Selling Cards, Buying Cards

I've become inspired recently to really start trimming down my collection.  I'm trying to narrow the number of things I collect down to a more reasonable, focused list, and in doing so reduce the overall size of my collection.  Selling off some cards that don't really fit that narrower focus on eBay is something I've wanted to try for some time now, and in the month of July I finally got around to it.

eBay gives you 50 listings a month without charging you the 35 cent listing fee, though they do take a 10% fee on the sale price for sports cards.  Yes, I wish the commission fee were a bit lower but to me, it's worth the trade-off given the wide exposure that you get for your items via the site.

So far I've listed 30 auctions in the month of July, and to my surprise 17 of them have already sold!

The first card I sold was my graded 1972 Topps Nolan Ryan.  Nolan was one of my absolute favorite players growing up, even though I only became a baseball fan at the end of his career.  When I got back into the hobby in 2007 and had a lot of expendable income (full time job, unmarried, living in small apartment), I picked up a lot of his Topps flagship cards in graded form.

I felt this one was expendable because Hackenbush sent me a second copy a few years back.  It always kinda bothered me that this one has an older PSA label anyway, and I knew I could probably get triple digits for it in sale.  It ended up selling within minutes of me listing it, for $125!

Next up, another graded HOFer, Ernie Banks' 1961 Topps card.  Around the same time that I was buying those graded Nolan Ryans, I also built up a nice little Ernie Banks collection.  I never completed the full Topps run of Ernie's playing-day cards though, most notably missing his expensive '54 RC.  Since I don't think completing that run is high on my list, or really anything I'll ever realistically get to, I decided to part with some of my least favorite Banks cards.

This one was at the top of the list, just kind of a boring card with a cap-less photo.  At this stage, I would much rather have the $55 that this card netted me.

I love the 2005 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes autographs, but I'm really only collecting the 100 Emerald ones (#'d /99 each).  I'd grabbed this rarer Ozzie Smith blue (/20) a while back just because it was a great deal, but it's always kind of been an outlier in that collection.  Ozzie's got a decent following even today, and this got snatched up for $35 in short order.

Along those same lines, I had two outlier Red autos from the set as well (/49), both featuring the great Bob Feller.

These went in a package deal to the same guy who bought the Ozzie, $40 for the pair.  He got a great deal on these, but they didn't fit my collection and Feller signed a ton of cardboard over the years, so I was happy with the transaction.

Last sale I'll highlight today, a 1972 Topps NL RBI Leaders card.  I mentioned when I posted this one last month that I'd consider selling it, and that thought was kind of the catalyst that propelled me into finally getting off my butt and selling some of these cards in the weeks that followed.  I got an even $30 for this one, which isn't bad given that it set me back less than $10 when I acquired it back in the day.

eBay had a promotion going for new sellers like myself where they did not take any commission fees for your first five sales, so I was able to keep every penny of the $285 I drummed up here.  I'll be saving a lot of that money for the future, which feels pretty good.  While most of what I listed initially is gone, here's a link to my items in case anything still available strikes your fancy, or you want to check back again as I continue to list items from my collection throughout the summer.

That covers the Selling Cards portion of the post, now onto the Buying Cards portion.  Even though I have cut way back on my cardboard spending the past couple of months, I haven't ceased picking up new cards completely.  Here's a pair that have arrived in my mailbox in just the past week:

Still only 22 years old, Rafael Devers is having an absolute beast of a season so far here in 2019.  He got off to a bit of a slow start, especially with respect to power numbers, but has since rebounded and been one of the hottest hitters in baseball going back many weeks now.  As of the publishing of this past, Devers is leading the American League in total bases with 225, four ahead of the great Mike Trout even.

I've been snatching up some cheaper Devers cards as the summer has rolled along, figuring that if he continues to produce at the level he has with all those years ahead of him his cards may not be all that affordable for Red Sox fans a couple/few years from now.  I couldn't resist this ultra-shiny "Purple Mojo" parallel from the Crusade portion of Panini's 2018 Chronicles set.  What a fantastic looking rookie of one of the game's exciting young stars.

It's a bit tough to make out, but these are serial-numbered to /99.  I was able to secure this one for just $5.34, tax and shipping included.  Xander Bogaerts remains my favorite active player (and is having a hell of a year himself!), but it's been fun adding some Devers cards into the mix in 2019, and I hope he continues to swing a hot bat through the remainder of the summer here!

If you've stopped by the blog with any regularity over the years, you probably know about my minor obsession with 1990 Topps.  I know most collectors feel that it is one of Topps' worst efforts over the years, but the very first pack of baseball cards I ever opened were from this set, and it was the first Topps baseball set I ever collected as well.  The nostalgia value is pretty high for me based on that.

I've already got a complete '90 Topps set, and am also working on a '90 Topps buyback set, but I still look for other unique opportunities to add to my '90 Topps collection.  Tony Pena's autographed card here, from the 2017 Topps Archives Signatures Post-Season release, was a perfect addition to this small collection for a winning bid of just $9.05.

Even better, I had eBay bucks available to apply to this, making it effectively a free pick-up.  Gotta love that!

So, that's all for today.  Just checking in and sharing a little bit of what's been going on in my small corner of the collecting world.

Have you sold anything from your collection recently, through eBay or otherwise?  If so, did you do anything cool with the proceeds?  Your anecdotes and experiences with selling cardboard are welcome in the comments below!