Ever Overpaid?
 

Any thoughts on experiences where you overpaid for a vintage piece (either intentionally or unwittingly...) and you didn't care because you wanted THAT card? Experiences where you overpaid and didn't realize until later and were ticked? Experiences where you underpaid / got a steal?

I would just be curious to hear any war stories. I think we've all done some of this to an extent at some point...I'll start - realized tonight that I overpaid (though not grossly) recently on a '70 Topps Nolan Ryan.

overpaid
 

I just overpaid by about $50-75 for a 1938 Goudey Ducky Medwick sgc 60. When you are down to 5 cards needed for the set (now 4) and it’s a card you can’t fnd every day, you sometimes make a terrible investment decision and still come away happy.

Rob

I overpay all of the time for my T205 set because I want just the right ones. Then if I see one I like better, higher or lower grade, I go for it. I downgraded a 5 to a 3 a few days ago because I like the 3 better, and I can recoup some dollars that way too. For me the lower the grade the better (of course with great eye appeal, to me).

Those are some gorgeous T-205's. Will agree that with older cards and especially pre-war - it sometimes is not so straightforward on which "lower" grade card has the better eye appeal. For example I can see a well centered 3 looking better than an OC 5, that kind of thing happens all the time.

I hear ya. I've never viewed my collecting as an "investment" anyway, so if I later find out that I paid above market price for something, but it was still within my budget and I'm happy with the card - I may feel dumb for a few minutes, but it's usually never a problem to move on and still be happy. Such was the case with this '70 Ryan card I just bought. It was a PSA 6.5 (now liberated from the case due to an edge ding I wanted to smooth out). I was looking at auction close results for PSA and realized I paid on the high end of the scale. There were some 7's that had sold for slightly less than I paid for my 6.5. Oh well - one, it's not a 6.5 anymore - and two, I am happy with the card. I will move on, such is life.

If you ask my wife I overpay for everything. I would agree that I overpaid for this Jose Pagan 1971 World Series bat. I had to have it as Pagan's 8th inning double drove in Stargell to score what proved to be Game 7's winning run. Although the bat has use I can never prove that it was THAT bat. Nonetheless, the possibility was delicious enough for me to open my wallet a bit wider than I should have. When I showed it to my wife she said, "Who is Jose Pagan?" She is a philistine at times but I love her anyway.

On athe other hand I have had many deals that balanced the ledger. The best was a purchase of six unopened boxes of 1976-77 Topps Basketball cards. I discovered them in a local store and paid $20.00 a box for them. I sold them for a nice profit and then used that money to overpay for other stuff I had to have:p

My favorite underpay was an ebay story about a year ago.
Some guy in the same state as me (Alabama) had a zero rating on ebay. He was selling a few lots of cards from the mid-1950s. I bought a lot of about 120 or so 1954s for $100. But that's not the real story. In so doing, I contacted the seller and he told me he was selling most of his father's collection off. Well he had a couple of other lots available. One, was about 370 or so 1957s all in ExMt or better of the 407 in the set. Included were 22 hall of famers all in about the same condition. He had the lot up previously on ebay for $300 but didn't get it (I guess a zero rating matters). Before he could put them back up and not really knowing the condition of the cards or what cards were in it, I made him an offer for $170 and he took it. I figured it was a bunch of dupes and all were G/Vg or something like that. But, it took me from having a set which generally was VG to a set which was ExMt or better and only needing 25 cards to upgrade. On top of that, I was able to build my second set up to only needing nine cards from the previous 200 or so needed.

Great story about the Pagan bat. I would say it's an excellent chance that's the real thing; people are going to be less apt to fake a Jose Pagan bat than a Roberto Clemente one. And true that it's all relative. So I overpaid for this Nolan Ryan card. I once bought at '59 Venezuelan Topps Mantle for about 50 bucks and turned around and sold it for more than $400.

I overpaid very significantly for many of my w572 commons. (Some members of this board got great deals).

But you can find another PSA 5 1960 Topps Mantle every single day of the year on Ebay, and it took me 20 years to find a W572 Frank Parkinson. (I passed on a heavily trimmed one early on before I knew how tough he was. Ugh!)

So when I go to resell, will I lose a lot of money on my W572 set? Absolutely. No possible way I can even break even.

But if I find the last 4 cards I need, I will have completed a set no one else ever has. And if I do, I won't care in the least that I made "bad deals" and lost money to do it.

Cheers,
Patrick

Oh sure. If a card has certain attributes I am going to pay more than 'book' for it. Like this one:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...0PSA%206.5.jpg

At the time I bought it the card was in a 6 holder. I saw it on the last day of the National a few years ago and had to have it. Probably paid $50 more than a 6 was going for at the time.

This one too:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...0Robinson.jpeg

I had a really beautiful example of this card when I was a kid. I sold it a long time ago. I spent a while looking for a replacement but finding one with nice registration, centering and no print flaws is a real challenge. I paid a bit too much for it but haven't had any regrets; in fact I turned down an offer to buy it for more. This one is similar:


http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...%20Ashburn.jpg

Ashburn is notorious for printing problems.

Paid up for these too, relative to other 6's:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...%20MVP%201.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...20Ryan%201.JPG
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...20Clemente.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...Palmer%201.jpg

I think it is self-evident why.

For a card like this, I don't even think of it as overpaying:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...20Williams.jpg

Rare issue, condition sensitive, top tier HOFer. I'm happy to own it.

I overpaid for this one but the story is nice:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...on%20Combs.jpg

When my daughter was little she wanted to play baseball with her cousin. He was part of a fancy little league where there was so much money sloshing around that they brought in pro coaches to tutor the kids (one year they had Reggie Smith tutoring on hitting, for example). We were park and rec league. I decided to teach her to hit. In researching and watching kids I realized that their biggest problem was bat control: they can't coordinate their swings. Power really isn't relevant to the little ones: they need control. So I trained her with a Charlie Lau-style open stance to get a better two-eyed look at the pitch, and split her grip so she could lever the bat at the last minute. We went to tryouts for the league and the coaches immediately started trying to 'correct' her stance and swing. I stopped them and said "just pitch to her." After she ripped a dozen shots into the deep outfield (sweet leftie swing), the coaches were silenced. She ended up leading her team in hitting (over .600 by my tally). So, when I saw this card I had to win the auction for it: validation.

On the flip side, the underpaid side:

I bought all of these raw and paid substantially below market even with the grading fees:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...20Williams.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...ps%20Bench.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...ps%20Bench.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...20Esposito.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...%20PSA%208.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...ps%20Starr.jpg

Why not ask this question to the person who is buying up all of the Tony Bartirome 1952 Topps cards. Or those who over pay for the overhyped "rookie" 1952 Topps Mantle. Or my favorite, the genius who paid 40K for a Mint 9 1961 Topps Koufax. I could go on...

kewl story

$40K for a 1961 Koufax?

I got one that is perfectly fine for $15 (including shipping).

I do not understand my hobby at times.

I overpaid for this and was happy to do so. Probably the rarest card in my collection

Nice cards, Adam - and I love the Combs story.

For me, PSA 6 - 6.5 is a sweet spot range for mostly affordable, high-mid grade vintage. You can get a lot of great looking cards in that range.

If I had that much schwag to spend on a baseball card - er, it would not be a '61 Topps card. I don't hate that set like some others, but totally agree with you that you can get nice, even high grade stars - for well less than "registry bait" dollars. Oy.

I have overpaid for Nolan, but here’s a card I got probably two years ago for around $15. It was originally in a SGC 4 holder. I remember about 1992 when Nolan was the hottest thing going, and the LCS down the road from me had this card in probably about the same condition in their case. The guy wanted $150 for it.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1f8660446.heic


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I paid about $30-40 (can't remember exact amount, it was about 10 years ago) for the Baltimore Orioles team card from the 1964 set. It was the last card I needed to complete the set and for whatever reason I kept getting outbid on the Bay and couldn't find one at a show. Finally said enough is enough and went super aggressive and it cost me! I guess it was worth it to complete the set though. When I went back and checked later the card was going for nowhere near that amount.

I always overpaid , LOL, it's a hobby you know

Sounds like my story with 1953 Topps Harvey Haddix. Some guy in Florida was buying singles and reselling as sets - and he considered Haddix a loss leader - so he was always bidding $30-$40 for low grade cards. After almost two years of always being the underbidder (and costing him a fortune), I wrote him one day and said that if he just let me win 1 card he could save a ton of money. He agreed. I won a card for about $20, and the price fell to about $5-10 for an ungraded, lower grade card within a few months.

Which shows what happens when two guys "need" a card.

I overpaid a lot on my 63 set. I got great deals on lots at the beginning but when you start to buy individual cards it gets pricey. If you buy on eBay the shipping kills you on a common or two that are in VGEX condition. The high numbers kill you. And buying at a show was no bargain either. I think I bought the Torre for 30% under "book price" and then saw another later on at the same show on a table that was 5 for $20. I see this a lot at shows - there are deals to be had and usually its at the disorganized tables where you can spend hours sorting through piles. Versus going to a guy that has them all in number order and you pluck your needs and overpay for convenience.

I have done great on some raw cards

I got a 58 Mantle for $90 that graded a 2.5
I got a Yaz RC for $25 that graded a 5

I have some other raw to graded success versus only a couple of duds (3 altered cards that didn't cost much to start with).

I over pay everytime I buy a baseball card. Why? Because back in the 1980s, those that wanted to relive the second childhood and those who thought they could become wealthy from baseball cards took and innocent hobby from the child and turned it into an industry for adults. There is no turning back to the days of the 1970s (or before) when values of cards were benign. So it is either pony up or don't collect. I notice too, that when I overpay for a card, then upgrade, no one has an interest in the card I just upgraded.