Buying on eBay: My Fascination With Brett Baty

Over the past two months, I have found myself spending more time searching for cards on eBay and less on COMC. COMC, or Check Out My Cards, is an online trading card consignment store. You send them your cards and they load them to their marketplace and ship them when they’re purchased. Although I’ve never sold any of my cards on COMC, I’ve purchased several thousand cards over the past few years. In January, I posted an article discussing the Topps’ final three releases for 2021. I knew it would take time for those products to make their way to the COMC Marketplace, so I retreated to eBay and pretty much haven’t left.

I have a few saved sellers on eBay and one is 2bros788. This seller’s online store features thousands of singles of newer releases starting at $.99. With a reasonable flat rate of $2.00 shipping, I have purchased cards from this seller a few times. The cards I have purchased have been in good condition and well-packaged. So far this year, I’ve made two purchases from this seller: The entire 2021 Bowman Draft Chrome and 2021 Bowman’s Best team sets.     

 

 

I’ve been surprised at some of the prices I have been seeing for the Bowman Draft Chrome cards of JT Schwartz, Dominica Hamel, and Calvin Ziegler. Although these are each player’s first baseball card, some sellers on eBay appear to have been attempting to take advantage of the high demand for this specific product. Thankfully, 2bros788 is one of the most reasonably priced sellers you will find on eBay.

I also pieced together the Bowman Draft paper set. Somehow, I ended up purchasing the cards of JT Schwartz, Dominic Hamel, and Calvin Ziegler twice. I also had another seller throw in two extra copies of the Brett Baty card from an auction I won.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This ended up sending me down a rabbit hole looking for some of the different Bowman and Bowman Chrome parallels and refractors of various Mets top prospects.

Mark Vientos

I really need to purchase more cards of Vientos. I wasn’t too enthused with the prices I was finding on some of the eBay listings, but managed to find good prices on three different offerings from 2020 Bowman, including the Bowman Draft Sky Blue parallel, numbered 426 of a print run of 499. I purchased one more 2020 Bowman Draft parallel of the power hitting third basemen that is still in the mail. I have about 20 cards altogether dating back to 2019 of Vientos and plan on doubling that in 2022.

 

 

 

Francisco Alvarez

I’ve had a rough time on auctions for Francisco Alvarez, having at one point lost five in a row for various 2021 Bowman releases Alvarez was included in. The Mets’ top prospect has been a popular target of buyers on eBay with starting prices on auctions significantly higher than other Mets prospects. Fortunately, I was able to get Alvarez’ 2021 Bowman Draft Blue parallel, numbered 44 of 150 and a 2021 Bowman Draft Chrome Sky Blue Refractor. Considering that Alvarez made his first appearance in the 2020 Bowman Prospects set, I’ve managed to purchase roughly 20 cards of the Mets future catcher. I’m hoping to triple that in 2022. Likely ticketed for Double-A Binghamton to begin, Alvarez may well be catching in Syracuse in late August when the Rumble Ponies come to town for a six game series.

 

Brett Baty

I have developed an unhealthy fascination with cards of the young third basemen. Of all the Mets prospects that I have been buying cards of, Brett Baty seems to be the player with the most widely available variety of cards and I have definitely taken advantage of the availability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there’s more…

 

 

 

 

                                                   …and more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s safe to say I’ve gone all in on Baty and pushed all my chips to the center of the table. Unsurprisingly, I’m still waiting for a few more cards of Baty to be delivered. I have over 50 cards of Baty now and easily blow past the century mark before he walks up the the dugout steps in Citi for the first time, unless I manage to slow down.

Yeah, that probably won’t happen.

I’ve also spent time searching for different team sets from the early 2000’s and attempting to complete some team sets from 1990’s. One of the largest eBay stores for purchasing team sets is run by a seller named teamsets4u. This seller has a massive inventory, but also has some of the highest prices. Before purchasing from this seller, I try to do my research to see if I can find the cards elsewhere at better prices. On top of having some of the highest prices on eBay, this seller charges $4.00 shipping plus an extra $.50 for each additional item. After doing some digging, teamsets4u was the only seller on eBay selling 2002 Upper Deck MVP, so I pulled the trigger.

I was also able to obtain several reasonably priced team sets from the early 2000’s, such as 2001 Donruss, three different 2001 Fleer releases (E-X, Focus, and Showcase), 2003 Donruss Elite, and 2004 Fleer Ultra. Moving further along in the decade, I finally purchased the 2009 Topps team set minus the cards from the Update & Highlights set. The 2009 Topps team set has eluded me for several years for no other reason than I have been unable to find the set at a reasonable price. There’s nothing special about the team set from 2009. Although it does include a Daniel Murphy rookie card, that should not cause the cost of this set to be as high as it has been listed at. I guess the best way to describe it is that I finally surrendered when I purchase the set.

The most rewarding purchases I’ve made were a few random cards I purchased from the largest eBay trading card store on the market, burbanksportscards. Burbank Sports Cards is an actual brick and mortar card store located in Burbank, California that has millions of singles for all sports available in their eBay store, starting at $.99. Last month, I was able to complete the Mets team sets for 1993 Classic Best (minors), the 1995 Score Gold Rush parallel set, 1996 Emotion X-L, 1996 Fleer Update, 1996 Topps Chrome, and 1998 Bowman Chrome.

Being able to complete a team set by purchasing the cards individually is not always the easiest thing to do, but in some instances, it may be the only option.

What cards have you been purchasing? Drop some pictures in the comments below.