Biggest regrets

[PRosefan1]

What are some of the cards that you regret trading away or selling?

For me its:
2005 Babe Ruth jersey card 3/3
1954 topps Hank Aaron

Those are my main two. How about you?

 

[thefiberlab]

Topps Chrome Lebron James rookie when it booked $40
2000 Bowman chrome Tom Brady RC BGS 9.5 when it booked $100
2006-07 Exquisite Michael Jordan patch auto when it booked $800
2000 Fleer Autographics Tom Brady auto - traded it at $150.

Now I'm sad

 

[longhornjunkie]

Topps Chrome Lebron James rookie when it booked $40
2000 Bowman chrome Tom Brady RC BGS 9.5 when it booked $100
2006-07 Exquisite Michael Jordan patch auto when it booked $800
2000 Fleer Autographics Tom Brady auto - traded it at $150.

Now I'm sad

I'm with you on two of these. Pulled a Brady Bowman Chrome out of one of those mixed boxes at Target sometime in say 2005, finally had it graded and sold it way before I should have. Sold a 2003-04 Topps Chrome basketball set also, although I parlayed that into a Nolan Ryan 68 Topps rookie for my PC at least. It was also a duplicate set, and as I recall they key RCs probably weren't gradeable... I kept the set with a BGS 9 Lebron.

 

[David K.]

Not buying a 1993 Finest refactor of Ken Griffey Jr. .....guy wanted $230.00 for it.....I only had $200.00 in cash. Wasn't going to spend all of my money on one card. Best regards, David

 

[metsman1986]

Pulled a 2011 Topps Update Target Red Border #US175 Mike Trout and sold it for $200 in January of 2012...........Thought that was a pretty good price at the time..........Not so much now..........

 

[HoosierBuddy]

2001 donruss classics classic combos ruth/gehrig dual bat/dual Jersey

2001 donruss feel the game classics hank aaron multi color patch /44

2001 topps tribute jackie Robinson patch

When, I think it was 2001 topps archives, came out. A box included an autographed mini batting helmet. I didn't want the helmet, and talked my shop owner into giving me a discount minus the helmet. ... It was autographed by albert pujols.

 

[julycoaron]

Around 1979, I sold nine 1975 Topps Mini complete sets for about $200 total. I still lose sleep over that one.

 

[katester44]

Biggest regret was a missed purchase, I was 6 years old and our neighbors were having a garage sale. I had $5 in my hand. There was a grocery bag filled with cards for $4 (pretty sure I remember a 1973 Clemente was the most visible card). Right next to it was one of those slide hockey games for $6, I begged my mom for an extra dollar and eventually wore her down even though she was desperately trying to get me to buy the cards.

The hockey game lasted about 3 months before it was used so hard it was bent and busted. Can't imagine what the bag of cards would be worth today......

 

[mm1sub]

My dad bought some cards off a guy he worked with for 90.00 back around 1987. When he gave them to me it turned out they were 1953 Bowmans. About half way through the stack, there was the Mantle. It looked like it just came out of the pack. I was floored with what I had. Nobody other than me knew too much about cards. I sold the Mantle about a year later for 1,000. Looking back, it may have been kind of a bad thing to sell it.

But man did I have some fun with that money!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SymphonicMetal]

Great topic! My two regrets were missed buys. And with my history and philosophy of buying cards I never should have missed these two potentially ife changing buys.

In 1982 or 1983, I was at the 2nd Sunday Card show on State Fair Blvd in Syracuse which I remember because there were so few card shows back then. I always took the path of least resistance in buying cards and also bought cards in large lots.. At that time football cards were junk and basketball were worse than that. Being a big fan of both those sports and baseball being so much more expensive, I gravitated to the "lesser" sports. There wsa a dealer with a pile of plain cardboard boxes with 1980 Topps Football and 1980-81 Topps Basketball packs. There were probably 50 packs in each box and he had about 20 boxes of each. I ended up buying all the 1980 Topps Football for about 2 cents a pack and filled up the back of a station wagon with these. I chose the football because of Phil Simms & Otis Anderson's RC were in there and basketball was held in complete disdain by collectors and dealers both. I opened all the 1980 Topps Football and made a ton of sets but I left behind a small fortune in Magic/Bird/Dr J RCs.

Another reason I chose the 1980-Topps FB over the 1980-81 Topps basketball was because of those tri card panels which were extremely confusing. Had they been regular style cards I might have bought those instead but those panels and the seemingly infinate # of combinations was a big turn off for me.

Then in 1987 I was at a downtrodden card store in Chittenango, NY and the owner had a wall full of 1986-87 Fleer basketball sets that included the sticker sets. He had at least 50 sets if not more. I was going to ask him how much for all of them (he was asking $5 a set) but I heard my brother's voice in the back of my head telling me "Don't go buyiung basketball like you have been with football as it'll never be worth anything". At the time that philosophy was true......football was crap and basketball even crappier.... so I just bought 1 set for $5 where I'll bet I could have gotten 50 sets for $150-$200. That literally could have been a life changing buy.

Oh well, the heartbreak of mssing those buys has to be worse than the heartbreak of psoriasis!! LOL

 

[SymphonicMetal]

My dad bought some cards off a guy he worked with for 90.00 back around 1987. When he gave them to me it turned out they were 1953 Bowmans. About half way through the stack, there was the Mantle. It looked like it just came out of the pack. I was floored with what I had. Nobody other than me knew too much about cards. I sold the Mantle about a year later for 1,000. Looking back, it may have been kind of a bad thing to sell it.

But man did I have some fun with that money!!!!!!!!!!

Imagine the regret of teh guy who sold them to your dad! At least you got a grand ut of it!

What happened to the rest of those cards?

 

[PRosefan1]

Great topic! My two regrets were missed buys. And with my history and philosophy of buying cards I never should have missed these two potentially ife changing buys.

In 1982 or 1983, I was at the 2nd Sunday Card show on State Fair Blvd in Syracuse which I remember because there were so few card shows back then. I always took the path of least resistance in buying cards and also bought cards in large lots.. At that time football cards were junk and basketball were worse than that. Being a big fan of both those sports and baseball being so much more expensive, I gravitated to the "lesser" sports. There wsa a dealer with a pile of plain cardboard boxes with 1980 Topps Football and 1980-81 Topps Basketball packs. There were probably 50 packs in each box and he had about 20 boxes of each. I ended up buying all the 1980 Topps Football for about 2 cents a pack and filled up the back of a station wagon with these. I chose the football because of Phil Simms & Otis Anderson's RC were in there and basketball was held in complete disdain by collectors and dealers both. I opened all the 1980 Topps Football and made a ton of sets but I left behind a small fortune in Magic/Bird/Dr J RCs.

Another reason I chose the 1980-Topps FB over the 1980-81 Topps basketball was because of those tri card panels which were extremely confusing. Had they been regular style cards I might have bought those instead but those panels and the seemingly infinate # of combinations was a big turn off for me.

Then in 1987 I was at a downtrodden card store in Chittenango, NY and the owner had a wall full of 1986-87 Fleer basketball sets that included the sticker sets. He had at least 50 sets if not more. I was going to ask him how much for all of them (he was asking $5 a set) but I heard my brother's voice in the back of my head telling me "Don't go buyiung basketball like you have been with football as it'll never be worth anything". At the time that philosophy was true......football was crap and basketball even crappier.... so I just bought 1 set for $5 where I'll bet I could have gotten 50 sets for $150-$200. That literally could have been a life changing buy.

Oh well, the heartbreak of mssing those buys has to be worse than the heartbreak of psoriasis!! LOL

Holy crap!!

 

[SymphonicMetal]

Holy crap!!

I'll give you an additional "Holy Crap" on the first story. I passed on the 1980-81 Topps basketball cards despite being a classmate of Magic Johnson's at Michigan State. Now "classmate" is not quite the term you may think as MSU had about 55,000 undergrads at that time but we both were Freshamn at MSU in the Fall of 1977. I think I only laid eyes on him once outside of Jenison Fieldhouse in the two years he was there. That is not that unusual since MSU is like a small city and I don't believe Magic ever lived on campus as far as I know.

 

[mm1sub]

Imagine the regret of teh guy who sold them to your dad! At least you got a grand ut of it!

What happened to the rest of those cards?

I traded a bunch of them for a big bunch of 1960 Topps. That is where I got my Yaz rookie.

 

[sgbt4]

20 years ago, while working on my 1951 Bowman set, I decided not to buy a Mantle because I couldn't fathom spending $1,000 on a baseball card. It's risen a little since then. And remains on the set wantlist. Sigh

 

[Kirbyfan34]

This may seem minor compared to some of the other stories here, but traded my 82 fleer Ripken rookie, for the card I needed to complete my 86 Topps set. Going off the fact that the 85 set was loaded and 86 had "potential " that card you ask? Yankees shortstop Andre Robertson. Still cringe a little on that one 36 years later.

 

[cjay101]

Trout update on COMC in early 2012 sold for around $20. That still stings. I was just selling a guy named after a fish.

I had a substantial baseball HOF cut auto collection that I sold off after college. Probably 25% of what they’re worth today.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

I bought 1 pack of 2001, I think, bowman best and pulled a mattingly/Winfield dual auto. Hated the yankees and was more interested in jerseys at the time. Traded it for a Peyton manning jersey card.

It later booked at 350.

 

[cornwellfamily]

2000 Fleer Greats of the Game Kirby Puckett auto. Got it and traded it at 25 bucks. Big mistake.

 

[PRosefan1]

Trout update on COMC in early 2012 sold for around $20. That still stings. I was just selling a guy named after a fish.

I had a substantial baseball HOF cut auto collection that I sold off after college. Probably 25% of what they’re worth today.

I sold a five card Trout RC lot on ebay very early in '12 for 25.00 Yah, I was laid off and needed the cash.