Last month I purchased a 2014 Topps Supreme Red Jon Singleton card from an eBay seller. It had been on my watch list for a very long time, and the price was low enough that I eventually caved in and picked it up.
Here is the picture from the auction. It's numbered # 03 / 10, with a sticker autograph. This product had a lot of parallels, and they all blend together after a while. I think I was getting ready to leave for my two weeks in Utah when the card arrived, so I tossed it on the card pile and scanned it along with the other cards I received during that time. It was only later, while I was cropping images to upload into my blog, that I noticed something off about the card. The serial number didn't match the card I remembered purchasing.
These are the scans I had in my folder. This is the Orange parallel, numbered # 02 / 15. I went back and checked the auction listing to make sure I'd purchased what I thought I'd purchased, and saw that I had indeed purchased the Red # 03 / 10 card and not an Orange # 02 / 15 card. Then I went through and tried to find out if maybe I'd purchased both cards and somehow inadvertently switched them. I am pretty sure I never purchased the Orange variation, and I couldn't find a Red variation in my collection anywhere. All signs pointed to the seller sending me the wrong card. I don't know if I can blame them too much. Aside from the serial number and a slight difference in background color, these cards are pretty much identical.
Since the price was so low and I didn't already have an Orange card in my collection, I decided just to keep the card without going through the trouble of filing a complaint. I've been watching for the # 03 / 10 to pop back up for sale, but it hasn't yet. This might be a bigger deal to me if the player/card value were different, but at Singleton's popularity level there isn't a lot of difference between low-numbered parallels. Maybe fifty cents or something. Certainly not more than the price of postage to send it back and forth across the country a couple of times.
I don't know why, but I find it kind of amazing that the same seller would have both of those very low numbered autograph cards of the same player.
ReplyDeleteIt happens pretty often if someone participates in group breaks or busts a lot of cases on their own.
DeleteYou should have sent the seller an email asking about it and then offer that instead of returning the Orange that you would buy the red again for the same price, or offer a touch less to represent the greater number of the card he sent you.
ReplyDeleteI guess I could have done that. I didn't even realize it was the wrong card until a couple of weeks after I received it, and I was still happy with what I got, so I let it ride.
DeleteI agree with Angus, no harm in asking the seller.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right. I just didn't feel like dealing with it at the time.
Delete