Collecting Mistakes

[Tere1071]

Having worked at various baseball card shows and for a baseball card shop for nearly twenty years I was exposed to many vintage and now-wildly sought after items. Although I had a blast working in that capacity, I passed on many opportunities to purchase items as the pay wasn't great and my focus was too narrow. However, on a few occasions I was able to obtain some fantastic cards and collectibles, but like grains of sand they passed through my fingers. Thirty years ago it didn't seem important, but in reflection some thirty years later I messed up!

Phil aka Tere1071

Complete 1953 Bowman Color, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1975 Topps Baseball sets under revision as the budget and wife allows

Under construction:
1968 Topps Baseball - 420/598: Overall vg, missing all of the bigger name stars and many commons from 1-375; no game cards

1969 Topps Baseball - 320-664: Overall vg, missing all of the stars and many cards after #217; no deckle edged cards

1969 Topps Baseball Team Stamps- Dodgers; missing everything else

1970 Topps Baseball Insert sets:
Booklets- missing 7; 9; 11; 13; 14; 15; 17; and 23.
Posters # 1; 8; 14; 17; and 19
I do not have any 1970 scratch offs yet.

1971 Topps Coins- 120/153
I do not have any 1971 scratch offs yet.

1974 Topps Baseball Washington variations- 32; 53; 77; 102; 125; 226; 241; 309; 364; and 599

[jchcollins]

Having been at this hobby off and on since 1986, I've got a laundry list of mistakes somewhere mostly too long to bother with.

Recently, not remembering what cards I already have and not having any type of online wantlist seem to hurt me. It's why I currently have 3 copies of a '67 Topps Aaron / Mays / Allen LL, and why even if priced right - I typically don't buy '67 high number commons when they come into my LCS - because I can't remember which ones I already have.

Selling things that later skyrocketed mistakes stick out some still. The one that comes to mind was a nice '52 Topps Jackie Robinson that would have probably been PSA 2-3 range, that I sold raw for $500 in about 2002. Whoops.

[LEHR]

In April 2021 I sold my Graig Kreindler painting of Ty Cobb in the spring REA auction. That was definitely a mistake and I've regretted it ever since. We were in the middle of a house build and some "potential issues" came up that we had not planned for, and I thought we'd planned for everything. In haste I sold about $10k of stuff from my collection and consigned my Cobb painting, which brought in another $10k. As it turned out, we didn't end up needing a dime of this money for our build and actually came in under budget.

[bnorth]

Been collecting since the mid/late 80s. I have loved error cards of all kinds since I started collecting. So for me it was buying a ton of expensive error cards that turned out to be altered junk.

[brunswickreeves]

Premature selling of Ruth before the run up, and overpaying for Jackie at the height of the run up are painful.

[Seven]

I passed on a PSA 4 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle that was being sold here on the board, not too long before Covid, as I thought I couldn't justify the purchase at the time (funds were tight). The Covid runup on all things vintage, killed me. Will eventually be able to afford one, abeit in a lower grade.

I went back and fourth on buying some modern cards, namely Ohtani rookies when he was having the down season, hindsight is 20/20 but I could have made a pretty penny off of them. More of a regret than a mistake though.

[Yoda]

Too many to go public.

[Mark17]

Many mistakes, mostly selling stuff I should've held. The one that made me feel stupidest was when I was collecting GU bats. I logged onto ebay, ran my usual searches, and found what I thought was a gold mine. A beautiful Owen Bush GU bat that was ending in just a couple minutes. Well, I knew Owen was actually Donie Bush, the famous Tiger, so I hastily flew into action. I won it for about $250, which I thought was the steal of the year.

When it arrived, though, there was something amiss. My first clue is that it arrived in a medium flat rate USPS Priority Mail box. Turns out, it was a mini bat. I went back to the original listing and while it didn't actually say "mini bat," it didn't say anything intentionally misleading either. So I just kept it and sold it later at a loss, as a lesson learned.