An Old Lesson in Regret

I've been collecting cards and memorabilia for years, and while the intensity has wavered over time, I have never really quit entirely since coming getting fully immersed in the collecting world back in 2010, after two decades of inconsistency dating back to my childhood. 

The first giant or huge or "epic" pull I ever had came the following year, with 2011 Topps Heritage. I don't know why, but the wood-grain sets always appealed to me. Despite almost having no value, I still love the 1987 Topps set, and in the same way, the 1962 set (much bigger value). So, of course, when that set was reimagined in 2011 in their Heritage run, I went all-in. 

If memory serves me right, which it usually doesn't, I did buy a couple of hobby boxes with ok results. Nothing major, but I ended up striking big with retail. Not with a blaster or retail pack, though, but rather with a special value box that mixed a couple of different Topps baseball products. For the low price of $14.98, certainly low by today's standards, you got five packs of Topps Series 1, two hobby packs of Heritage, an exclusive chrome refractor card, and two Diamond Giveaway codes.

Anyway, the big hit that was designed for their hobby product that found its way into a retail value box ended up being a dual-signed relic card of Frank Robinon and Giancarlo (then-Mike) Stanton, numbered 2/10. The Robinson swatch isn't really a patch, but does have a seam wunning through it, and the Stanton swatch features a multitude of colors from the Florida Marlins logo.

I had quite a few epic pulls in my pack-ripping days, but this was my first of this magnitude. Seeing something so huge, while being on a limited budget, my thought immediately went to selling this card, to try and turn a profit on what I spent. I had no vision or goal of what to spend that money on, but I got a big thrill out of potentially having a field day on Ebay with a large pool of funds. 

I ended up selling it for a number I was content with at the time, and after the money hit my Paypal, I started shopping. The issue, looking back on it, is that I ended up finding stuff to spend my money on, but instead of one big purchase, it ended up being a few smaller ones, and truth be told, I can't even tell you what any of those cards were. So, in a weird way, although not technically true, it "feels" like I got rid of an amazing card and got nothing in return.

As time would go on, I would have other major pulls, like autographed rookies of Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, and Bryce Harper, among others, and I would sell those in the same way, but it doesn't have the same sting. For one, those were sold to help pay for family vacations once the kids got a little older so it defeinitely went to a good cause, and two, they are all high-numbered enough (or not numbered at all) to where I could replace those cards at any point. The Robinson/Stanton has basically disappeared, as I have since then never come across any of the 10 produced, and who knows if I would even be able to afford it if it does.

I did take this lesson to heart, though, as further down the road, I hit another fantastic pull, with a Jamie Benn 1/1 skate logo card from 2013-14 Panini Prime.

An absolutely beautiful card, and really, I don't know if I fully intended on selling it at first, but after posting my box break on a Facebook hockey card page, I struck a deal with someone who would appreciate the card more than me. Now, learning my lesson from earlier, I set out to find one card from this set that I could spend theentire sum on, treating it like more of a trade than a sale, and boy did I find it, with the Zach Parise card from the exact same set. 

Now, yeas, I did have to add a little bit of money to make that purchase, but it wasn't a whole lot, and in my eyes, upgraded the card to not only a bigger player, but a player I have a small PC of. A year later, I would meet Parise at an autograph signing, and get quite a few other items signed by him, but this card is one I still not only have in my collection, but featured prominently in my display case.

Lesson learned, when selling cards to fund your collection, be intentional and make sure what it goes toward improves your collection more than simply just adding to it.