someone else snapped it up. It was almost six years before I saw another, and that one sold at auction for around $500. I didn't win that one either, and those are the only two I've seen.

I'm sure there are many
 

The standout was back in 2008 after my Mom passed - I had earmarked some money to go into cards and was super close to pulling the trigger on a PSA 8.5 1955 Clemente rookie (still one of 2 examples at that grade) at 10K. Ended up buying something else that appreciated WAY less.

Two Cards that I wish I had Purchased

1. The 1986 Jordan Rookie Card. PSA 10 was offered to me in early 2018. They wanted to trade it straight up for a 1915 Babe ruth photo Type 1 that I had.

Big miss. I did not know or understand Basketball cards at the time and I sold the Ruth photo for a small but nice profit but WE all know what happened with the Jordan Card.

2. THe 2nd Was the Texas tommy Joe Jackson Card came up for auction approx 2 years or so ago. I was in on the bidding but was not liquid enough to continue bidding and it went for less then I would have been willing to bid if I had the funds.

With me being a Joe Jackson Addict hard to see that go. Hopefully someone on the board won it and is enjoying it

Toleteros Josh Gibson in 2013 or so LOTG; 25 Gehrig when they were affordable; second version of the 311 when they too were more affordable.

In 1984 I was a senior in dental school and attended a card show near my school in Atlanta and a collector there knew I collected "older" baseball cards . While there he tracked me down to show me a card he wanted me to buy ..... a T206 Wagner. He wanted $4000 for it . I'm like yeah sure I can get that .... I am a student with no money . I found a pay phone (remember those ? ) and called my dad long distance collect ( remember those calls ?) to ask for a loan and he just laughed and said NO because you don't spend hard earned money on a baseball card and you called me collect to ask me for that . I called my aunt , who in 1977 bought me a 1933 Goudey Gehrig card for $10 and other older cards. She said no also because $10 was helluva lot different that $4000.
I checked by student loan balance because I had extra money left over but it was only $2800.
Told the dealer I could get him $2800 in a week and the rest I'd put on a credit card .
He said his consignor wanted the card sold that weekend . I never got that card and it was sold a few days later.
Up until my dad died in 2016 I never let him forget that and he did apologize for not lending me the money when he saw how much that card was selling for later in his life.
So if you miss them miss them BIG !

I had the chance to purchase a beautiful Topps 1952 Mantle back around 1980 (don't remember the exact year). But that card had hit a high of $3000 and then fallen back to around $1K, which is what it was offered to me at. I thought it wouldn't be climbing back up in value any time soon and there would be plenty of other opportunities, so I passed. The card quickly climbed back up to it's previous value and kept right on going. :(

Ouch!

Not a card, but the mother of one of my track teammates was a professional photographer. In the 1980s, she was hired to cover a show with Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. She spent the day at arms length away from the two of them, chatting them up, and at the end of the day they each offered to sign as much stuff for her as she would like, for free. She turned them down, as she didn't collect autographs.

WOW Great but sad story

1915 Baltimore News Ruth
 

A friend/collector was selling off some of his collection about 20 years ago. He offered me his 1915 Baltimore News Ruth and mailed it to me to look over in advance. He wanted $15K for it and I had the funds to do it. When I received it to look over I could not believe 1 of the corners was clipped and he still wanted $15K for it. I mailed it back to him saying it was not worth it and proudly told him that I only buy "whole" cards.

Doh!

I guess my answer is "every card I bought in the last year and a half, ten years ago."

There have been many lessons learned along the way along with missed opportunities but I don't dwell on the past. I'm very happy and blessed with what I have.

Agreed. Otherwise you would drive yourself crazy with coulda shoulda woulda.

7-8 years ago REA had a lot of Rose PC's and I noticed this image when I bidding online. I read the lot description a half dozen times and not once did REA even mention the name Graham so I assumed it wasn't one in the same. Lot went dirt cheap too, another member here snatched it up. Should have done more diligence. Haven't seen another copy before or again. I can't remember what member here ended up with the card, but if they ever want to let it go I'm your guy.


https://live.staticflickr.com/631/32...9400b0b2_o.jpg

On the one hand, there are countless examples I could rattle off that would have been tremendous bargains in retrospect, and even at the time in some cases. On the other hand, if I had bought all of them I wouldn't have been able to afford a house, children, food, that sort of stuff.

One example that comes to mind though is the time my bid for an Oscar Charleston Type I photo was delayed by a couple of seconds and just missed the close of the auction. It sold for less than half of what I expected it would, is worth considerably more now, and I learned afterward had been purchased by a museum.

From a sports card perspective, I will forever be haunted by the fact that I didn't buy a '25 Exhibits Lou Gehrig rookie when they were affordable. Doh!

If you were like me, back then you thought it was too oddball and maybe not even a real "card."

Nailed it.

Wow cut to the chase and that is it

I heard the expression on here about buying cards "There's no too early, only too soon."

Over the last 40+ years?
No way to pick just one.

Goudey Ruths at 100? Nope!
Bobby Orr US rookie also for 100... What? A hockey card for that much?!
Pretty much any T206 Hof er for $10
Aaron rookie for 60
52 Mantle for under 1000 - not great ones, but probably solid 5-6s.
A boxful of tiny felt backed football cards, except most of them were college players, and there was no checklist anywhere.

So many things I just didn't go for.

But I did get some cool stuff, so I'm mostly ok with how it all worked out.

I remember seeing some cards for sale at the below prices which felt like a lot you had to be rich in order to acquire. Now looking at prices today, seems like even the most average collector can put just a handful of cards together and easily come up with 10K of value/sales. In fact, if you didn't have a card that was valued at even 10K during the pandemic hike, then you were perhaps collecting the wrong thing lol. Seriously though, looking back, I wish I would have picked these up but the reality also is that I didn't have the funds to purchase most even back then unless I was willing to sell some stuff and the stuff I did sell went towards other cards in my collection. I really like my small collection today so I cant complain as I realize I cant buy everything I want. I am happy with what I have and staying debt free is perfectly fine with me.

1954 Topps Hank Aaron RC PSA 8 10K (I had the chance to purchase one)

1981 Topps Joe Montana PSA 10. At 10K prices.

1982 Cal Ripken Traded when they were about $1,200. This card is still do-able today but they have begun increasing in price again. I believe they are around 7K today but they were even much higher during the spike.

1986 Fleer Jordan PSA 9 at $1,100 all day and the PSA 10's when they were just hitting 10K back around 2013/14. I thought 10K was a crazy amount of money.

2000 Topps Brady Chrome PSA 10 were at about $1000 back around 2016/17.

2003 Topps Chrome Refractor Lebron PSA 10 were at about 7K around 2017. Stupid me is all I can say.

2009 Bowman Chrome Refractor Mike Trout PSA 10 was at 17K on eBay back in late 2019. The last one I remember seeing sold at about 58K.

When I first got back into collecting in 2004-2009ish, I wish I would've been more intentional about buying blue-chip vintage and older, instead of modern product. Instead of $600 on a case of 2007 Topps Heritage to rip, I wish I would've sought out a really nice Jordan RC or 51 Mays.

I look back at when I started buying again after another break (late-2014), and I have the same thoughts.

Whatever era you prefer or can afford to collect, stick with the greats.

I have discussed this before: mid 1980s, my family made the trek to Cooperstown. Larry Fritsch must have been putting the finishing touches on the “museum”/card shop he had opened up. My dad and I walked in there and the place was empty. What happened next is something that I’m blown away with today. We saw all of his cards; I believe he had Wagner on display. After this personal tour, he brought my father and I in the back room - his office - and started showing us rare cards. I believe we handled a Joe Doyle. He was putting one on display and I think he offered to sell my father another one that he had. (Dad was collecting 1950s Dodgers and 1950s Browns). He had absolutely no interest in tobacco. Me? I was locked in.

The Doyle was lost on my father and I. Why would we want that? So we left the back room and came to a display case. It was a big case with barely any cards in it. He had: Evers, Chance, Mathewson and 2 Red Cobbs. I had brought all my paper route money: over $100. Evers ($50), Chance ($60), Mathewson ($70), Cobb paper loss ($225), Cobb intact ($250). I had the $100+ and at that point, dad said “what if we take all 4?” and there was some negotiations. Dad let me choose which Cobb and me, being the good son trying to save my dad $25, chose the lesser Cobb.

35+ years later, it still bothers me. Here is a link to pictures from my Twitter page:

https://twitter.com/kevinseanfeeney/...983782407?s=21

https://twitter.com/kevinseanfeeney/...983782407?s=21

Nothing as dramatic as some of the stories already posted but when I first kicked around the idea of putting the '67T set together a dealer I was talking to offered me the Seaver and Carew rookies and a small stack of other SPs for about $300 total as i recall. I passed thinking I could do better on eBay at some point.

In the last six months I finished the set and spent well over a grand for the two rookies.

I grew up in the junk wax era, so I have been able to buy every card I thought was cool. But I wish I had turned to vintage earlier. In particular, I wish I had grabbed the Cal Ripken Jr 82 Topps Traded when it was a dime. I spent enough on modern as a high school kid that I could have actually bought some quality low grade post war.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Oh man, this thread is painful to read. It's hard to believe cards were so cheap, especially when they appeared so expensive at the time. :D

Prices aside, the big regrets for me are generally are the cards I've never seen for sale again. A big part of my collection is now Japanese baseball cards from the 1930s-60s. I can vividly recall at least a dozen cards I thought about buying, didn't pull the trigger, and have never seen for sale again. And I don't even care about the condition!

The production run on some of these cards was very low, as is my estimate of the survival rate. But one hope I hold out is that with increased cards prices and media exposure, caches of these cards will be discovered in old Japanese houses or storerooms or whatever and make it into the market. It might be the one upside I see to the great increase in prices....

Way too many to be honest. The one that hurts the most is a 1908 team postcard of the Richmond Colts team. I'll never forget that one as I just started collecting again and didn't know how tough it truly was. Uggggggg.

Like some have said, there are a lot of cards that I wished I chased in the 80s instead of spending my disposable income on other things. The one that really stands out was not buying a 1952 Topps Mid+High run from the Rosen find. I was finishing my t206 set and already had a decent Ex-Mt 1952 Topps set. I never realized how addicted the hobby would become to numbers on a slab. 3k for Mantles that are now pushing a million dollars in a PSA 8 slab.

The other more recent one was a card that I was actively trying to buy off of eBay, an Exquisite LeBron James RPA /99. I kept getting sniped for under 2k. If ever there was a card I should have just over paid for, that is it. It is now a million dollar card.

I have one I regret the most it was about 10 years ago at a card show at vets memorial in Columbus a dealer was selling a t206 green portrait of cy young vg-ex ungraded for $350 and I thought long and hard but didn't pull the trigger.

Same. I think about all the money I plowed into junk wax and mid-2000s shiny stuff that I could have put towards vintage. I'd enjoy the vintage a lot more these days, and I'd still have it, unlike the modern stuff I tossed because it was taking up too much space. At least when I got back in to the hobby I didn't make that mistake again.

Saw a 1921 E121 pSA graded Ruth with a grade of 3 at National for $7000. Last I checked card was going for north of $125,000.

Try not to think on this subject I’ll get sick 🙄🙄

1986 Fleer wax as a teenager
 

There was a very small card & comic shop where I grew up in Naperville, IL. called "Graham Crackers". I'm sure it's long gone by now. I remember walking in there several times to buy cards & seeing '86 Fleer wax & thinking about whether I should pick up solely based on the design which caught my eye. I didn't. Ugh!

Where are you seeing 1982 Topps Traded Ripken’s for 7k? I see a 10 on eBay for $750 right now..

I have told this story before, so I will make it short. At the National in the late 90's in Atlanta, I had serious discussions with Kevin Struss, when he was at SCP, about a card that he was trying to flip on behalf of Mastro, who had acquired from a lady who found it in a Bible (yes, it does happen). I feel the deal could have been done for about $150k, but that would have wiped out the liquidity and a good part of the inventory of my company at the time, Full Count Baseball, so I walked away. The card: a T06 Honus Hans John Wagner in a PSA 4. I try very hard not to think about but once in a while a black fog rolls in.

hahahaha... that list would be HUGE. About the same as "which card(s) do you regret selling?"

John,

About not buying the wagner from struss, don't think

Too right.

This thread has made me feel better about some of my "mistakes" lol

That’s a BCCG and is probably at best an 7 under the absolute best circumstances.

I was offered two different t206 Wagner’s
 

One was in 1984 and would have been every penny in my 12 year old bank account. I was allowed to get it verified by experts for authenticity. I am very confident it was real. And in 1997 I was offered a second one and given the opportunity to pay for it in installments. I greatly regret passing in both of these. For all the obvious reasons. This one was authenticated by PSA.

Ripken topps
Traded is way closer to 7k in a PSA 10 than 750. Bccg is an absolute joke. The fools on here that constantly bitch about PSA but don’t say squat about this Beckett travesty are a joke.

A 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle before the price Jump. A 52 Topps Mays as well.

I passed on picking up Mantle for my project several times over the years. It's still doable, but went from being a 'There goes my card budget for the month' to something I'll need to budget for for a while.