Saturday, March 29, 2014

Do the Right Thing

I sold a professional baseball player one of his own cards.

I put ten cards up on eBay last week – mostly stuff I pulled from 2014 Topps that didn’t have Griffey on it.  I had a printing plate, one of those uniform letter patch 1/1’s, a nice Goldschmidt acetate #/10, and a few of the rarer parallels.

Anyway, the auctions all ended last night, and all but one card sold.  Not long after that I started receiving payment e-mails from Paypal, and lo and behold, there was the player’s name….as the buyer.  He had been bidding on his own baseball card.   It’s a very uncommon name, too, so I know this wasn’t just some dude with the same name.  I don’t blame him at all for wanting it either as it is the super neat 2013 Topps Update sparkle blue parallel numbered out of only 25.  It sold for $10.50.

It didn’t take me long at all to decide what I should do.  There’s no way I’m going to accept this man’s money for his own card.  I’m refunding him and sending him the card for nothing.  I figure it’s the right thing to do, and I’d rather have a clear conscience than ten bucks any day.

That’s it.  I just thought it was a cool story.

7 comments:

  1. That IS a cool story. I always wonder how many players collect. Brad Ziegler and Pat Neshek are the two that immediately come to mind, but nobody else.

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    1. Whoa - you guessed it! Pat Neshek.

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    2. Neshek made the Cardinals Opening Day roster this year as an NRI, but he's had a rough start. I hope he turns it around. It's fun having a fellow baseball card nerd on my favorite team.

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  2. That's awesome! I applaud you. Maybe throw a base card of him in there and send a SASE with the card? Snag an auto?

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  3. Good choice, very cool.
    I was thinking the same with the auto.

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  4. That's very cool of you. I'd hope that I'd do the honorable thing and make the same choice as you... but something says I would have taken the money and ran ;-) But I'm a firm believer in cardboard karma... so I'm sure something good is waiting for you just around the corner.

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