Here’s a question for you all. Have you ever purchased the exact same card you previously owned? I don’t mean a similar copy, I mean the exact same one, with the same graded cert number, so you know you had it before.
If so, was it from the same person you sold it to? Or, did you just happen to see it for sale perhaps years later? How much more did you have to pay to get it again?
I’m just curious how often this sort of thing happens. A lot of us have cards we’ve sold before that we might miss. No one wants to pay 10x the price to get their card back, but I’m sure some have done it.
Yes, actually! A PSA 10 Skyridge Poliwrath. Graded it myself. The buyer relisted it a few months later and I bought it back for roughly the same amount I sold it for. Ended up selling it again when prices went up a bit. Poor Poliwrath. I hope he found a loving home this time.
Only one card a PSA 10 Japanese Dragonite EX Full art from XY Rising fist.
I bought it ungraded, sent it in for grading, held onto it for a little while and then I sold it needing money to put towards another card I wanted to buy for my collection
Several months later a friend of mine buys it off someone to re-sell and randomly messages me one day and offers it to me. I thought it must be some sort of sign and bought it back instantly.
I have kept it to this day in my collection.
The person who sold it to my friend was a completely different person to who I initially sold it to.
I bought it back for what I roughly sold it for from memory.
I have thought about doing this… I had a set of sequential serial number PSA 10 Flareon - Jolteon - Vaporeon gold stars which I would pay a premium for due to the sequential serial.
A buddy of mine graded a PSA 10 Rocket’s Raikou from the Japanese VS set and sold it off over a year ago to cover some emergency bills. Fast forward about 5 months and a guy in Canada reached out looking to sell some slabs to me. We haggled on a price, he sent me tracking and everything was good to go. The guy ended up losing big on Instagram raffles, ducked out, and I never heard from him again. I had had a pretty good rapport with him and really trusted him, so that one hit pretty deep. Over two months went by (and this is right at the beginning of COVID) and some random box arrives on my doorstep. All of the slabs that I had purchased and an additional “apology” slab were finally here. I had written them out of my mind as a loss and moved on. It just so happens that the free slab thrown in was none other than the exact same Raikou slab my buddy had graded and sold, same Cert # and everything. Once I posted it on my page he reached out immediately and I had to send it to him simply because of that story. I love when cards have a story, and more importantly a journey. They’re worth so much more than the monetary value attached.
I haven’t had this happen yet, but there is one card I wish I could get back.
Throughout the e-series and early-ex eras I had a tradition of buying one booster box of every set as soon as it was released. My parents disapproved. They thought there were better ways I could spend my lawn mowing money. I’m glad I didn’t listen.
I opened a box of Skyridge when the set first came out in 2003. I got two Crystal Ho-Ohs in that box. They went in storage and I left the hobby. Then in 2016 when I came back, I sent them both in for grading. Both Ho-Ohs got PSA 9, and their serial numbers are sequential.
I sold one of them for $150 at the time. I still have the other. I kind of wish I could get my other Ho-Oh back, just because I have the memory of pulling both of them from one box. They were like twins!
Then again, if I don’t allow myself to part with duplicates, how will I ever sell anything?
P.S.,
My surviving Ho-Oh is #26479330. Maybe someone here has the twin!
