This year, I've been so focused on figuring out what I have and trying to fill in gaps in older sets that I've virtually ignored most 2014 releases thus far. So I was very appreciative when I came across a table that had several monster boxes full of cards from the past couple of years. The pricing strategy was pretty simple. Unsleeved cards were a dime, penny sleeves were fifty cents (or 3/$1), top loaders were a buck and "hits" were priced as marked.
The unsleeved cards were sorted by set, but not detail sorted by number or team so it took a while to go through them to cherry pick the Cubs. It was like the dealer broke some boxes, pulled out some cards to penny sleeve or top load and threw the rest of the packs in the box. But not having seen a lot of the cards from other teams beforehand made it much more interesting to go through. I ended up with almost 50 of these.
This post was going to be so scan heavy that I relegated my 2014 base card pickups to the tab above that shows all of my 2014 Cubs cards. You've probably seen most of them already through Wrigley Wax's team set breakdowns anyway. I was able to complete team sets for Opening Day, Donruss, Bowman, Gypsy Queen and Heritage (aside from the Rizzo SP) for just dimes per card.
Ok, enough words. More pictures. Just because I'm not showing base, doesn't mean I won't show parallels!
How about some Gold?
Some Target reds.
Let's switch over to Donruss for a Career Statline and a Season Statline parallel.
The Anthony Rizzo is numbered out of 39 for his career home run total and the Travis Wood is out of 311.
I didn't find the base SP of Anthony Rizzo from Heritage, but I did come across a Chrome Refractor version #/565.
And I'll wrap up 2014 with a pair of Gypsy Queen minis.
All of the base cards (not shown here, but in the tab) were dime box pick ups. The parallels/minis above were all penny sleeved.
This particular dealer also had some 2013 boxes I wanted to look through, but I'm pretty good on the base team sets from last year and I wasn't as confident in my mental checklist for parallels as I was for my 2014s. That didn't stop me from picking up some cards I was absolutely positively sure I didn't already have.
Like these Chrome Refractors. Its hard to tell from the scan, but the Fujikawa is purple, not blue. I couldn't even tell you if chrome has a blue parallel.
And these black bordered Heritage Minors cards.
Those four cards above were all in penny sleeves but I also found some unprotected dime box cards from 2013. There were some logoless-yet-still-intriguing Hometown Heroes.
And a quartet of Panini Cooperstown.
These last two sets weren't a priority for me but now that I've started, I might as well find a checklist and try to get the rest of the "Cubs" from the sets.
At this point I was getting a crick in my neck and it was time to track down my son (who was looking through the football dime boxes I mentioned yesterday).
The grand total for this table was 78 cards for a nice round $10. I managed to avoid the $1 top loaders and hits but I'm sure I'll be back at this guy's table next month. Some of the cards I did pick up might not have been worth the 3/$1 tag individually but taken as a whole stack, mix in a little steeper bulk discount and subtract shipping charges I would have paid to buy them slightly cheaper online, I think I got away with larceny.
I hit one more table on my way out the door but that's a tale for tomorrow.
Nice finds! I like this dealer's sleeve-based way of pricing, never heard of that before.
ReplyDeleteThe table really wasn't much different from your normal dime box, quarter-fifty cent box, dollar box guy but the more I thought about it, I realized it was a pretty brilliant way to break it down from the seller's perspective. He's not wasting top loaders on cheaper-but-better-than-dimebox cards and it provided a visual cue making it easier to tally up the price.
DeleteI just hope he makes enough money to keep doing this because I would hit that table every time.