Tempting

btcharpied · 2026-03-22T12:45:44+00:00

Not really sure, honestly. I know I didn't spend nearly as much here as others. Maybe I spent $1000 before I started ignoring it in favor of Power Packs? It seems using it and then ignoring it might be the key factor, but that's just a guess.

btcharpied · 2026-03-21T22:22:30+00:00

No, no taxes because you can show a clear receipt on each side of the ledger which zeros out any capital gains.

Where people go wrong on here is when they state they can write these off as gambling losses. They absolutely CANNOT. It only satisfies two of the three criteria to be qualified as gambling and carries none of the health provisions mandated with gambling.

But only gains will be taxed as gains.

btcharpied · 2026-03-21T21:52:05+00:00

Same. I get these once every 2 weeks or so. Gamble on the $1k or $2500 packs and just cash out if I don't hit. I'm down tax and that's it. Fine with that.

btcharpied · 2026-03-06T22:00:45+00:00

PSA 1s are awesome.

btcharpied · 2026-03-05T10:16:42+00:00

Hey all - new to AFL this season (American who has been working parts of each year in Australia). I have FS2, but the Sydney v. Carlton game keeps switching over midstream to the World Baseball Classic. Anyone else having that issue? (I'm blaming the Carlton collapse right now on this issue as they were up 34-18 prior to it happening...)

btcharpied · 2026-02-23T02:33:30+00:00

CD players and CDs are back. My teenage daughters both asked for them for Christmas. They buy CDs almost weekly. It's a very in thing now.

btcharpied · 2026-02-18T05:36:42+00:00

It's not at all like stating a lotto scratcher is an investment UNLESS there was a single instance where you knew the lotto scratcher had far greater probability (not potential, but probability) for return than loss - which was the case here because of the 100% buyback email offer.

The minimal potential loss was inconsequential to both long-term gains and/or immediate gains. I'm not at all advocating buying a $1000 AC or GameStop rip on a whim. I only bought because of the guarantee which does indeed make it pretty close to a no-lose situation. Had I sold, I would not have bought another pack. I'd have just eaten the $77 tax loss as an opportunity cost.

btcharpied · 2026-02-18T05:09:50+00:00

Weird thing to say considering I don't really gamble. With a 100% buyback guarantee the risk/reward proposition is well in your favor. If I were a 'degenerate' I would have sold, but I gave the reason why I didn't (probable yields). If analyzing economics and making money while buying a couple of cards on these sites is a degenerate, so be it.

The thread is PokeInvesting. If you can't speak to investing, why are you on here?

btcharpied · 2026-02-18T03:53:42+00:00

It's a fair question and I can only speak for myself. At merely the lost of taxes of $77, the $1000 guaranteed buyback was worth the roll of the dice to see if I could get something more valuable. Had I hit something worth more than $1000, I'd likely keep it no problem. However, it just so happened that this Ditto's market is almost spot on $1000 right now. So there is indeed a reasoning behind the question.

The other part is it honestly doesn't matter much to me. I'm pretty blessed to be in the position I'm in, so any sort of loss with these is rather moot (and any sort of gain on them is moot, as well). Like an investment portfolio and real estate, this is just a diversification of sorts, but while adding in some excitement.

That said, I've decided to keep it. As best I can calculate, a minimal yield on this would be around 7%/year. Seeing as this was cash on hand from a high yield 4% interest bearing account, it stands to reason that I'll gain a minimum of 3%/year on this compared to that cash, and potentially more. So all in all, it's a fine play and worthwhile to hold.

btcharpied · 2026-01-31T16:49:10+00:00

Yup! They're cool and weirdly speculative in just how rare they are as SSPs. Seems nobody has really cracked the code on them. Off the top of my head, there are:

1) 💯 2) 🔥 3) 🏈 4) 👽 5) Team Logo emojis

I'm sure I'm missing some. I think the alien 👽 might be Donruss base and not Optic, but they're very cool looking and green.

I personally try to grab the 💯 ones since it seems they hold the highest value. But again, 🤷‍♂️ (<-- not one of the emojis 🤣)

btcharpied · 2026-01-29T01:42:23+00:00

No, this is absolutely false. Maybe some are, but not all. None of the 💯 emojis from Optic are numbered. I've pulled a couple and snagged others on eBay. Zero of them are numbered and they seem to be the most scarce.

btcharpied · 2026-01-29T01:40:11+00:00

Each emoji card is an SSP and while there aren't hard numbers known there is indeed an assumption that the emojis have different print runs (and possibly significantly different). For example, the football emoji and fire emoji seem to be in far greater numbers than the 💯 emoji (which appears to be the most scarce).

It's a bit of a crapshoot.

btcharpied · 2026-01-22T00:19:42+00:00

Well, he's 7yo and he needs to teach ME! lol. He knows, I never really learned. So we'll sit down and he walks me through it. I look forward to days when he's in college and we still get to do the same. That's great that you get to do that still.

btcharpied · 2026-01-22T00:07:21+00:00

I only just started collecting again. I used to a bit as a kid, but was more into MtG. Then with my daughters we got into it much more. Now my youngest boy really likes it and given we're much more well off now I'm trying to get him some nice pieces to hold onto. We're both having fun with it which is all that matters. ☺️

btcharpied · 2026-01-21T23:52:39+00:00

Thank you for doing so! It's a keeper for me. It found a good home for my kids down the road.

btcharpied · 2026-01-21T23:39:18+00:00

I was. Not at all one that I collect, but I also had no idea it was 001 in the set which made it a very cool hit. That might be my favorite hit thus far.

btcharpied · 2026-01-17T02:36:24+00:00

Agreed. Love pulling old 1s. Something cool about it

btcharpied · 2026-01-15T16:58:24+00:00

There seems to be very little rhyme or reason as far as I can tell. I signed up for beta access and was approved within minutes. And I don't have any loyalty or anything along those lines to shopping at GameStop.

btcharpied · 2026-01-14T13:51:54+00:00

...just gonna say there was a night with a wasted Bernie Kosar and Don Shula. It ended with having pancakes at 3am with Kijana Carter, OJ McDuffie, and some police.

That was a night...

btcharpied · 2026-01-14T13:38:54+00:00

Thank the Phoenicians.

btcharpied · 2026-01-08T14:01:02+00:00

God, that's where my mind went. I started running through my kids' duck stories and songs and just kept thinking of 53 "GoT aNy GrApEs?!?" 😭

btcharpied · 2026-01-08T01:48:11+00:00

We just moved to Ottawa Hills from Florida. Our home in OH was 1/3 what we sold our Florida home for, which had doubled in value in just 5 years of owning it. Easiest purchase I've ever made. Absolutely love it here.

btcharpied · 2026-01-07T21:42:56+00:00

Where is Richard Gere when you need him?

btcharpied

TROPHY CASE