Quote:
Originally Posted by LEHR
Around 1999-2001’ish I sold fifteen or sixteen T206’s graded PSA 8. This group included three Southern Leaguers. All were originally bought for quality with nice full borders and near perfect centering. When I sold them they all sold in the $450-$650 range. This was probably the dumbest thing I ever did hobby wise considering what nice 8’s sell for today.
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Ouch. You at least got some nice cash for it, and that was 20 years ago, too, and who knew which was the market would go. My biggest bonehead move when it comes to collecting goes back to when I was in 5th grade.
When I was 10 my K-5 elementary school had a contest to guess how many jelly beans were in a huge glass jar they had on a table outside of the cafeteria. The closest guess would get the whole jar and all 600+ students were asked to submit a guess during homeroom one day.
Just like many other students, I eyeballed that thing and did some calculations and ultimately wrote down 1,946 (I still remember that number 36 years later). On a Friday afternoon they announced over the P.A. that I not only had won, but had done so with the exact number. I was asked to go to the principal's office to pick up my 1,946 jelly beans.
When I returned with my prize to my classroom I was swarmed and the teacher basically decided to just give up and ended teaching for the last 15 minutes before dismissal. In fact, even she was excited by my win. Several kids asked me to give them the jar. Hell no! Then kids started offering me money. One kid named Seth tried to trade me for it. He had a 3 ring binder sheet of 9 pocket protectors with cards in them and he offered me the whole sheet. I thought about it, but everyone told me to reject it, and I said no. He then tried to sweeten the deal by also offering me either a $10 or $20 bill. I don't recall all of the cards, but I remember two of them were 1983 Topps rookies of Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs.
This huge glass jar was such a hit I wanted to bring it home and show it off to my parents and explain how I won it with an exact guess. The pride of a 5th grader!!
At one point I did ask him if I could take it home and then trade him on Monday and he said no. I think probably the teacher would have stopped us anyway if she saw Seth leaving with the jar (we rode different buses home so no chance to leave the school grounds and then swap). Also, all my friends were telling me not to do it. Though I was tempted, I turned Seth down.
That day I rode home with the huge jar and was a rock star on the bus, and a swarm of kids followed me as I walked to my house with it. After I got inside and showed my parents I realized, "I don't even like jelly beans. Even if I did, what the hell am I gonna do with 2,000 of them?". FAIL!!!
I doubt those Boggs and Gwynn rookies were PSA 10s so I probably didn't lose a fortune, but I wish I had those 9 cards and could say, "I traded some beans for them."