What's Your Best Card Story?

JMH710 · 08-28-2021, 02:20 PM

Mint vintage cards from your childhood found in your parent's attic, incredible yard sale finds, pulling the 1/1 you wanted... I love a good story. What's your best card story?

DontToewsMeBro · 08-28-2021, 02:50 PM

Positive?

Sending a redemption to Cryptozoic and forgot about it.
Just over three (3) years later I got a letter from them with the redemption card, another card, and apology letter.

Negative?

Going to college and coming home at Thanksgiving to learn my mother sold all my hockey cards at a garage sale for $15. Including two (2) Gretzky OPC rookies.

armyatc22 · 08-28-2021, 03:00 PM

Positive:
Pulling the 1/1 Dual Logoman on YouTube in my first ever Basketball group break

Negative:
Opening up about 5 cases of Bowman Draft in the beginning of January 2010 in Afghanistan (what a few of us did on our down time while deployed) and then selling about 5 Trout Base autos for $25-$30, Refractor auto, and the big one the Orange 1/25 auto for $700 raw that went on to grade 9.5/10 at BGS.

ShoutFan2020 · 08-28-2021, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DontToewsMeBro

Positive?

Sending a redemption to Cryptozoic and forgot about it.
Just over three (3) years later I got a letter from them with the redemption card, another card, and apology letter.

Negative?

Going to college and coming home at Thanksgiving to learn my mother sold all my hockey cards at a garage sale for $15. Including two (2) Gretzky OPC rookies.

Bet that was interesting when it was your time at the table to say "what you were thankful for". You just know a high school buddy swooped in on those. Ouch man.

Best story;

Pulling a Gretzky auto out of 96-97 SPX back when pulling an auto was ridiculous odds.

Zeldafanatic15 · 08-28-2021, 04:07 PM

One of my favorite hobby memories was not long after I got back into the hobby in 2016, I bought some nonsports boxes during a D&A Black Friday sale and saved them for Christmas to open with my wife so we had a nice Christmas break. We are both big Doctor Who fans (both our children share names with companions) and around that time DW boxes were fairly cheap, so I had some in the pile. My wife pulled a 1/1 David Tennant auto. Over the moon, and definently something we won't forget.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

jdandns · 08-28-2021, 10:53 PM

Free card direct from Topps via their No Purchase Necessary wrapper offer.
(Well, it did cost a stamp, an envelope, an index card, and some handwriting.)

One day, about 20 years ago, there it was, just sitting in my mailbox, in a small manila envelope inside a small padded mailer, with no other protection, but still in perfect shape. It may have been out there for some time, since I didn't check the mail every day.

Yoda. Fozzie. Miss Piggy. Bert. Cookie Monster. Grover.
What a card, I still have it.

DontToewsMeBro · 08-29-2021, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShoutFan2020

Bet that was interesting when it was your time at the table to say "what you were thankful for". You just know a high school buddy swooped in on those. Ouch man.

I remember when she told me. She was so proud of herself getting $15 to give me for my, her words, "useless box of cards". But it's hard to get really mad at your Mom, right? Especially when she thinks she did the right thing for you as I had been complaining about money at the time - and - lack thereof.

ColoradoSkiGuy · 08-29-2021, 09:44 AM

When my eBay autosearcher alerted me that a Kylian Mbappe Father’s Day Checkerboard RC /5 went up for $500. Then I clicked and it was still there. Then I saw the seller was running a special where if you bought one other card you got 20% off. Then when I added a 99 cent Tracy McGrady to my cart. Then when my total dropped from $500 to $400.99. Then at last, when checkout was completed. : )

Not my best Marvel story but my best nonetheless. I believe my best Marvel story will end up being when I bought a Preserved Amber /5 Spider-man for only $1200. That card will be worth over 50k in short order. Laughing? Watch.

clearblue · 08-29-2021, 11:21 AM

Bought an Inkworks The Spirit Samuel L Jackson autograph card on eBay and to my surprise, the seller included a near master set with it. The binder, base cards, complete foil inserts, all the costume cards, the case toppers, incentives, and the other autos. He might have included a sketch card, but I know it wasn't one of each artist. I know I had to complete that later, but that was easy enough. Pretty shocking. I asked if this was done in error and he said to just to enjoy it.

MisterX · 08-29-2021, 11:27 AM

As a kid I always enjoyed catching late night X-Files re-runs on the BBC, having been way too young to catch the show when it originally aired, and was keen to watch the whole show someday.
The DVD sets came out in the early noughties but at £89.99 a season, they were very much out of reach. A few years later the repacked slimline versions where released at around £30 a pop and I eagerly bought each season over a few months with money from the Saturday job I had before going to university. I earned a pittance, but eagerly bought each season as soon as I could afford to, and have very fond memories of bingeing each box set. It's a truly great show.

I'd collected James Bond cards since I was a young and had never had the urge to branch out, but having really gotten into the X-Files properly, I decided I'd like try some of the trading cards I'd seen online. I really liked the cards Inkworks had put out, particularly the autographs... the season 6&7 #A9 Gillian Anderson auto being a pipe dream kind of card I'd never own.

X-Files Connections was the latest upcoming product from Inkworks so I plumped for a single box, in the futile hope of pulling a Gillian auto (she signed a regular auto and a costume auto in that set), but realistically would have been happy with any of the signers in that release.

I remember opening the box with the show on the background. I was really pleased with the Scully costume card I pulled but was getting increasingly worried I had a 'dud' box as pack after pack, no auto. I got to the final pack, and again no auto.
Disappointed, I fanned the cards of the last pack out as a sanity check, and there at the very bottom, the very last card of the box, was the redemption for Gillian Anderson A-1 Scully auto. I couldn't believe it.

Pulling such a tough card was a gateway to a much broader collection all these years later, but I don't think I have ever wanted to pull a certain card so much, and for it to actually happen by crushing the odds, is something else. I can see why many get addicted to breaking sealed product.

I have Duchovny and Anderson autos from Rittenhouse, which are arguably nicer looking cards, as well as several signed 8x10s from meeting them both at conventions, but that first Connections auto holds a special place.

Rictor · 08-29-2021, 02:24 PM

I was at a live auction that was selling a Star Wars collection. It was mainly toys and such, but there were some open boxes of trading cards as well. I flipped through the cards and didn't see anything that great. They ended up putting a few boxes of cards together for a low bid, like $5 or $10, so I grabbed them. I also bought boxes and boxes of new action figures for a couple bucks each.

A few weeks later, I got around to looking through them. Buried in an open box of Star Wars Widevision was a team baggie with a random SW Chrome refractor on top. The bag was sealed, so I hadn't bothered opening and looking through it at the auction, assuming it was just a bag of common refractors.

In the middle of the cards in the team bag was a 2001 Star Wars Evolution on-card autograph. The corners were a bit dinged from mistreatment over the years, but it's the cheapest Carrie Fisher auto I ever bought and one of the rarest out there. I'll probably give it to my daughter, Leia, some day. I say probably, because right now, at 12 years old, she does not like Star Wars. LOL.

JMH710 · 08-30-2021, 08:03 PM

These are some great stories. Except the terrible ones, of course - I don't even care about hockey and I know who Wayne Gretzky is!

AceGambit3 · 08-30-2021, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DontToewsMeBro

I remember when she told me. She was so proud of herself getting $15 to give me for my, her words, "useless box of cards". But it's hard to get really mad at your Mom, right? Especially when she thinks she did the right thing for you as I had been complaining about money at the time - and - lack thereof.

My mom did something similar with all of my action figures (DC/Marvel/StarWars/Power Rangers) She sold two entire large boxes for $5 a piece.....I'll just say it wasn't hard to get mad at my mom for that. Only positive is because of that no one in my family dares to touch my cards or autograph collection.

manningandtebow · 08-30-2021, 11:39 PM

Best story:

After opening boxes/cases of Star Wars cards the i really couldn’t afford for over a year to try and pull a Daisy Ridley autograph, it finally happened a few weeks ago when a friend of mine pulled the 6x Auto from 2018 Galaxy in a group break that I was lucky to have the #1 pick in. And then, a couple weeks later, the very next box I buy is a Hit Parade Sig series.....and low and behold, I hit the Daisy Ridley Black Plate from MW 2019.

Worst story: honestly, just how expensive cards in general are getting. I miss the days were people collected for the fun of it and not to try and make a quick buck.

trask7 · 08-31-2021, 08:06 PM

I have some amazing pulls but in 2017 I took my boys to buy cards and they each picked a pack of Star Wars Tek. My oldest did not pull anything great but my other son started yelling, he pulled a Daisey Ridley Red autograph/5.

bamafan3559 · 09-01-2021, 01:39 PM

I have one that is a best and worst story combo.

When I was young I loved Mickey Mantle (I think this was because of my grandfather's love for the Yankees). I had eyeballed a '69 Topps at the local card store and worked hard to save up the money to buy it. Walked in one day in June a few days before my 9th birthday and started looking around on the opposite side of the store where the non-sport cards were since I collected X-Men cards.

I come back about 10-15 minutes later to the sport side and it's gone. I'm obviously heartbroken and crying. The owner said someone came in and bought it while I was on the other side. Fast forward a week to my birthday. I'm still a little sad and the last present I opened was the Mantle. My parents had bought it for me instead of making me spend my own money.

manningandtebow · 09-01-2021, 05:55 PM

I love this story. Gave me goosebumps even though I knew it was coming

Quote:

Originally Posted by bamafan3559

I have one that is a best and worst story combo.

When I was young I loved Mickey Mantle (I think this was because of my grandfather's love for the Yankees). I had eyeballed a '69 Topps at the local card store and worked hard to save up the money to buy it. Walked in one day in June a few days before my 9th birthday and started looking around on the opposite side of the store where the non-sport cards were since I collected X-Men cards.

I come back about 10-15 minutes later to the sport side and it's gone. I'm obviously heartbroken and crying. The owner said someone came in and bought it while I was on the other side. Fast forward a week to my birthday. I'm still a little sad and the last present I opened was the Mantle. My parents had bought it for me instead of making me spend my own money.

Xazark · 09-02-2021, 02:05 AM

I have a couple of good stories over the many years but the one I am partial too is one I have shared here before

I was one of the few people that pre-ordered the Warcraft movie set when it was first announced. When the set got cancelled I was pretty disappointed but that ended with me using the money on the MM16 set which is now probably the set I have spent the most on ever - but that's not relevant to this story.

They then decided to do a limited release of 1 "hit" card per pack of just autos, sketches and patches direct from the Topps site and I picked up a modest 30 packs before they all sold out. I was pretty excited to get them when they finally arrived in Australia and opened them with my family, when I first opened a 1/1 I was over the moon, it was only my 2nd ever 1/1 card so was super pumped, but then they just keep coming and I managed to pull 8 of the single auto 1/1s from the set (of a possible 10) which was and still is, I suspect for the rest of my life, my most insane opening ever. I'm still missing the 2 other 1/1s from that set but would love to eventually pick them up, I check ebay every now and then to see if they get listed but so far no luck

rmaheras · 09-02-2021, 02:52 PM

That's easy. Six years ago, I went into a fairly large sports card and collectibles store in Virginia. I asked the person working the counter if they had any non-sports cards, and he said, "A few," and pointed to a small corner of the store. He was right -- there wasn't much -- but in the mix was a plastic container marked "Civil War" and "$1.00 each." Well, they were Topps "Civil War News" cards from 1962, and there were 49 different cards -- more than half the 88-card set. Condition-wise, they had sharp corners, no creases, and almost all were PSA 4 or better, with a few that might even get graded a PSA 7 or 8. I bought them all, and have since completed the entire set.

The irony, of course, is that the store owner had such a disdain for non-sports cards that he couldn't bother spending five minutes to check their value. As a result, I got a great starter set on a very collectible series at maybe 5-to-20 percent of retail value -- depending on the card -- from a trading card expert.

hche · 09-02-2021, 03:14 PM

Opened a box of Leaf Certified Baseball back in the days and thought 1 pack with a hit was missing. While cleaning up, noticed a pack was laying flat at the bottom of the box (they should be packed standing up). Opened the pack and there was a 1/1 Greg Maddux MLB Logo patch. Imagine if I had threw the box away without noticing the pack

xtwinstarx · 09-02-2021, 03:45 PM

My second card show in 1986 was the first card show I went to where they had a ballplayer signing. It was Bob Feller. I walked in and he was sitting across from the main door at a card table by himself. He told me to go buy a ball - and told me which kind to buy. And as he signed the ball, he told me a story of him getting a ball signed when he was a kid by Babe Ruth. There was no line, and he took his time talking to me and it was just amazing. I was hooked for a long time because of that.

08-28-2021, 10:53 PM	#6
jdandns Member Join Date: May 2015 Location: Southern California Posts: 23,210	Free card direct from Topps via their No Purchase Necessary wrapper offer. (Well, it did cost a stamp, an envelope, an index card, and some handwriting.) One day, about 20 years ago, there it was, just sitting in my mailbox, in a small manila envelope inside a small padded mailer, with no other protection, but still in perfect shape. It may have been out there for some time, since I didn't check the mail every day. Yoda. Fozzie. Miss Piggy. Bert. Cookie Monster. Grover. What a card, I still have it. __________________ Check out any wall...

08-29-2021, 09:44 AM	#8
ColoradoSkiGuy Banned Join Date: Aug 2015 Posts: 53 ColoradoSkiGuyRJ	When my eBay autosearcher alerted me that a Kylian Mbappe Father’s Day Checkerboard RC /5 went up for $500. Then I clicked and it was still there. Then I saw the seller was running a special where if you bought one other card you got 20% off. Then when I added a 99 cent Tracy McGrady to my cart. Then when my total dropped from $500 to $400.99. Then at last, when checkout was completed. : ) Not my best Marvel story but my best nonetheless. I believe my best Marvel story will end up being when I bought a Preserved Amber /5 Spider-man for only $1200. That card will be worth over 50k in short order. Laughing? Watch. Last edited by ColoradoSkiGuy; 08-29-2021 at 09:48 AM.

08-30-2021, 11:39 PM	#14
manningandtebow Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Colorado Posts: 861 starwarscards_24-7 manningandtebowfan	Best story: After opening boxes/cases of Star Wars cards the i really couldn’t afford for over a year to try and pull a Daisy Ridley autograph, it finally happened a few weeks ago when a friend of mine pulled the 6x Auto from 2018 Galaxy in a group break that I was lucky to have the #1 pick in. And then, a couple weeks later, the very next box I buy is a Hit Parade Sig series.....and low and behold, I hit the Daisy Ridley Black Plate from MW 2019. Worst story: honestly, just how expensive cards in general are getting. I miss the days were people collected for the fun of it and not to try and make a quick buck. __________________ Colorado Sports Card Collector

09-02-2021, 03:14 PM	#20
hche Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 6,298	Opened a box of Leaf Certified Baseball back in the days and thought 1 pack with a hit was missing. While cleaning up, noticed a pack was laying flat at the bottom of the box (they should be packed standing up). Opened the pack and there was a 1/1 Greg Maddux MLB Logo patch. Imagine if I had threw the box away without noticing the pack __________________ I would ban you but I have no sway or pull here.

08-28-2021, 02:20 PM	#1
JMH710 Member Join Date: Feb 2020 Location: USA Posts: 313 jmh0710	What's Your Best Card Story? Mint vintage cards from your childhood found in your parent's attic, incredible yard sale finds, pulling the 1/1 you wanted... I love a good story. What's your best card story?

08-28-2021, 02:50 PM	#2
DontToewsMeBro Member Join Date: Sep 2018 Location: Proudly Canadian, eh Posts: 3,681 centurion-collectibles	Positive? Sending a redemption to Cryptozoic and forgot about it. Just over three (3) years later I got a letter from them with the redemption card, another card, and apology letter. Negative? Going to college and coming home at Thanksgiving to learn my mother sold all my hockey cards at a garage sale for $15. Including two (2) Gretzky OPC rookies.

08-28-2021, 03:00 PM	#3
armyatc22 Banned Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Who knows Posts: 22,041 armyatc22	Positive: Pulling the 1/1 Dual Logoman on YouTube in my first ever Basketball group break Negative: Opening up about 5 cases of Bowman Draft in the beginning of January 2010 in Afghanistan (what a few of us did on our down time while deployed) and then selling about 5 Trout Base autos for $25-$30, Refractor auto, and the big one the Orange 1/25 auto for $700 raw that went on to grade 9.5/10 at BGS.

08-28-2021, 04:07 PM	#5
Zeldafanatic15 Member Join Date: Sep 2015 Location: Arkansas Posts: 5,182 Zeldafanatic15 Zeldafanatic	One of my favorite hobby memories was not long after I got back into the hobby in 2016, I bought some nonsports boxes during a D&A Black Friday sale and saved them for Christmas to open with my wife so we had a nice Christmas break. We are both big Doctor Who fans (both our children share names with companions) and around that time DW boxes were fairly cheap, so I had some in the pile. My wife pulled a 1/1 David Tennant auto. Over the moon, and definently something we won't forget. Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

08-29-2021, 11:21 AM	#9
clearblue Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Canada Posts: 1,671	Bought an Inkworks The Spirit Samuel L Jackson autograph card on eBay and to my surprise, the seller included a near master set with it. The binder, base cards, complete foil inserts, all the costume cards, the case toppers, incentives, and the other autos. He might have included a sketch card, but I know it wasn't one of each artist. I know I had to complete that later, but that was easy enough. Pretty shocking. I asked if this was done in error and he said to just to enjoy it.

08-29-2021, 11:27 AM	#10
MisterX Member Join Date: Apr 2016 Location: U.K. Posts: 116	As a kid I always enjoyed catching late night X-Files re-runs on the BBC, having been way too young to catch the show when it originally aired, and was keen to watch the whole show someday. The DVD sets came out in the early noughties but at £89.99 a season, they were very much out of reach. A few years later the repacked slimline versions where released at around £30 a pop and I eagerly bought each season over a few months with money from the Saturday job I had before going to university. I earned a pittance, but eagerly bought each season as soon as I could afford to, and have very fond memories of bingeing each box set. It's a truly great show. I'd collected James Bond cards since I was a young and had never had the urge to branch out, but having really gotten into the X-Files properly, I decided I'd like try some of the trading cards I'd seen online. I really liked the cards Inkworks had put out, particularly the autographs... the season 6&7 #A9 Gillian Anderson auto being a pipe dream kind of card I'd never own. X-Files Connections was the latest upcoming product from Inkworks so I plumped for a single box, in the futile hope of pulling a Gillian auto (she signed a regular auto and a costume auto in that set), but realistically would have been happy with any of the signers in that release. I remember opening the box with the show on the background. I was really pleased with the Scully costume card I pulled but was getting increasingly worried I had a 'dud' box as pack after pack, no auto. I got to the final pack, and again no auto. Disappointed, I fanned the cards of the last pack out as a sanity check, and there at the very bottom, the very last card of the box, was the redemption for Gillian Anderson A-1 Scully auto. I couldn't believe it. Pulling such a tough card was a gateway to a much broader collection all these years later, but I don't think I have ever wanted to pull a certain card so much, and for it to actually happen by crushing the odds, is something else. I can see why many get addicted to breaking sealed product. I have Duchovny and Anderson autos from Rittenhouse, which are arguably nicer looking cards, as well as several signed 8x10s from meeting them both at conventions, but that first Connections auto holds a special place.

08-29-2021, 02:24 PM	#11
Rictor Member Join Date: Oct 2017 Location: Indianapolis Posts: 1,904 rictor1 rictor	I was at a live auction that was selling a Star Wars collection. It was mainly toys and such, but there were some open boxes of trading cards as well. I flipped through the cards and didn't see anything that great. They ended up putting a few boxes of cards together for a low bid, like $5 or $10, so I grabbed them. I also bought boxes and boxes of new action figures for a couple bucks each. A few weeks later, I got around to looking through them. Buried in an open box of Star Wars Widevision was a team baggie with a random SW Chrome refractor on top. The bag was sealed, so I hadn't bothered opening and looking through it at the auction, assuming it was just a bag of common refractors. In the middle of the cards in the team bag was a 2001 Star Wars Evolution on-card autograph. The corners were a bit dinged from mistreatment over the years, but it's the cheapest Carrie Fisher auto I ever bought and one of the rarest out there. I'll probably give it to my daughter, Leia, some day. I say probably, because right now, at 12 years old, she does not like Star Wars. LOL.

08-30-2021, 08:03 PM	#12
JMH710 Member Join Date: Feb 2020 Location: USA Posts: 313 jmh0710	These are some great stories. Except the terrible ones, of course - I don't even care about hockey and I know who Wayne Gretzky is!

08-31-2021, 08:06 PM	#15
trask7 Member Join Date: Feb 2013 Posts: 2,274	I have some amazing pulls but in 2017 I took my boys to buy cards and they each picked a pack of Star Wars Tek. My oldest did not pull anything great but my other son started yelling, he pulled a Daisey Ridley Red autograph/5.

09-01-2021, 01:39 PM	#16
bamafan3559 Member Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Soddy Daisy, TN Posts: 1,401 bamafan3559	I have one that is a best and worst story combo. When I was young I loved Mickey Mantle (I think this was because of my grandfather's love for the Yankees). I had eyeballed a '69 Topps at the local card store and worked hard to save up the money to buy it. Walked in one day in June a few days before my 9th birthday and started looking around on the opposite side of the store where the non-sport cards were since I collected X-Men cards. I come back about 10-15 minutes later to the sport side and it's gone. I'm obviously heartbroken and crying. The owner said someone came in and bought it while I was on the other side. Fast forward a week to my birthday. I'm still a little sad and the last present I opened was the Mantle. My parents had bought it for me instead of making me spend my own money.

09-02-2021, 02:05 AM	#18
Xazark Member Join Date: May 2016 Location: Australia Posts: 1,335 stormernumber1 stormernumber1	I have a couple of good stories over the many years but the one I am partial too is one I have shared here before I was one of the few people that pre-ordered the Warcraft movie set when it was first announced. When the set got cancelled I was pretty disappointed but that ended with me using the money on the MM16 set which is now probably the set I have spent the most on ever - but that's not relevant to this story. They then decided to do a limited release of 1 "hit" card per pack of just autos, sketches and patches direct from the Topps site and I picked up a modest 30 packs before they all sold out. I was pretty excited to get them when they finally arrived in Australia and opened them with my family, when I first opened a 1/1 I was over the moon, it was only my 2nd ever 1/1 card so was super pumped, but then they just keep coming and I managed to pull 8 of the single auto 1/1s from the set (of a possible 10) which was and still is, I suspect for the rest of my life, my most insane opening ever. I'm still missing the 2 other 1/1s from that set but would love to eventually pick them up, I check ebay every now and then to see if they get listed but so far no luck

09-02-2021, 02:52 PM	#19
rmaheras Member Join Date: Jul 2012 Posts: 269	That's easy. Six years ago, I went into a fairly large sports card and collectibles store in Virginia. I asked the person working the counter if they had any non-sports cards, and he said, "A few," and pointed to a small corner of the store. He was right -- there wasn't much -- but in the mix was a plastic container marked "Civil War" and "$1.00 each." Well, they were Topps "Civil War News" cards from 1962, and there were 49 different cards -- more than half the 88-card set. Condition-wise, they had sharp corners, no creases, and almost all were PSA 4 or better, with a few that might even get graded a PSA 7 or 8. I bought them all, and have since completed the entire set. The irony, of course, is that the store owner had such a disdain for non-sports cards that he couldn't bother spending five minutes to check their value. As a result, I got a great starter set on a very collectible series at maybe 5-to-20 percent of retail value -- depending on the card -- from a trading card expert.

09-02-2021, 03:45 PM	#21
xtwinstarx Member Join Date: Dec 2016 Posts: 637 xtwinstarx	My second card show in 1986 was the first card show I went to where they had a ballplayer signing. It was Bob Feller. I walked in and he was sitting across from the main door at a card table by himself. He told me to go buy a ball - and told me which kind to buy. And as he signed the ball, he told me a story of him getting a ball signed when he was a kid by Babe Ruth. There was no line, and he took his time talking to me and it was just amazing. I was hooked for a long time because of that.