It's been a crazy football season thus far. Crazy injuries, crazy scores, crazy crazy everything! I've got 3 fantasy football leagues going and I'm also getting into collecting football cards now. Just yesterday I stopped at our local Target to check out what they had in stock with the value boxes and was surprised to find they actually had three Apsolute Memorabilia boxes left. Around here, the day of the shipment has become a wrestling match to get boxes. I'm superstititious so I stood there touching all three boxes, trying to get a vibe. I chose box 2 and didn't really get as excited as I do about baseball cards, but I bought it none-the-less. I broke open the box thinking nothing of it, hoping that I would get some of the base cards I am missing in my set. The first pack gave me four that I didn't have. The second pack felt heavier and I was figuring it had a decoy in it, so I opened it. Normally I let the thicker packs till last, because in a hobby box, that's normally a sign it's an insert. I look through and see Alge Crumpler, Tony Romo, Hines Ward, and then I get a shock! I see jersey! White and wonderful staring at me! My husband was sitting on the couch and he just looked at me, because he tells me I beat the odds getting autos and jersey cards. These value boxes guarantee nothing with some of the brands, including this one. So I look at the card closer and realize who it is...Darren McFadden!!! I was excited, because he is the predicted rookie of the year and the talk of the town among card collectors right now. I immediately realize this jersey is different, so I turn it over and realize it is a piece of his jersey worn on May 17th during the 08 NFL Players Rookie Premier!!! I looked it up and it was a get together of sorts where the rookies are introduced to their fellow teammates and the first time they are really acknowledged by the media as an NFL player!!! My two year old daughter was standing beside me, and I was dancing around and she started dancing around screaming YEAH MOMMY!!!! That made it worth my while. The rest of the box was full of great base cards, and because I'm a set builder, it excited me very much. There were also a few Spectrum parallels, which will probably end up on Ebay, because I would rather finish my base set and start on another then mess with parallels and inserts. All in all, it was a good investment to buy the value box and it perked me up for the day. I think I might give the McFadden card to my husband, he seemed to like it. Until the next box break...
Becca ~Jay's Wife~

Now that I've actually been through the selling process now, I believe I can intelligently speak of shipping charges, because in my last post I wasn't as educated. I've been getting some of my baseball cards ready for sale and kept a running tab on the cards about the way I list them, the shipping rate, but also the way I prepare them for shipping. I ended up at a with a price of $3.00. Some cards were a few cents less and most were higher than that, because they are in toploaders, penny sleeves, or plastic cases and I will be mailing them in boxes and not bubble mailers. I completely understand why sellers are charging $2-$5 depending on the lot size. I still don't understand why they would charge any higher for one ungraded card in a penny sleeve and bubble mailer or plain envelope, but it is what it is and I'm just staying away from those buyers. I must speak of my appreciation for those sellers that do ship their cards as protected as possible, because after putting up a few dozen of mine I realize the time it took me to put the cards in protection to make sure they didn't get hurt, take pictures, list them, and get them ready to ship. I am a natural perfectionist and spent probably 20 minutes on each card getting them ready and none of my descriptions are of the copy/paste nature like I've seen. I took a picture of each card or lot I was going to sell and then described it as fully as possible, whether it was a newer common card or a vintage rookie. I definently learned what not to do from some ebayers who like to copy/paste or take one picture of 12 cards and then list them individually. It seems so lazy to me and it downright turns me off from giving them my money. I'm sure there are people out there that think this same way, or maybe not. I had decided that I was going to show my passion and appreciation for not only the cards, but the customers bidding on them. Don't get me wrong, the extra money will help, but I've listed because: 1. My fiance and I have WAY too many cards topping 30,000, 2. I do like the cards I'm selling very much, however I know someone out there may love them more than I, or need them to finish a set. 3. I want parents to be able to buy their children's favorite player at a reasonable price, so I start the listings at .99. A personal conviction of mine I guess. I have a one-year old and I would love to be able to walk her in a store when she's a little older and buy her a pack of cards everytime, though I don't see that happening with prices averaging $4-12 a pack here. I've spoke with so many parents that really can't afford to drop $60-$100 on a hobby box so that their child can enjoy their baseball cards and maybe get an autograph or a piece of jersey. They are the future of this hobby, because us as adults won't be around forever. This last bit was off topic, but that's what a blog is for I guess, let it all come out. Very therapeutic I suppose, but then that's why I started collecting baseball cards, opening hobby boxes, and completing sets with my fiance and daughter. I just hope that the people that do win my cards or even keep buying cards on Ebay don't treat it as just a business with no sentimental nature. Heck, I've been collecting players who aren't hyped in the media or getting into trouble, they may not have great stats or be the 'Top 10 Hottest Sports Star', but they are the game and they play for the love of it, exactly why I collect cards and watch baseball everynight, for the love of the game. ~Jay's Fiance, Becca~ 

I've noticed over the past few weeks a growing trend in dear old Ebay. After reading some reviews and other blogs, I am agreeing with the masses. Some people charge a ridiculous amount for shipping. I don't know if anyone has really noticed the extent of it. I searched around today looking at all different sorts of auctions, BIN's, and stores. I looked just at the shipping charges. It was apsolutely insane what some people were charging, and were actually getting bids and buys!!! I know how a buyer can feel when they find an item that just tickles their fancy. They get excited at the low starting price or that they actually found it and they forget to look at the shipping involved. I personally did that when I first started using Ebay. I discovered a rookie card that was marked 'ONLY .99!!!' It wasn't a high book price to begin with, just a couple of bucks, but it was of a player that I really enjoyed watching. I didn't buy it and I'm glad I didn't or my fiance would have had my head on a platter. Looking back on it, the shipping cost for one card was listed at $7. I couldn't believe it. It got me aggitated. I see why some people don't notice until afterwards that the shipping could be unnimaginable. And that brings up another point in my rant. I once bought from someone and immediately emailed them asking them to email me back when they shipped it. I thought that was reasonable considering I paid for it within two minutes of the auction end with paypal like I always do and I've never had a problem with recieving a confirmation email. Not only did I never recieve that return email, I got the package almost two weeks later, shipping was $3 less than what I paid, cards weren't even in sleeves, and they didn't leave feedback for me until I did for them.  Boy, does that get me angry. I was caught in their web, and I hear alot of sellers are like that! I wanted to give them a lower feedback, but I knew if I did the seller would not only contest it, but they would give me a negative feedback as well and I can't afford to have any negatives since I'm a newer Ebayer and I did nothing wrong. I thought the seller is supposed to leave feedback when they get the payment and not after the buyer has given their feedback. I wish Ebay would find a few codes that let the buyer leave feedback after the seller does and not the other way around. Why should we as buyers, who alot are like me where I pay immediately and contact the seller, having to deal with the consequences of some of the sellers' actions? I also read, and I may have misunderstood, because I'm not a seller yet, that Ebay charges you to list your stuff and that sellers are selling things at unrealistically low prices and then charging a fortune in shipping because they don't have to pay Ebay for the shipping rate, just the actual price of the item. I've been trying to find the real story behind that.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty upset over this stuff, but I still will be on Ebay. The vast majority of sellers are great Ebayers and are very reasonable. I have only had one bad experience with a seller. Every other seller has been wonderful, very personable, I've even gotten into email tag with a few of them just chatting or telling them how very appreciative I was with what they sent and how they handled everything. I'm not an Ebay seller hater, I'm just aggitated, because I was thinking about possibly trying to sell some of my things and I don't want buyers to think that every seller is like that. It's just sadly funny that I've bought a hobby box of cards that weighs a pound or two with shipping at a flat rate for around $9, and I've seen someone selling one card, that weighs an ounce or two for $9. You better believe when we start our store that shipping will be reasonable. We're not going to open a store to make money off shipping from unsuspecting buyers. My mantra for my dream of a store is sell your stuff as if you are the buyer. My mantra in life is Treat People Like You Want Treated.

That was my rant for the night. I'm just hoping that more people, sellers and buyers, who think this way will get together and refuse to buy from the sellers that are taking advantage of Ebay and buyers across the globe. ~Becca, fiance of Jay~

My fiance started collecting cards as a child, then after a ten year or so hiatus, started again when we got together. We wanted to do something together, and something for our one year old daughter to be able to see later. We both love baseball, watching every game we could night after night, and also playing fantasy baseball online together. We were lucky enough, and maybe stupid enough to start our travels into the baseball set making world with the 07' Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects. Unknowingly buying the first boxes of cards to make the set two days after the release was a great start. I'm being very sarcastic. We purchased some value boxes at our local Target, because we really had no idea what to start with and they looked interesting. If I remember correctly, our one year old actually picked them out for us. And so, our saga began. We opened the packs and were thrilled at what we saw. Chrome staring up at us, shiny and new. Players we had never seen and stats we had never read. Seperating the regular Bowmans from the chrome, and setting aside the one gold card out of each pack we were on our way. One of us ran across the checklist and we immediately knew we were doing this set. We nievely thought it was not only possible, but going to be easy for a rusty collector and a first timer to get every base card. After we penny sleeved and put the cards in order, we brought out a binder and Jay put them in one by one leaving space for the cards we'd need. A few more boxes and we'd be done we thought. Wrong! There must be a conflict in this narrative of fun. We go back to Target on a diaper run, only to discover no more boxes. But they were just here yesterday. A whole shelf full gone in two days! We discovered later that serious collectors and card sellers were buying these boxes immediately after the shipment was unpacked. After looking on the internet for card stores around our area, we headed to our local mall only to find, they didn't have any either and told us they sold out within a week. Weeks go by and then, on another diaper run to the store, at just the right time, a weekend day late at night right after they stocked their new shipment. We buy the few boxes they had left. Excitement filled us like Christmas morning with a present room filled with five year olds. We were going to finish the sets finally. However, another conflict arose when we discovered that we were missing one single card for the first part of the base set. Life had handed us lemons again. We happened upon a card show weeks afterwards that was in our area and a man by the name of Bruce from New York was kind enough to help us complete part of our set by giving us that last base card. Our journey is still continuing to this day, as we are finishing the chrome sets of the 07' Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects, however we are more educated about baseball card collecting and even more excited about what's come out of it all. We have done the whole thing as a family and we learned that buying value boxes for this particular card release was smarter in the long run than buying three or four hobby boxes. At the same show we got the base card from Bruce at, we picked up a hobby box for the first time as well to fill in the chromes we were missing. Not only did it not fill in more than ten of our missing cards, but it only had one autograph, one X-Fractor, one blue parallel, and only three refractors in it. The X-Fractors come exclusively in the hobby boxes, but within four or five value boxes at about the same total price as a hobby, we got five or six autographs, two jersey cards, a blue parallel, six or seven refractors, and alot more short print cards we needed. Overall it was a smart idea for collectors like us to buy value boxes to make sets and more than enough interesting inserts as a bonus, than it was to spend the seventy-bucks to be disappointed in an over-hyped, over-priced hobby box. Some collectors and dealers may tell me what we got was a fluke, but I say it was fate. First time set-builders get their castle and more.  

~Becca, Jay's Fiance~