Cardboard Alchemy:  noun – The art of turning cardboard into gold. 

Don’t you just love it?  For some reason, I find extreme satisfaction of buying low, selling higher, *and* having left over cards. 

Two weeks ago, I bought a killer Albert Pujols collection.  Pujols is my favorite player.  I love watching him hit, and I love what he does off the field. 

Through a few avenues online, I was able to sell two cards in the collection to get a third of my money back, sell the bulk of it a week later to break even (this morning), and sold another one elsewhere to have a $22 profit.  Yeah, that’s cool … but look at what I still have left over … for free!

Patch with a piece of his Majestic tag
Gold, numbered to 50
Gold #ed to 50 and Black #ed to 25
Killer dual patch of Pujols / Edmonds
Triple Threads # to 36
Triple Threads # to 27
Triple Threads # to 9 Gold
Awesome Patch card!
The whole process is just fun.  Finding a deal, negotiating to get the best possible deal, using your creativity / avenues / contacts / enginuity to sell piece by piece, crossing the profit threshold and having cards in your collection & cash in your pocket that you wouldn’t have otherwise. 
 
So fulfilling, and so fun!  Of course, these cards will sell at some point too.  It is just nice to have them in hand thinking, they are free now … and cost me nothing other than extra profit if I don’t sell.

Could the original seller have done this also?  Sure, absolutely.  But what most people don’t understand, is it takes a lot of work posting them on various sites, taking pictures, dealing with multiple people, meeting with them, etc.  In light of that, it isn’t technically free … but since it is all fun to me, I hardly consider it work.   

 
Stay tuned!  If all goes well, I’ll be picking up a 28 or 29 long box collection of comics this evening that is over an hour away.  I’ll post pictures and a story on it later.  You know how I go about this … you will hear about it if it is a good deal, or a crap deal that went horribly wrong.  I hear they are upstairs, so yeah … that’s bound to be fun.