eBay Bargain Hunting!

I've seen a few posts from other bloggers out there who troll eBay and place bids on some of the cheapest cards they can find that include free shipping.  Sometimes it can work out quite nicely, and you can end up with cards shipped to your house for mere pennies.  I wouldn't say I made out quite that well in my first attempt, but I did find a user with some very cheap auctions that offered unlimited combined shipping for a reasonable $3.  I won a few different auctions, here's what I ended up with, all from the same seller and shipped for three bucks...

I don't know anything about Miles Head, and it looks like he's not even with the Red Sox organization any longer.  I was, however, happy to fork over a nickel for his 2010 Topps Pro Debut card.  Especially since for my five cents I actually got two copies:

One for my Sox collection, one for the trade pile.

I've only got a handful of 2014 Heritage cards, and I didn't have my namesake Shane Victorino.  A five cent opening bid solved that problem.  In fact, that was good enough for three copies:

Can't beat less than two cents per card for current year product.  I'm sure I won't have trouble unloading the two spares on Zistle.

Continuing on the five cents trend, I snagged this Wil Myers insert, also from this year's Heritage product.  I've seen this guy play quite a bit as a fan of a team in the AL East, and I think he's going to be a solid player in the league for many seasons to come.

That's why I was happy to grab this one, from 2013 Bowman Platinum for 11 cents.  This time it was four copies in the auction:

Not something I'd usually collect, but I couldn't pass these up at less than three pennies per.  I'm keeping one, have already sent one off to The Card Raven in a package, and threw the other two up on my Zistle tradelist to see who bites.

Here's another card I normally couldn't be bothered with.  I don't generally care for Bowman, have never heard of half the guys on the checklist, and all the sets look the same to me.  I think this one is from Bowman Chrome Draft Picks & Prospects, which is quite a mouthful, and it's a refractor.  It came with paired with this card in the same auction...

...from the same set as the Wil Myers above, again a nickel for both cards.  If you're keeping track that's 12 cards for 31 cents so far!  Matt was a first round draft pick in 2011, and is currently with Boston's AAA affiliate right up the street from me in Pawtucket, RI.  It will be nice having these cards if he ever cracks the big league roster.

This one might be one of the better steals in this purchase, as I snagged this Jose Fernandez 2013 Bowman Chrome Cream of the Crop mini insert for five cents.  As of posting this, the cheapest one I see on COMC is $3.24.  I guess this isn't an official rookie card because it's an insert, but it's close enough for me.  I'm glad to finally land a card of one of the game's brightest pitching prospects, and I hope Jose recovers to somewhere near his former level of greatness when he returns.

Allen Webster came to Boston from the Dodgers in the Adrian Gonzalez/Josh Beckett deal.  He made 7 starts for the Red Sox last year.  While he wasn't exactly stellar, it takes many pitchers some trial and error before they really find their groove.  If there's one area where the current Red Sox roster is actually log-jammed it would be starting pitching, so I'm not sure Allen will see any action with Boston this year.

I happily added three of his Bowman Chrome rookie cards to my collection, once again for a mere nickel.

Continuing on the nickel theme, I couldn't resist this Bowman's Best insert of Giancarlo Stanton before he went by Giancarlo.  These harken back to a time right in the wheelhouse of my childhood collecting days, in fact I might even consider collecting this entire insert set one of these days.

Not all the auctions I won were for the opening bid.  This Topps Chrome Traded Barry Zito rookie set me back a whole ten cents!  It looks much better in person, and the scratches you see are from my scanner, not the card.  I figured it was a unique enough rookie card for just a dime.

I got so wrapped up in this seller's auctions that I even ended up with a trio of Anfernee Hardaway basketball cards?!?!  Fifty cents got me this second-year Topps card...

...his Fleer rookie card...

...and the card that drew me to the auction, his Fleer Ultra rookie.  While I have never been much of a basketball fan, I did play quite a few basketball video games back in the day, and man could Anfernee shoot threes in the NBA Live games!  I remember this card being very coveted among the group of kids that collected at the time, so this was purely a nostalgia-based pick-up.

Called up to Oakland for what was supposed to be a spot start last August, Sonny Gray had an impressive season and worked a couple of really big games for the A's in the playoffs.  In 16 starts this year he's 7-3 with an ERA close to 3.00 and nearly a 3/1 strikeout to walk ratio.  For five cents, this 2012 Topps Pro Debut card was too good to pass up.

Especially since it was actually two copies for five cents.  Off to the trade box with the spare...

I was intrigued by this shiny, chrome card featuring Roger Clemens on the '52 Topps design.  It's from the 2006 Topps '52 set, and is serial numbered to 1952 copies.  Mine set me back ten cents.

I really liked Jose Iglesias as a player during his short time with the Red Sox.  He was an amazing fielder.  The whole knock on him was that he couldn't hit, but then he went and tore the cover off the ball for like 10 weeks straight.  He's been out of the lineup this year for Detroit with a strange injury, but I'm hoping we see him again in 2015.  This refractor rookie card was had for a dime.

Even though it doesn't fit my Red Sox collection per se, I was glad to land this SP Top Prospects rookie die-cut of Jason Varitek.  He's with the Port City Roosters (who have an interesting logo) on this card.  I actually forked over 55 cents for this one, because I just don't have enough cardboard of the longtime Sox backstop.

I was sucked in by the shininess of this Panini Prizm Pedro (got a nice ring to it).  I've never purchased any of this product, and it seems like this is one of those sets with around a hundred parallels.  It took me nearly 10 minutes to figure out what I "think" this card is, and I believe it's a 2013 Panini Prizm Prizm card.  No, that's not a typo, there's an insert/parallel set called Prizm in Prizm.  Whatever, it cost me just 55 cents and is super refractory.

Last but not least my two favorite, and most expensive wins.  I knew I had to have this Heritage Minor Leagues Jose Fernandez card.  I didn't mind shelling out $1.04 for this one, the way I see it I would have plucked this from a dollar box at the hobby shop or a card show no questions asked, so why not.  I think I can safely say this is my first Greensboro Grasshoppers card.  I could even see myself busting a box of this stuff if they weren't still asking around $80 for one.

Finally, I was fortunate enough to win this 2006 Upper Deck Rookie Foil Silver parallel of Red Sox lefty Jon Lester.  These were included in box-topper packs and came in silver and gold variations.  Mine's a silver, numbered to 399 copies.  It's hard to tell from the scan, but these have a really nice foil texture that makes the card pop.  This is only my second true Lester rookie, which is kind of sad.  It's certainly a unique one though, and I thought the price was fair at $2.50.  I'd like to pick up the gold one to accompany it someday...

So there was my first real attempt at eBay bargain hunting.  I think I did alright given that this entire lot came to under $6.00!  I might have to try this more often...