Scavenge of the week July 20-26, 2025

[craig rex]

I have been buying less, and with more of a purpose, this month and it feels great. Last week, I shipped off my largest ever consignment shipment of 2,650 cards which should finish processing by the end of this year. I’d like to put together a similar sized shipment in September, when I can drop off to the consignment company at their table at a regional trade show in my area. I’ve decided that my plan until then is to get selective about what I have on hand, and sort through everything like crazy. The goal by the end of the year is to have all my cards in monster boxes on one or two shelves instead of some in monster boxes on the floor, some in smaller 400 count boxes, a box of supplies over here. You sell stuff, too. You get it. I’ve never had the time to really lock in and get everything organized because there was always more to buy, more to sell, more to sort, more to do. But I’m coming to the other side of the mountain with all this. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

For now, I’ve been sticking to very quick flips or deals that are simply too good to pass up. This Paul Skenes Leaf blue shimmer promo graded CGC 10 will probably go in the $25 to $50 range at a live auction. Best pitcher in baseball, and while this isn’t the best card or best grading company, a Skenes slab in a 10 is always a buy at $15. Same with other top pitchers and hitters, quarterbacks, star players in any sport. This has been the biggest change to my business since shifting to full-time three years ago. I really have no interest in cards like these. I don’t find them interesting. I like weird, or old, or aesthetically interesting. Not base parallels that were graded in bulk by someone looking to “hit” a 10. I don’t think these will be worth much long-term. But they are easy short-term flips, so I flip. I’ve also done really well with low-grade vintage cards recently.

In the same order, a whole pile of serial numbered 2023 Leaf bowling cards for a buck. I won five of these bowling lots, 95 cards total, for just over $10. $0.40/card to send them into consignment at their slowest processing level. A few autographs in the batch, a few players from other sports, a few “name” bowlers. I don’t know anything about bowling, but I know modern cards. This is one of those sneaky little buys that might not sell right away and then I’ll check my consignment account and 20 cards sold to one buyer. Even at $1/card, I’ll double my money, and I these would all sell immediately to a flipper at that price.

Finally, I had to do a little detective work on this lot of Tracy McGrady basketball cards but it was a quick one. I knew that the card in the top right corner was a Topps Pristine gold refractor and those were one of the earlier serial numbered “hits” which got a real cult following. Basketball collectors pay strong for certain sets, especially from the late 90s/early 2000s. The McGrady in this lot is from the 2003-04 Topps Pristine set, and you can see the Terapeak solds which led me to believe I was not going to win this auction. But I did. These are very, very condition sensitive with the die-cut edges, but I received the card yesterday and it looks nice. So I’m going to list on eBay this week and see if I can make a quick sale.

What did you find this week?

[ChristineR]

I bought a bunch of my cousin’s china, an older Spode pattern. She doesn’t need most of it but I was with her when she thrifted the rest so I knew it was a good buy.

[Antique Frog]

I bought 32 old German stamps at auction- left a bid of £45 thinking i’d get them for £25 as nobody would be interested, and I ended up “winning” at my top bid. They’re from the old German states, and according to the little pieces of paper put in with them have a value of somewhere round £2,000.

I checked up on this value, and it’s the Stanley Gibbons catalogue value, which is generally discounted to between 10 and 25% in the market, depending on condition. I guess whoever bid against me saw the red 6 kreuzer Thurn and Taxis stamp priced at £626 down at the bottom of the sheet!

[jaepete]

seems like this forum is just barely holding on 🙁

are there some other more active forums with similar content anyone can recommend?

[Zach]

You can find subreddits on reselling which are very active.

[Antique Frog]

I joined a forum of stamp collectors, which is quite interesting. That’s “quite interesting” in the English sense. Every few days someone joins up because they’ve found a rare variation of a common US stamp from the 1920s or 1930s. Various experts then have to repeatedly explain that it’s not a rare variety at all, that the OP’s measuring the perforations or the size wrong. Arguments ensue.

A recent topic is tariffs, especially as to whether their imposition will scare off foreign dealers from next year’s Boston stamp exhibition. Those discussions then veer off into criticism of Agent 47, the tone police turn up to complain that they’re supposed to be wan talking about stamps not politics, and then the moderators shut the topic down.

Most of them know a lot about stamps. The other things, not so much.

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