Childhood or adulthood rip off stories

[bsuttonosu]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

As an adult at the 95' national I bought a 71 thurmon munson from a bargain box that turned out to have the edges colored with a black marker.
...
I still have all of these fakes to this day.

I beg to differ. You can't still have that Munson. It was sold to me a few years later by anothter shady dealer.

[D. Bergin]

Late 80's when I was still in high school I helped run a card shop that was opened up near my school. It was robbed and a lot of my own stuff was stolen from the shop, including a 53 Mantle.

Amazingly the kid who robbed the shop showed up back in the shop when the owner was there and was caught and most of the cards were recovered.

I guess I had the best revenge when I stole the kid's girlfriend from him shortly after.

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

I guess I had the best revenge when I stole the kid's girlfriend from him shortly after.

Lol

[D. Bergin]

Used to set up at shows as a teenager. I was partners with one of my friends for a little while and we set up at the Waterbury, CT Ramada Inn.

Great crowd and we had a great show. At the end of the show, without me knowing, my buddy took all of our funds and spent them on 1984 Topps Rack Pack Boxes from a dealer I did not trust. I almost brained my friend right there. This was when the Strawberry and Mattingly cards were huge.

We went back home and opened all the boxes. Not a single Strawberry or Mattingly in the bunch. They had all been searched already.

[jschris]

My story starts out very similar to Rawn's. In high school (ca. 1989), there was a kid sitting next to me moaning about needing beer money for the weekend. I could see the lightbulb flip on when he asked me, "Hey, you still collect baseball cards?" He said his deadbeat dad had left a shoebox with cards he collected when he was a kid. I asked him how many were in there and he said it was probably 400 or so. I offered $40 blind for them. He eagerly accepted--probably the most his dad had ever provided for him! Picked them up that night but didn't open the box until I got home.

Most of the cards were from 1960 and 61 and there were plenty of stars. I even felt guilty and gave him back a few dupes like Koufax and Aaron. I still had plenty left anyway.

That wasn't enough as far as karma was concerned, though. I had a flat tire the next morning. And that weekend, while my new friend was apparently hammered, I traded a nine-pocket sheet of stars to the local card dealer for the one card I truly coveted: the 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco.

[RobertGT]

As a 13-year-old kid, I was hot after the "key" Donruss rookies in 1988 (Greg Jefferies) and 1989 (Griffey Jr.). I was pretty successful at convincing my mother to buy dozens and dozens of the Donruss blister rack packs available from both years at the local Shelby's in suburban NJ where I grew up. She bought me enough rack packs from both years to stuff two binders full of cards, with cards jammed into both sides of the vinyl pages. I had maybe 1,000 cards from each year.

I did not pull a single Jefferies or Griffey Jr RC.

It took me many years later to understand why: Some sleazy but clever adult had gotten to the packs way before me, and figured out how to pack search for hot cards inside on the basis of which players were on top.

My first introduction to the sleazy nature of the card business. Still happening today at Targets and Walmarts around the country.

[SetBuilder]

Originally Posted by RobertGT

It took me many years later to understand why: Some sleazy but clever adult had gotten to the packs way before me, and figured out how to pack search for hot cards inside on the basis of which players were on top.

Can you elaborate on this method of searching inside packs?

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by SetBuilder

Can you elaborate on this method of searching inside packs?

Cards were packaged in sequences. If you know the sequence and can identify the top card, you'll know the cards underneath (within the pack) without having to open it.

[honus94566]

Around 1990 I sold almost all my cards to a friend in exchange for about 15 Jose Canseco cards, including "gems" like his 87 topps all star rookie. My friend threw in a Beckett with Jose on the cover, and that sealed the deal.

Oops.

[Jlighter]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Cards were packaged in sequences. If you know the sequence and can identify the top card, you'll know the cards underneath (within the pack) without having to open it.

And they still do this today?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Jlighter

And they still do this today?

To some extent. I've gotten the same partial pack sequence a couple times.
But the "rack packs" are just the regular packs inside a sleeve so it's nearly impossible to see who's on top of any pack.

The packs no longer have stiffeners that are as thick as the uniform/bat/whatever cards, so they can be felt inside the pack. I don't bother since I mostly want the regular cards and if I get a special one it's a bonus. But the Target near me has a guy that's there regularly feeling the packs. Which is kinda creepy when you think about it. (Another reason I don't do that. ) So I usually buy racks or the blaster boxes which are tougher to mess with unless it;s a set I collect and they don't have anything but loose packs.

Steve B

[packs]

There's something on the packs that indicate whether or not it will contain an insert as well. If you do a search on eBay you'll see a lot of auctions for "hot packs." I'm sure a large percentage of the hot packs are just re-sealed packs with a crappy bat card in them. But I bet there are some legit ones too that people have figured out how to spot. They never tell you how they know its a hot pack in the description of course.

[SetBuilder]

What happened to the days when cards were inserted inside products? MLB should revoke Fleer's licensing rights in favor of a company that will insert cards in cereal boxes instead.

On the topic at hand, I don't think I was ever scammed as a kid with baseball cards. At least not seriously enough that I can remember--or maybe I didn't realize it. My primary MO was to attend a bunch of card shows at Joe Robbie stadium and one large one during Super Bowl XXXIII. I took home a bag full of giveaway packs and cards and got 8 x 11's signed by a ton of pros. I still have a 1998 Bowman Peyton Manning rookie with a Super Bowl impression on its surface. I guess its a rare variation since it was only distributed during this SB event. Yawn...

Luckily, I was really poor at the time so I couldn't afford the overpriced junk sold during this era. That was probably the best thing that happened knowing what became of them. Ah, the nostalgia of the toxic subprime card era and the bubble that burst.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by Jlighter

And they still do this today?

While in College I worked at WalMart. On one occasion when I was pushing some carts in from outside I saw a guy shuffling through the baseball cards and feeling each pack.

I went and told him that he needs to just pick up a pack and buy it or leave them alone so that other's had a chance to find cards. His response was "I am not the only one, and I do it all the time." I told him I didn't care I didn't want to see him doing it again. He just gave me a dirty look and walked away. I then took it upon myself to stop older guys sifting through the cards when I was in that part of the store. So at least for a year from the time the vendor came in and organized the cards and the time I was off the clock kids had a chance to pull some packs.

[t206fix]

Act 1:
I went to high school in Auburn, WA, a suburb south of Seattle in the late 80's. A buddy of mine was a bat boy for the Mariners, so I was able to pick up from him a game used, broken Jose Canseco bat (this is when he was the hottest in the game).
Act 2: The local Ben Franklin dime store on main street had two boxes of 1986/87 Fleer Basketball cards for $.35 a pack. It was the offseason in baseball, and I loved collecting so I bought and bought and over a month or two I manged to buy most of those packs. Bball cards were not popular back then and I wanted to collect them for the fun of it. I had multiple Jordan RCs, Jordan stickers, full sets.... I estimated about 2.5 full sets and a couple of sticker sets.
Act 3: I was probably a junior/senior in high school when my 11 year old cousin came to town from California. He had $40 in his pocket and wanted to buy something from me because he was a collector also. Being from the bay area, he zeroed in on the bat. I wouldn't budge... I knew that bat would be worth big $$$ someday when Canseco was in the hall of fame. I could retire comfortably in the South of France and write a book on my brilliance. He was about to leave, he was desperate, he wanted to buy something.
Act 4: Do you have any basketball stuff? he asks... Yeah, this old box of cards from a couple years ago, but I don't know what they are worth, I reply. He said, I'll give you $40 for them. I agree... they are gone. Thousands of dollars of mint RCs. At least three Jordan RCs... maybe more.

Epilogue: A few years later, when those cards really took off and were worth a ton, he wrote me a letter thanking me for the new car he purchased after selling those cards. I know that he didn't scam me or cheat me, but I felt really dumb! The Canseco bat is probably worth more as scrap wood right now!