Josh Bard PHOTOMATCHED 2007 Padres helmet...worn from Opening Day til May 8th

[kylehess10]

I have for sale a photomatched Josh Bard 2007 Padres helmet. There is a white mark on the front of the helmet which has been photomatched from April 8th through May 8th, but the helmet was most-likely also worn from April 3rd - 7th since the mark probably just wasn't on the helmet yet, meaning this helmet would be from Opening Day. The helmet shows great use, and has a crack on the very top part. His fingerprints from his batting gloves can be seen all over the helmet. His number "28" is on the back and he wore this helmet for 1 homerun, which was on April 30th. My asking price is $125 which includes priority mail shipping with delivery confirmation. My e-mail is kylehess941@hotmail.com

[kylehess10]

This helmet is now on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MESE:IT&ih=015

[kylehess10]

I would love to hear thoughts from members as to why my auction sold for so low. I was shocked to see that this helmet sold for $21 last night. Is $21 really worth a photomatched helmet? I'm pretty much disgusted by this price being that I spent so much time going through each game on MLB.tv and getting all the screenshots. I always thought photomatched prices would bring a good premium, but apparently not. Could it be that my pictures aren't working? I used HTML, and I know it can have it's difficulties, but I wonder how this ended so much lower than what I expected, especially being photomatched.

[kingjammy24]

I would love to hear thoughts from members as to why my auction sold for so low. I was shocked to see that this helmet sold for $21 last night. Is $21 really worth a photomatched helmet? I'm pretty much disgusted by this price being that I spent so much time going through each game on MLB.tv and getting all the screenshots. I always thought photomatched prices would bring a good premium, but apparently not.

hi kyle

i'm not a "big fish" when it comes to wheeling and dealing pieces so take my opinion for what it's worth.
i don't think a photomatch, as solid as it may be, can alone bring a good premium to any item. i think the item has to be "in demand" to start with. i don't mean this as any sort of slight. i'm simply saying that a photomatch isn't going to add that much to the helmet of a guy who hit .202 with 1 HR and who may be a couple strikeouts away from spending the next 6 yrs in the minors. perhaps without the match, the piece wouldn't have even sold. i'm not sure how lucrative your MO of finding low-priced pieces and photomatching them is going to pan out, especially given the time you're spending. are there many josh bard fans out there? i think photomatches bring a substantial premium when applied to highly desireable pieces. find a solid photomatch to a pujols jersey or ripken bat and you'll see a substantial increase over a non-photomatched counterpart. i just don't think enough folks care enough about josh bard for a photomatch to make any difference. truly if it's one thing i've learnt in collecting, it's quality over quantity. if i had $2k to spend on a bat, i'd rather have 1 ripken bat than 45 common players. i won't have a problem reselling the ripken bat in the future but i'll probably struggle selling each and every one of those common player bats. i don't think you can photomatch anything and automatically see a tidy profit. as an early-90s jays collectors, someone could offer me a mauro gozzo jersey photomatched six ways till sunday and the photomatch wouldn't make any difference. i simply don't want a mauro gozzo jersey, photomatched or not.

rudy.

[kylehess10]

hi kyle

i'm not a "big fish" when it comes to wheeling and dealing pieces so take my opinion for what it's worth.
i don't think a photomatch, as solid as it may be, can alone bring a good premium to any item. i think the item has to be "in demand" to start with. i don't mean this as any sort of slight. i'm simply saying that a photomatch isn't going to add that much to the helmet of a guy who hit .202 with 1 HR and who may be a couple strikeouts away from spending the next 6 yrs in the minors. perhaps without the match, the piece wouldn't have even sold. i'm not sure how lucrative your MO of finding low-priced pieces and photomatching them is going to pan out, especially given the time you're spending. are there many josh bard fans out there? i think photomatches bring a substantial premium when applied to highly desireable pieces. find a solid photomatch to a pujols jersey or ripken bat and you'll see a substantial increase over a non-photomatched counterpart. i just don't think enough folks care enough about josh bard for a photomatch to make any difference. truly if it's one thing i've learnt in collecting, it's quality over quantity. if i had $2k to spend on a bat, i'd rather have 1 ripken bat than 45 common players. i won't have a problem reselling the ripken bat in the future but i'll probably struggle selling each and every one of those common player bats. i don't think you can photomatch anything and automatically see a tidy profit. as an early-90s jays collectors, someone could offer me a mauro gozzo jersey photomatched six ways till sunday and the photomatch wouldn't make any difference. i simply don't want a mauro gozzo jersey, photomatched or not.

rudy.

Thanks for your post. I'd have to agree...it has to be simply the fact that I've been selling too many photomatches from players just not that big. I've sold a few good ones in the past (like the Delmon Young photomatched bat, Braden Looper photomatched jersey), and on those I made pretty good profits, so I guess now I should just stick with mainly high-end items. Thanks again.


-Kyle

[kingjammy24]

Thanks for your post. I'd have to agree...it has to be simply the fact that I've been selling too many photomatches from players just not that big. I've sold a few good ones in the past (like the Delmon Young photomatched bat, Braden Looper photomatched jersey), and on those I made pretty good profits, so I guess now I should just stick with mainly high-end items. Thanks again.
-Kyle

hey kyle

i don't even think that the only desireable items are high-end (read: high priced) items. i think there are many different aspects to an item, other than price, that could make it desireable. you could focus on highly-hyped, "flavor of the month" players. just be sure you get in early enough and dump them before everyone realizes they haven't lived up to their hype. or you could go for older, rarer items. whatever the niche is, i think you've got to first ascertain that there's a real market for it and i think there are definitely substantial markets out there for items that aren't necessarily high-end/high-priced. despite his abysmal downfall, there are still a rabid group of loyal canseco collectors out there for example who'll pay good money for prime items of his. take a player like pat borders who's a complete nobody to the majority of the collecting world but a very desireable acquisition to the small group of serious jays collectors who focus on their two back-to-back world series years. what i'm saying is that it's not all pujols jerseys and ripken bats. there are definitely tons of desireable niches out there that aren't high end. i guess josh bard isn't one of them.

good luck.

rudy.

[bigtruck260]

Hi Kyle -

I think what you are doing is noble - especially for a kid your age...actaully you are not even a kid anymore - yound adult, how's that.

Here is a thought for someone on a limited budget trying to make a little money. Look into scooping up fan favorites from certain teams.

I am a Cards fan, and there are many players that fit this bill. Try guys like Bo Hart, Rex Hudler, Mike Matheny, Willie McGee - etc. - might not command a huge premium, but still worth more than a guy like Bard.

Every team has them. I am sure that there are guys on your Braves that don't get national recognition that are big time in ATL...Marcus Giles, Brett Butler, Bruce Benedict, Claudell Washington - and you'll like this one - GLENN HUBBARD.

Good luck Kyle.

D

[kingjammy24]

obviously there's a difference in collecting for your own personal interests and collecting for the sake of turning a profit. the professional flippers seem to focus on the older pre-80s stuff because there isn't much of it out there. i think they know there isn't much to be made in flipping modern items, even in high-end items. take a look at a-rod bats. how much can you really make flipping a yankees arod bat considering there are boatloads of them out there and boatloads more to come? many have said it before but it's true that the money lies in the older stuff. the modern stuff is just coming off of a virtual assembly line that guarantees it's never going to be all that profitable to flip. the over-production of it all, high and low end pieces, has really killed the monetary value. even with photomatching it, you're fighting an uphill battle to turn a decent profit.

i'd rather save up for an entire year and buy 1 quality piece over buying marginal pieces every month.

rudy.

[bigtruck260]

You know Rudy -

I stopped collecting stuff for investment purposes long ago when I realized that I was lucky to make money on any of the stuff I had. I have overpaid dramatically for stuff that has little value to anyone other than me - and maybe a handful of 80's Cardinal collectors - but you never know sometimes.

Dave

[kylehess10]

obviously there's a difference in collecting for your own personal interests and collecting for the sake of turning a profit.

I'm a mixture of both of that. I collect for the plain interest of collecting, but then again I don't have a job and I like making extra money from it too. I don't plan on applying for a job again until February (which is when I plan on applying for a grounds crew job at Turner Field), so until then, I have to make money somehow for my own personal needs and Christmas gifts too for family members. The only problem is that the money I make on photomatching I usually spend on more game used