Make Sure To Check An Auction Carefully: Russ Martin Edition

Julie from Things are Funner Here. was recently asking around for some eBay tips. Well, here are a couple that have done right by me, and helped me land the beauty you'll soon see below.

It always pays to check an auction twice on eBay, and search for similar items to judge how good of a deal you could get. I've also recently learned the benefit of the "Watch List" function, particularly leaving items on that list even after they've ended. Which is where this beautiful Russell Martin patch /25 comes in.

4/25

I was aimlessly searching for interesting Russ Martin hits I didn't have and that were cheap enough to entice me, when I came upon this. I added it to my Watch List, and when the auction came to a close, I had let it go without even giving it the old college try.

But I wasn't the only one; not one soul bid on it, and the seller ended up re-listing it. I was looking to clear items that had ended from my Watch List when I saw that Martin had been re-listed. Had I not Watch Listed it, I doubt I would have come back upon it. So I re-thought things, and seeing as how it was short-printed to just 25 copies, I thought it was worth it, what with the cheap price, Martin being my third primary player collection, and the blue signifying that it came from the Dodgers area on the front of his jersey.

So I put down a last second bid, and it thankfully was the high bid and held. I took this pretty little thing down for $3.65 shipped, with my winning bid a grand total of a buck fifteen. I waited, and it arrived. And then....something awesome happened.

This card, listed as a jersey swatch, was actually a patch, and even came equipped with a bit of stitching creeping out of the top right corner, something that had eluded me when I looked over the seller's scan of the card.

I then decided to see how rare this card was to eBay, and after a quick search I only came upon one other. Strangely enough, it's set at a BIN or Best Offer price of $10 (with three bucks for shipping), but it's short-printed to just 50 copies and is a mostly white swatch with a tiny line of a second color at the bottom, which of course means it is the real jersey swatch of the two.

So the moral is simple: a little research and utilizing the wonderful tool that is the Watch List comes in handy, and sometimes will yield a great card like the one above.