COMC 2: Buyforyou Boogaloo LAST CALL

Well, it's been about two weeks since I first made my second offer (wait--ok, yeah, that sounds right) to buy stuff on COMC for any takers that would trade me something nice for it.  My COMC inventory now stands at 27 cards, only six of which are heading to my collection.  The rest will be going out in much-anticipated trade packages not long after I request shipment.

Not sure why I used this for this post, but why not?

Thanks to the power of combining cards and making shameful lowball offers, I've spent just about $60 so far on $180+ of "book value" (thank God COMC won't be using Beckett's anal cavity-extracted numbers soon) not including three others without values attached.  That gives you an idea of a COMC buyer's ability to do fairly well on the site with a bit of patience.  Really, the only requests I've had to turn down so far were higher-end items for which the sellers just wouldn't budge.

Anyone else remember this asshole from old card magazines?

So although this would be one of my smaller COMC shipments to-date, and definitely the fewest I've purchased for myself in one package, I'm perfectly willing to request shipment as-is, especially since I'm motivated to get these already made purchases in the hands of those that are trading with me.  That said, I'm offering one last call for anybody that hasn't gotten in on the action so far (or for anyone who'd like to tack on a few items to their existing haul).  I have about $20-$25 remaining in this month's budget, although I certainly don't mind going over a bit if it results in more trading (or, under, I guess!).

Remember the time I got THIS many cards from COMC?

So the deadline this time will be 3:00 a.m. Friday morning (the 24th)--to account for you left-coasters and your "pacific time zone."  As long as you have a comment or email in to me before then, I'll attempt to make your purchase(s).  Otherwise, I'll be hitting the "ship" button so I can have this stuff before the end of the month and back in the mail.  The same rules from the original post still apply, so please keep those in mind.

Remember the time I shipped this many packages all at once?

Speak now or forever hold your peace...until the next time I do this in a month or two!  Also, let's celebrate the fact that this post allowed me to dig out my forgotten "Drug-fueled card-buying binge" tag.

You didn't ask, but...: too many tips and tricks: scanning and COMC

Having now run this blog for something like a year and a half (much less than the vast majority of you) I've picked up a few tricks that I wanted to share with all of you, even if you didn't ask, because not only do I think a few of you will find them helpful, but I hope doing this will inspire you guys to either leave comments with extremely useful stuff you've found or even write up your own posts.  I'm 100% positive many of us who haven't been doing this for very long can benefit from your experience and personal skill sets.

The last time I did something like this, I dug into my IT skills toolbox to explain a few different methods of backing up files because of a couple bloggers who had some issues with lost files.  Lots of us keep invaluable stuff like PC scans and inventory or wantlists on our computers, so I thought that might be relevant to some of you, and thanks to my day job it was something I could bring to you.

Today I'm going to be more card specific and discuss a few items relating to two main topics with which I have a large amount of experience:  scanning/posting images of your collections, and getting the most out of CheckOutMyCards.  Before I get to those, I'd like to reiterate that I'd love to get your comments on the tips I'm posting here (because I'm sure I'll only scratch the surface) and anything else you might suggest, though I also encourage you to share your wisdom in your own posts as well.  Now then, on with the knowledge:

Scanning and posting cards:
Since I'm big into posting all of my various PCs, I do a lot of scanning/cropping/optimizing/uploading, and here's a couple of tips I've noticed:

1.  Crop your photos:

This is something I see a lot more when it comes to forums and eBay, but no matter where I see it, it annoys me:  if you're going to post an image of a single card or even a few, crop it!  Tell me, what looks better?:

This?

Or this?

It takes a little longer, but it really is worth it.  For my own use, I generally go with Microsoft Office's Photo Manager, which lets me crop, rotate and "optimize" scans reasonably quickly, but if you don't want to throw down the cash for Office, MSPaint can handle basic cropping, or you can upgrade to something like Paint.net or the GIMP, which are totally free.

2.  Running out of space in your Picasa Web Album/Photobucket, or just sick of your scans taking up so much space?Depending on the quality at which you scan or take pictures, the files can get fairly large.  Also, there are times when you might just want to quickly resize a bunch of files for some other reason.  This leads to one of my absolute favorite Windows add-ons, the Windows Image Resizer tool.  With it, you can browse to your folder of photos, select whichever ones you want, right click them and choose to resize them:

...and then select from a few different presets or choose a custom resolution:

The biggest caveat is that you might accidentally resize the original version of that image (by checking that last box) and not mean to.  You also don't want to be resizing the same image multiple times as the quality will degrade.  I recommend this as a speedy way to get image files set to a resolution that will fit within Blogger's confines (I use the 1920x1080 most of the time) while also lowering the overall file size of each picture in the event that a high scan quality gives it an enormous resolution.  Try it and see what you think!

Getting the most out of COMC:

I'll spare you the common sense items like bundling up cards into offers to get better prices, but I have discovered a few cool features:

1.  Ads:
I'll be honest--I'd been using COMC for quite a while before I realized what the classified ads are all about, but now I've learned to check them every day!  I've found two main reasons to be interested:  port sales and promotions/auto-accepts.

A port sale, if you didn't know, is where a seller puts his entire COMC portfolio up for sale to whomever makes the best offer.  The minimum bid is either 10% of the book value or 20% of the seller's total asking price for the individual cards, though you'll generally need to offer a bit more; fortunately, some sellers think to throw out an "OBO" price to get you started.  This is a potentially good way to build up a nice sized port to try to flip some stuff, or if you're really lucky, buy up a bunch of stuff for your PC.

Even more useful in my opinion is the promotion/auto-accept ad.  In this type of classified, the seller states that some or all of their port's cards can be had for up to 50% off, usually with a specific percentage.  Certain members with upgraded memberships can automatically have COMC accept offers for them, but regular users must monitor all incoming offers and manually approve them, so keep that in mind.  This is simply an outstanding way to pick up some great PC cards.  Often I have quite a few cards I'm eyeballing, and once I find a seller I really like who has a bunch of stuff, I scan through their whole port for all of my PC players and then patiently wait to see if they offer a port sale.  That tends to be the case with many of the larger sellers, such as SwagCards, one of my favorites.  Seriously, what's better than picking up a ton of awesome cards for 1/2 off already fairly low prices (usually)?  You suckers can throw down your $20 on a blaster of 2012 Topps SameOldCrap--I'll take $80-$100 worth of PC hits any day!

Besides buying, keep in mind you can use these ads yourself, and for a fairly cheap cost at that:  $2 for the approval fee, then $1 per day you want your ad(s) listed.  You need to make sure to get them in before the weekend as they're only approved at the beginning and end of each business day, but can schedule them however you'd like.  If you've got a ton of stuff on COMC just sitting there unsold and want to cash out or not have to worry about paying storage fees, consider an auto-accept or port sale.

2.  Amazon:
Here's another feature everyone might not be aware of:  you can allow your COMC cards to be sold through Amazon.  You do take a 20% ding on the price to cover fees, so it's not for everyone, but it at least potentially gets more eyes on your items.  To activate the feature, go to your COMC dashboard, then "My Profile and Options."

Now click the radio button next to "Yes..." under the "Synch with Amazon" option, keeping in mind the notices below the option.

I enabled this a few days ago and haven't had any bites yet, but it's a free and easy way to try to bring in a few more sales.

3.  Watch list:You may notice a trend here, but I definitely wasn't aware of this until recently:  you can "watch" any cards you like on COMC in an easy-to-access list.  It's not quite as robust as, say, eBay's, but it can still be pretty useful.  At a glance you can see if a card's asking price fits within your budget or even if it's been sold.

To add any card to your list, search for it, then hover your mouse over it, like you would if you wanted to get the html code to borrow the image for your blog.

Then just click the "Watch this item" link.  Once you've added some cards, you can get to the list through your dashboard:

 and then see exactly what you're watching, 10 cards at a time:

This is much more useful than my previous method for myself:  using my Singles and players wantlist image links to open each card up one at a time.  Unfortunately this watch list currently doesn't display the seller's ID so you could sort by that, but I still consider it immensely useful.

That's all I have for this time, but I feel like I covered a lot.  Please shoot me some comments telling me what you thought, if any of this was useful, if you have any scanning or COMC tips of your own, or if there's anything you'd like me to cover in the future.

Mid-year resolution and buy/sell review: it's my money and I need it NOW!

Now here's a post I've been looking forward to writing (not that I'm dying for summer to speed by, of course).  Ever since I posted my resolutions for the new year and decided to be meticulous about keeping track of my spending and selling (thanks to Google Docs!), I've been anxious to take a look at how I did in each of those areas.  Here, then, is a quick look at how the first half of 2012 went for me:

Resolutions:

1.  MOAR TRADING:  yes and no.  Between both blogs I believe I count 13 unique trades, which isn't too bad, though I certainly could have completed more.  I do have some more deals on the back burner, though, and I also sent out more stuff than I received, so overall, I count this as a success thus far.
2.  Post more trade bait:  I definitely achieved this, at least for a few months.  The fact is, in the last few weeks I've dumped a lot of stuff that didn't appear to be garnering any interest via Blowout and COMC, which was a coup for me in the long run because that cleared up some space and earned me some extra spending money.  Since I made this resolution I've again been focusing less on stocking up on trade bait and more on picking up a few things online or via shows for impending deals, which makes more sense from a storage and financial standpoint.
3.  Comment more on blogs I read:  this is one that still needs improvement because even without keeping statistics I'm sure that the ratio of comments I leave to posts I read is too low.  This is why I'm reviewing these, though, and now hopefully I'll remember to improve upon this.
4.  Respond to comments I receive:  no improvement necessary here:  I respond to almost every comment I can, and the only ones I really neglect are the ones I complained about where the user doesn't leave their email address for me to do so personally.  I value all of your comments, especially the hilarious ones, and hope you each still feel compelled to leave one once in a while.
5.  Manage two blogs:  again, yes and no.  I've gone through a couple periods the first half of the year where my attention was pulled elsewhere, such as work, vacations, visiting family/friends, etc.  You could argue that when my attention is divided, having two blogs makes both suffer since my effort has to be split.  In general I think I've done reasonably well, though, but I do recognize that I need to be more consistent in terms of posting to both, and especially in terms of finding more content for this one.
6.  Post quality content:  this one needs improvement because I feel I haven't had the time to come up with unique features like many of you seem to come up with at will.  Most of my posts this year have covered purchases/trades, and while those are definitely important to me, I'd like to get back to other topics that don't necessarily involve my PCs.  I'll work on this as well.
7.  Group breaks:  definitely needs improvement.  I've only participated in one group break thus far:  Daily Dimwit's January effort.  It was fun and the cost was reasonable despite my lack of a big hit, but I've since put all of my money into other sources.  I'd also intended on possibly running another break or two of my own, but my desire to get away from disappointing box results may have contributed towards my steering clear of such a project.  There's still six months left this year, though, so we'll see!
8.  Spend less on useless crap:  I definitely feel a lot better about my spending this year.  Early on, I made one purchase that in retrospect caused me some regret--a bunch of retail blisters of 2010 Press Pass PE football.  I had already resolved to buy less retail crap, but these were calling to me all the same.  While they were fun to open, I can't say I pulled anything especially useful out of them except for a couple C.J. Spiller autos, which I was fortunately able to sell.  Still, I was stuck with a bunch of practically worthless hits for what I spent.  That aside, I've done extremely well, replacing boxes and packs with an explosion of PC cards that's allowed each collection to grow rapidly.  Success!
9.  Complete some more sets:  for whatever reason, I've focused more on PC stuff thus far, but now that some of my sources are temporarily drying up, I'm committed to putting the finishing touches on a bunch more of my sets like I did last year.  Call this an "incomplete" for now.
10.  Get more organized and get rid of unwanted stuff:  I'm making a very good effort towards this goal.  Through more trades I've definitely gotten rid of a lot of stuff that was useless to my collection while keeping me involved in trading with other bloggers.  I've also put a good amount of time into sorting and organizing things so my collection takes up less space.  I'm proud of the effort I made here but it's still a continuing process and will take more time as the year continues.
11.  400/100/50 and beyond:  as a reminder, this referred to my Michigan PCs: 400 football hits, 100 baseball hits and 50 cards of any player.  I had said at the time that I needed only 12 more football hits to reach 400;  I'm now nearing 550 with plenty more that I haven't even scanned yet!  It took a bit longer to make it to 100 in the baseball PC, but my current count of 105 certifies that I made it.  And while Rich Hill's 48 cards don't quite break the tape, I made it to 50 different Jake Longs.  Only halfway through the year and that's check, check and check!

Buying and selling (with charts!):

Buying:
Although I'm not necessarily proud of how much or little I spent on this hobby in the last six months, I decided this year that I wanted to be more transparent about my spending habits, both so I could get a better idea of where my money was going and keep things reasonable, and because I thought it might benefit some of you who also hadn't necessarily put their buying habits into context.  Here's an overview of my spending for the first six months of 2012:

Total spending:  $1572.68
Spending/month:  $262.11
Number of purchases:  51, the first on 1/1 and the last on 6/30
Average purchase:  $30.84
Purchased from:  BlowoutCards forums, COMC, eBay, group breaks, other (the "IPP" lot), retail, shows
Biggest purchase:  $300 for the "IPP" lot
Smallest purchase:  $1 for a Jason Avant Bowman Uncirculated card on COMC
Month in which I spent the most:  March, in which I spent a total of $533.72, including that huge lot, plus a bunch of stuff from the usual suspects
Month in which I spent the least:  April, in which cooler heads prevailed and I spent a miniscule $20.49 to make up for the excesses of March
Source from which I purchased the most:  definitely COMC, where I've spent $608.77, or more than $100 per month
Source from which I purchased the least:  the $24 I spent on group breaks (just Sam's)

And some charts:

I'd like to get my overall spending down a bit over the rest of the year, but still, with fewer extraneous and wasteful purchases, I'm definitely getting more for my dollar this year.  I expect more money to go towards SportLots as I work to complete sets, plus the usual at COMC, especially thanks to my selling there.  Additionally, I'll likely spend less at shows as I find those less useful, and the in-person purchase was really a one-time thing, so that should make things more reasonable going forward.  Really, I could have done a lot worse, don't you think?

Selling:Ever since I've collected I've dabbled in selling stuff that seemed valuable enough or at least didn't interest me enough to keep, but I never really took it seriously.  That changed a bit this year as I got away from eBay's horribly broken model and focused on two other sources:  BlowoutCards' forum and COMC.  The latter especially fueled my efforts in dumping useless cards for useful PayPal and led to a bunch of great PC purchases.  I did have a bit of luck over on Blowout as well, but that was mostly due to a lucky, large sale to one user; still, it counts, and as with COMC, it did a lot to help my collecting.

Total sales:  $478.00
Sales/month:  $79.67
Number of sales:  41
Average sale:  $11.66
Sold on:  BlowoutCards forum, COMC
Biggest sale:  $200 on Blowout for a huge lot of baseball and football autos, relics and patches
Smallest sales:  Multiple $1 cards on COMC
Month in which I sold the most:  March, in which that large sale on Blowout made up most of my total (and fueled the spending towards my large in-person purchase!)
Month in which I sold the least:  February was the only month in which I didn't make any sales

And some charts, which pretty much illustrate what I already said:

Thanks to those sales, my net spending for the first six months of 2012 was a more reasonable $1094.68, or more like about $180/month.  I don't think I can continue to sell that much since most of my sale-able items are now on COMC and likely heading for a port sale, but you never know.

In short, (as IF) January-June of 2012 was pretty good to me in terms of my favorite hobby.  I picked up a TON of PC cards, spent less on crap and stayed pretty involved in blogging (mine and others) while also picking up a little extra Paypal to apply towards cards.  I have some stuff to work on, like keeping my blogs fresh and interesting and making sure I don't neglect trading and set-building, but things are definitely looking up.  I hope you all found this interesting and informative.  In fact, I'd love to see how I compare to each of you in anything I've covered above, be it your resolutions, an estimate of your spending, or whatever else you found relevant!