Considering selling everything - Final Update/Tally

[chernieto]

Kevin,
We have all made mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are a great opportunity to evaluate life and see the positive.
1) a supportive wife? .....priceless
2) an experience to help you focus on what's most important? ( family) -excellent
3) You live in the U.S. of A & not Iraq....very lucky
4) the cards you got are not reprints and you can sell them- cool!
5) A N54 group of folks to hear you out who can relate- very nice too.

Count the blessings and learn from the mistake and hope it is the worst that you experience. that would be very fortunate. Enjoy the weekend

[Luke]

Originally Posted by chernieto

Kevin,
We have all made mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are a great opportunity to evaluate life and see the positive.
1) a supportive wife? .....priceless
2) an experience to help you focus on what's most important? ( family) -excellent
3) You live in the U.S. of A & not Iraq....very lucky
4) the cards you got are not reprints and you can sell them- cool!
5) A N54 group of folks to hear you out who can relate- very nice too.

Count the blessings and learn from the mistake and hope it is the worst that you experience. that would be very fortunate. Enjoy the weekend

I agree with all of this. Also, if this really is the worst mistake you have ever made, that's something to be proud of. It's just money after all. Family, friends, and your health are what's most important.

As far as what to do next, I think autograf nailed it.

[btkpath]

Originally Posted by chernieto

We have all made mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are a great opportunity to evaluate life and see the positive.
1) a supportive wife? .....priceless

Familes have been torn apart from much less than this experience.

Take your wife out for a romantic dinner and revel in how this current error in judgment has made you realize just how lucky you are to have a wife like yours, and has served to strengthened your relationship.

You are truly a lucky guy.

[kailes2872]

Originally Posted by btkpath

Familes have been torn apart from much less than this experience.

Take your wife out for a romantic dinner and revel in how this current error in judgment has made you realize just how lucky you are to have a wife like yours, and has served to strengthened your relationship.

You are truly a lucky guy.

+1

[glchen]

You have a very understanding wife. If I had done this, my wife would have kicked me to the curb yesterday. Treasure her. (Your sig line of Proverbs 27:15 is somewhat strange, however. I hope you're not referring to your wife here.)

I would print out your opening statement on this thread detailing what happened, and put it in a very obvious place, so that you can see it whenever you make any large and spur of the moment purchases, so you can really check yourself to see if you're doing the right thing.

As others have said, everyone makes mistakes in buying things. I have made plenty myself in buying fake stuff, way overpaying, many, many times where I have lost plenty of money purchasing things that I should not have. Obviously nothing as large as you did this time, but still adds up. Each incident for me is something that I have learned from, and hopefully, you can do the same. You have your health, a wonderful wife, and it looks like you can still recover from this financially albeit it will take a little while. Good luck!

[kailes2872]

You have a very understanding wife. If I had done this, my wife would have kicked me to the curb yesterday. Treasure her. (Your sig line of Proverbs 27:15 is somewhat strange, however. I hope you're not referring to your wife here.)

It was a joke between the two of us. The pastor used it last week and told the men in the crowd that we could use it as a life verse. I put it into the sig line to see if anyone would see the reference. She got a kick out of it.

She is a proverbs 31 woman - through and through. It is probably time to change it to that. Thanks for the prompting.

[drcy]

If you were going to spend it on a car for sons, you would have spent in to on something that depreciated quickly anyway. In the strictly financial scheme of things, you may come out better financially having spent it on the collection.

And some people spend good money on fakes. There are real horror stories there. You got something authentic and worth money out of it.

The autographs are the wild card here. Along with what you get for the entire collection. In your funk, perhaps you'll get more than you're thinking right now.

Overspending on a collection happens to everyone, even experienced dealers. Even the Mr. Mint you mentioned has overspent. He wrote about buying super rare football card boxes sitting in a garage or warehouse, only to discover when approaching them that they were infested with bugs. I know a well known dealer who bought a high grade 1971 Topps, but when he took the cads out of the binder he discovered many to most were recolored in black pen.

The best thing to do to make up for a bad deal, overspending or whatever, is to save some money and cut spending that you already wouldn't have-- a little here and a little here. Over time, you will make up the lost money by saving money you wouldn't have spent if this situation hadn't happened. If a loss causes you to alter your actions and habits for the better, it can actually lead to profit.

They say a difference between people who are overweight and healthy weight is both will sometimes overeat way more than normal at a meal, but the healthy weight person will make up for it by eating less at the next meal (a light dinner after a big restaurant lunch) or by skipping some snacks he or she would ordinarily have, while the overweight person will continue to eat the same amount as normal.

Personal setbacks and mistakes can make for a better person, short term financial losses can lead to long term profit and a big early season loss can make for a better football team. It's all a matter of how you handle and react to them.

[Al C.risafulli]

I wouldn't call it a $14K mistake. It's something less than that, depending on what you can get for the cards. If you're careful and diligent about selling them, you'll probably pull quite a bit of that back out of the cards when you sell. Perhaps in your enthusiasm, you overestimated the value, but I'm sure you didn't overestimate by THAT much.

If I had a nickel for every time I paid more for a card than it was worth because I was enthusiastic about buying it, I could cover your losses and then some.

I agree with Tom's suggestion that you sit tight and let the emotion seep out of this for a while, and I'm sure you'll find it wasn't such a bad deal after all.

And every one of us has done something similar at one point or another, whether it be in the hobby or out of the hobby.

Best of luck,
-Al

[buymycards]

Hi Kevin, I buy several collections a year. I learned the hard way not to commit to a purchase until I have thoroughly examined the cards. People always over value their collections. I have made many mistakes buying collections and when I get them home and look closely, my first thought is - "Wow, I screwed up on this one".

It is really difficult to drive 200 miles to look at a collection and then say "no thanks", but it would be even more difficult to buy the collection and regret it later.

You made a mistake. Learn from it, continue to collect and move on. Aaron Rodgers doesn't quit when he throws an interception, he comes back on the field and tries again.

Rick