Cards you've kicked yourself over selling

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Posted By: Doug

Everybody probably has a card or cards that they have sold in the past and wished they hadn't. For me it's the PSA 7 Red Hindu T206 Home Run Baker and PSA 7 Red Hindu T206 Chief Bender (portrait) that I bought about 8 years ago when I first started collecting T206s. If I recall correctly, I had only paid $1500 for both of them. Hopefully there are some good stories out there! Edited to add my two 1952 Topps Mantles to my list.

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Posted By: bigfish

52 topps Mantle..Raw and in very nice shape

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Posted By: Joe D.

1. White T206 Chase Portrait

2. RPPC 1907 Detroit Tigers (happily I found another one)

3. W601 Giants postcard

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Posted By: MikeB

W600 Luther (Dummy) Taylor
I really don't know if I will ever see another

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Posted By: Anonymous

I think back over cards I have sold, but I always remember that I made the decision to sell them. I have no regrets.

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Posted By: Steve Dawson

T227 Ty Cobb
N172 Mike Kelly (Chicago Portrait)
N162 Kelly
N28 Clarkson, Kelly, Keefe (Kelly was from Buck Barker's collection)
T201 Cobb/Crawford
1933 Sport Kings Babe Ruth
1941 Play Ball Ted Williams
1954 Bowman Ted Williams
1954 Topps Hank Aaron
1952 and 1953 Bowman Mickey Mantle
1938 Goudey Bob Feller
T206 Ray Demmitt (St Louis)

Sold 'em all (among many others) in 1991 when I returned to the states after 2 years stationed in Germany, and I needed money to buy a car and rent an apartment. Still haven't been able to replace any of 'em



Steve

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Posted By: Paul

The first one that comes to mind is a Mathewson Jones, Keyser Arras. I'm a terrible seller. Sometimes I've sold cards I really love, but know someone really wants the card & will give it a good home. I could have sold a few others I didn't care about for the same money, but I can be too lazy at times to do that. I have a few regrets, but I'm happy with my collecting focus at this time.

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Posted By: joe brennan

T227 Ty Cobb
N172 Mike Kelly (Chicago Portrait)
N162 Kelly
N28 Clarkson, Kelly, Keefe (Kelly was from Buck Barker's collection)
T201 Cobb/Crawford
1933 Sport Kings Babe Ruth
1941 Play Ball Ted Williams
1954 Bowman Ted Williams
1954 Topps Hank Aaron
1952 and 1953 Bowman Mickey Mantle
1938 Goudey Bob Feller
T206 Ray Demmitt (St Louis)

Steve, The cards you sold would be a magnificent collection in itself. But, at least you can say you owned them at one time. What a great collection you had.



In Rememberance of James W. Brennan Sr. 1924-1982. Dad, thanks for everything you did for me.

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Posted By: Jason Carota

E90-1 Karger in PSA 2. The card looked amazing for a two. I rank it right up there with my E90-1 Hall as one of my favorites from that set.


EDIT: Forgot to add my name.

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Posted By: JimB

Traded, not sold, but still. The only good part is that they guy that got it really loves it and he is a great guy.
JimB

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

From Joe D -- by far the most decent guy I've ever traded or bought from. He's the only guy who, when having cards that he knows I'd kill for, still treats me fairly.

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Posted By: Andrew

1959 Venezuelan Mantle

"Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame." -- Erica Jong

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Posted By: Bob

Too many to list (like the complete T213-3 set in ex 20 years ago) but ones which are recent and stick out in my mind include 1911 Zeenuts of Miller, McKune and Pfyl all sold before I decided to make a serious run at the set and now among the handful I still need. I also regret selling that E98 red Lajoie about a year ago on the BST but it went to a good home.

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Posted By: Joe D.

thanks for the very kind words Jeff.


I would like to add to my list....
I can't believe I didn't have it in my first list.

- My T200 set... I sure miss that set.


edit: grammar

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Posted By: boxingcardman

1958 Bell Gino Cimoli: A short print I got as a "throw in" on a trade in 7th grade. It was pretty nice for the issue and very tough to find. Now, priced out of my comfort zone for the few I can find.

1923 Olympia Games Johnny Kilbane: I broke a set and for some reason, only this one card sold. So I got stuck with a set missing one card that just never surfaces.

N167 actress: Don't much care about the card but I sold it before the nonsports boom.

T226 Jeffries: traded it for a good card but I would not mind having it back.

1952 Topps Mays, 1952 Topps Mays: bought them both for $45 at the 1976 ASCCA Thanksgiving show in NYC. Sold them my senior year of college for spending money. Bad move.

1950s Mantles: In about 1979 I decided to get a bunch of 1950s Mantle cards. I got lower grade 1952 Bowman ($3.25 for vg), 1953 Bowman, 1954 Bowman, and 1957 Topps. Traded them a few years later for some T206's. Not worth it.

E cards: I sold a bunch of these through Teletrade back in the pre ebay days. Wish I had those back.

1950s-1960s football: I got two great collections of these from friends of the family and more or less gave them away because I didn't collect football.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Fred C

Trying to find a place to start isn't easy....

1952 semi-high series Topps (minus one card) in what would today be "7" or "8" condition...

1952 Bowman color set (I still have the B/W, not near as nice)...

Wow, just thinking about this bums me out... I'm going to stop before I find my foot up my own arse...

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Posted By: peter ullman

My t206 drum hoffman, red hindu chase and crandall. I don't sell very much...but I sure miss my chlidhood collection...all those mantles?!?!

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Posted By: Daryle

Ones that come to mind include:

1-M110 Cobb and Chase
2-N172's of Browning, Ward (portrait) and 2 Phenomenal Smith cards inlcuding the Script Portrait
3-N162 Anson
4-E125 Wagner (throwing)
5-E90-1 Mitchell
6-E102 Miller (throwing)
7-T3 Johnson
8-1916 ZeeNut Risberg
9-1917 Standard Biscuit Joe Jackson

The card I kick myself in the rear every time I get in and out of the shower for NOT BUYING is the T210-8 Joe Jackson in around GD/GD+ for under $7500

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Posted By: robert a

Doug,

Happen to have a scan of the Bender portrait with red hindu?

I didn't think that combination was possible.

Rob

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Posted By: samuel

my '74 topps set I started as a kid. I sold it before completing it, even though I was close.

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Posted By: leon

This question makes me a little sad so I will not go into it. I don't regret selling any of them but as a collector, many will never be able to be replaced....(for a variety of reasons)....regards

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Posted By: Jim Rivera

A Broad Leaf 460 Vic Willis throwing-man I wish I would have kept that card!

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Posted By: Doug

"Doug,

Happen to have a scan of the Bender portrait with red hindu?

I didn't think that combination was possible.

Rob"


I did have a scan, but I bought that card back in 2000 and the computer the scan was on is long gone. Sorry I couldn't help...

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Posted By: Ol' Prof

I know this is a vintage board. But my answers would have to be:

-- 55T Koufax rookie, purchased in '55 and still in ex-mt or better, to Chandy Greenholt, for $45;

-- 56T Aaron, traded to Tim N. for a couple of beaters, including a '64 Kahns Clemente with a magic marker stain on the reverse!

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Posted By: Scott

I regret selling my M101-5 Joe Jackson.

I was approached by a guy who hit me real hard with about 10 e-mails telling me how he had to have it and it was for his kids and this would be the centerpiece of his collection and he'd always wanted one and this might be his only shot and if I would consider letting it go it would be going to a good home.

I was moved by his story and let it go for a loss.

One month later, he posted it on ebay for a healthy profit.

Oh well, live and learn.

Scott.

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Posted By: John H.

Ouch, Scott.

Mine is a non-vintage hockey set. A very nice 1971-72 OPC set that I collected as a 12-13 year old. I sold it in 1989 so that I could buy a bunch of cool new baseball, football and hockey cards. I got $160 for it when the Charlton catalog had it listed at $200. The first Beckett, a year later, had it at $750.

I started regretting it a year or two later and I finally broke down and bought a great condition set back roughly 10 years ago. With the few upgrades that it needed the replacement set wound up costing me about $1,000.

I won't even get into all of the childhood toys I also sold to finance my sports card buys in the early 90's. Sigh...

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Posted By: boxingcardman

I had a nice 1969-70 basketball set, about half of which I'd gotten as a kid in the early 1970s, which I sold. I felt so sad afterwards that I bought another, not as nice, set a few months later.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Alan U

Non-vintage 1972 Topps baseball set that I purchased in grade school. I remember a new series arriving in the mail every couple of weeks and the last card in the series always had a black crayon mark on it (not sure why).

-Alan

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Posted By: LenK

T206 Cobb red backround(paid $50 for it in the early '80s...and felt guilty paying that much)...T206 W.Johnson portrait....'48 Bowman Spahn near mint....'54 Aaron Rookie near mint.....Peter's Meats Killebrew complete unfolded box....Home Run Derby Killebrew

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Posted By: Steve Murray

thinking I didn't have any regrets. But now that I think of it my one and only probably is the minty full set of Grignon Cubs postcards that I bought in the early 80's for $160 and have long ago sold or traded off.

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Posted By: David Smith

Not pre-war but just thinking about this topic upsets me.

Back in the late 1980's, when I was still in college, I used to go out looking for cards and I even put some want ads in newspapers. One time, a person called me up saying they had a couple hundred thousand cards for sale. This person used to be a dealer and his shop went out of business and he just wanted to get rid of everything he had.

I went to his house, saw the cards and bought them. It took me two trips, with my car loaded and almost dragging the ground, to get the cards back to the house I was living in at the time. Most of teh cards were from the 1970's up to 1985. There were some back to the 1950's but not very many.

Included in this group of cards were unopened factory baseball sets from 1984 and 1985 and unopened 500 (600?) count boxes of baseball cards from 1982 to 1985. Since I got a REALLY good deal on all these cards, I set up at shows and sold the factory sets for less than book value. Same for some of the unopened 500 count boxes.

The heartbreaker, at least to me, were the football, basketball and hockey cards that were included.

In the collection were unopened packs from 1977 to 1982. WHen I got the cards back to my house, I found these packs and me and two of my friends spent a couple of hours one night just opening all of these packs and seeing what cards were inside. It was like we were 8 years old again.

I don't know how many Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson Rookies were in those cards but there were a number of them. I also don't know how many early Wayne Gretzky cards were in there but there were also some of them too.

I took some of these cards to the shows but not a lot of people were interested in them and thus they didn't sell too well. So, because of this and because I wanted to get my money back as quickly as possible, I sold ALL of these cards to a local card shop for $20 dollars and a couple of 1968 Topps baseball star cards I wanted for my set.

Unfortunately for me, Beckett started putting out their monthly football, basketball and hockey price guides about two years later and those cards that I owned and nobody wanted at the time shot up in price. I KNOW the cards that I sold for $20 dollars in 1989 were worth at least $2,000 dollars shortly after the price guides came out.

To this day, I kick myself for not keeping these cards (since I didn't have much money in them and because they were in such great condition) and then sold them after the price guides came out. The profits from those cards would have helped pay for my college costs AND allowed me to buy some pre-war baseball cards that I found but didn't have the money for (a group of about 20 Curtis Ireland Candy cards).

David

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Posted By: Jerry

1. N173 Dogshead Stovey
2. N173 Glasscock
3. 1880's Team cabinet Philadelphia
4. 1880's Team Cabinet Columbus
5. 8 T3 Hofers
All cards were excellent or better