Sportlots Box Canadian Review Part 2

On to step two. (Part 1 here) All the cards I ordered arrived at the "Box" and are on their way to me. 10 cards from 9 different orders came to $11.25 shipping. One card alone was $9.75 so there is unsurprisingly better price per card on bigger orders.

My issue was that the total is weight based and the minimum weight was 1 ounce, meaning my 9 order calculated weight was 9oz when the actual weight was still under 1. (It took 14 base cards from 2018 Topps to make an ounce on my scale.) A quick message of explanation dropped the total to $11.25 once they released how small my orders were. I checked after the first package was processed and the total for one card was $9.75. Again, the bigger the order, to bigger the savings. (Reminder all these totals are to Canada).

A huge plus was that the cards were processed almost immediately, whereas the COMC mailbox program takes around 2 weeks after the card arrives. This took about a week to ship and process. One package took longer, but I think that ironically might have been a Canadian seller. Also from the time I paid for shipping to getting a tracking number was about an hour, probably less, nice.

Also there is no cost for processing while COMC is a minimum $3.60 ($3.00 per package / $0.60 per card followed by an added cost in the shipping phase, I think it's another $0.25). The difference here is Sportlots doesn't scan the cards, and COMC adds them to a marketplace where you can either put them up for sale or have shipped to you. While these services are similar, it is really not fair to compare them (although I just did).

So here are the new totals. (Clicking on the chart should enlarge it). The $11.25 shipping has been split somewhat evenly coming among the 10 cards and added to the initial shipping giving me a total savings of $19.53, or $1.95 per card even with two cards being cheaper to ship direct to me.

I have to say I am pretty happy with the results so far, and unless there are any weird customs fees, $2.00 a card savings ($1.68 total shipping per card) are worth the extra week or two. I will definitely be using this in the future, and will probably let my box inventory grow the nest time. This time I just didn't want to let this little experiment drag on. I really like what Sportlots is doing here, two thumbs up so far.

2014 Bowman Platinum Want/Trade List

Wants

Updated July 24, 2018 (Yes, I know this set is 4 years old, but I am going to finish it eventually)

Base:
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 43, 44, 45, 47, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 96, 98, 99

Prospects (BPP):
4, 8, 9, 13, 21, 22, 27, 30, 32, 36, 42, 52, 58, 59, 60, 65, 68, 78, 79, 84, 87, 88, 94, 98, 100

Prospects Atomic:
Jonathan Gray

Prospects Blue (Sapphire /199):
Jonathan Gray

Prospects Camo:
Eddie Butler, Trevor Story

Prospects Gold:
Jonathan Gray

Prospects Refractors:
Jonathan Gray

Prospects X-Fractors:
Jonathan Gray

For Trade

Base Gold:
1 Taijuan Walker

Prospects
29, 38, 53

Prospects Refractors:
22, 30, 45, 94

Top Prospects Die Cut
Eddie Butler

RLC Custom Card Project: Justin Miller

The Player: I was alway surprised Justin Miller never got a card with the Rockies. In fact, as far as I can tell, he has no MLB cards, no Bowman prospects, no nothing. After pitching in 8 games as a rookie with the Tigers in 2014, Miller pitched in 34 games with the Rockies in 2015, going 3-3 with 1 save and a 4.05 ERA, good for a 115 ERA+, which is outstanding for a Rockies reliever. His 2016 was not as strong, but still passable. His 2017 was spend in Triple-A, but he returned to the majors in 2018 with the Nationals, and has an impressive 4-0 record over only 10 games so far, but a far less impressive beard.

The Card: 1953 Topps is a classic design, that I feel still holds up well. Topps obviously agrees with 53 getting some love in the 2016 Archives release, then being the base for the new, and very popular, Living Set.

The Project: Rockies Legacy Collection custom project to make digital cards of Rockies players who never had one issued.

Sportlots Box Canadian Review Part 1

As a Canadian, I am always looking for better ways to buy cards, or anything online for that matter. Shipping rates have become crazy high, and now two of my trade packages have been lost in the mail so far this year alone, after only losing one since I started trading in 2012. So when Sportlots added their "Sportlot box" feature I was intrigued. I have always loved the sheer number of cards that are available there, but also hated the difficultly of browsing to fill up an order with cards from the same seller. The Sportlots Box, which seems like a cross between basic COMC and the COMC mailbox system, looks to help reduce this problem, or at least make it more reasonable to make smaller orders. So I loaded up my card and made an order, half as an experiment, and half to just get some cards that I can not find anywhere else. Below are the 10 I picked, from 9 different sellers (The top row counts shipping for two cards and accounts for the second row, allowing that value to be zero). Normally this would have cost $36.35 in shipping, with the one seller asking $10.50 for a single card as the outlier. With the Sportlots Box, my shipping was $5.57, or a full $30 cheaper.

This was just stage one, the cards still need to get to Sportlots, then on to myself, which will cost something obviously. I will continue to make update posts along the process, partly to document it, and partly in case anyone else cares to see how this all works. Thanks for reading and stay tuned.

Check Out My Rockies (Summer 2018)

You knew it was coming after the NBA post, my COMC Rockies package with a mix of the mailbox service cards, Spring cleaning sale, a random stuff I have bought over the last few months. Starting off with 3 different (I assure you they are different) Jonathan Lucroy cards from 2018 Heritage. We have the 100th Anniversary, the Flip Stock and the Red Back. I just need the Black border and the base for the rainbow. Despite playing in 46 games with the Rockies in 2017, this as a photoshop from his Rangers days. The beard is a dead giveaway.Also Despite being in Oakland all year, Lucroy is listed on the Series 2 checklist with the Rockies.

Check Out My NBA

The results of a small basketball binge arrived in my recent COMC mailday. Some decent stuff, including the above Peja Stojakovic, capturing his 2 game career with the Raptors in his sunset season before going to Dallas and helping them win a title. As a bonus it an on-card auto from a nice looking higher end set. I am a sucker for the Gold Standard brand.

Recent Hockey Pick-ups

I don't buy a ton of hockey anymore, but playoff fever struck and I bit on a few things from different places. They are all thrown together in favor of three smaller posts. The first from the Bay. High on the list of my hockey interests are Pelle Lindbergh and acetate, so when this card came out in the new Upper Deck Ice offering, I watched around and found one cheap from a Canadian seller meaning low shipping and the card came direct to me instead of through a mail forwarding service, so win-win. It didn't scan well (old scanner), but the clear section has a little holographic thing, very cool card.