Tuesday, June 20, 2017

When eBay Gives Me 15% Off

Every once in a while eBay throws a promotion out there to provide an incentive for buyers to pull the trigger.  15% off your purchase of $80 or more is a common one, but I've seen others as well.  I've used these to my advantage in the past, but mainly for investments.  

Something I rarely talk about on this blog is my love for gaming... and by gaming I mean board and card games.  One particular interest of mine is Magic the Gathering, not so much playing the game itself but rather investing in it.  In the past two years I've built a pretty sizable collection of MTG sealed product, and these flash sales are part of the reason for it.

The other day I finally decided to utilize one of these flash sales towards baseball cards.  Ironically, 60% of the cards I picked up came from COMC's eBay account, so I could've just went straight to their site and done the same thing.  Oh well, there were a handful non-COMC cards in the order plus I got that sweet 15% off deal.  I recently(ish) showed off these first five cards in my trip to Citi Field post, but I thought I'd go over them in a bit more detail.


There were two things I was going after in the order, the second of which you'll see on a later post.  Today's post features the first of the tasks I wanted to accomplish: broaden and colorize my Julio Teheran PC for under a dollar.  First up a purple parallel of Julio 2016 Bowman card numbered out of 299.  I thought last year's Bowman design was excellent and this card would be perfect if they hadn't cut off Julio's hand.  So close!  I love the effect of the right foot overlapping the border of the card and if they had used the same effect with the hand... well, they didn't.  The second card is the red (Wal-Mart???) parallel from 2014 Topps flagship.  I picked it up cause it was cheap.


This 2014 Bowman Chrome purple refractor is butt-ugly.  I hate this design and I'm not a huge fan of this hue of purple.... but it was under a buck, numbered out of 150, and it is purple!  How could I pass?  I like this second card quite a lot.  Ever since the Bowman brand rekindled its way into modern cards, they've been known for two things: prospecting and horrible ass card design.  I truly believe that 2015 is the year that righted the ship for Bowman.  While I don't think the 2015 design was anything super special, I think it paved the way for two excellent designs in the past two years.  This particular card is yet another Chrome purple refractor this time out of 250.


A 2015 Finest purple parallel rounds out the COMC store purchases.  Again, the cropping is slightly annoying (can I just have the ball please?), but it is purple... MUST HAVE.


The final two Julio's that came with this order were of the non-COMC variety.  I had to grab this 2014 blue chrome parallel mostly because I loved the blue.  Doing funky things to my scanner is just an added bonus.  ...and yes, that 2014 Gypsy Queen auto was not under a buck, but it was under $5 so I thought it was a bargain.

Seven mid-level cards that I'd probably never receive in trades for a price substantially less than a blaster.  Yes please!  Hopefully Julio ups his game a bit over the next couple of months.  His outings have been somewhat roller-coaster like and he is getting absolutely clocked by Bryce Harper... oh how I hate the Nationals.

2 comments:

  1. Am I the only one who's interested in hearing more about this MTG investment plan?

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    1. Fair enough. I'll elaborate down the road in a post. It's not really a plan so much as a way for me to put my money in a place other than a bank with hopes for future returns.

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