2002 Studio Private Signings Autograph #10/15

This is one of my favorite cards of The Big Hurt.

Check out those cannons he calls "arms"! Can you imagine swatting a baseball with those guns? Ouch! And I love the American Flag flowing in the background - a completely appropriate and wonderful combination of images. If Donruss could've slipped in a pic of an apple pie somewhere in there - I think that would've covered all the bases. ;-)

As I mentioned earlier - this is one of those cards that I just had to have - no matter what it took. Having already been the losing underbidder in an earlier auction - I was determined that I wouldn't let another get away. <g>

Oh, a quick recap about the 'horrendously stupid chance' I took to get it.

The seller had an eBay rating of something like 8 or 9 - something really new. AND ON TOP OF THAT - he had already accrued 2 negatives for failure to complete deals. IIRC, I think his overall rating was like 70%! Yikes.

So, what made me think that he might be on the level? If you looked beyond the numbers (admittedly they looked really bad) his response to each of the negatives was that he was new to eBay and didn't understand how to complete the payment process. Throw into all that mix was his inability to add a scan with the auction. Those were all red-flags for any seasoned eBay member. But again, if you looked beyond the numbers, his explanations were genuine-sounding and he seemed contrite. Ever notice the real screw-ups and lying thieves are arrogant and defiant to the bitter end?

After a lot of thought, not to mention doing a couple of gut and wallet checks, I ended up putting in a bid of $40 bucks. When I found out that I won - I was shocked. And I only barely won. The only other bidder had gone as high as $33. It was obvious that every major Big Hurt collector was staying away from a seller with such a sketchy history.

However, I paid him promptly and waited. Two weeks passed - no card. I had pretty much written off the money as a gambling debt and was about to bomb his rating with a nasty negative when out of the blue - the card was in the day's mail. You should've seen my face = {:-O

I checked, and double-checked, and then I triple-checked against other Donruss Private Signatures that I had busted myself. After half an hour of close scrutiny it dawned on me that I had won a $100 card for thirty-four bucks! {:-)

Finally, if you check out the provided scan, it appears to have a bend in the lower left corner. Actually, that's a graphic design feature on the card and an optical illusion when viewed straight on. If you look closely - it's a graphic gradient band. And right after the "DH" - you can see the start of another gradient band. It's a design feature on all Private Signings. When I first opened up the case and looked closely at the card - I actually thought it was a huge bend and therefore explaining the low cost. But this is in fact an excellent NM/Mint example.

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