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mrmopar
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- Jan 19, 2010
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I collect Steve Garvey items, as most of you probably already know. I have been doing this for many years and have just obtained about everything made from a collectible perspective. I do miss items from time to time, but often those are unique. If there were enough made and distributed, I have most of it. Not that long ago, I stumbled upon an eBay seller who had listed an unusual variations of the 1987 Kraft Home Plate Heroes set. You see, these cards were originally issued on the boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. The cards had to be cut from the box and were blank backed. With a lot of that type of cardboard used for packaging, it was dark greyish in color. The set is very easy to find, as it seems Kraft made BILLIONS of those boxes and EVERYONE kept the cards.
The eBay seller advertised a full set of Kraft cards, but instead of the normal grayish back, these were white. There was a lengthy back story on how these were obtained and how rare they were. The asking price for the set was pretty significant. Since the set had some of the typical key players like Rose, Ripken, Ryan, etc., I decided to contact the seller to see if they might consider breaking up a set and selling the singles. I figured most of them would probably sell easier as singles and it may help a number of individual player collectors like myself who were not going to drop 3-4 figures on a full set for their one guy. I don't recall now, but I think the seller originally decided against breaking a set. I might have asked again a little while later, but either way, eventually the seller decided to break up one of their sets and sell singles. I was excited at the opportunity to grab what appeared to be a pretty unique version of un otherwise common food issue card. That is until I heard the asking price. I don't recall if it was higher at first or not, but the current asking price of this single is $75. Personally for me, this is somewhat reminiscent of a time when I reached out to an Bayer who just outbid me on a lot and was offered one of the items for around that same price as the lot and decided to pass. In that case, I never forgave myself as the item in question has only resurfaced a time or two and at significantly higher prices than what I was originally offered. In this present case though, I chose not to be a buyer and was not concerned for the future like my past example, but also really had no worries that this item would also follow the same path as the past item.
. Scan borrowed from the internet....not mine.
Perhaps you are sitting there reading this, thinking if I had a guy in this set and the card was as rare as advertised, that you'd jump on it at just about any price. Many collectors do feel and act that way, but I try to keep my spending in check and although the seller claimed to have a dozen sets and didn't know exactly how many more were out there, that is a pretty steep asking price for a player like Garvey. I compared their prices on other singles and it became pretty clear that they were definitely exploiting the collectors of certain more popular players. I guess since I asked for Garvey, perhaps suddenly Garvey was in that same category due to the demand. In fact, collectors could also pick up Ripken, Yount, Schmidt, Rose & Clemens for $75 a piece as well. Personal scandals aside for Rose & Clemens, those are 5 HOF caliber players and then you have the borderline Garvey. Other HOFers from the set including Winfield, O. Smith, Brett & Rice could be had for $50 a piece and Eddie Murray was the HOF bargain at $35 along with the rest of the "commons" priced at $20-35 each. Frankly, I am surprised Canseco was only $35, given the exposure his stuff has seen in the last couple of years and the collectors who chase his cards. On the opposite spectrum although not unexpected or surprising, but sucks for you if you collect Gwynn, Ryan, Boggs, Henderson or Sandberg as those sets would cost you $100+ per. Finally, Puckett & Mattingly collectors, your guys were $200+ each!
As stated, I did not jump on that opportunity and have watched the singles get relisted over and over. I'm sure some have sold. I have not monitored the completed listings. I was still holding out hope that some players (Garvey specifically, of course) would come down a bit if they didn't sell at the higher prices. As of yet, Garvey was not in that category. I guess in my head, I thought $20 was a pretty fair price for that card if you absolutely needed to have one, like me. I'm guessing there would be few if any additional buyers willing to fork out $20 for one. That is just a guess though, based on my understanding of the Garvey market over many years. As I think about pricing on "rare" items and what seems fair, it has been hard to judge because the hobby's idea of rare keeps changing. In the early 90s, 10,000 copies was rare. By the end of that decade, we were seeing 1/1 cards selling in the 5 digits. Now as we are fast approaching a new decade, it is not uncommon to see cards numbered to 10 sell for a few bucks or less. I am not bashing this seller per se for their pricing structure, nor am I wanting to come across as a bitter collector because I am not getting my price, but merely trying to paint a picture of the current situation surrounding these cards. That being said, I move into the next part of my story, organization.
I have a pretty decent idea of what I have and don't have, but sometimes the details are blurred by the sheer volume of stuff I have collected. Most of it resides in boxes, only looked at periodically. It can be easy to overlook something I needed but didn't buy or to buy a duplicate, thinking I needed it still. When it comes to the Garvey collection though, I am on top of it as best as can be expected. I utilized the old Beckett checklist back in the day and added notes as I went and aside from the newer issues with all of the low print run parallels, I have a pretty strong idea of what I already have for older issues when something like this oddball Kraft card surfaces. Immediately, I think that this is a card I need. I do not have it in my Garvey collection!
Yesterday, I am trying to organize a little bit. Aside from being a fanatical Garvey collector, I also dabble in just about everything else and have always enjoyed oddball stuff. So much so, that I have acquired piles and piles of small oddball sets over the years. I keep most of these sets in shoeboxes and super shoeboxes and have not organized them in a long time. I decided to bring some order to the sets, so that similar items were kept together so I didn't accidentally buy another McDonalds Cardinals set for example. As I am going through these boxes, I notice a Kraft set in a graded card bag and one in a plastic case. I don't use plastic cases usually, so I know that this set came from someone at some point and I never transferred it to a graded bag, probably because at the time I didn't have any. I almost move on when it registers in my brain. The set in the plastic case looks different! I take it out and open it up and discover, it is a white back set. I have this damn set I was just talking about already and didn't even realize it!!!
I don't recall when or where I got this, but almost certainly was on eBay years ago. I never pulled singles out from sets to keep with the Garvey collection as I usually had other copies anyways but may have never even noticed at the time that this set was different than the mass produced set. Maybe I did know and it was no big deal at the time? I don't know now, but I can now say that I am pretty stoked to discover this "lost" set and although I wouldn't mind another single copy to display with the Garvey collection, the price I would be willing to pay for one just dropped even further from what I was comfortable with before I realized I had the set. I do love finding a hidden gem now and again.
The eBay seller advertised a full set of Kraft cards, but instead of the normal grayish back, these were white. There was a lengthy back story on how these were obtained and how rare they were. The asking price for the set was pretty significant. Since the set had some of the typical key players like Rose, Ripken, Ryan, etc., I decided to contact the seller to see if they might consider breaking up a set and selling the singles. I figured most of them would probably sell easier as singles and it may help a number of individual player collectors like myself who were not going to drop 3-4 figures on a full set for their one guy. I don't recall now, but I think the seller originally decided against breaking a set. I might have asked again a little while later, but either way, eventually the seller decided to break up one of their sets and sell singles. I was excited at the opportunity to grab what appeared to be a pretty unique version of un otherwise common food issue card. That is until I heard the asking price. I don't recall if it was higher at first or not, but the current asking price of this single is $75. Personally for me, this is somewhat reminiscent of a time when I reached out to an Bayer who just outbid me on a lot and was offered one of the items for around that same price as the lot and decided to pass. In that case, I never forgave myself as the item in question has only resurfaced a time or two and at significantly higher prices than what I was originally offered. In this present case though, I chose not to be a buyer and was not concerned for the future like my past example, but also really had no worries that this item would also follow the same path as the past item.
. Scan borrowed from the internet....not mine.Perhaps you are sitting there reading this, thinking if I had a guy in this set and the card was as rare as advertised, that you'd jump on it at just about any price. Many collectors do feel and act that way, but I try to keep my spending in check and although the seller claimed to have a dozen sets and didn't know exactly how many more were out there, that is a pretty steep asking price for a player like Garvey. I compared their prices on other singles and it became pretty clear that they were definitely exploiting the collectors of certain more popular players. I guess since I asked for Garvey, perhaps suddenly Garvey was in that same category due to the demand. In fact, collectors could also pick up Ripken, Yount, Schmidt, Rose & Clemens for $75 a piece as well. Personal scandals aside for Rose & Clemens, those are 5 HOF caliber players and then you have the borderline Garvey. Other HOFers from the set including Winfield, O. Smith, Brett & Rice could be had for $50 a piece and Eddie Murray was the HOF bargain at $35 along with the rest of the "commons" priced at $20-35 each. Frankly, I am surprised Canseco was only $35, given the exposure his stuff has seen in the last couple of years and the collectors who chase his cards. On the opposite spectrum although not unexpected or surprising, but sucks for you if you collect Gwynn, Ryan, Boggs, Henderson or Sandberg as those sets would cost you $100+ per. Finally, Puckett & Mattingly collectors, your guys were $200+ each!
As stated, I did not jump on that opportunity and have watched the singles get relisted over and over. I'm sure some have sold. I have not monitored the completed listings. I was still holding out hope that some players (Garvey specifically, of course) would come down a bit if they didn't sell at the higher prices. As of yet, Garvey was not in that category. I guess in my head, I thought $20 was a pretty fair price for that card if you absolutely needed to have one, like me. I'm guessing there would be few if any additional buyers willing to fork out $20 for one. That is just a guess though, based on my understanding of the Garvey market over many years. As I think about pricing on "rare" items and what seems fair, it has been hard to judge because the hobby's idea of rare keeps changing. In the early 90s, 10,000 copies was rare. By the end of that decade, we were seeing 1/1 cards selling in the 5 digits. Now as we are fast approaching a new decade, it is not uncommon to see cards numbered to 10 sell for a few bucks or less. I am not bashing this seller per se for their pricing structure, nor am I wanting to come across as a bitter collector because I am not getting my price, but merely trying to paint a picture of the current situation surrounding these cards. That being said, I move into the next part of my story, organization.
I have a pretty decent idea of what I have and don't have, but sometimes the details are blurred by the sheer volume of stuff I have collected. Most of it resides in boxes, only looked at periodically. It can be easy to overlook something I needed but didn't buy or to buy a duplicate, thinking I needed it still. When it comes to the Garvey collection though, I am on top of it as best as can be expected. I utilized the old Beckett checklist back in the day and added notes as I went and aside from the newer issues with all of the low print run parallels, I have a pretty strong idea of what I already have for older issues when something like this oddball Kraft card surfaces. Immediately, I think that this is a card I need. I do not have it in my Garvey collection!
Yesterday, I am trying to organize a little bit. Aside from being a fanatical Garvey collector, I also dabble in just about everything else and have always enjoyed oddball stuff. So much so, that I have acquired piles and piles of small oddball sets over the years. I keep most of these sets in shoeboxes and super shoeboxes and have not organized them in a long time. I decided to bring some order to the sets, so that similar items were kept together so I didn't accidentally buy another McDonalds Cardinals set for example. As I am going through these boxes, I notice a Kraft set in a graded card bag and one in a plastic case. I don't use plastic cases usually, so I know that this set came from someone at some point and I never transferred it to a graded bag, probably because at the time I didn't have any. I almost move on when it registers in my brain. The set in the plastic case looks different! I take it out and open it up and discover, it is a white back set. I have this damn set I was just talking about already and didn't even realize it!!!
I don't recall when or where I got this, but almost certainly was on eBay years ago. I never pulled singles out from sets to keep with the Garvey collection as I usually had other copies anyways but may have never even noticed at the time that this set was different than the mass produced set. Maybe I did know and it was no big deal at the time? I don't know now, but I can now say that I am pretty stoked to discover this "lost" set and although I wouldn't mind another single copy to display with the Garvey collection, the price I would be willing to pay for one just dropped even further from what I was comfortable with before I realized I had the set. I do love finding a hidden gem now and again.
