State Of The Collective Part 3: Distributions And ... Sales?

I briefly mentioned at the end of my last post that I have been trying to move two large batches of cards out of HiveMind Headquarters.  

The first was documented here and the major revenue has come from a COMC shipment, including a $350 graded Michael Jordan PSA 7, and a few unopened box and set sales.  There are still some sets left (of early 90's Classic 4-Sport and mid-90's basketball series) and a lot of bulk singles (a little baseball and football and a whole lot of basketball, all through the 90's decade).

That pile is on the second floor of my house.

 

The second is a stockpile of complete sets - factory and hand collated, and including traded/update sets in many cases - of baseball, primarily from 1988 thru 1990, with a few older single sets, plus Topps football sets from '87 thru '89.  The itemized list is below

1984 Topps set - verified and sold.
1985 Topps - no Gooden.  I have an agent hunting that one down.
1986 Topps - 2 hand collated sets, unverified.
1987 Donruss set - factory sealed.
1987 Fleer set - factory seal broken but set intact.
1987 Topps set - hand collated, unverified.
1988 Donruss - 10 sets, selling well
1988 Fleer - 10 sets and 10 Updates, selling well
1988 Score - 6 cases (8 sets each)!  10 Rookie & Traded sets
1988 Topps - 10 hand collated, 10 Traded sets, and 2 unopened wax boxes
1989 Bowman - 10 hand collated sets
1989 Donruss - 10 factory sets, 10 Traded sets
1989 Fleer - 10 factory sealed sets, 10 Update sets
1989 Score - 10 factory sealed sets, 9 Update sets
1989 Topps - 10 hand collated sets, 10 Traded sets, and 4 wax boxes
1989 Upper Deck factory sealed sets - sold first
1990 Donruss - 10 factory sets
1990 Fleer - 6 factory sets
1990 Score - 10 factory sets
1990 Topps - 9 hand collated sets

1987 Topps football - 10 hand collated sets
1988 Topps football - 10 hand collated sets
1989 Topps football - 9 factory sealed sets - sold in one purchase

Not everything is currently listed, but you can see what I have available by searching for my seller name qaplagca (https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fss=1&_saslop=1&_sasl=qaplagca&LH_SpecificSeller=1)

Those are all still stacked in my living room on the ground floor as they were when they arrived.  My house is now officially full of cardboard, since my collection and tradeables fill the middle floor and these two hoards occupy the other two.

I'm amazed that sales have been so steady since I started listing things after New Year's.  1988 sets are the most popular so far - especially Fleer and Donruss.  I would have never though that was possible.  Not sure what the draw is except that I think I'm about the only seller that pairs the Fleer base set with the Update.  Plus, I assess what each item has actually sold for and set my prices accordingly.  A lot of these are bringing less than $10 each after eBay fees and me paying for shipping.  But it all adds up.  The original owner said just get what you can for them, and the revenue is already approaching what I thought the whole shebang would go for. 

It's a lot of work though.  Every day or two, a couple more sets sell.  So then I pull them from the boxes, and cut a bubble envelope flat and wrap it around the set.  Then I cover that in brown bag paper and print the label sticker.  I've had a couple orders of multiple sets - one was all nine '89 football sets, and another was three '88 Donruss sets.  Had to find the right size boxes for those.

Most sets are listed individually, but I did also offer a couple bundles of all the sets for a particular year.  I will probably do the same for the Traded/Updates.

I'm just glad the stuff is moving.  I was afraid I had burdened myself with a whole pile of unmovable merchandise for the next ten years.  Though at some point, I will take what's left of both batches to the local dealers I know to get rid of them.  

For the longest time, I thought the worst thing I could try to do was sell something, even if it is cards that I know so much about.  The one time I set up at a show, I didn't sell a damn thing.  So this has been a revelation.

I'm also doing halfway decent in my COMC sales as well.  Half of my total revenue was from the first batch above, but I had sent two submissions of my own stuff before that (and took back a portion of the first one that didn't sell).  Here's my progress:

Excluding the graded card sale, I'm averaging around $4 a sale.  And they're constantly trickling in all the time.  I put up 20% discounts on Thursdays that run through the next two weekends every few weeks.  The best part is I've exchanged 186 extra cards for 672 cards that I wanted for myself.  I had $400 store credit at one point until I put in another order.  (I paid the owner of the basketball stuff from my own fundage.)

I'm going to take a week off from work since I didn't really get a break during the holidays.  That way I can catch up on managing all this, plus my TCDB trades, and clearing off all the incoming singles I have for my sets and other collections.  And maybe thin out some of my total collection to make room for the stuff I don't have boxes or space for .

But that about wraps it up for what's happening at HiveMind Headquarters.  Stay tuned for the previous 200+ card COMC order, and other recent activities.

Case Closed

Well, now that I've wasted three weeks and a lot of you have probably forgotten about it, and that Heritage is now past and largely irrelevant, here is my case break recap.

Here's what a whole case looks like sorted by card type and stacked up together.  12 piles of base on the right and all the inserts, short prints, hits, parallels and shiny things.

All the base fit neatly into a four row box that Stuart brought.  We sorted it all into sets later.  That was an interesting exercise - as we were making six sets at the same time.  Keeping the wants for each one straight was challenging, but we did it.

There were about 96 short prints, as we had calculated.  But since we wanted two full sets, we had to decide how to split them up.  We ended up putting them in order and then dealing them into two piles - first card on the left, second one on the right, third on the left, and so on.  We did have a few dupes that we split first, including the Ohtani Highlight, which was nice.

I'm gonna torture you (or at least make you scroll to the end) by leaving the mojo for last.

Three buyback box toppers.  Larry went to Night Owl.  Astros hot case....

Rounding out the other nine box toppers - the jumbos.  These are really nice.

News Flashback inserts.  Probably the flashiest design these have ever had.  Didn't get two of them and had a double and a triple.  The triple was handy since I needed another one of those for my space binder.

Baseball Flashbacks - again with a dupe and two no-shows.  The downside of these is that we needed two full sets since we each build them all.  So basically I let Stuart take the majority of the inserts in general and I traded for what I needed.  That way neither of us spent money on them after all this.  I had dibs on my player guys, but didn't get too many others.  But since trading on the TCDB is what it is, it was fine.

Same collation with the Then & Nows.  I got dibs on the Palmers since he's a PC.

The Nappy's (New Age Performers) were much more plentiful than the rest.  Stuart got 'em all and my missing count was a single digit number.  Nice design too.

All but one purple was from the "hot box".  A few of these have been traded away.  Elly looks different because he's in a toploader.  Should have sold him quickly after the break, he was going for $100.  Now he's around $30-40...

Only got one black chrome refractor /75.

One silver refractor /375...

And one missing signature.

 Oops, found another one later when we were sorting the base...

A single black & white image as well.

Three chrome refractors /575...

Four (different) image swaps - one twice.  Matos hot box.

Only three regular black bordered ones.  Seemed like there were more...

Three color swaps - Owen's base on the left

Nick's base on the right....

And Curtis' base (chrome) on the right.  It was easier to find than digging for a regular base card.  

There were more than one regular Chrome, but I've traded away all but Max Scherzer, so I don't have an image of them.  There were Mead, Scherzer (in the purple hot box), Lindor, Evan Carter, and Gavin Williams.

And the white borders - minus a couple Orioles that went to my set.  Which is sitting here too, but I already took the picture and uploaded it.  I really do like the way the MVP's look in white.

OK without further delay,

The relics.  Nice mix of colors and bat pieces at least.  A nice, clean design with great colors.  These would have fit right in if they'd have done relics in '75.  Good job, Topps!

Not in order of pull, but here are the autographs!

I kept Fisk & Oliver.  Stuart took Simmons, Blomberg & Volpe.  I told him he should sell Volpe right away since he was going for three digits.  But he said no, he'll keep him in his "PC".  He's a Tigers fan who likes older players, so I don't see the point, but to each his own.

And finally, the location of each pull - now listed in order.

(left to right - first, second, third, fourth stack)

Box 1 - Jose Ramirez bat - (location not recorded).

Box 2 - Fisk auto - Top pack on third stack

Box 3 - Cousin Bryan Reynolds bat - Top pack of fourth stack

Box 4 - Eloy Jimenez relic - Bottom of fourth stack (Last Pack Mojo)

Box 5 - Al Oliver auto - Top pack of second stack

Box 6 - Charlie Blackmon bat - Top pack of second stack

Box 7 - Sandy Alcantara jsy - Top pack of fourth stack

Box 8 - Zeke Tovar jsy - Top pack of fourth stack

Box 9 - Ted Simmons auto - Bottom pack of first stack

Box 10 - Anthony Volpe auto - Third pack of fourth stack

Box 11 - JT Realmuto jsy - Bottom of fourth stack (Last Pack Mojo)

Box 12 - Ron Blomberg auto - Third pack of third stack

So the most frequent position of hits seems to be the fourth stack, or the one all the way to the right.  I'm guessing that the first pull was in the first stack just going by the law of averages.  There were two hits in the second stack and two in the third, so it's a logical assumption that there would be two in the first as well.

Not sure that gives any insight on where to fish for hits now, since Heritage is probably sold out of all the shops anyway.  But it was an interesting investigation.

Hope you enjoyed us playing Deal Or No Deal - Heritage edition and following the order to "Open The Case!"

Jerseys And New Yorkers

Still making like detectives and opening the case.  Gonna close it out with this post, since there are six boxes to go.  Too few to split into two posts, so I'm gonna go a bit quicker.

So far our insert/parallel/box topper piles look like this.

Box 4

Starting us off, Michael Jack Schmidt box topper.

Nothing really amazing in the parallels - white and shiny New Yorkers.  This is a recurring theme for a bit...

A slightly skewed shot of the hit - Eloy white swatch.  Hit Location - Last pack mojo (Bottom 4th)

And the rest.  An OK box.  Not my first choice if I had to pick one out of the whole case.

Box 10

Let's see if Stuart can do better than mine.  Starting off with another solid jumbo.

Another regular Chromey.  Three whites again.  Nice to get a Trout insert.  Also pulled his short print, which you'll see in the next pic, but not for long...

Because it is also the best shot of the biggest hit of the case.  I wouldn't say it's a "case hit", but it's the most valuable one we pulled.  (Stuart is keeping it forever.)  Hit Location - 3rd pack 4th stack

The consolidated view.

Box 5

Alright, let's see if I can get back on track.  Again, nice HOF topper...

Color swap Curtis Mead.  Comparing to shiny version, but you see the difference.

Duly noted on the back.  And my pull....

Cool!  So glad it's a vintage player again.  I know a Pirates guy that probably wants this one.

Another Palmer that will go in my PC, the Apollo insert for the Space binder, and a shiny Gavin......Gavin?  I'll get second copies of the T&N and News for my set later.

This gal might look familiar to those who follow the Royal Family in the UK...She usually had #24.

Box 11

Resisting the urge to reference "Spinal Tap" here again...  

A-ha!  Another buyback.  Still don't like the stamp where it is....checking Night Owl's list...Dangit.

Zack Gelof "My Lawn" image swap...

Confirmed.

J.T. Re-al-MOO-To.  The Phillies wear grey?  Hit Location - Last Pack Mojo.

The Black & White borders performed the Heim-Lux Maneuver.  

 

Box 6

Cool shot of Brett I don't think I've seen before.

Image swap of Johan Rojas.  Swapping his name to Rohan Yohas would have been even more fun.

Charlie's Bat, mon.  Hit Location - Top 2nd

We ended up with two of the Ohtani Highlight SPs.  That's always nice.

Box 12

And finally...

This one already appeared on Night Owl's post about how there is so much '75 content on his blog these days.  It was the only one of the three he needed from our break.

Neat black & white image Jake "No, my sister isn't Jenny" McCarthy.  Though I can't say I like the orange and yellow with the colorless picture.

Another image swap in the same box!

And this.  Nice autograph from another Yankee.  

The Morel of the story is "the shiny ones aren't the biggest deal".

I could keep going, but there is no Box 13.  Sorry, Leyla...

Hmmph...

I'll probably do a recap post just to put things in order.  Thanks for tuning in.  Good night!