Amazing 19th Century Non-Sports Auction

I was doing my weekly dig through the tobacco card listings for one of the three Allen & Ginter cards I still need. I had a golden opportunity to get one of the three last week but forgot to bid. D'oh! While I was looking I found an auction for this:

That's a pretty nifty looking card there. It's from the N219 Kinney Brothers "Harlequin" deck of cards. It was a standard deck of cards where each card had the card number incorporated into a cartoon. I'm not sure why the fez-wearing three card monte hustler there has a clockwork spade on his chest, but I suppose it meant something in 1888. If there is a 'star' card in a deck of cards, I suppose the Ace of Spades would be it, but that did prepare me for the price the card eventually sold for...

$898.88

Whoa! That dude really wanted that card! There were 22 bids although it looks like 18 of them were placed by the final winner in a 5 minute period trying to eke out the high bidder. I knew that non-sports cards were becoming more and more sought after, but wow. The Harlequin set isn't terribly rare from what I can tell, but this is a very good looking copy of the premier card in the set. This is the most expensive non-sport card I've seen so far, and it is the highest priced card in the completed Tobacco card listings and that includes a few baseball issues put in there by mistake. I was watching the aution during the last few minutes to see if a smipe war would break out and cause it to break four figures, but no dice. I'm really interested to see what this Mark Twain Duke card from the same seller goes for now. That seems like a much better card to me. Of course you all know the real reason why I'm posting this and it sure ain't about cards. Enjoy...

eBay auction silliness

No, this isn't a million dollar card or a crazy superfractor auction, this is just an old fashioned funny auction listing. Upper Deck has reprised their Presidential Predictors insert set with five cards featuring the Democratic and Republican nominee fighting it out. There is both an Obama and a Hillary variation to each card, since no one clinched the nomination until the very last primary. This Hillary variation card is currently up for bid.

Now this is an extremely silly card to begin with. For one thing John McCain is very clearly copping a feel. Clinton's horrified reaction tells the world that this is most definitely a BAD TOUCH. Shame on you cartoon McCain, you dirty old man. And shame on you Upper Deck! Little kiddies are opening packs and seeing this filth! Won't someone please think of the children! Anyway, that's not the really strange part of this auction, it's actually the title. Check this out:

HILLARY CLINTON HUGE REAR PRESIDENTIAL PREDICTORS 08

Now that's jut not nice at all. I mean, sure, it's an accurate representation of the item, but come on. Talk about kicking someone when they're down. Thank God the card isn't offensive at least.

My Ebay feedback rating just doubled

I got a little pile of Chippers in the mail today so I logged into eBay to leave some feedback. To my surprise, my rating jumped from 390-something to 809. Apparently the eBay feedback changes have kicked in. Here's the changes that were made:

What changes are being made to the eBay Feedback system?

The main changes to the system being introduced in May:

1. Beginning in February 2008, we enabled buyers and sellers to earn up to one Feedback per week from the same trading partner. In May we will provide credit for similar repeat transactions going back to when the system was introduced in 1996. This change will encourage repeat transactions and reward good service.
2. In May, sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers.
3. Removal of negative and neutral Feedback left by members who are suspended or who fail to respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) Process.
4. Positive Feedback percentage will be based on the past 12 months of Feedback, rather than lifetime, since it is most indicative of the seller's recent performance.
5. Restrictions on when Feedback can be left:
   • Buyers must wait seven days before leaving negative or neutral Feedback for active PowerSellers who have been registered for at least 12 months.
   • Members must leave Feedback within 60 days of the transaction closing (today members have up to 90 days).
6. Removal of Mutual Feedback Withdrawal.

It looks like buyers can no longer get negative feedback from a seller (although all the negatives you've gotten so far cannot be removed, ever) but there are harsher penalties for buyers if they don't pay for items. Also you can leave positive feedback for repeat sellers and buyers once a week and have it count towards their rating. So if you're the type of buyer who finds a good seller and keeps buying over and over, the feedback can add up. I think these changes are supposed to prevent the "if you leave me bad feedback I'll leave it for you" mentality and encourage more honest ratings. The only negative I ever left was in retaliation to a seller, so I guess it makes sense. It will take some getting used to especially if asshat buyers start giving everybody negatives for the lulz and sellers get paranoid and start zapping people with a Non-Paying bidder ding two days after the auction closes to cover their ass. I suppose we'll all adjust and they'll switch it all around again after another ten years to keep us on our toes. Anyone else have their rating go wacky? Anyone want me to shut up about corporate policy and just post the Chippers?

Generic Ebay Insanity Post

Mario at Wax Heaven reports that 2008 Bowman is getting some big sales already. I wouldn't be shocked if the buyer of the LaPorta auto card was Merkle923 or another such Topps operative trying to build buzz on the new product, but hey, I'm cynical. Actually I'm just frustrated because the shop still has my car and I can't go get the first '08 Bowman pack to rip on A Pack A Day. I don't even like the stuff, but I MUST BE FIRST. Yeah, I'm kind of obsessive about that. I need a hobby or something. Oh wait.

This post isn't about '08 Bowman though. This is about an eBay auction Mario snuck into his post. Let me show you a couple of cards.

This here is a T206 card of Sherry Magee, an underrated hitter from the deadball era. He was a very good hitter for Philadelphia and some claim he should be considered for the Hall of Fame. This particular card is one of the Big Four T206 cards as it has the very rare "Magie" spelling variation. The error was apparently caught early in production and very few are now known to exist. Possibly no more than 150 copies are available for collectors of this legendary set.

This card is a 2005 Superfractor autograph of Ryan Braun. Ryan is a great young hitter who won the Rookie of the year award last year. Braun has been rewarded by the Brewers with an 8-year contract, the richest in club history. There is only one of this exact card in existence by design, however there are hundreds of Braun autographed cards from the same set available, just without the 1/1 stamp and funky shiny squares. The 2005 Bowman Chrome set is not considered particularly historically significant or groundbreaking.

If you act now though, one or both of these cards can be yours through the magic of eBay. So how much would you pay for these cardboard (or in Ryan's case, foil and assorted polymers) beauties? Fifty dollars? Eighty Dollars?? ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS??? Well if you act now, you can get both of these cards for only $19.95 plus shipping and handling! And if you call in the next twenty minutes we'll double your order FREE! That's right, TWO Sherry Magie error cards and TWO Ryan Braun 1/1 Superfractors! But that's not all! You also get the Ronco turnip twaddler ABSOLUTELY FRE- um, wait, no. They are $12,500. Each. But you get free shipping! The free shipping is important because to afford either of them I'd have to sell both my cars, steal the neighhbors' cars and pawn them to a chop shop, then maybe sell a kidney or two. No cars means I can't pick it up and it might be hard to walk after the surgery.

But which one to buy? One of the top five cards from the greatest set of all time or the hot rookie card that was made artificially scarce? To be honest I wouldn't buy either. If I'm going to sell my organs on the black market for cards, you can bet your sweet bippy I'm going for the gusto. That's right, it's Mickey my little bitches! These high dollar cards are nothing but staus symbols anyway and if I'm going to have a status symbol I want a '52 Mantle. That way I can go to the mall and wave it in the faces of all those dorks decked out in bling trying to look cool. Who's the cool one now?!? Ok, so the T206 Wagner would be the ultimate status symbol, but I'd have to sell at least one organ from every reader of this blog to afford one of those and I'm not quite ready to commit mass murder for one card just yet. I know, I'm a disgrace to our recklessly consumerist hobby, but we all have to put limits on our collecting.

Good Advice From Dinged Corners That I Didn't Follow

Dinged corners has an excellent list on how to have fun and not get ripped off at eBay. You should click for yourself and check it out if for no other reason than the cool Old Judge card that illustrates it. I will honor this post with a list of how I have blatantly broken these rules over the past couple of weeks. That's right, the card 'expert' here also does some mindbogglingly stupid things on eBay.

we do not visit eBay when distracted, tired, or vulnerable

Well, I've been tired for about a year and a half now, but going on an eBay binge when you're sick and hopped up on medicine isn't the smartest thing to do.

only buying from sellers with 100 percent positive feedback

I didn't do this and got slightly burned. I bought a few vintage packs ('83 Donruss & Fleer and '84 Fleer) so I could rip some interesting stuff on A Pack A Day. The guy had 99.8 or 99.9% feedback (only 15 negs out of a few thousand) and the packs were dirt cheap compared to what they would cost in a hobby shop so I went for it. I bought two packs of each so I'd have one to rip and one to save and when the package came I got two '83 Donruss, one '83 Fleer and three '84 Fleer. It would cost more than the pack to ship it back for a replacement so I just moved on. No '83 Fleer rip on A Pack A Day now unless someone has a pack they'd be willing to trade.

However, this strategy doesn't always work. I won another auction from some dude with a 2100+ rating with no negatives and two days after I sent payment, he's now listed as "not a registered user". Oops. All I can really do now is cross my fingers and wait by the mailbox. I'm hoping this is another case of a good seller run off by eBay's recent policy changes and not just a run of the mill rip off.

never pay more than $2.50 shipping for a single baseball card.

This one is just stupid obvious, right? Still, when you see that enticing combo of 99 cent bids and "combined shipping" ya get sucked in. DON'T GET SUCKED IN. I saw that combo on a couple of Falcons autographed cards and I bid on 'em despite the $4.00 each shipping charge. I put in a cheap bid on both and left them alone thinking if I won one it would still be cheaper than buying retail and if I won both with combined shipping it would be a steal. The next day I checked back and I won both. I didn't see an invoice in my e-mail so I clicked on pay now. No combined shipping. Forget that, I closed the window and waited for the invoice. Four days later it arrives with the right shipping so I send a reply stating payment will be in the mail shortly and print it out. I mail it out thinking everything is cool and then two days later I get an unpaid item dispute ding on my account. Seven days to the nanosecond after winning the auction they zap me without any follow up e-mail at all.

"I have not received payment..therefore, it has not been paid for yet."

Ahh lovely. The USPS apparently did their job because a few days later I see the dispute is closed with:

"We've agreed to complete the transaction."

We haven't agreed to do crap because you've sent no communication to me about the whole incident. Just send the cards and enjoy your positive with bad secondary ratings. I've got over 1000 positives with no negatives from almost 400 sellers, and I'm going to choose to screw over you? This kind of stuff plays havoc with my blood pressure. Buyers and sellers always need to remember to just communicate with the other party and this stuff won't happen. An e-mail from the seller reminding me that payment was due would have gotten an apology out of me and an offer to resend payment, an e-mail I've sent a few times before with no troubles. The best policy is just to stay away from these sellers. If they are not going to treat you fairly on shipping, then don't expect fair treatment anywhere else.

We decide before bidding and never sway from our price limit

I've been pretty good about this because I'm such a cheapskate. There was that one time a few years ago where I bid 65 dollars on a CC Sabathia Heritage shortprint card instead of 65 cents, but that's more a violation of Rule 1 than Rule 4. The final cost was $5.50 and one pair of ruined underwear but I learned my lesson.

I must stress here the importance of determining and setting the price limit. There was a certain card from a certain set that came out last year (which I will not mention until I win the card, I'm so paranoid about losing it) where I really really wanted it from the moment it hit the market. The cards were everywhere when the product first released so I put in a bunch of lowball bids to try to get one cheap. I didn't win any of them and about a month later they totally dried up. I didn't see even one of them for a couple of months. If I'd bid fairly in the first place I would have won one, now I can't even find the dang thing at all. Know what you want and bid a price you're willing to pay. You might get that bargain after all.

do it for fun

In other words, buy what you enjoy and don't decide to try to complete the entire 2007 Goudey Relic Parallel set in one weekend on a whim because you just realized you have 10% of the set. Otherwise you might waste a whole evening and only end up with this. No seriously, I actually tried that. I need to learn how to focus on my goals a little better.


So there are my eBay follies from the past few weeks and boy am I glad I'm broke right now so I can't go out and screw up some more! Thanks to NMBoxer for a great post that helped me articulate my frustrations. Remember kiddos - do as I say, not as I do and you'll be happier in the long run.

When you buy cards from "victoryinjesus888" you have to expect this sort of thing

So last week I went on a Goudey eBay binge trying to knock out a few short prints and inserts for my set. To be perfectly frank, I was less than successful. Out of maybe 20 or so auctions I bid on I was successful on three. Two Braves 'hits' that I'll show off soon and a lot that I'm not even sure why I bid on now. Probably because it had an autograph in the lot (not Goudey, I'll show it off on Auto-Matic this week) and because I had deluded myself into thinking I could build the 100-card relic set. There were a bunch of big lots or relics out there and despite my best efforts I got blown out of the water on them. I did win this one though, so there's two more pockets filled in my Goudey binder.

Ok. Not the greatest jersey cards in the world. Bonderman's a middle of the rotation guy who I'm still deluded can be an ace. Bobby Crosby could be a decent player if he could just stay healthy. I got it dirt cheap and the cards look good so not a bad deal overall. The reason I'm posting this though is because of the bonus that was in the pack:

I've gotten lots of extras thrown in eBay packages. Crappy cards, good cards, packs of stickers, catalogs, coupons, newspapers that were interesting to read and a pack of 1978 Grease cards. I've never gotten a Christian tract comparing God's Salvation to Deal or No Deal before though... Apparently when you die, you get to open your briefcase and if you believe in God, Howie Mandel tips you off to the one with a million bucks in it ahead of time. Or something like that.

In college the campus was littered with these things. There were pop-culture tracts like this one, austere FOUR SPIRITUAL LAWS tracts from the young Republican recruiting Campus Crusade, groovy light hearted tracts from Jews for Jesus, the infamous Jack Chick tracts and even a few anti-tracts. My roommate was a member of the Objectivist club and he had a couple that started out "Dear Christian" that processed to explain how big a dumbass you were for believing fairy tales. I was actually in Campus Crusade at the time (don't worry, I regained my sanity) and I messed with him a bit here and there. I really confused the hell out of him by doing all this Bible study stuff then coming back to the room and listening to Frank Zappa. Even so, one of the funniest things I have ever seen and ever will see is when my roomie cornered one of the student leaders in Crusade on the stairs at the Tate center and assaulted him with his Randian tract. Just the look on his face of horror and confusion and the realization that he was as trapped as some of the poor saps he himself had cornered with a tract on those same steps was priceless. Good job Chris, wherever you are.

I almost wish I had gotten a Jack Chick tract, but then again getting a game show tract shows the seller is at least mainstream about his evangelicism. For those not familiar with the Chick, they are little bits of comic book heaven. I've loved Jack Chick tracts ever since I got my first one. It was a vicious screed against all Catholics, stating that Mary was some kind of Mesopotamian demon-goddess or some such twaddle and that all Catholics were going to hell for worshipping the Devil. All lovingly drawn in cartoony style with Demons bellowing HAW! HAW! while poor deluded sinners get chucked into the flames. Really genius stuff, and I'm not kidding about this. Whether you like Jack Chick or hate him, the man is one of the most successful and prolific Underground cartoonists of all time and I'm a big fan of Underground cartoons. Each tract is a little comic book and it always is well drawn, has a solid story and is usually dealing with a controversial subject. They are damn fun to read too as long as you don't get too offended by the more off the wall claims in the tracts. The irony in these right-wing Tijuana Bibles can be absolutely delicious too. That first tract I found in a dining hall that chucked all of Catholicism in the incinerator? It was courtesy of Harmony Baptist Church. Harmony indeed!

Obama Auto On Ebay

This is the first one of these I've seen in the wild, although I have admittedly not been looking that hard. From the auction listing it looks like these are sweet spot style autos, with the candidates signing on a baseball that is hacked up and put on a card. The card, numbered 6 of 15, has gotten 19 bids and is up to $735 with under 2 days to go. I wonder if eBay will stupidly yank the auction over the authentication or something like they did with the George Washington DNA card last year.

The card looks pretty good and Obama certainly has a unique signature. I wonder how high this thing will go, Obama's got some momentum going on right now, while Hillary's on the schnide. I need to start scoping out these cards... maybe I can get a scrub autograph like Biden or Thompson for a couple bucks.

Pope Cards?

I had to share this little bit of eBay Weirdness with you all, and it doesn't even have to do with a card from a brand new release selling for several thousand dollars. It's just a 99 cent auction for a pair of fairly common insert cards...

On my iGoogle home page, I have a widget that does an eBay search and scrolls the results on the screen. I currently have it set to search "Allen Ginter" even though I only need four commons to complete the set. I probably need to reset it to search for "Goudey Heads Up", but I've been too lazy to change it and that really isn't important right now. What is important is that an auction caught my eye while it was scrolling along... This one right here. It ends in a day, and it might be gone by the time you read this so here's the title:

07 Allen & Ginter Pope Lot of 2 Nero Tiberius

Pope lot? WTF? I clicked and saw that the seller was in fact selling two Allen & Ginter Roman Emperor cards but had somehow identified them as popes. Well, Roman... Pope... I can kinda see that. The cards have ROMAN EMPEROR plastered all over them but some people just aren't that observant I guess. Then it registered exactly who was identified as a pope. Nero?? A pope??? Nero's the dude who created the whole "feed Christians to lions" shtick. Seriously, he holds the patent on persecuting Christians. Every time you're mean to a Jesus freak, you have to pay Nero's estate royalties. Nero even had Saint Peter, who was the Jackie Robinson of Popes, crucified UPSIDE DOWN. How do you mistake this guy for a Pope? I suppose it's possible the sellers are Discordians, but, I mean, just, wow. Pope Nero. Here's a screencap of the auction page for posterity.


Thing is though, it worked. After seeing that, I just had to bid. It helped I don't have either of those cards and there's still a small voice in the back of my head saying an Allen & Ginter Master set is actually possible, but nonetheless they advertised Pope Nero and attracted a bidder. Win or lose Pope Nero is going into someone's collection with Cardinal Tiberius along for the ride. I have to admit, it could have been much worse, it could have been Pope Caligula.

Awesome Mail Day

Serious card collectors depend on the mail. From hobby newsletters, trades with fellow collectors and mail order packages back in the olden days, to eBay auctions and redemption cards today, collectors have always been impatiently hovering by the mailbox like Ralphie waiting for his Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring to arrive. I'm no different, I'll peek out the window every five minutes until the mail truck arrives when I'm expecting something good. Today (well, yesterday now that I've finally finished this ridiculously long post) I received a trifecta of packages that covers the buying, trading and redemption card aspects of the hobby. I know, this blog is narcissistic enough what with all the endless galleries of beat up cards without subjecting the readers to detailed minutia of every single card I get. I won't make this a regular thing, but I thought it was interesting enough to warrant a post.

First up is an eBay auction I just kind of stumbled upon while searching for something else and wasn't really looking for, but bid on anyway because it was cool. Those are often the best finds, the ones where something neat pops up out of the blue. I was looking for a Mark Teixeira Goudey card and this auction for all three of his UD Elements cards came up in the search for some reason. Elements is basically a cross between Upper Deck's old UD3 set with three different technologies featured on the cards, and the Topps Finest mini box concept. Each box of Elements has three mini boxes, each featuring one type of card. One has shiny foil cards, another has plastic cards, and the third contains Light F/X cards. Each mini box has some kind of auto/relic hit in it because they couldn't charge and arm and a leg for it otherwise. I'm not interested at all in the set, but all three cards of Tex is worth the two and a half bucks I paid including shipping. Then again, prices for Elements boxes are dropping like a rock especially now that all the MLB prize redemption cards have expired. I might be able to pick up a complete set for $2.50 soon.

The cards came in one of those super thick toploaders with a nice shiny sticker on top. I always wonder who actually uses those toploaders. You could jam a whole pack in there if you mooshed it a little bit. They're too wide to secure anything other than a bat barrel or some other insanely thick relic card without having the card slide all over the place. If I had a relic card that was big enough to fit in there snugly, I'd probably opt for the screwdown instead. I'm pretty sure there aren't any base cards that are printed on 400 point card stock. Now that I've said this, I'm sure the Upper Deck Marketing department is feverishly working on the 2008 UD Big Ass Hunk 'O Cardboard set, where pack searchers look for the skinny pack to find all the game used cards.

Any of you guys remember when I pulled this redemption way back here? Well I finally redeemed it and it came today. No this isn't another horror story of a redemption card taking forever to process, I'm just real slack about sending the things in. It actually took around two months or so. I'm not sure if Jeff is a decent prospect or not, but the autograph is real nice. It's actually readable and I like how he merges the J in Jeff with the l in Clement. Now that's snazzy. The Clement auto books for 12 bucks in the Beckett with the Turkey Red Pujols painting on the cover. That set hasn't held up too well, it's not a good sign when the non-short printed Mickey Mantle card is the best card in the set. That's what Topps gets for putting out a tribute to an ugly set made uglier by production goofs and stupid design decisions. You coulda done a '53 Bowman set that would be worth more than $40 a box right now, you big dummies!.


The best is saved for last. I got my cards from the Ben Henry Mucho Grande Goudey Trade Off. Yep, now you all know who Dave from Acworth is. Not a bad trade at all, I got the 2007 NL MVP for Marichal and I'm just lucky to get anything for the crappy Buice card. I've been obsessively buying Goudey packs for weeks now and I only need about a dozen cards for the non-short printed set. Even so, Ben (or one of his magical card-elf minions) somehow managed to send me two cards I actually need for the set. How cool is that! Cantu features the only card in the set with the special Linda Blair green background, and the grandstands behind Matt Holliday appear to have been blowed up by irate Diamondback fans. Now I have to decide whether I put them in with the rest of the set, or I put them in with the insert cards as exclusive "Ben Henry touched" relic cards. I wonder if I can play CSI and pull a fingerprint off them. Then I could get all Mission Impossible, create a fake gel Ben fingerprint, frame him for a horrific crime and take over his blogging empire! Muahaha! Wait... I shouldn't really be typing all this out should I... Especially since his elves are apparently spying on my Goudey checklist.

I'm amazed I even got the cards at all, the first time I mailed off my cards and the SASE it came back postage due despite the fact I had the letter weighed at the post office before I sent it. The next time I mailed it, I used up some old useless 33 cent stamps thinking that would cover the extra postage, weighed it again and still came up 9 cents short. I sent it off again and realized after the fact that while the envelope going to Ben had the extra postage, the one coming back didn't. Guuuuh. I saw the post detailing my trade yesterday and resigned myself to the fact I could at least download the images of my cards while the post office dead-lettered the actual ones for being two cents short on postage. Plus Ben dropped a toxic snark bomb on Upper Deck which is always cool. But they showed up today with all my other goodies along with the promised bonus card:

Sweetness. 1982 Fleer Joey McLaughlin. But wait, there's more:


Aww yeah! Now that there is a classy logo. Plus it's on a sticker so when I send this off to PSA, they can't give me the dreaded MK qualifier because it's not actually written on the card. I'm going to go find my official Jerome Walton Fleer Soaring Stars magnet and put this beauty up on the refrigerator.