Persistence Pays Off (Very Long Read)

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Yanks21

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A couple of weeks ago after working 3rd shift I did my daily Ebay player searches and came across a 2000 SP Buyback Auto of Paul O’neill numbered 21/70. HIS JERSEY #. After years of searching for these it makes for a long week waiting for these auctions to end. After searching this sellers other auctions I saw he was a user of the Buy it Now option on some of his auctions. Now I already own a copy of this card but I had to own this copy.

I contacted the seller and asked what price would he put on this card if he were to put the Buy it Now option up, just a shot in the dark and following Ebay rules not trying to buy it outright. After an hour or so and refreshing my email I see he had not contacted me with an answer. The worst was about to happen. Instead of throwing a price out there via email he got my message right away and went ahead and placed a Buy it Now of $15.00 plus $3 shipping. Well this was great…..however this happened while I was sleeping.

I woke up a few hours later to find a response from him that he went ahead and did it. I clicked on the card and you guessed it. Some lucky O’neill guy was the winner and the item was sold for $18 delivered. WOW was I sick to my stomach. The only other option was to contact the seller and work from there with the new owners info, if he was even willing to deal with this. The seller turned out to be a great guy and had me call him, he really felt bad with the whole situation and he was happy to give me the new owners info.

Now I had to work my magic here. Is he a collector of O’neill? Yankees? Autographs? That set? Buying to resell? All these questions were on my mind. Again I did have the same copy so I was hoping the “21” meant nothing to him. It turned out he was an O’neill collector but the good part is he was willing to work with me. It did cost me my copy of the same card and a small monetary donation but after all my hard work paid off. After working with two very nice people I am happy to have this card in my collection.

Even after I sealed the deal I was still kicking myself knowing that I could have had two copies of this card for an extra $18 bucks but then again if it turned out any other way I might not have owned it and bottom line it is in my collection. I know some of you collectors cant understand this hunting a certain numbers but I have come too far now to not track them down, thanks for the reading, Kevin in CT
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I would never ask for someone to do a bin for this very reason.
 
Great story- maybe next time just offer to buy it instead of asking about a buy it now.
Congrats!!
 
Very nice. It hurts to lose those. I had a similar experience end in tragedy. Well, tragedy might be a bid harsh a word for a baseball card story, but it hurt bad.

Seller had a BIN/OBO $149. I offered $95, which I felt was a VERY STRONG offer for that particular card. Most copies had struggled to break the $75-80 range and several had sold as low as $50 most recently. The only perk to this copy was the serial number. Seller countered with $125. I passed and politely explained my reasoning for my very fair offer. Next thing I know, a week passes and the auction had ended with a BO of $100! This stiff sold it for $5 more to a "lesser" collector! However, I can live with it mainly because I know I will never get them all and I can't dwell on any one that I miss.
 
Great story...you really lucked out...sometimes ebayers do NOT want to deal with other player collectors OR they will hold the card hostage. Congrats on the jersey # auto!
 
After reading this one word popped in my head..............Tenacious............Glad everything worked out!

Mike

p.s. I'm one of the collectors that understand:D
 
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