Biggest Steal of a Deal/ Hobby Triumph

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Reddrgn88

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I’ve been reading the biggest regret thread (I hate hearing these stories). I want to know you biggest steal of a deal, hobby success, hard find....those are the stories I love.

I’d say mine was finally tracking down the Richards Ice RC after a 12ish year search, and all the pieces coming together to make it happen. If it wasn’t for the great Seller on HI and the other Buyer whom backed out after hearing how badly I wanted the card, I wouldn’t have it in hand today...I’d say karma really played a part in this happening.
 
Mine is a bittersweet one. I was collecting 07/08 SPA set and I found a lot of like 3 future watches for sale with Jonathan Quick FW in it, but not in the discription. I picked the lot up for about $12 dollars. WAY below what it was going for at the time even. I sold it a year or 2 later, for some reason, even though I was still collecting the set, for about $120. Now I still need the card, and its selling for WAY more then 120..... o well, live and learn.
 
Back in the early days of eBay, I bought a Topps 70s lot that didn't have much for a description, but seemed like it would be fun. Turns out it was loaded, forming the basis of my 1972-73 Topps set. But it also had a handful of '71-72 Topps including Dryden and Orr. The Orr was off center, but the Dryden was immaculate.

Sadly, both cards were stolen and re-sold on eBay. The police did not allow me to re-bid on my own items while they were investigating, and did not do anything to help me recover them after the thief was caught. (On the plus side, we did catch the thief and all but 26 cards were recovered, but man, I still lament the loss of that Dryden.)

From a purely monetary standpoint, I paid a fair and reasonable amount for a Gretzky RC in 2014 and today it is worth 10x that. So not a steal, but certainly a triumph!

And though it hardly matters today, back in 2000 or so, my mom bought me one of those aftermarket packs of hockey cards you can find at Target. You know, 100 for $5 or whatever. Usually, it's mostly 1990 Bowman, but this time, every card in it was a parallel or an insert. The book at the time was well over $400 and a few of those cards - including a nice Gretzky insert and a tough Jagr parallel - remain in my collection. Huge steal.
 
As far as set building triumphs go - it is definitely completing the three Epic Signatures sets (aside from the 99/00 Century Legends Gretzky, which I would love to acquire but is extremely scarce, only exists as a /100 Gold Version, and was a redemption). What a wild ride that whole multi-year journey was. The Century Legends Gordie Howe in particular was being held in a decidedly non-sports collectibles store out of Tokyo, Japan that I had to use an intermediary shopping service to acquire. I also had to go through Tradera to bring in the Bondra, which I simply could not find for a long stretch of time.

1999-00 Album
2000-01 Album
2001-02 Album

As far as individual monetary wins from building these sets - I snagged the Century Legends Maurice Richard for $100 even (which was the last card I needed overall), the Century Legends Lemieux for about $65, and brought in both the 00/01 and 01/02 Gretzkys as a package deal for an overall total of $480.
 
My biggest steal was the Crosby/Perry rookie checklist shown below. It was listed as a base 2005-06 UD Crosby/Perry checklist with a BIN of $12, which was the going rate at the time. However, this was not the regular base but the High Gloss version /10! I knew it as soon as I saw the golden trim and reflective rainbow finish on the stamped foil. I think I probably own the world record for the speed at which I hit the Buy It Now button haha. I have never seen another copy to this day!

30648539897_efdf17a56d_b.jpg
 
hckycdn93 said:
My biggest steal was the Crosby/Perry rookie checklist shown below. It was listed as a base 2005-06 UD Crosby/Perry checklist with a BIN of $12, which was the going rate at the time. However, this was not the regular base but the High Gloss version /10! I knew it as soon as I saw the golden trim and reflective rainbow finish on the stamped foil. I think I probably own the world record for the speed at which I hit the Buy It Now button haha. I have never seen another copy to this day!

30648539897_efdf17a56d_b.jpg
Click to expand...

I remember when you first posted about that checklist. Epic steal for you and hoping the other guy never realized what he did lol
 
Traded a monster box of inserts (literally, inserts from across all brands) for a Gretzky RC back in 2000 or so. The dealer looked at it as 5,000 1-5 dollar inserts for a $500 Gretzky. I looked at it as a pain in the *** for gold. Best deal I ever made. Wish I had kept the Gretzky.
 
Biggest hockey triumph is an easy one for me. Back in 1979 I was living in Hobbs, New Mexico and needless to say hockey was not a big sport in southeast New Mexico. I was leaving work and stopped in a Circle K to buy a soft drink and I noticed they had a box of Topps hockey cards.

So I buy some packs to rip. Hit Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe and Ken Dryden cards which was great.

But wait, what is GREATER?

iuwBgKs.jpg
 
Mine was finally finding the famous sssssssssssssssssssp auto of Jiri Hudler. I was building the 04-05 Heroes and Prospects set but was only doing the prospects, then I added the heroes and finally the update ( this was all within 1/2 a year). Well I never even saw the Hudler. I finally saw one that sold right when the product came out. A member of HI was able to tack it down (10 years later) and broker a deal for me. Still the only one I have ever seen although I don’t look often anymore!!
 
Bought a Gretzky RC from Jeremy (gomez) 4 or 5 years ago (easily the most I'd spent on one card at the time). Sold it recently for approximately 10x what I paid for it.

It's likely gone up more since then but it is nice to get new windows for the house instead.
 
I think like everyone, I'm happy that I bought a Gretzky RC before the prices spiked. (Paid around $400 for a PSA 5).

When I sold off all my UD Sets (1990-2015) the one card in the lot that I missed was McDavid. Didn't regret the sale... but that was one card I would still liked to have owned.

In 2017, there was a lone blaster of 2015-16 Series 1 at my local walmart. I'm sure it was on the shelf for months before I bought it (last time I've seen one of those blasters for sale in a store). Sure enough, I pulled a McDavid.

Thinking about, Walmart has treated me well over the years. I can remember a bunch of years back... same sorta story. There was a lone box of 97-98 Beehive sitting there. After a few months, I was in there one day and decided "what the heck?". Paid $25 for it, and hit a Richard Autograph.
 
Not a Hockey card, But about 2+ years ago I thought I would buy a Michael Jordan Graded 8 Rookie card for the P.C... Most expensive card I ever bought($2,900) and while at my LCS my friend looked up the last sale on a Jordan 8 & I couldn't believe the price he told me, Made my day . It was about 2 months ago.
 
Oct 14, 2019, when I got the entire set of 30 cards of 2002-03 Parkhurst Retro NICKNAMES for $316 USD plus $39 USD shipping.

I think I had my Gixen snipe set at $1,222 or something like that. The item was ending at 2AM EST (middle of the night) on a weekday, and even though Gixen succeeded, I set mmy phone alarm to wake up 15 minutes before so I could also place a manual bid.

My google sheets show that I kept the following 11 cards
  1. Nicknames RN-08 Johnny Bower Toronto Maple Leafs COPY 3
  2. Nicknames RN-27 Olaf Kolzig Washington Capitals COPY 12
  3. Nicknames RN-07 Johnny Bucyk Boston Bruins COPY 8
  4. Nicknames RN-25 Félix Potvin Los Angeles Kings COPY 3
  5. Nicknames RN-16 Stan Mikita Chicago Blackhawks COPY 3
  6. Nicknames RN-10 Glenn Hall Chicago Blackhawks COPY 3
  7. Nicknames RN-14 Francis Clancy Toronto Maple Leafs COPY 3
  8. Nicknames RN-30 Mario Lemieux Pittsburgh Penguins COPY 2
  9. Nicknames RN-13 Irvine Bailey Toronto Toronto Maple Leafs COPY 2
  10. Nicknames RN-12 Frank Mahovlich Peter Mahovlich Montréal Canadiens COPY 3
  11. Nicknames RN-06 Gerry Cheevers Boston Bruins COPY 3

Sold off the remaining 19. I think the 19 cards actually recovered the $355 USD and then some, so the 11 cards above basically ended up being FREE.

For those who don't know my p.c., I try to keep as many unique swatch variants of each given card as I can acquire.
 
Mine was a trade and not a purchase but I traded a Nolan Patrick High Gloss Young Guns BGS 9.5 for a Auston Matthews SP Authentic Rookie auto BGS 9.5 True Gem. All 9.5. Even back then their rookie year I think I got the best end of it and at current values I Know I got the best end of it. I still talk the trader and you can only imagine how many times he reminds me. LOL
 
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I bought 2 Mcdavid Young Guns FOIL BGS True Gem 9.5 (10/10/9.5/9.5, and 10/9.5/9.5/9.5) for $700 and $760 respectively in 2018 and 2019. Looking at pop reports across beckett and PSA, only about 160 of these out there (graded)
 
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/Channels Nicholas Cage

How did that deal not involve me? It has all the hallmarks of a classic Frazer deal!

1) One really good card that gets even better.
2) A whole box of crap that doesn't.
3) An ice-cream bar.

Hell, I'd probably still do it.

Triple B said:
Traded a monster box of inserts (literally, inserts from across all brands) for a Gretzky RC back in 2000 or so. The dealer looked at it as 5,000 1-5 dollar inserts for a $500 Gretzky. I looked at it as a pain in the *** for gold. Best deal I ever made. Wish I had kept the Gretzky.
Click to expand...
 
A few Years back I saw a 13/14 SPX auto Jersey Rookie/Base set (mackinnon, barkov, huberdeau, seth jones, filip forsberg...) on ebay, put a bookmark on it and waited to snipe it. it was around 115.00 with 2 minutes left.. it jumped to $130 CDN. I put in a last second bid for 300, which I thought was still a steal. Ended at 140.00 + 25 Shipping (+/- a few bucks)
I still have it, thinking of selling. individual ebay pricing is around 1000 CDN now for the auto/jsy set alone (based off recent sales)

My best snipe was a 14/15 Trilogy Black Variant Crystal Rookies Kuznetsov - apparently only 5-10 copies. Either way I sniped this for 1.50CDN + Shipping.. sold the week I received it for $100CDN
 
Around 2007 or 2008, I bought a lot of 1995/96 Collector's Choice Platinum Players Club. It was listed on eBay as a lot containing Pavel Bure, Eric Lindros and Patrick Roy, and I got it for I think $3-$5. When I received the lot, it had 36 Bure's, 32 Lindros's and 29 Roy's. I still have most of the Bure's and I think the Lindros's may be hanging around somewhere, but I pieced out all the Roys, getting between $15-$25 a piece on eBay. As I was in college at the time, it was one of the best "beer fund" moves I made.
 

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