Your Best Raw Card Success Story

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

Hardly a success story, 03sox... surely you can jab better than that.

I bought 3 McGuire rookie cards a few months before his hype hit. 2 were in great shape, one had a crease. I think I had about $25 in the cards. When the cards were selling for $100 or so, I sold one of the good one's to a friend for $50, he was glad to get the card for what was then about half price. Sold the one with the crease to a fellow for about $10, he saw the crease and was pleased with the affordable card. Me, I was money ahead and still had one good card, which I still have. Success without slabbing. Ted managed to do that, too. Why must the success culminate in a plastic slab?

Frank, pal, I think you need to tone down the level of sanctimony. The call of the question as originally posed was a fun thread on a positive subject rather than a busted deal or a cheating auctioneer: getting a great deal on a raw card. Didn't define parameters for measuring the greatness of the deal. One metric of a great deal and the example used in the original post is getting a card that unexpectedly grades very highly with a TPG, whether sold or not. Another metric is getting a card on the cheap and selling it raw for a lot more than you paid. Apparently, you like the second metric and not the first. I don't think either way of characterizing a great deal is intrinsically better than the other. Every card in my example except the 1971 PSA 9 I kept. Am I more of a collector than someone who sold their great deal because I kept the cards I got the great deal on instead of selling them? Am I less of a collector because I had the cards slabbed--I like the way they look in SGC holders--even though I didn't sell them and don't plan to? The debate itself is silly. Some people like slabbed cards. Some don't. Some people flip cards, some don't. There is no correct answer, other than it is not necessary to elevate on one group over the other on what was supposed to be a fun thread.