Sob stories

[coop]

This may be a bit off-topic but I'd like to share a story about one of my first experiences with Basketball card collecting.

Back in the card boom in the mid-1990's I worked at St Marys and frequented a sports shop (long gone) at the Southern end of the main street.

The big mover of the time was 93-94 Finest, nothing like that had come out until then and the refractors were pretty big business.

Anyway, I waltzed into that shop late one afternoon with 30 bucks burning a hole in my pocket just as the bloke behind the counter opens a box of 93-94 Finest Jumbos. (From memory the price was $15 per Jumbo).

So, I bought two jumbos thinking nothing of it I get in the car and drive home (1 hour drive) sit down, have dinner and then crack open the two packs.

Nearly shit myself. Four refractors in each pack. Best one was a Zo refractor, the others being nuffies. Still, even nuffies were selling for $5-$10 each back then.

Next day I pop back into the store cashed up, hoping that no one else had bought any........

The jig was up and the owner had cracked the rest of the box and was busy sorting through a heap of refractors. Bastard.

Any other stories?

 

[chadjaja]

Trading Jordan rookies. Get any worse than that??

Selling Mikan 1948 Bowman years ago. Will cost me to get back now.

Getting a rare Bird auto damaged of course by the bastards at BGS :evil: :evil: :evil:

 

[WoobieZarz]

Buyg $1 packs from Tallay's (at the time) Sports Store in my home town, spending about $10 on them, and getting 11 packs (1 free).

Bought 1 Jam Session Pack for the fun of it, and pulled Grant Hill Rookie plus a Grant Hill Emotion Rookie.

Back then, was excellent news.

Nothing better.

Worse, of course, forgetting to bid on a Barkley XRC Graded 10... and finding out it sold for less than I paid for the original XRC.. ($43USD).

 

[jimboiitmac]

Trading my first MJ card (BV $25) for another MJ (BV $5) and a Charles Oakley common..

 

[Matt26]

- I had a mate (no it wasnt me I promise) who traded about $300 worth of Jordans back in the mid 90's for a box of Skybox and a Box of Classic 4 Sports. I remember him cursing all the way home when the best cards he pulled were a Kidd "Larger than life" and some college baseball auto out of the Classic 4 Sports.

We still joke about it today!!!

 

[jimboiitmac]

haha! yeah, another time was when me and my cousin went and bought some 2000 UD MVP packs from this video shop. We bought about 3 packs each. My pulls were ok, a Dikembe Mutombo Silver Script Insert, a Keith Van Horn of the same and a few commons like KG and TMac, but no ZO!

my cousin busted his packs, only got commons, Charles Oakley, Horace Grant, Alvin Williams, but then, an Alonzo Mourning insert!

i was so unlucky! back then i didn't know about BV's so i just wanted Zo's!

Also remember giving away my Magic Johnson Fireball insert card for free to my cousin, why did i do that? Later he told me he saw it at a card shop for $100.00 retail price!

I haven't had any massive pack or box busts which have resulted in great pulls, but back in the day i bought heaps of packs of 1999, 2000 and 2001 UD MVP, my highlights were silver script inserts of Dikembe and Keith Van Horn, a World Jam Insert of Steve Francis and Shareef Abdur-Rahim, MVP Theatres of Stockton and Garnett, and a whole lot of checklists and commons, which back then i thought were brilliant.

 

[Trey]

Interesting story, is buying a back of fleer 93/94 I think, from a local newsagency...the pack felt "over packed" it was busting at the seams, it had 1 too many cards, and that one card was MJ living legends!

Also pulled MJ NTense from a pack of Emotion my Nan bought for me while I was on holidays with them up the Entrance!

That leads to my bad story, trading that MJ Ntense for 2 boxes of 93/94 hoops in the aim of pulling a drob auto (or redemption)...got nothing.

Another pissed off story was buying packs of 94/95 fleer from a local tobacconist, this was the days of an insert per pack, ALL 4 packs contained the EXACT SAME CARDS, and NONE had inserts...I looked closer and you could see the glue used to repack them, the guy search em the bastard! I went back and confronted the guy, but whose gonna listen to a 12 - 13 year old kid...

 

[kidd05]

That made my blood boil Trey... whoever sold you those packs is living a miserable life now.. I assure ya.

Hmm.. my worst experience probably was when a bunch of street kids stole my Finest Borderless Jordan (only BV$50) but I liked that card.

And when I traded my Platinum Player's Club MJ for a Collector's Choice box, and got a Platinum Popeye Jones and nothing else!

 

[jimboiitmac]

mate, if i got my $50 BV MJ stolen i'd be peeved, $50 BV isn't nothing!

 

[coop]

I remember Collector's Choice... not good.

I must admit I feel better after reading your stories guys, thanks. lol

 

[clarkescards]

Back in the 90's, when Card Shops were all the rage...

I saw a 92/93 Topps Gold Shaq RC selling for about $2.50 (from memory), and his Topps RC had just gone up to about $4 (again, from memory). I questioned the owner, and found out that it was indeed the Gold version (worth about 4-5 times normal), but for some reason I didn't buy the card (don't think I had any money that day). When I later went back, sure enough, the card price had increased to Beckett price. I am even more spewing now, given the card is now around $50BV.

Good thread!!!

 

[jimboiitmac]

woah, it BV's for $50?? how much is the Zo?

 

[jimboiitmac]

forgot to add this story.

was at the Card Shaq, buying singles for $1 each and inserts for $2-$3.

Ended up buying about 15 singles and picked up a Wade rookie insert and T-Mac hardcourt insert.

Saw next to this box which said 6 packs for $20, as a special offer which was like for the one weekend. I thought to myself "nah, i can handpick the cards i want, why buy packs which will give me people i don't want."

While i was picking out my singles, a guy came in and took up the offer of 6 packs for $20. I can't remember the product, think it was UD MVP or some UD product from 2002 or 2003, a bit old that's why it was on discount.

He got his 6 packs and opened them there on the counter, in the first pack he pulled an Iverson common and Iverson parallel. No big deal right? Next pack, 7 commons and an Iverson rare insert #ed /50.

OK, starting to wonder if i made the wrong decision. Results of next pack, 8 commons, ok, the first two were just flukes. Next pack, Ray Allen game used, just a common game used, but i think the odds were like 1 game used per box, so he pulled it at about 1:30 packs chance.
Opens up the 5th pack, 6 commons, Shaq parallel #ed /50, Caron Butler Gold RC #ed /99
Last pack, Shawn Marion auto #ed /250 and Jalen Rose common platinum white #ed /10.
I swear those packs had been rigged before hand, the odds on the GU were about 1:30 packs, the regular auto was also 1:30, #ed /250 was 1:58.
I'm not sure of the odds of the common inserts but the platinum white must've been something like 1:120

Afterwards i was thinking, he went away with 1 gu, 1 auto, 1 #ed /10, 1 gold rookie and 2 inserts.

I went away with 15 commons and 2 inserts worth about $5.

I didn't know a whole heap about the BV's, but when he busted the first pack and i saw the AI's i was already regretting it. Before i knew about BV's and joined this board, i thought the value of a card was based on the player which it featured. I thought a $1 MJ was worth $20 because MJ was featured.

 

[clarkescards]

Just checked BV's

Shaq is $25-$30
Zo is like $3

 

[jimboiitmac]

hhahaha thanks mate, oh well, Zo is still priceless to me.