A place where Colorado Rockies baseball card collectors (all 3 of us) can waste some time reading about our favorite sport. The Rockies and their cards will be the primary focus, but I like to go off on tangents as well so anything and everything baseball related may be covered here.

Monday, February 28, 2011

The RETURN of the Budget eBay Collector for March



Everyone seemed to enjoy The Budget eBay Collector in my first month here and the results column from January is still my most commented post.  I consider myself a pioneer of sorts because I even had another blogger try the challenge.  Even though Scott was unsuccessful, it sounds like he had fun doing it.  I had a blast doing it and I figured I would revive the original for March.  I was debating whether I should stick with the original rules or augment them for a little less repetitiveness.  I decided to stick with most of the original rules, while changing it up a bit to make it a little more challenging.

*QUICK SIDEBAR* The $5 budget applies to eBay purchases only.  I will still be buying blasters for Sunday and the occasional unopened box or five from online shops and of course my shipping budget for trades.  Yeah it's technically breaking your budget, but I will not purchase singles or lots from anywhere until this experiment is complete.


Here are the original rules of the game from my January post.

1. The $5.00 budget WILL factor include shipping costs meaning no cheap buying of the 1 cent card with $42 shipping here.

2. I will allow myself single card purchases only.  No big lots, they would make the next rule too easy.

3. The goal of this experiment will be to acquire 10 cards that will either fit into my collections or be decent buys (read: trade bait) in general.

4. At least 2 of those must be numbered, parallel, auto, or relic cards.

5. 15 non consecutive minute time limit per day (I'm using an old stopwatch...remember kids no cheating)...this limit is in place for three reasons.  First, to make it a little challenging to select some quality cards.  Second, I don't have the time nor the desire to look more than that.  Lastly, I know myself and if I looked longer I would break my budget VERY quickly.

6. No cards from a major overproduction era set.  Quick sidebar, I hate the term "junk wax" on this blog you will see the replacement term "overproduction era." I started collecting in this time period and to me no matter how many cards were produced, I still think they are great (but don't send me all your quadruples please!).


Rules 1, 3, 5, and 6 will remain the same.  Rules 2 & 4 will be augmented slightly. And a rule #7 that I used for the original, but didn't post.

The NEW rules

2. I will allow myself to purchases lots, however each lot will only count as one card toward the goal of 10.

4. EVERY card must be an auto / relic / parallel / serial numbered.  Exceptions to this rule will be vintage cards (my definiton of vintage is cards produced the year before I was born...in my case 1975 Topps is the latest I can buy) and of course any cards for my personal collections (Rockies, Mashburns, or 76-78 Topps Rookie Cup Cards I don't have).

7. All cards must be IN HAND by the end of March to count toward the goal.

Some people may ask 'Why on Earth would you make this challenge more difficult?'  To them I say, why the hell not?  If I fail, I'm not fired from the blog community or anything and there's no point in doing this if it's going to be a cake walk either.

So what do you guys think of the rule changes?  Am I crazy?  I'll answer that yes I am.  Do you think I have a chance at success?  Have you ever been probed by alien creatures?  (just seeing if you are still reading)

Keep tuned for updates and I hope this version is as enjoyable as the original.

10 comments:

SpastikMooss said...

I love it!

Scott Crawford said...

This could be interesting.

If you rule out rule #4 and add rule #2, I killed February dead.

So, let's see if we're clear...

All 10 cards have to be pre-birth year ('73-back for me), auto/relic/parallel/numbered, or part of personal collections, but not from '86-'94 even if we need 'em for our personal collections?

The 15 minute thing gets much easier once you have some good saved searches in place, but it's still not my preference to have time limits. Did you use saved searches last month, or did you consider that cheating?

hiflew said...

@spastikmooss - yeah I was so looking forward to March 1st for the revival of this...it is so much fun

@Scott - Saved searches or any other eBay feature are fair game in my book. The only thing I consider cheating are snipe programs.

Are you doing it this month also? If so, we might have to have a little collusion to avoid costing each other bank.

Scott Crawford said...

Yep, I'm doing it again this month and, really, every month until it becomes impossible, I think.

I've been thinking about how tough this one could get with even a few of us (say 3 or 4 people) doing it. Could be fun, but it could also be kinda self-sabotaging for us to keep talkin' about it so much.

As for collusion, isn't that kinda cheating? You actually do still owe me a snipe for that Buckner last month. ;)

In all seriousness, I'm open to suggestions, though the time constraints and the "other people doing what we're doing" thing makes it tough to sort out. I'm also a horrible, horrible sniper (without sniping programs), and rarely leave a bid on anything before the last 30 seconds of an auction, so "Oh, Scott bid on that. I'll lay off." wouldn't work. I'd be able to spot your auctions (if you bid before the last few minutes), but you wouldn't be able to spot mine that way.

hiflew said...

I emailed you and you are correct "collusion" was a very poor choice of word.

Scott Crawford said...

Eh, I've no problem with the word.

30 minutes into the month and I'm already on pace to be 50 cents over budget! Stay tuned for a post coming right up!

Justin McLeod said...

Now that I've got so many followers, I need to pull my alter-ego out of hiding. "Bring back the Grumpy Blogger!" they say.

The Lost Collector said...

I love it! Looking forward to watching.

vio789 said...

can i use this idea?

thanks,
vio789

hiflew said...

@vio789 - I have no problem sharing the idea. All I ask is that my blog gets credit for the inspiration behind it.