News & notes, including trade bait!

In lieu of posting cards today (or over the past week) here's a few updates I wanted to share with everybody:

Big news:  trade bait!:

Part of the reason I didn't put any effort into posting over the last week or so is that I was sorting through and making a list of my stuff for trade.  I love making deals with people and even just giving away stuff I don't want, so it's about time I did this.

On that page I've listed stuff like team lots, complete sets, magazines (by player and team), Starting Lineups, and more.  So if you see something you like, please let me know!  I'm always happy to trade with the usual suspects and new folks as well.

Not news:  USPS blows and is fucking inept:

There's a reason I have blog tags for both of those opinions.  Storytime:  around the middle of December I sent out a whole bunch of Christmas packages, almost all of which were Priority Mail flat rate boxes and envelopes.  One such envelope was headed to Brad (Brad's Blog)...or so I thought.  After putting the package in the mail and then verifying his address with him it turns out I had his old one.  Oh well, my fault--the envelope would come back to me and I could re-send it.  Right?

My friends, let me tell you the epic story of a Priority Mail package that literally took a month to get to the right place:

• 12/16:  I drop it (and other packages) off at my post office.  This is a Saturday
• 12/18:  It arrives at the hub in Detroit and is due to arrive by the 20th (Wednesday).  So far, so good
• 12/21:  A day late, it makes it to the local post office in Maryland (wrong address), then the tracking is updated to reflect the problem with the address
• 12/27:  Almost a week later it's at that local PO again, then out for delivery.  Again.  What happened in between, including those three business days?  Who knows, but I hope that envelope had a nice Christmas
• 1/5:  Oh, there it is, still at the same PO, where they're still aware the address is wrong
• 1/6:  "Return to sender processed."  Woohoo!  It's heading back my way so I can re-send it with the correct info!
• 1/7:  It makes the journey from Maryland back to Detroit
• 1/8:  "In transit to Destination."  WAT
• 1/9-11:  Yep, it leaves Detroit and returns to Maryland, eventually making its way back to that local PO.  "Moved, left no address" says the tracking.  Yeah, no shit
• 1/12-14:  Now it bounces back and forth between a couple regional distribution centers because reasons
• 1/15-21:  ??????????
• 1/22:  I return home and FINALLY see the envelope on my porch.  I subsequently re-send it to the correct address
• ?/?/2018(?):  Brad receives this package, maybe?

For reference, here's a Google Map with walking directions from my address to Brad's:

I literally (and I do mean literally) could have walked from my house to Brad's and back faster than this.  And if you're curious why I didn't take advantage of USPS's option to intercept a package, my answer is that I refuse to pay for new postage AND a fee when the item should return to me within a week or so, at which point I can redo it myself.  You SUCK, USPS.

Sell cards, buy more cards, repeat:

I'm taking another shot at selling stuff on COMC after putting together the minimum package of 100 cards for a basic submission.  I had fun doing this in the past and had enough stuff I no longer wanted that I thought would return enough to make it worth it, and that's great since one of my favorite things to do is buy on that site.  I'm not mentioning this to get people to buy my stuff (which should pop around mid-March) but instead to bring more awareness to the site especially if anyone new to it has any questions.

Blogger?  More like...Blow-ger?:

Last year I let too many comments pile up without responding to them, got overwhelmed, and gave up.  In order to avoid a repeat of that I'm trying to respond sooner while not worrying about replying via email as well (unless that makes more sense).

However, I do want to make people aware that if I don't reply to your comments reasonably quickly, that's because I'm randomly no longer receiving email notifications when they come in from some of you, meaning I don't see some comments at all until I go back and open up my posts.  I don't know why, but whatever--I'll do my best to reply to those of you who make the effort to read and comment because I really appreciate it.

Coming soon:  a big-ass box:

No doubt many of you took note after Adam (ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession) put up a post covering his purchase of a huge collection.  I did too and was able to make a deal with him for a few of the complete sets he had available.  That giant box arrived today stuffed with the sets I bought plus lots of Tigers meaning you'll get one or more posts covering the former while the latter will become my first trade package from the Giants fan.  I also sent a big box of stuff his way so maybe you'll see it posted over there soon if USPS deigns to deliver it in a timely fashion, or at all.

Now that I've covered all that it's back to work finishing up the final three Sportlots player posts (including one for TMM), one of which I'm splitting into two posts.  Then I'll be getting around to my late 2017 COMC haul, the stuff from Adam, a likely show haul or two, and eventually, Starting Lineups and more!  Stay tuned, but don't hold your breath, I'm lazy.

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!

No, YOU check out MY cards: selling edition

I've seen enough people recently have some degree of success selling on COMC that I finally decided to give it a shot myself.  Armed with a $20 off coupon (that I might have ended up with thanks to one of you, I can't remember) I sent in 75 total cards for their one-week service, and yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find that they'd entered everything in two days earlier than estimated.  I set about pricing my cards, either starting a bit higher than my lowest accepted price and/or undercutting what was already there, and in no time offers came flying in!  As of this writing, I've sold nine cards for $81, which is definitely beyond my expectations this soon.  You'll all be happy to hear that every bit of money I make there will go back into cards--you know I'm not in this hobby for profit, what little someone like me can make anyway--especially now that I'll have lots of COMC credit to play with.

So having already deemed this experiment a success, two things:  one, please feel free to check out what I have up just for fun or to make me some offers, and two, if you've been thinking about taking the plunge yourself, I say go for it!  It's a great way to make a little money back on that useless trade bait of yours that nobody wants.

As for me, I'm off to sort through a bunch more offers and rake in some cash!

Blogger league...ASSEMBLE!

So once again I'm crowdsourcing some information I don't have handy--I'm working on selling some of my trade bait that's just kinda been sitting there so I get some use out of it and don't feel so guilty about spending as much as I do on cards.  While I don't bow down to the holy Bible of sports card pricing, Beckett, I'm out of options here because I can't get market value prices from COMC or completed eBay listings.

SO, the question is, do any of you have a subscription to either Beckett Baseball or Football, or the OPGs?  I'm really just looking for prices on two cards:

Mikie Mahtook/Brian Johnson 2010 Bowman Sterling Refractor dual auto

C.J. Spiller 2010 Press Pass Wal-Mart Exclusives auto #d /25 (bottom middle)

I know the Spiller might be too rare to be priced, which is fine.  But if any of you can help me with prices on either or both of the cards, I would very much appreciate it and could make it up to you in cards or assistance to be named later (answering computer questions would probably be my most valuable non-card service I could offer).  So if you can help, please let me know.  Thanks in advance!

Final 2011 Topps football case break sales report

Well, it's been three weeks since I busted my 2011 Topps football jumbo case.  As a refresher, here are the results:

• Hits
• Base and Wolverines (plus design grades)
• Inserts and final grades

I made it clear from the get-go that this would be an experiment for me to experience busting a case and trying to sell the contents (anything that wasn't personal collection-worthy, of course).  So how did I do?  Entirely through Blowout's forums (because I don't trust screwBay and I didn't wanna pay even more fees) I sold the following (all prices are shipped and obviously don't account for eBay fees or what I actually paid for shipping:

• Aaron Hernandez, Matt Forte, Randall Cobb, Jordan Todman, Bilal Powell autos, Ryan Williams Rookie Patch:  $25
• Most of the Golds (29) and Minis (57):  $30
• Kyle Rudolph Rookie Red Zone auto, Santonio Holmes and Jason Witten autos, Kyle Rudolph Game Day jersey, Jordan Todman Rookie Patch:  $65
• Black Chad Greenway:  $8
• Cameron Heyward Printing Plate:  $25
• Greg Little, Marcell Dareus, Leonard Hankerson Rookie Patches:  $12

All told I pulled in a grand total of $165 (again, not including fees/shipping).  This was my return on paying a bit over $500 for the case.  So what did I learn?  More bullets!

• Busting cases is fun!  Well, I already knew that, but busting cases entirely for me is fun!
• It's not remotely easy making a profit.  That wasn't my ultimate goal--really I was hoping to get half my money back, which is still possible if I can finish up and sell a few of my sets.  Wanna buy a set?  If I can't get a good price for them now I'll hold onto them for a time when they're worth a bit more and then try to get something for them.  I also have a couple more decent hits that could bring me some cash eventually.
• It's not the easiest thing in the world making deals as a seller either.  However, I really didn't get lowballed all that much, at least not as much as I was expecting.  Because I know as a buyer I'm only happy with a low price, I worked with each person as much as I could, especially when they bought multiple items.
• I didn't get top dollar for my items by not using eBay, but I felt much more comfortable knowing I wouldn't get screwed as a seller by forgoing that option.
• Don't give buyers so much leeway.  Early on, I had a guy with a pretty good reputation on Blowout ask about a good number of my best hits.  We eventually worked out a decent price on the condition that we would also work on each others' set wantlists. Although several people made offers on some of those same cards, I held onto them for him despite a couple weeks of "I'll have your lists tonight."  I eventually found out he had a personal situation, but I ended his dibs on those cards right then because he should have been more up-front and said "I have a situation, but by this date I can deal again."  Fortunately, I found an excellent buyer who was willing to take most of that stuff, plus I got a bit more for almost everything else he wanted as well.
• These cases are really hit or miss.  About three of my boxes produced pretty nice stuff, but the others were relative duds, especially compared to what I've seen.  It still doesn't look extremely easy to come close to profitability on these cases, though I realize they're not exactly designed for that.
• Most importantly, I won't be getting into the business of busting cases to resell items for cash--I just don't have the time or skills to maximize my profit (or even make one apparently).  But I'm totally glad I tried this, and I hope it proved to be useful info for some of you too.

What's left?  Well, I have the following stuff remaining, which is still for sale, but now available for trade as promised:

All available except the Jenkins--headed to BA Benny

I'd really like to get cash for the Black Jones and may try to sell that individually, but wow me with an offer and it's yours.

I also have three base sets available right now (with hopefully one more up for grabs soon as well).  I'm asking $35 dlvd on those, but I'll work with you.  If you want to trade for one I might be willing as long as you pony up for shipping and give me fair trade value.

Thanks for following along with this crazy experiment--I hope you had some fun with it too, especially vicariously since I'm the one that took the shot to the wallet!  One thing I should stress though, is that, as I intended, any money I brought back in selling stuff was spent on more cards, as you've likely deduced from my recent (and future) Blowout acquisition posts.  Cards über alles!

A card experiment: FOR SCIENCE!* (*not actually for science)

I just wanted to let you all know about a new development in TMG land today, a sports card experiment that promises to be as exciting as it is enlightening, at least for me.

*Not actually sexy.  Or science.  For!

As usual when there's a new product, there's been a lot of buzz about 2011 Topps football.  I've seen a good number of breaks and like some of what I've seen pulled.  Add to that the fact that I always pick myself up a box of these because I like grabbing a set for myself.

Well, while looking over some of these breaks, I started to consider the circumstances and consequences of picking up a case.  I knew this would guarantee me a couple sets and potentially some pretty nice hits, some of which I could try to sell back.  I cruised over to the general football/collecting discussion board on Blowout and solicited advice from people who usually do that sort of thing, including those that had already cracked some 2011 Topps.  I really only got one response that included any kind of advice, but the overall tone was a thumbs up based on his experience.

My next step was to see what kind of pricing I could get among Blowout, Atlanta Sports Cards and Dave & Adam's Card World.  I'd previously ordered from the first and last, but not Atlanta, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  Overall, Atlanta had the best price, but I had hoped to buy from D&A because they're located closer to me (for shipping purposes, natch) and because they throw in free stuff once you spend $75 or more, which is always nice.

I decided to ping D&A's customer support to see if they'd price match Atlanta's then-low price (which has since gone up a few bucks).  When they got back to me, they told me that while they wouldn't match THAT price, but would go as low as a few bucks more, which knocked off enough to make them the best value for me (taking into account the freebies as well).  They really are great people over there and, considering this is now my second time purchasing from them, and keeping in mind that my customer service experience with them was so positive, I can't recommend them enough, so please keep them in mind for your future orders.  To be fair, I can also give Blowout my seal of approval, and they also cut me a deal on a case break in the past.

Anyway, after all that, I placed my order with D&A's this afternoon, and hopefully I'll be seeing my case very soon (along with a free box of 2008 UD First Edition football!), because after that, y'all will get to see every part of it as well.  So what's the big deal with all the talk about card experiments?

This is essentially my first case I'll be busting on my own that's not part of a group break (discounting a rack case of 1988 Donruss my brother and I split way back--junk wax doesn't count!) and my intention is to see how I fare trying to recoup some money after keeping what I want.  My expectation is that I'll be able to make some money back on a couple complete sets (maybe even a master set), SPs, hits (relics/patches and autographs) and other stuff (plates?).  I'm not even dreaming of making back close to what I'm paying for the case, but I feel that, rather than drop $90 on a jumbo box (which seems like the best value), I have the best chance of pulling valuable stuff to sell by getting six of them.

So whenever that case arrives, I'll treat everyone to a box-by-box look at the case, then keep y'all posted on my progress as I see what I can sell things for.  I'll make everything very much available to each of you that's interested since I feel you deserve dibs, but I want to be clear that for the purposes of this experiment, I'll be selling only to start with.  After a reasonable amount of time, I'll cease the sell-only attitude and make things available for trade.  My plan is to try to sell stuff through Blowout's forums first as I have a pretty good rep there and wouldn't have to pay Feebay's outrageous, um, fees, but I'll have to see how that goes.

I'm very interested in finding out how a casual collector who doesn't sell cards as his day job can do cracking a case and trying to sell back some of it.  Still, I want to be clear that, especially during my time with this blog, the trading and collecting aspects of the hobby are still my primary focus; I'm not going to flip out on you and become a distributor or worse, an eBay seller (::shudder::) anytime soon.  I just saw this as an ideal opportunity to combine set-building with the experience of selling to see what happens.  I hope some of you find this interesting and follow along as I bust boxes and list stuff for sale.  If there's enough interest I'll consider some sort of live break, maybe even with contests and stuff to make it more interesting, so please let me know if you'd be down for that.  Right now I'm very excited and can't help thinking that no matter what happens, this will be tons of fun...FOR SCIENCE!