Breaking it Down 6: Another eBay Break Post

One of the eBay case breaks I participated in actually paid off for me, although it still doesn't make up for the 1/1 R.A. Dickey autograph I missed out on in a last-second bidding flurry. Most of the time there is not much competition for the Blue Jays, so I think I got into this 2013 Topps Triple Threads break for whatever the starting bid was.

I got a base card of Jose Reyes, purple parallels numbered out of #/650 for Reyes and Jose Bautista, and an Orange? Bronze? parallel of R.A. Dickey numbered out of #/125.

Then, near the end of the break, they pulled this autograph/relic card of R.A. Dickey numbered # 2 / 9. In real life the background has got a holofoil sheen to it, and the only thing that really holds it back is the sticker autograph, although I believe this is my first in-hand autograph of R.A. Dickey, so it's still pretty cool in my mind. But the money in these kind of breaks definitely seems to flow to the guys on the other side of the camera. I have been trying to think of every cost I can related to running breaks of my own, as the initial rush of saying, "I could totally make money off of that!" usually leads down a path of ruin. It would still be an awesome way to make a side income, even if it just paid for my hobbies and nothing else. But it would be cool to actually pay some bills with card money.

I've backed out of actually participating in the breaks for a while, but I still log on whenever I know of one that is going down so that I can look for things that work and things that don't. One thing I've noticed during breaks that aren't going so well is that one angry or belligerent customer can sour the whole experience for everyone, especially if it's a draft-style break and someone new to the whole thing is having trouble making their pick. How do you keep that one guy from driving other paying customers away? That new guy in the room could be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars to you in the future if you keep him coming back.