the end of ebay bucks, and a CONTEST!

a little while ago, I received a friendly email from our pals, ebay. They were pleased and proud to inform me that the program called ebay bucks was being discontinued in order to serve me better.

 

For those of you not in the know, ebay bucks was a program where ebay gave you back a percentage of your spending every quarter in a form of a ebay gift certificate to be spent on whatever you please.

 

Not having this extra cash to spend will certainly serve me better. No more stressing out over what to buy, or having to deal with all of that free stuff. Thanks ebay! My life is certainly better served.

 

Anyways... they informed me that I had a certain time period in order to spend what bucks I already had in my account.

 

here's some of my loot..... oh, and if you're here because of the word CONTEST in the title, just skip to the end and follow the simple instructions. Free stuff awaits.

 

I was in a football mood, so I hit ebay.uk up first. My Edwin van der Sar collection hadn't been added to in awhile. I remedied that.

 

a 2011 Futera Unique. Futera make great cards... unfortunately, I'm more likely to come across a unicorn than these cards around here. So I must resort to the evil online empire once in awhile.

 

 2007 Futera

 and 2004 Futera. The seller offered me two free cards because of this purchase...

  

 

So I grabbed Manchester United star Ryan Giggs and former Netherlands great, Edgar Davids. I miss watching him play. He was a great Nike commercial many years ago... I must find that and post it.




 


 

two cool cards from the 2008 Euros... team mates van der Sar and van Persie.
These cards have a relief effect and it's done right.

 

 

Finally a couple of shinies from the popular games that are out there. Panini's Adrenalyn XL and Topps' Match Attax.

I've always wanted to play these, but have never found anyone else who wants to. Of course, me being a full grown adult wanting to play kid's games has nothing to do with that I'm sure.

I added a dozen more footy cards besides these... but I'll save those for another day.... maybe.... Thanks for nothing ebay.

EDIT: I guess I should have mentioned that the end of ebay bucks was for Canada only...

Oh yeah, the contest... I have a contest going for free subscriptions to your favourite magazines.
No cost, no catch, no credit card required, please don't bribe me with cash... just skim the previous post, you don't even have to read it, and comment at the bottom. Easy peasy.
Have fun.

Auto Mania

I just received a package from an ebay seller. I bought several cards from him/her. All "hits". Either jersey, or in most cases, autographs. You ever find a seller who has about 20 cards you're interested in, all ending around the same time, at the right price, and no one else is online? It's rare, but when it happens, it's glorious.

I'll show the first three today. Up first, a 2009 UD Ballpark Rookie Auto of Braves pitcher James Parr, 106/500. The cost? .99 cents. Good thing he's not Japanese.
Next we have an on card Goudey Graph. Sweet assed card if you ask me.... oh yeah, .99 cents for this one as well...

Finally (for this post) we have my boy. Mr Second Half himself. An auto jersey thank you very much.

yeah, it's a sticker auto, but what are ya gonna do? $2.50 brought Adam home.

Why do card shops and shows insist on charging $20, $30, $80! for these things? Do they not have the world wide web at home?

Maybe their mom is on dial up?

Whatever... enjoy, and I'll show off more later. Including a little story on "the curse"

a failed ebay experiment... or is it?

Quite often lately I've been reading about other bloggers exploits at Wally World, or Target. You know the story. They stop for food, diapers, socks, and decide to swing by the card aisle.
I cannot express to you how this infuriates me. Not at the bloggers. But at Wal Mart Canada. We have no card aisle. Some WalMarts will have a few cards by the checkstand, but it's 90% My Little Pony, 10% overpriced Hockey.
I've read how even some bloggers like A Cardboard Problem or A Priceless Pursuit, among others, even go there to buy high end stuff like Sweet Spot. I've never even seen a pack of Sweet Spot, let alone be able to get one when I buy deodorant.

So I decided to buy an ebay pack of Sweet Spot for myself. And before you cry out, no. I am not dumb enough to buy a pack of anything off of ebay.
Merely, I was going to spend the price of a Sweet Spot pack on Sweet Spot singles, and make up my own pack. My budget, $30.

Sounds like a decent enough plan, right? Going in I felt confident. But somewhere between there and here, I got derailed.

Here's what I ended up with.

A 1953 Topps Jim Pendleton #185 with a slight wrinkle on the top right corner.
1953 Topps Jim Wilson #208 with a wrinkle under his nose.

1953 Topps Jack Dittmer #212 no creases

1953 Topps Bill Bruton #214 with a wrinkle going throught the "M" logo

1953 Topps Gene Conley #215 with obvious scuffing, no creases.

1953 Topps Murray Wall #217 in beautiful shape.

Total price for all 6? $28.25 shipped.

My pack of Sweet Spot has no autos, no Game Used. Just base cards. Six of them. But at least they're all from my favourite team, right?

Does anyone else get distracted on ebay like I do and end up with a bunch of stuff you had no intentions on buying in the first place?

Does this ever happen to anyone else?

or is it just me?

Story time... stay with me.

You decide that you absolutely have to have an item. Doesn't matter what. A card, a watch, an autographed ball, game used Phil Esposito socks, whatever. You want it. You NEED it.
Fine.
Being the suave, savvy, internet buyer that you are, you set a price of what it's worth to you and you set off for the World Wide Web.
Through the various auction sites you find that a fair price for your item is $20. Anything under that is golden. You seek, you find, you bid.
You don't win.
Repeat.
Repeat again. Your item is going well over your $20 limit.
Then you miss an auction, or three.
All three sell for between $9 and $15.
Scouring the sites, You seek, you find, you lose.
Repeat.
Again.
The next 4 auctions you watch sell for around $30.
You get frustrated. You ignore it for a couple of weeks.
Six different sales happen while you were gone for under $15.
Anxious, you bid again.
And again.
Five more go for over $30.
WTF!?

Does this sound familiar? I have been trying to get this for over a year. It has sold over 45 times in that span. I have watched and or bid on 25 of them. None went for less than $24. The other 20? 19 of them less than $16, one went for $19.
Who the hell has bugged my computer?

If any of you want to sell something and get good money for it, let me know and I'll bid on it. It'll be sure to skyrocket out of my range.

eBay help

How do you report a scam ebay seller?

I bid on three autograph cards the other day, all numbered to /25 or less... and was about to win them all. Then a buyer with zero feedback came in and won them all with astronomical bids at the last minute. The seller only had around 12 things for sale at the time.
Five days later, the same seller has the same three autographed cards #/25 for sale again.

How do I report this cocknocker to eBay???

%#$@!! ebay'ers

for the second time this month, and for the fourth time this year, an ebayer has screwed me. And not in the good way either. I am sick of how ebay favours the sellers and does not give buyers any recourse.

This is the most minor of the four, but it ticks me off just the same.

I found a Bowman Chrome Draft super parallel XFractor shiny glow in the dark #'d to /199 of Braves outfielder Jordan Schafer. BIN for $1.99.

Sold.

Here is what I got in the mail today.

Notice any problem? After contacting the seller, I am more than welcome to return the card, at my expense, for a refund of my purchase price, less S+H. To summarize, I pay a total of $6 to get my $1.99 back, with no card to look at.

Perfect.

This goes along with the guy who sent my 30 '71 OPC baseball cards that had been trimmed with scissors. Badly. They were tiny. And mis-shapen. Again, return them at my expense for a refund, less S+H.

The previous two were sellers who did not deliver the waxboxes I had purchased. One proved that he had sent it. (to the wrong address) The other said, but had no proof, that it was returned to sender and wanted another $20 to ship it again.

Both times, ebay did nothing. I'm going to start selling on ebay again, but buying elsewhere.

Reason why I love ebay #356...

Oh, don't get me wrong.... there are an equal, if not greater number of reasons why I HATE ebay. But this is one on the positive side. My rant on ebay will come at a later date. I'm in too good of a mood right now.

Feast your eyes on this:

Look at the corners! Look at the border! No chipping! No creases! Extra exclamation points too!! The back is beautiful. The colour is vibrant.

All for a low, low price of 50 cents. $1.25 if you include S+H. For a genuine 1953 Topps Del Crandall #197. Pure heaven.

Now I'm one card closer to my team set.

Although someone should talk to Del about that unibrow.........