Your biggest Murphy's law purchase

[cardsagain74]

I imagine we've all had that one awful choice where everything went south. Mine wasn't pre-war (or even baseball), but the spirit is the same!

In February, I bought an 1969-70 basketball raw partial set (86/99) that included the key cards:

- After receiving them, the cards were barely acceptable compared to the pics. I always try to find situations where the worst case scenario for raw cards is still good enough, and these barely even passed that. Almost sent them back. In retrospect, naturally I should have.

- The timing couldn't have been worse. Paid a very mediocre (at best) price at the time, and it was right at the market peak.

- When I finally got tall boy sleeves/top loaders and took them out of the binder recently, found some commons and one minor HOFer that were horribly bent. An unexpected new replacement list.

- Those sleeves (which I got just for these and were ultra pro, no less) were too tight for the cards in all ways. Couldn't even use them out of concern for eventual warping.

- Accidentally tore up my hands getting everything in and out of the aforementioned sheets and top loaders. They just weren't sized that well.

- For the cherry on top, the storage box for this endeavor of fail busted (as I attempted to finish putting all these eight foot tall cards in).

At this point, I'm ready to use them for kindling

[bnorth]

I bought a lot of what should have been really cool card holders. It was a over sized toploader with a cool black insert. Looked kinda like a SGC slab but only toploader thick. The whole transaction for several hundred dollars was a joke. It took months and months to get my items. Then a lot of what showed up was complete junk. Several stacks of the inserts had horrible diamond cutting. Several packages of the custom sleeves for the toploaders were too small and split. When I brought it up with the seller he told me to return them because he could fix them.LOL They were too small so they couldn't be fixed. I was so pissed I just threw them in the corner and left them there. Almost forgot he also screwed up my order. I was supposed to get inserts for different sized cards instead they all showed up the same size.

I was going to order several 1000 of these holders total. The only good part was I didn't order them all at one time.

[Exhibitman]

I bought a really nice Rocky Marciano card and creased the hell out of it accidentally. D'oh!

[Econteachert205]

I bought a grand slam tiger woods rookie with the idea he was going to make a huge push toward jacks record. Basically the day I received the card he had his car accident.

[Leon]

I have opened more than one package while at the same time cutting my item in the package as I did it. One was an early Ruth booklet...ouch
.

[butchie_t]

I know this does not fit the forum topic but it is what I have to offer.......

Way too many Travis Fryman Topps 1991 cards (not even his rookie cards). Thought he may have been the next Ripken. Instead, the only Fryman...... at least it was not expensive at the time. But if you find it hard to find one, I know someone.........

[Yoda]

Mine is still too embarrassing, but I will reveal. I won some nice cards several years ago from LOTG, including a bunch of raw strip cards with an Eddie Collins and a beautiful Ruth, all taped inside. To make a horrible tale short, I managed to throw them away along with the packing material. I am sure I won the asshole of the day award. That particular Ruth has soared, of course. But there was a silver lining: Al paid me back half of my winning bid, which of course he didn't have to do. What a standup guy.

[jchcollins]

Probably 20+ years ago, I bought a nice raw E92 Dockman Cy Young at a show for about $500. Not being familiar at all with the set, I somehow in the weeks immediately after convinced myself it was trimmed, and sold it - either breaking even, or taking a small loss - I cannot remember. About a year later, I saw the exact same card - I could tell from the centering and an identifying mark or something - in a PSA 5 holder on eBay. Whoops.

About 2 years ago, I turned a SGC 5.5 '56 Clemente into about a 2 when I cracked it from it's slab. Some plastic shards developed when trying to lift the top of the case, and fell between it and the card. They made nice little white gouge paper loss marks in Roberto's face before I got the card out.

[Tao_Moko]

I bought two 1958 beautifully centered, bright green, razor sharp cornered Hank Aaron's from a friend for $800. I shit you not that these cards were perfect 10's. My friend was a true old timer I had known since the mid eighties and he had a hoard from a collection purchased in the early seventies from a grocery store owner. He opened these himself. Amazing story of the find and he knew I'd kill for the cards, about 400 in total. Being in his eighties he did me a solid. The top loaders were yellowing and no inner sleeve. I did the old tap to get the card to the edge and smashed one into the palm of my hand bending the card in half. Literally a 90 degree angle. My heart sank. Jim was upset and refunded me for the other and took it back as I was clearly undeserving. He was truly ashamed of me lol.