[raulus]

As long as we're having fun with stories about poor shipping, I'll add my own.

If memory serves, this was right around 2017. I purchased a PSA 6 Mays 51 Bowman on eBay. Nice card. Pretty good money, at least at the time. Today you couldn't get much for that price, but back then it was a valuable piece.

Seller was even a dealer that did a pretty good volume of sales on eBay, so I figured he would know how to package it up. Apparently I was so wrong that it would usually take 2-3 people to be as wrong as I was, and yet I managed it all on my own.

Seller shipped it in a fedex express thin "cardboard" envelope. Not padded, just one of those really thin envelopes. Inside of the envelope, the slab was also in a full-size floppy plastic page protector. Nothing more. When I opened it up, I was flabbergasted that he would tempt the fates to ship such a card with nothing more to protect it. I suppose if this was a $10 card, then maybe? But for high 4 figures, it seemed like the height of folly.

And as luck would happen, the slab didn't emerge unscathed. Apparently at some point during shipping, it had been bent. I'm guessing that it was probably wedged between a couple of stacks of heavy boxes, and got bent. The top edge of the slab was basically cracked off. Luckily, the card inside wasn't damaged at all.

I contacted the seller and expressed my disappointment with his shipping methods, and sent him pics of the damage.

He promptly accused me of deliberately trying to crack it open, and then having second thoughts after I cracked it that far.

After some doing, I managed to convince him that his shipping methods were in fact the culprit. He agreed to pay for me to get it reslabbed on an express basis, which at the time cost about $200, including shipping it back and forth. Luckily for him, there was no damage to the card, and a few weeks later it came back in a new slab with the same grade.

Every time I think of that purchase, I can't help but shake my head. I have no idea what he was thinking, and why he would have such a poor grasp on basic physics, except I can only assume he wasn't thinking.