Anyone ever use the newspaper?

[Archive]

Posted By: David Smith

I have tried newspaper ads a few times and had some luck.

One ad I ran in a small town paper brought in eight B18 blankets (I bought them). From the same ad, another person had some Red Man's from the 1950's and W502's, with Ruth, Gehrig and a couple other Hall of Famer's. I didn't buy them because the guy didn't know what he had and didn't really know what he wanted for them except more than what I offered.

A couple of other ads in a different paper brought in some nice 1962 Topps (I bought them), some mini bats (I didn't buy them) and I met a guy who retired from Louisville Slugger. He had some stuff he didn't want to sell (Ty Cobb mini bat), some things he would sell but I wasn't interested in or had the money for (sets of 1987 and 1988 World Series black bats) and some things I was interested in. The best thing I bought was a Cal Ripken Jr error bat.

When they made some of the bats, they misspelled his last name as "Ripkin" instead of "Ripken". The error was discovered after they had burnt his name in some bats. Most of the error bats were destroyed but a few of the employees snagged some before hand. I was able to buy one of these bats from him. I have debated whether I should sell this or not...

Another time, I advertised for old comic books and bought about 300-400. I resold them to my brother-in-law and doubled my money. He then started to sell the ones he didn't want and made most of his money back plus added to his collection.

A few weeks ago, I had thought about advertising again and this thread just makes me want to even more (even though I don't have a lot of money). The worst part about advertising is not the people who have the new stuff but the people who have the older cards and a PRICE GUIDE!!! They have their own opinion about what EX-Mint is and think that you are going to pay them book price for each and every card. The other problem might be finding a great collection and not having the money to buy it. I did this twice and had to watch as someone else bought the cards. UGH!!!


David