Biggest Steal of a Deal/ Hobby Triumph

My biggest steal and biggest regret involve the same card! I picked up a Crosby Ultimate RC PSA 10 for $550 in 2011 (when C$ was on par and was ecstatic!). I sold it for what I thought was good money $1500 in early 2018 (I had two other ungraded copies). I have regretted it ever since - even before the RC prices took off.
 
I think I've gotten more lucky hitting nice cards from boxes than I have on getting singles for nice deals on the secondary market. None come to mind at the moment at least.
 
Not considering cards that appreciated in value since I first acquired them.

A couple months ago, I snagged a LeBron 2004-05 Ultra Platinum Medallion /100 for $35 at a card show. There hasn't been one on eBay for a LOOOOONG time until a couple weeks ago. It sold for 6k. I didn't just buy it because of the price, all of his platinum medallions have been on my want list, but pack-pulled (with SN) versions just don't pop up all that much.

LeBron 2003-04 eX Jambalaya and 2012-13 Crusade Gold were also huge cards that I was able to land years after release. I paid about $1100 for the Jambalaya which at the time was by far the most I paid for any individual card.

For hockey, it's definitely my 2008-09 Ultra eX Jambalaya Gretzky. It took several years for me to find one. A few months after landing my first one, I was able to acquire a 2nd copy for about half the price. Crazy how things work out.

Side note; OP was talking about me. It stories like that, that really make me enjoy the hobby. Really glad I could be apart of a fellow collector acquiring their whale.
 
I haven’t had too many deals, but one was an Eric Lindros signed photo at a yard sale for $3!!! Had a stamp on the back from a former card shop outside of Philly. Bought it & checked with HI local Lindros collectors and the signiture was pretty much legit from his early Philly days. Nice!
 
isles4life said:
A couple months ago, I snagged a LeBron 2004-05 Ultra Platinum Medallion /100 for $35 at a card show. There hasn't been one on eBay for a LOOOOONG time until a couple weeks ago. It sold for 6k. I didn't just buy it because of the price, all of his platinum medallions have been on my want list, but pack-pulled (with SN) versions just don't pop up all that much.
Click to expand...

:jawdrop:
 
I have to brag a little but it, no matter how you look at it, was a steal. Box breaks with UD are feast or famine, we all know this, it has been like this for years. My 1st box of 15-16 box of Champs was a feast of feasts...for new price of $90 (in 15-16)...McDavid SSP rc, McDavid 1st overall draft pick insert, and Gretzky framed mini auto!!! One box!!! Amazing steal for a product that has recently seen a recent resurgence but once was going for $30/box all day until a year ago.

At the time, the insert was $75 (sold mine for $45, but got another many boxes later), Ssp McDavid rc was $350, Gretzky was $250. Since, I have seen the Gretzky at $1,000 on ebay, ungraded McDavid ssp rc are going for $450 (graded 9.5 going between $7-14,000, and a 10 has an asking price over $20k!!!), and the insert had a recent sale of less than listed $318. So, a box that was $90 originally doled out $700+ in 3 cards and is now potentially $8,000+. Amazing!
 
I purchased a 1990-91 OPC Premier Mario Lemieux BGS 10 card off ebay in mid-December for about $50 on a BIN. Card was priced like a PSA 10 I guess? And I only purchased it because it was a card from a set that I collect rookies from (90-91 OPC Premier) and because I had also purchased another graded rookie card from this seller and was able to combine shipping. Plus it was kinda cool to get my first/only BGS 10 card. So totally happened by accident.

Fast forward to mid-February and a couple BGS 10's from this set sold on ebay for crazy amounts, a Brett Hull BGS 10 sold for $2100 (which is nuts!) and then there was a high sale on a Modano BGS 10 rookie and some others. So I figured what the heck and threw my Mario BGS 10 on ebay at a stupid high number and immediately got an offer for $1550 from this guy that had been buying them all up. And he was local to boot. So we ended up making a local cash deal which was awesome.

So yea…. Bought a card by accident and ended up making 31x on it in less than 2 months. What a time to be alive! Haha
 
Aside from my Gretzky RC that I pulled when I was a kid, it would have to be my Ovechkin SPA Rookie Authentics /250 auto. Hard signed, rare, in great condition - just a beautiful card. I can't remember what I paid at auction for it in 2007, but those were the days where I never went over $50 for any single card, so I am sure it was less than that.
 
rohara99 said:
I purchased a 1990-91 OPC Premier Mario Lemieux BGS 10 card off ebay in mid-December for about $50 on a BIN. Card was priced like a PSA 10 I guess? And I only purchased it because it was a card from a set that I collect rookies from (90-91 OPC Premier) and because I had also purchased another graded rookie card from this seller and was able to combine shipping. Plus it was kinda cool to get my first/only BGS 10 card. So totally happened by accident.

Fast forward to mid-February and a couple BGS 10's from this set sold on ebay for crazy amounts, a Brett Hull BGS 10 sold for $2100 (which is nuts!) and then there was a high sale on a Modano BGS 10 rookie and some others. So I figured what the heck and threw my Mario BGS 10 on ebay at a stupid high number and immediately got an offer for $1550 from this guy that had been buying them all up. And he was local to boot. So we ended up making a local cash deal which was awesome.

So yea…. Bought a card by accident and ended up making 31x on it in less than 2 months. What a time to be alive! Haha
Click to expand...

That's crazy!
 
Some of these triumphs just jogged my memory on this happenstance pull. Not hockey, but tangentially related.



Funny story with this one - decade and a half ago my father stopped by a card store on his way home after a long work shift and thought he was buying a box of 2005/06 SP Game Used Hockey. We were both pretty disappointed when we realized it was actually a basketball box, though pulling a James made us feel a little better. :laugh::laugh:

I really need to finally get this thing graded...
 
Sort of card related, not hockey or sports related. One time a few years ago I was at a rummage sale and there wasn't really anything of interest. I wasn't by myself so I had to wait around for them to be done. While being bored I started going through a few of the ephemera dealers piles of old postcards and advertising things and found a few old tobacco cards. I think I paid $1 each for the three. One was one of those common cards with a bird on it.

One of them was just something weird and I couldn't find any info about it online. Eventually ended up on the old net54 where a couple guys who are members of some paid service was able to ID it (The fact there are company who gatekeep this information is annoying). Alas it is a triple folder from 1895 that I sent off to SGC. It comes back in low grade but it is like pop 2 and highest graded. There's no market for this particular card, so I still have it and it has an unknown value.
 
65/66 Topps Paul Henderson PSA8 - picked up for 50 CDN and a Jose Theodore RC in 2003 when Theodore was red hot. sold for over 10X that amount USD last year.
 
When I was a kid our neighbors would pay my brother or I $1 to carry their garbage to the curb on garbage day. The driveway seemed so long when we were little lol but I was happy to get a dollar to go buy candy or some cards at the corner store. When they sold their house, moving day was before garbage day so they gave us $5 to take all of the left over stuff out on garbage day. I was raised in a very frugal household, so literally picking through garbage was nothing new to me. My brother and I had a field day going through all of the boxes and bags and ended up finding a box of hockey cards. Took them home and that is the story of where we got our first Gretzky rookie (it would probably grade a -10 lol).
 
Jackie's

3 years ago I bought a card from every year that Jackie Robinson played 1947-1956, paid a total of about $4500 , Paid $2500 for his PSA 2.5 1948 leaf rookie,last 2.5 sold for $17500, still have them all.

thumbnail_IMG_0783 by Guy Bourque, on Flickr
 
For me, the biggest has to be when an auction house took on a bankrupt hobby shop's entire stock on consignment last February. I went to take a look and they were not just selling it, but legit fire selling it. Some of the highlights from that for me include: a near complete set of 1995-96 BAP Signatures...that I bought for $5CDN total. I've made probably 100 times my money back on that alone.

Then of course, tons of High Gloss cards, Ovy rookies, Crosby rookies, tons of other rookies, patches, autos, complete master sets, loads of show stamped cards, etc., etc. I paid only about $245CDN that day, stuffed my car to the brim with stuff, spent three days sorting and inventorying and I am still profiting off of the big purchase to this day, more than a year after that purchase. And I'm not gonna lie, those three days were probably the most fun I have ever had in my life...ever. To date, I've probably made 30-50 times my money back on that purchase and counting!
 
Best recent purchase. Bought a lot of 9 graded 80s/90s hockey for less than $350US.
Lot included a couple of graded Brodeur inserts, Score Mike Richter and Curtis Joseph 9.5s, a random Titanium Chris Drury, 91/92 Lidstrom UD BGS 9.5, Peter Forsberg 91/92 World Junior BGS 9.5, Federov and Bure Young Guns BGS 9.5, 2002 UD National Wayne Gretzky 9.5, 90-91 OPC Premier Lemieux BGS 9.5, 78/79 Topps Mike Bossy RC BGS 8.5 and this nice little card...

85-86 Mario Lemieux Topps RC BGS 9 (8.5, 9, 9, 9).

The other cards were good enough for the price and the Lemieux was the cherry on the top.
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
389,449
Messages
2,232,668
Members
4,144
Latest member
Collector Driven
Back
Top