Poor Timing, Or Would It Even Matter?

As many of you know, two weeks from now I'll be a married man.  Even though we're doing a private ceremony (my bride-to-be, her son and I), it still costs money, and it's money well spent.  I plan on this being my only wedding. 

This morning I saw a post from Sports Collectors Daily about another prewar find.  Of course a very rare card that I want is a part of it.  It's poor timing because I likely won't be a serious player for it.  Even without the wedding, it's still one that'll likely command a price out of my comfort zone. 

photo from Sports Collectors Daily

Row 1, column 2 (I obviously work with Excel a lot) is the Scoops Carey Breisch-Williams E107 card.  I've completed Carey's T206 "rainbow" (back run) and this is the only other card from Carey's playing days. 

Even in a condition that appears will come back from SCG just a 1, it'll likely be out of my comfort zone.  I don't have a VCP subscription to see any realized auction prices, but I looked it up before and if I remember correctly it was just one sale, at maybe $600-700 and not in my wheelhouse. 

If you read the article I linked to, you read about the scarcity of these cards.  I wouldn't be competing against just collectors that want Scoops Carey, but also against set collectors and collectors that just want to own one card from this set. 

My card grading company of choice is SGC and they've graded just ten copies of the card.  I don't see any graded by PSA or BGS.  So, yeah, much more demand for any card in the set than supply. 

They do say miracles can happen, right?

My Rainbow

A couple of weeks ago I posted about picking up a T213-1 Scoops Carey.  It left me just one card shy of the four-card T206/T213 rainbow.  It happened quickly, but I picked up the T206 Hindu back shortly after the T213.  It came from the same Net54 user I picked up the T213.  My rainbow is now complete. 

This copy didn't set me back as much as the T213, but it was still the second most that I've ever paid for a single card.  Despite the lack of similar sales, I felt good with the price.  Another SGC10 sold on ebay for about what I paid, but that sale was more than six years ago. 

Trading card collecting can be a fascinating hobby.  There are five (or less) copies of the T213-1 and eight (or less) copies of the T206 Hindu back graded by SGC that exist.  I picked both of them up out of the same collection. 

So, what's next? 

I want to put together the same rainbow of Woodie Thornton and Carlton Molesworth.  Like Carey, Thornton attended my alma mater, West Virginia University.  Molesworth is the only player in the set as a member of the Birmingham team.  I was born in Birmingham.  Both of these are long-term projects and I'll only casually search for copies. 

I'd also like to pick up the only other card picturing Scoops Carey, but it's likely just a dream.  The problem is that he's in the E107 set.  Per Pre-War Cards, "One of the rarest and most expensive E-card issues is the 1903-1904 E107 Breisch-Williams set."

The validity of that statement is easily proven.  Beckett book value on the E107 Scoops Carey is $1500.  Vintage Card Prices history only indicates six sales of the card (VCP tracks only graded copies sold through major auction houses and eBay).  A SCG10 copy sold in September 2010 for $427.  Three different SGC30 copies have sold, for $1058 (5/2008), $1880 (5/2009) and $1320 (6/2016).  Two different SGC60 copies have sold, one for $1912 (5/2014) and the other for $3600 (10/2016).  That's it.  There are no recorded sales of PSA graded copies. 

There are ten or less graded copies of the card in existence:

SGC Pop Report

According to their Pop Reports, neither PSA or BGS has graded a copy of the card.  

This leaves the realistic "what's next" as something that I've seen a few collectors write early on this year.  I plan to focus on and enjoy the cards in my collection more and focus less on adding more things. 

I've been working the last few months to get more organized.  A couple of weekends ago I spent over $100 for some heavy duty storage for my cards.  I have a long way to go in both organization and entering my collection into Trading Card Database.  This is likely "what's next" for me.  

If you shop online and haven't signed up and used ebates yet, you're missing out.  I also use it on eBay to get money back from purchases there.  Between referrals and cash back, I've gotten over $150 in a year.  FREE CARDS!

If you're on Twitter, please give me a follow.  You can also find me on Trading Card Database.  I love trading cards, when it makes sense.  Happy collecting!