My story starts out very similar to Rawn's. In high school (ca. 1989), there was a kid sitting next to me moaning about needing beer money for the weekend. I could see the lightbulb flip on when he asked me, "Hey, you still collect baseball cards?" He said his deadbeat dad had left a shoebox with cards he collected when he was a kid. I asked him how many were in there and he said it was probably 400 or so. I offered $40 blind for them. He eagerly accepted--probably the most his dad had ever provided for him! Picked them up that night but didn't open the box until I got home.
Most of the cards were from 1960 and 61 and there were plenty of stars. I even felt guilty and gave him back a few dupes like Koufax and Aaron. I still had plenty left anyway.
That wasn't enough as far as karma was concerned, though. I had a flat tire the next morning. And that weekend, while my new friend was apparently hammered, I traded a nine-pocket sheet of stars to the local card dealer for the one card I truly coveted: the 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco.
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