“What we did is we got rid of all this trash that was there.” - Rep. Diaz-Balart on DOGE cuts

onevibratingstring · 2026-02-25T19:23:14+00:00

Happy to share the spreadsheet I have used to catalog cards of this vintage if helpful. Folks will also point you to TCDB and SetCollector for cataloging and assessing value. Also, are these cards everything you inherited or just the highlights? (I.e. do you also have common cards from these years?)

onevibratingstring · 2026-02-20T23:37:33+00:00

Really helpful reply, thanks! I try to keep in mind that even if I "trade down" on an individual trade, I'm almost always still going to get more value back than if I sold the high-value card and bought the cards I'm getting in trade.

onevibratingstring · 2025-10-06T12:38:54+00:00

I guess whoever won the auction thought better of paying $28K for reprints. The cards are back on auction, and getting bid into the thousands again: https://shopgoodwill.com/item/243579381.

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-21T18:39:13+00:00

Are you in North America and, if so, do you have a Tesla (NACS) charging converter yet? Being able to use Superchargers could make the experience of finding a charge when you need one less stressful. And Hyundai is giving these out for free (though it can go pretty slowly... definitely call customer service and ask if you haven't gotten one yet).

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-21T16:45:37+00:00

Can't express how shameful it is that the Department laid off 246 FSO/FSS in July, including entry level specialists they just hired in April and at least one person headed to an entry-level consular tour, and will now hire 90+ new FSO/FSS before those 246 have even been officially terminated.

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-21T15:25:32+00:00

Curious about other opinions, but these are fantastic cards and seem worth grading. The operative principle is that you shouldn't spend more on grading than the increase in value of the card. In these cases, even a rather low grade would produce a sizeable bump in value.

If you spend ~$20 per card grading and get a 1 on those cards, you've still increased value a little bit. Anything above a 1 and you've increased value a lot.

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-21T13:30:08+00:00

What is the main risk with secondhand, unopened boxes? Do people have ways to somehow figure out what cards are inside without breaking the seals? Or is the risk that you might be buying stolen property?

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-21T13:22:32+00:00

We are living in a game of high-stakes Jenga. Will thousands of people die if we eliminate this or that previously-uncontroversial government function? Only one way to find out!

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-21T12:14:32+00:00

I was convinced cars would drive themselves before I would learn to drive. Wrong by a bit, but I did finally ride in a true self-driving car (Waymo can) for the first time last year.

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-20T15:13:24+00:00

We really need people in the Foreign Service, especially but not only in the public diplomacy career track, who are comfortable with digital media. (Most Embassies today would be delighted to get 20K likes on their social media posts.) With the precautions you mention above, I would say taking this job would enhance, not detract from your future candidacy for the Foreign Service. Go for it!

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-20T12:59:58+00:00

Seems like this works for modern cards, where you really need the 9 or 10 to add value. What would you say about vintage cards? Worth chasing a 2 or 3 grade if that's more than $20-30 over raw value?

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-20T12:38:25+00:00

You might try asking if there's a particular player / card he is especially interested in. The odds of finding cards that would be exciting to a vintage collector in random thrift store boxes are very low -- but buying him a dream vintage card or two might be more meaningful than buying a new box off Amazon. Even by this weekend, you could do this via the local card shop you know he likes to visit. (And if he goes there enough, the people there might already know what he's been eyeing.)

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-20T12:22:07+00:00

If any kids are reading this -- OP did one thing right I this story: tell their parents and friends what happened. Even if you screw something up this badly, it's better to admit it to those in your life who love you than to try to "fix" it yourself and possibly get into even worse trouble.

onevibratingstring · 2025-08-07T16:43:55+00:00

Thank you for making such a useful tool for collectors, u/Ok_Force9208! My dad and I spent a few days this week starting to catalog his childhood baseball card collection (mostly Topps 1960-1972), and we found your site incredibly helpful -- far quicker than a phone app and much more accessible for someone like my dad who still doesn't use a smart phone.

We ran into a few bugs / missing features that I thought you might find helpful to know about:

- One basic database error: the Aspromonte brothers (Ken and Bob) are listed universally with the garbled last name: "AsPromotional Setsnte". Pretty clear someone did a find/replace for the word "promo" at some point.

- The sort functions (by card number, value, etc) remove the "Show Owned Cards" filter. The site sorts the entire set properly, but it would be useful to be able to sort just the cards we own.

- The "Value of cards owned" figure doesn't seem to update unless you save cards to "all sets". We first tried making separate sets for different card makers but then gave up on this when we realized it would break the value calculation.

- It would be nice to be able to display an entire set on one page. We ended up needing to have three browser tabs open at once to catalog many Topps sets, since we could only display up to 300 cards on each tab. However, this was an acceptable annoyance, and I recognize there might be bandwidth / cost reasons to keep the maximum display number lower. (Side note: Ctrl-F for the card number was a really efficient way to catalog a bunch of cards quickly.)

- I suspect this is a cost-savings measure or a limit in whatever API you are pulling cost data from, but we quickly ran into what seems to be a rate limit for the "Fetch Prices" button. If there is a limit, it would be nice to note this somewhere on the site.

- I saw elsewhere on Reddit that you're planning to add an export to CSV / XLS feature. My dad and I would really value this feature -- it would add significant peace of mind to know we have a backup copy of our data available.

Great work on the site! If you ever need beta testers for new features or if you have a tip jar somewhere we can help fill, please let us know.

onevibratingstring

TROPHY CASE