One of the last few high minors picked up: Joe Black.
This card was cheap, though not alarmingly so. But it's not pretty. Between increasing prices (trying to stay on budget for the set), decreasing supply, and impatience to finish the set so much sooner than I expected, I'm starting to let my standards lax. Granted this one doesn't have any of the worst beater-like significant paper loss/tape/writing type damage that I pledged to avoid from the start, but it's still "poor" enough that I would've probably passed on this six months ago.
Am also getting a few more raw highs than I ever planned to. That makes this more exhausting, because I'm still not strong enough at diagnosing fakes/reprints or trimming. I know a lot of people say how obvious intentionally rounded corners, white corner wear, edges that look wrong, and so many other of those characteristics are, but for some of us, it's not as simple to diagnose sometimes as it's made out to be. I stick with longtime sellers with a great history in those spots, but as we all know, that's not foolproof either.
Naturally I'll double check the Black when it gets here, but I don't expect any problems. If anyone disagrees, feel free to let me know!
382/407
