Dumb Card Purchases - Dale Long

As baseball card bloggers, many of us understandably tend to gravitate towards showing off our best or most interesting purchases and pick-ups.  It's human nature.  However, I'm willing to bet that most of us have made at least a few truly dumb purchases over the years that don't make a lot of sense.  I know I certainly have, and today's post will cover one such purchase.

The card in question?

A 1957 Topps Dale Long, a nice enough card in and of itself, slabbed a PSA 6.  This could be considered an upgrade I suppose to the well-worn raw copy of this card that also sits in my collection:

Yeah, this one's seen better days.  Honestly though, I think it's a better fit for the way I collect nowadays than that clean, graded copy is.  I spent $10 and change on the graded Long, despite already having this well-worn copy.  There was one reason and only one reason that I did so.  It allowed me to do this...
 

Card #1...

...card #2...

...and card #3 from the 1957 Topps set, all in a PSA 6 grade that pleased my OCD at the time.

While I'm thrilled to have both the Ted Williams and the Yogi Berra cards, the only reason I picked up the Long is because I thought it would be cool to just pluck the next card number from the set, one at a time over time, in the same grade to see how far I could progress with it.

This was extremely short-sighted on my part.  I mean, following that logic through to conclusion, it doesn't take long to realize this was way too lofty a goal for me to shoot for.  Looking at what a Mantle or Brooks Robinson RC alone go for in that grade should have helped me to realize what a fool's quest that idea was from the outset.

Unlike many collectors, I do enjoy graded cards, specifically PSA-graded cards.  I've learned though that attempting an entire set in graded format is simply not for me.  If someone offered me the $10.75 that I shelled out for this Dale Long for it today, I'd hand it over in a heartbeat and use those funds on something much more satisfying for my collection.  Oh well, at least I came to this realization before I got any further than card #3!

How about you?  What are some of the worst card pick-ups that you can recall from your own collecting experience?