Today's newest addition to my Zack Wheat Collection is probably the Wheat I am most proud to own. My pride is derived not simply from its scarcity, and certainly not from its value. This immense pride comes from what it took to acquire it and call it mine. It popped up on eBay earlier this year and I recognized the username as a Net54 member. I reached out over there to see if I could do any better and to my delight he offered me 20% off.
The price was still extremely high based on what I usually spend on my collection. I had a plan and the first part was seeing if the seller would allow me some time to raise the funds. He obliged, and I was positive the next part would fall into place with patience and persistence. I was going to have to sell and sell and sell some more, which would be a brand new avenue for me in this hobby I love. It was not just the high price that prompted me to decide to finance my purchase with sold funds, but losing my job a few months prior was another huge driving factor.
Off to Twitter I went to hawk my wares and -- with a few eBay sales mixed in -- I was able to fund the entirety of the purchase about 3 months later. I didn't sell anything super expensive but I jumped into as many B/S/T threads as I could; I joined a baseball-centric sellers group; and I reached out directly to people I came across. I moved as much as I could and moved anything I was not tied to emotionally or that did not fit directly into a main PC (Wheat, Campy, Ruth, Jackie, Cobb, Archer, etc).
I still have far too many cards I do not want and I continue to sell as much as I can every week. It has afforded me the ability to not only buy this Wheat and have it end up as one big trade with no cash leaving my savings, but also has allowed me to pick up a huge piece for my Archer PC and an exceedingly rare Campanella item that will be on its way shortly.
This 1922 Wm. Paterson of Buck is a POP only in a PSA slab. There is one lesser graded copy in an SGC holder and I'd imagine maybe one or two floating around raw. It's certainly the rarest Wheat I own and have encountered -- and I did not even know it existed before it showed up online.
The set is Canadian in origin and William Paterson was a candy company.
I've been selling for the last few years in order to pay for other purchases. It's not overly fun, but it does sort of make the purchases a little more special when you were able to get them by getting rid of unwanted items, and not have to pay for whatever it is out of pocket.
ReplyDeleteIt's been so gratifying to move stuff and see it pay off in the end! Tedious at times, and frustrating during the lulls, but a lot of fun overall. I've enjoyed it waaaaay more than I ever thought I would.
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