Bad call?

Since most of the sports world is talking about the horrendous call that Seattle made...to lose the Super Bowl, I thought it would be fun...err...interesting...err...well we've all made bad calls and I'm going to share a couple of mine.  Hindsight is 20-20 but dammit sometimes it'd be nice to know what's really sitting in front of you.

2 situations stand out for me.  If I knew what I knew now...at the time I was in this situation, my collection would have an additional 120-130 bobbleheads!  This happened early on when I was collecting.  I had responded to a craigslist ad for Twins bobbleheads.  If you've read previous blog posts, you'll know my passion started with Goldy bobbleheads but quickly moved to Twins bobbleheads.  The guy selling them had several and invited me over to look over them and pick out the ones I wanted.  I had no idea what I was getting into.  He had lots of Twins and a ton of other random bobbleheads, many Minnesota related.  Since I didn't know, at the time, that I was going to end up collecting all these random Minnesota ones, I focused solely on the Twins.  The prices were extremely fair too as he was just happy they were going to another collector.

I'm sure my wife doesn't mind that I missed out on this opportunity.  She'll probably smile and say "Thank God" under her breath or something...when she reads this.  That is...if she ever reads this thing!  And yes...I did go back to the guy and see if he had any of those still available and unfortunately he told me he sold all of them to a local dealer.

My second bad call has a very similar feel to the first.  I was a newbie at garage sales.  I noticed one that wasn't that much out of the way for me, so I stopped by on my way home from work.  I scoured their entire sale and only came across 2 bobbleheads.  The ad said "tons of bobbleheads."  Obviously they were genius marketing wizards, right?  Wrong...I asked about the bobbleheads.  The lady chuckled and responded with..."oh, most of them were sold this morning, when they are all under $5 each, they go quick!"  I pretty much kicked my own ass on the way back to my car.  The 2 that were left...Delmon Young, both versions (SGA & STH), I figured he deserved to sit on that table a while longer.

Apparently I have a "Professional Eye"

Recently I was contacted by a couple people about pricing some bobbleheads they were looking to sell.  This came out of left field, ya know...much like Delmon Young played the position, never knew what you were walking into!  Crap, that's 2 Delmon Young references in consecutive blog posts, pretty sure I've met that quota for...ever.  Anyway, back to the story.

After reading the email, I instantly knew I was going to help if our schedules lined up.  As I've wrote about several times, simply basing everything off eBay is a huge frustration of mine and the seller probably won't sell too much.  Luckily the sellers were motivated and completely understood the eBay vs. local idea.  I believe they had roughly 60 some bobbleheads, ranging widely over the past 10-15 years of giveaways and retails.  We met after several emails and I went thru everything they had and priced them out fairly (both for them and whoever was going to buy them).  That's important to me, they asked for my help, so I certainly wanted to be fair to them.  But part of being fair to them was pricing the bobbleheads at a value that would sell which leaves a fairly small sweet spot.

Shortly after I provided the help I received a thank you note saying that my "professional eye" was a lifesaver and they were so incredibly happy and gracious that I gave them my time.  In all honesty, it was totally my pleasure to help them.  I'd do that for most anyone.  It's fun looking at bobbleheads, maybe I'd see one that I didn't have, maybe I'd look at a bunch of common ones, no matter what I'll always try to help, especially since I have that "professional eye!"

Crap, its been over a week!

I've been meaning to write this blog for a while.  It's been over a week since I posted a blog, but not for a lack of trying or being lazy on my part.  It happened to be my wife's 30th birthday this past weekend and obviously we had to celebrate that in style.  So most of last week was spent getting ready for that wonderful event.

For most of my readers, you'll know I enjoy helping connect other collectors to bobbleheads they are looking for.  I've had several tell me, if you ever find a Pohlad or Mauer powder blue season ticket bobblehead, please let me know.  I've also been able to find several SGA bobbleheads for new collectors.  It's fun for me.  I wrote about the chase and the find a couple months ago.  Not only for my own collection, the chase and the find are fun for me when helping others too.  Even if its a Delmon Young...wait...no, not many people actually "desire" that bobblehead, how bout...even if it's a Gary Gaetti SGA, as Pharrell would say, reason for the chase and the find is all "because I'm Happy."

So if you are looking for something specific, email me, leave a comment, get in contact with me somehow and I'll do my best to connect you to that all elusive Delm...I mean, anything from Gary Gaetti to Carl Pohlad!

Minnesota Twins ST Bobblehead Set (Part 9 - Year 2009)

This is probably the least appealing ST bobblehead set the Twins produced.  Dan Gladden, Ron Gardenhire, Rick Aguilera and Delmon Young make up this set - certainly leaves a lot to be desired huh?  And that's all I'm going to say.

And here's the comparison with the 2008 SGA bobblehead set.  Look on...in amazement...or perhaps sheer bore.  

Minnesota Twins SGA Bobblehead Set (Part 9 - Year 2008)

Ahhh...out with a bang?  No, a thump?  No, not that either...maybe just a lowly whimper?  This set leaves a lot to be desired.  This was the final set of 4 the Twins did as SGAs.  None of these are very valuable. The set includes Dan Gladden, Ron Gardenhire, Rick Aguilera and Delmon Young.  Nothing too interesting or intriguing about this set at all.  Perhaps the whimper this set stirred up caused the Twins to rethink this promotion for future years?