What's this? A new post? Don't get used to it. ;-)
Perusing Facebook Marketplace last Saturday night, I came across a new ad. A guy was trying to sell a medium flat-rate box of cards. His ad said 2,000 cards and the only picture looked something like this:
He wanted $30 + $17 shipping. However, he was local to me (15 mins away) so I could pick-up without the shipping charge. I messaged him and asked "How much of this is junk wax?" He said "None. It's 2014 and 2019-present." Intriguing. We set up a time to meet Sunday and I grabbed it without digging into it any further. He said he buys blasters and this is all from there. 8 stacks fit in the box. Let's show it off in chronological order and see how I did.
1990 Topps - 8 cards
What????!?! I was promised no junk wax! It's OK. These were the only junk in the whole box, so I'm not disgruntled. These are going in the trash, though. :-)
2012 Panini Triple Play - 6 cards, 1 insert
Don't need any of these, but maybe that Zimmerman sticker can find a home.
2014 Topps Update - 328 cards, 3 inserts
Lots of base here! They left in stars here (Jeter, Miggy, etc.), but there was no Mookie Betts rookie (of course).
Only inserts were the 3 mini die-cuts (below).
Props to this guy -- condition on all these cards in the box was top-notch. Definitely looked pack-fresh.
2018 Topps Finest - 2 cards
These are in the same picture with the minis above.
2014 Topps Heritage - 251 cards, 5 inserts
There was a VERY healthy stack of these, but they had definitely been picked-over in the past. Not a lot of major stars. Fun to see a clean-shaven Charlie Blackmon, though. Inserts here were "Then and Now" and "New Age Performers".
I was very happy when I started finding Chromes of Ichiro, Ripken, Judge, Jeter, etc. I never buy these, but Chromes aren't cheap, right? Aren't they like 50 cents-per-card coming out of the packs?
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Got a decent stack of these, and was really happy to get 3 Medallion cards of HOFers! I haven't bought a lot of new cards, so all of these will supplement my trade-list on TCDB.com.
2021 - Topps Heritage - 210 cards, 9 inserts
Another sizable new stack! I feel like the guy I bought from has pulled out most of the rookies from this set, but left everything else. Nice to see Tatis, Vlad Jr, Soto, etc. Jimenez is chrome/999, and Kepler is red.
2021 Topps Gypsy Queen - 43 cards, 4 inserts
Another Tatis. An Ohtani. A Tarot Verlander. Looking good here!
2021 (2022 release date) Topps Big League - 57 cards, 19 inserts
I got very excited when I saw these. Didn't they come out, like, LAST WEEK?? I was thinking I would go buy a $20 Target blaster to get a taste for them, but now I don't have to. Maybe he was mistakenly Wander hunting? This is about 75% of a full blaster, including the blue blaster parallels. Two of the oranges were Royals, so Mondesi and Benintendi will go right into my PC, and there were 3-4 Royals base, too.
2021 Donruss Optic - 10 cards, 1 insert
Small stack here, but includes a nice Yaz insert that will probably go to a collector kid at church who told me that Yaz is his current favorite player.
2021 Donruss - 59 cards, 3 inserts
These were picked over in terms of pulling out the obvious inserts, but still had an Ohtani base (and a good-looking Salvy for me). Don't think he noticed the variations on the names/cities. Got a KESTDADDY, WINDY CITY, and THE 6 variation.
2021 Diamond Kings - 4 cards, 2 inserts
Here's all of them. Didn't know Sammy Sosa was still getting hobby love, but here he is. It's a nice-looking card, IMHO.
2021 Absolute Retail - 93 cards, 34 inserts
2021 Absolute Retail GREEN - 25 cards, 18 inserts
The final set in the box. Forgot to take a picture of the whole stack, so just pulled a few inserts/parallels for this picture. Quite a sizable stack. There are LOTS of inserts in this set, so those are fun to get. A mix of current and OLD timers (saw a Frank Chance in there).
Bieber is Red Retail/99. I'm not sure why there are so many GREEN parallels of both the base and the inserts, but there are a lot. They look neat, so I'm OK with that.
2022 Topps Series 1 - 469 cards
Definitely some Wander and insert hunting going on here. Giant stack of base cards only in here - all for trade if you need something for your set-build.
FINAL TALLY
1,785 Base Cards
111 Inserts/Parallels
1,896 Total Cards
1,896??? That's less than the 2,000 he advertised! FRAUD. I think I'll ask my credit card company to do a chargeback. :-) JK - in the world of cash bulk buys all sales are final -- caveat emptor! I'm actually very happy - I definitely consider this to be worth my money, and will have a lot of fun keeping some of these, and trading the rest away. If you read this far and see something you need - let me know!!
Question: What was the last bulk buy you made, and how did you find out about it?
My memory sucks. Not sure the last time I purchased a collection as large as this one. I remember buying a box of inserts and parallels from the flea market a year or two before Covid. A few months ago, I bought two shoe boxes worth of cards from a buddy. Some of the cards were in top loaders and slider boxes, so it was far less than 2,000 cards. I'd say flea markets and my buddy Ben are my two best sources for bulk buys.
ReplyDeleteAs for selling... whenever I dump mini-collections... I typically use Craigslist to purge a large number of cards from my household.
Very nice -- Craigslist and Facebook are easy ways to dump cards.
DeleteLast one I bought was a few years ago. Local. Three 5000 count boxes. One box was 91 Score.
ReplyDeleteIf there are any Expos I could use them.. Really any Jays too..
I don't know a lot about current sets, but it does seem like you probably got your money's worth, and then some. I can imagine that a lot of this will produce some much more wanted cards through the TCDB; probably a lot more than you could get yourself with $30.
ReplyDeleteYou did pretty well! And welcome back, if only just to show off the goods!
ReplyDelete