Collecting Mistakes

[Rhotchkiss]

This is a great idea for a thread.

I have been collecting on and off my whole life (I am 49), and I have made many mistakes over the years. Mostly, selling when I did - almost everything I have owned is worth more later than it was when I sold it. And I certainly have bought things thinking I must have it now, only to see one or more other example pop up in weeks. Patience is a virtue and that is a lesson I still have not learned.

Other larger mistakes include, not looking at the card closely enough and depending too much on the flip/grade, letting someone talk me into a card or a card at a certain price when my gut said no, and getting emotional during bidding wars substituting my need to win over my need for what I am actually winning. But here is one specific event I recall that involved several mistakes at once:

Back in 2017, I accidentally hit “buy it now” on a very pretty, but overly priced t206 red Cobb PSA 4.5. I freaked out and emailed the seller to see if I could cancel. He told me I could cancel for a $500 penalty, which I paid. Here are all the mistakes: (1) I mistakenly hit BIN, (2) I did not understand the eBay rules well enough to know that I could just cancel the deal and/or I cared to much about BS feedback, (3) I paid $500 to “get out” of my mistake, and (4) today, that card would is worth 3-4x what I was committed to overpay. I have bought a ton of cards since getting back into collecting in 2015, and that mistake sits with me more than any other.

BTW- I have made many more smart moves than mistakes… you can’t win them all, and mistakes can be real assets if we learn from them and use them as a catalyst to make better decisions going forward.