My last February hauls from eBay

In preparation for my latest foray into The Budget eBay Collector, I spent the last week of February buying like crazy on my favorite site.  Here is what I got back, including my first non-plate 1/1 (AND IT'S A GREAT ONE for me anyway).

These three 2010 Topps National Chicle Chrome Refractors #'d to 499 I got in a lot for the very nice price of $3.06 shipped.  I would've figured just the Wright would go for more than that.  I guess I was lucky that the seller didn't mention any of the players in the title.  I bought this lot for the Ubaldo, the other two are for trade (Better hurry the Wright will be snapped up approximately 3.6 seconds after publishing this post).

I got this lot of 6 2010 Topps Chrome Xfractors for about a buck a piece with a best offer feature.  I think I finally figured out the best way to scan the 2010 Chromes.  Penny sleeve in a top loader, then crop...they scanned pretty well compared to the Chicles above which I scanned card only.  In this lot I only wanted the Hawpe and trade bait, the other 5 are up for grabs and shouldn't last long given the teams involved.

 

What's this card from the overproduction era doing in my eBay buys?  Well, I tried one of those 1 random card for a penny deals and my random came up to be this 1989 Bowman Andy Hawkins, could've been worse I guess.  The best thing I remember about Hawkins was his 8 inning no hitter in 1989 in which he lost 4-0 (gotta love defense).  The Tulo is a 2007 Upper Deck Rookie of the Month insert for the rare month of Postseason.  I think it only comes around every other leap year, seriously couldn't they have put October.

 

I got this lot of 9 Tommy Helms cards in pretty good condition ranging from 1969-1977 for a VERY cheap price of 82 cents shipped.  Once again the lack of info from the seller paid off for me, because he couldn't identify the 1969 Deckle Edge or 1969 Topps All Star cards.  In an ideal world, I would feel guilty for taking advantage of this type of situation, but they have access to the same info I can get.  I just take a little time to know the products I am purchasing.  The extra 1970 Topps Helms is for trade and the card number is 159 for you set builders out there.

AND NOW FOR THE CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH PORTION OF OUR SHOW

I picked up this Razor Letterman "I" numbered 16/20 for $7 and change.  It is the second I in Friedrich.  I always wondered if players with multiple appearances of the same letter in their name had a proportional number of letters available.

This 2008 Razor Signature Series Black parallel auto #447/1199 was included in a package for the next card down the page.  By itself, this card would've been a nice purchase as it is my first non-patch auto of Friedrich.  But with this next card, it was a great deal.

The 2009 Tristar Projections purple parallel of Christian Friedrich #'d 1/1.  Yep, I am the only person in the world with this card and I already had the base, green /50, and yellow /25 for this set.  All I need now is the orange /5 and I have a pretty cool rainbow.  The seller was asking $55 + shipping for both cards, I best offered him down to $40 bucks total for both.  It wasn't a slam dunk, out-of-site best bargain ever type of purchase, but I don't think I got a bad deal here.  And for the player super collector the time to buy a rare card is the first time you see it because you might never get it otherwise.