What cards did you get for a steal, although you didn't realize it at the time?

[skil55voy]

I went to a card show in Dearborn. Michigan in 1987. Gordie Howe was the autograph feature. My daughter wanted to get her Red Wings pennant signed and I had a jersey to be signed. We got there and bought autograph tickets. We numbers 407 and 408 for the line which had not started. Everyone was sitting in the bleachers waiting for Howe and no one was walking around the tables. My daughter and I started looking. She got a couple of grab bags and I got to the last table and saw a stack of 1962 Jello cards. There were 42 cards in the stack with 2 Willie Mays cards. The price was 120.00. I looked through the stack and there were decently cut. I had 100.00 in my wallet. I asked him his best price. He said he hadn't sold anything all day and would take 105.00. I told him I had a hundred in the wallet but, would like to have 20.00 to take my daughter to lunch, He said ok. We then sold our autograph tickets to someone else who had come in. (By then they were into the 700's) We went to lunch.

So, in the stack besides the 2 Mays, was a Koufax, Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks and three that I had no idea are the incredibly tough to find:

Bobby Richardson, Bill Stafford and Curt Simmons.

[Yoda]

In the late 1990's, I did a deal for most of Lew Lipset's Sporting News M101-5s that he had advertised for several months. These included Jackson, Cobb, Stengel etc., but the crown jewel was the Ruth RC. Lew wanted $5k for the Bambino but dropped to $4.5 since I was buying a large lot. I subsequently had it graded by Derrek Grady at SGC, where it received a grade of 5.5. It is long gone, of course, sold when I folded the Full Count tent.

[TobaccoKing4]

My best would be when I picked up a raw Sanella Ruth in mid 2000s for around $30 and sold it at the peak in 2021 for over $2k. I still miss that card and wish I still had it but I needed the money at the time.

[Fred]

Beat up D304 Cobb for $75 back in the 80's. Graded at a "1" - beat to heck, but real. Picked up a second D304 Cobb about 10+ years ago on fleabay (BIN) for under $500 (I think it was $475). Although it graded out a "1", it's much nicer than the first one.

[abothebear]

I bought a 30s R card lot in order to get a few Gold Medal Foods cards I needed to complete my set. I paid $126 dollars for it, which is the most I have ever spent on a single card purchase. But I was fairly confident I could sell some of the cards and mitigate the cost. And that definitely proved true. I got the last Gold Medal card I needed - a tough-to-find Firpo Marberry, and was able to upgrade four others in the set and sell the duplicates. I sold about half the remaining cards at the time and recovered my cost. But I wish I still had them. The condition on these cards was prisitine for R cards, and I probably should have gotten them graded. I still have some of the bigger cards from the group. All told, if the market remains, I probably got 15X the value out of that lot.

To sum up according to the point of the original post, the surprise of it was two-fold, some of the cards included in the lot ended up being better players and more rare issues than I thought. And the superior condition of all of the cards was something I didn't realize was as big of a deal as it was until recently.

[Ronnie73]

In October 2015, I bought a T206 Jack Powell with an Old Mill back. It was just another card for my master front/back set. I paid $65. Some time in 2018, I was searching my card backs for EPDG's, because someone here on Net54 had asked if anyone had a certain EPDG back print flaw. My cards are in alphabetical order, so I had to skip through the backs until an EPDG back came along. Nearly all my cards are off backs. So, as I was quickly passing the other backs, I stopped at an Old Mill back, because it just looked different. It turned out to be a Blue Ink Old Mill back. Even after all these years, I still haven't gone back and checked my other Old Mill backs. I have 240 Old Mill's, but only 46 of them are from print group one, which are where the Blue Old Mill's can be found. So I had the card for about 3 years, before noticing the variation.

[puckpaul]

Agree with the prior post that just about anything vintage i bought years ago could qualify, though I will go with this one as a steal. It surely was a nice card, but never expected even mid-grade versions to appreciate anywhere near as they have. Paid $100 raw for this at a show in the late 90’s. Had it graded a few years ago.

[brian1961]

Originally Posted by skil55voy

I went to a card show in Dearborn. Michigan in 1987. Gordie Howe was the autograph feature. My daughter wanted to get her Red Wings pennant signed and I had a jersey to be signed. We got there and bought autograph tickets. We numbers 407 and 408 for the line which had not started. Everyone was sitting in the bleachers waiting for Howe and no one was walking around the tables. My daughter and I started looking. She got a couple of grab bags and I got to the last table and saw a stack of 1962 Jello cards. There were 42 cards in the stack with 2 Willie Mays cards. The price was 120.00. I looked through the stack and there were decently cut. I had 100.00 in my wallet. I asked him his best price. He said he hadn't sold anything all day and would take 105.00. I told him I had a hundred in the wallet but, would like to have 20.00 to take my daughter to lunch, He said ok. We then sold our autograph tickets to someone else who had come in. (By then they were into the 700's) We went to lunch.

So, in the stack besides the 2 Mays, was a Koufax, Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks and three that I had no idea are the incredibly tough to find:

Bobby Richardson, Bill Stafford and Curt Simmons.

WOW; simply WOW! Congratulations and way da go, Michael. --- Brian Powell

PS---Unless he already has the story for his 1962 JELL-O chapter, you must tell or send this story to Ken Marks. This is a beaut!

[The Detroit Collector]

Originally Posted by skil55voy

I went to a card show in Dearborn. Michigan in 1987. Gordie Howe was the autograph feature. My daughter wanted to get her Red Wings pennant signed and I had a jersey to be signed. We got there and bought autograph tickets. We numbers 407 and 408 for the line which had not started. Everyone was sitting in the bleachers waiting for Howe and no one was walking around the tables. My daughter and I started looking. She got a couple of grab bags and I got to the last table and saw a stack of 1962 Jello cards. There were 42 cards in the stack with 2 Willie Mays cards. The price was 120.00. I looked through the stack and there were decently cut. I had 100.00 in my wallet. I asked him his best price. He said he hadn't sold anything all day and would take 105.00. I told him I had a hundred in the wallet but, would like to have 20.00 to take my daughter to lunch, He said ok. We then sold our autograph tickets to someone else who had come in. (By then they were into the 700's) We went to lunch.

So, in the stack besides the 2 Mays, was a Koufax, Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks and three that I had no idea are the incredibly tough to find:

Bobby Richardson, Bill Stafford and Curt Simmons.

Do you remember where in Dearborn the show was?

[55koufax]

My greatest "steal of a deal" was fairly recently. About the start of Covid I bought a complete raw set of Topps 1959 Football from Touchdown Treasures. It was billed as about half NM and half Nm-Mt. I had the bulk of the set PSA graded. Many low pop 9's. Many star 9's including Jim Brown (RIP). One 10, and a multitude of 8's, 8.5's. Within a year I had a top ten set on the Registry. Completely graded at almost 8.50 GPA, and I really did not have to invest too much $$$ for upgrades. The set easily values at $35K+. Maybe even $40K.
I have less than $10K into it. Almost 4X in 3 years. One of my greatest hits in an entire lifetime of collecting. Lucky.

[JollyElm]

This is one of my all-time favorite cards, because it's a perfectly centered card from a set I adore, showing my beloved 'Tom Terrific' donning his monster-sized mitt, and the photograph makes you wonder, "What in high heck was going on at Shea the moment this picture was taken???????? I mean, he's doubled over in laughter, for cripe's sake!!!!!!"

I spent less than $3 on it and now Mr. Seaver sits ensconced in a PSA 9 slab.


1972seaverIA446PSA.jpg

Love it!!

[skil55voy]

Originally Posted by The Detroit Collector

Do you remember where in Dearborn the show was?

Eric, I believe the show was at Dearborn High.

[The Detroit Collector]

Originally Posted by skil55voy

Eric, I believe the show was at Dearborn High.

thank you, I am from the area so just curious.

[isiahfan]

Originally Posted by The Detroit Collector

thank you, I am from the area so just curious.

If it was a Jim Hawkins event....I think he used to regularly host them at the Hyatt (now/still? closed). I don't remember him setting up HS...just not his image. He did do some later shows at Miracle Mile on Telegraph in Bloomfield Hills.

[Leon]

This was bought for a little over 2k, approximately 4 yrs ago. An average deal at the time.
Most Cobbs bought that long ago and back are probably a great deal, if still owned today.

[TheBig6]

I bought 10 successful Farming m101-4’s at a card show for 20.00 each. Dealer didn’t know what he had and I only vaguely knew myself at the time. They were all kinda rough but my hunch paid off for tune of about 3k