Buying Low - Brett Jackson

After blowing out my budget last year, I vowed earlier this year to not go so crazy. OK, so maybe my wife helped a little with that vow, but it was a little easier to do seeing as I bought a ton of collection filler stuff last year so I didn't need as much this year. But you could color me green with envy as I watched pack after pack, box after box of Heritage, Gypsy Queen, Archives, Bowman and even A&G being broken here on the blogs and showing up on eBay.

I did partake a little in some of the 2013 offerings, although mainly just a few team sets and maybe a random insert here or there. And as noted last week, a couple of Tony Campana pickups. Aside from my Repack Sundays I did earlier this year and the blasters I picked up for my Fantasy League prizes, I don't think I've even bought a blaster for myself since an Opening Day blaster war I did.

When I recently picked up my 2013 Cubs Pro Debut team set, I decided to look to see if I had a complete run of the cards. This being only the fourth year, I thought it would be cool to actually have a complete run of Cubs cards from one brand, something I'll probably never do with the likes of Topps, Donruss, Fleer, etc.

With that said, I do have a complete run of the base cards for Pro Debut. But I wanted to go further and that means inserts and hits. Parallels not so much, but I'm open to acquiring them.

The first results from this search came in the mail courtesy of one eBay lot for a grand total of $3.50 shipped.

You can't really tell from the scan but these are two different cards. The card on the left is your normal run of the mill autograph card. It is a bit odd in the sense that is a sticker auto, but also a "cut" auto. The sticker is not on the top layer but rather between two different layers. Weird.

The card on the right, with the smaller signature, is a blue parallel numbered #24/199 on the back. The only difference I can spot is that the names "Brett Jackson" and "Daytona Cubs" are in blue foil lettering instead of silver foil like the first one.

Cool, I guess. To be honest, when I bought the lot, I thought they were the same and was going to throw one in the trade pile. 

But wait, there's more!

Also in the lot was this Futures Game jersey card. I'm not sure if this is technically a Cubs (or affiliate) card, because Jackson represented Team USA at the 2010 Futures Game, going 0-1 with a walk. But I'll keep it. Like the blue parallel autograph card, this one is also numbered /199. At least the swatch is huge.

Not bad for $3.50.

I believe the Starlin Castro version of this jersey card, representing the World team, would wrap up 2010 Pro Debut for me but the few I've seen on eBay are ridiculous. I have a feeling his stock may be sinking as quickly as Jackson's though.

With that card in a saved search, I'm off to figure out the 2011 Pro Debut needs...