[bnorth]

Originally Posted by steve5838

Yes, it was me. I was holding off on this post until I had the card in hand and it was paid for. I had actually written up something last month but decided to wait before posting in on this board. Now that it's paid for I am happy with how everything worked out and wanted to share "the rest of the story" (even though there isn't really that much more to add) for anyone that is interested.

Anyway, here is the timeline... once David posted the picture of the 3rd graded clear one here on Net54 (in post #195 at 4:24 pm on Friday 9/24), I went back to FB and this time was able to see a public post by the card shop owner showing the card. I messaged the owner Friday evening, gave him my personal email and asked if he was interested in selling. Saturday morning a little after 10 am I received response that "the card is hitting the market today. 15k obo." Within a half hour or so, I made a low ball offer but he said no he already had an offer @ 12k. After some back and forth I told him I could do 13k and call in payment that day if he wanted an easy sale and he accepted. By the time David and Ben posted (#202, #203) late Saturday morning it was already a done deal. It is by far the most I have ever spent on a card, but for me there isn't a card I would want more.

So that is the story. After that it wasn't hard to follow up on the other RJ's in the hand collated sets - which made things even better with those blue stencil cards. Whether the deal is crazy to others or not, I guess it doesn't really matter -- there are plenty of things I don't understand why people spend their money on (I guess I already mentioned why the whole thing made sense to me back in post #211). I can't put into words exactly how or why this clear version is so fascinating to me but it is.

Of course, there was some pain involved here too... over the last month and a half I sold almost half my PC to make this happen. Having the heads up about this card from statfreak101 before it was graded/listed gave me time to mentally prepare/work through what I would be willing to "sell/trade" for it so I could make a quick move on the card when it was listed (and for that I am very grateful).

So that's it... I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. For anyone interested here are pictures of my two clear cards side by side - together in the same scan.

Steve

That is great that it ended up with someone who really wants to own it. Congratulations on a amazing card.