I tried to collect all /499 Ryan Raburn 2007 Etopps Rookies and then Etopps ended.

[Etopps]

So back in the Etopps days we all had fun buying, trading, selling, and playing the games. Some tried to acquire all or a good portion of the print run of a particular card or player. I thought it seemed like a fun challenge, so decided to try my hand at a few. I thought Ryan Raburn would be a fun one to do that with. He had great potential but just wasn't getting the consistent playing time. I've seen him play many games on tv and thought if given a full year at a position he'd turn out to be a pretty good player so I went with him. Due to injuries and him being a utility player he didn't get the consistency and I think that ended up shortening his career. Even though, he was fun to watch and root for.

Whenever it was that I decided to start collecting him to the time Etopps decided to end production I had 180 of the 499 (36%). After the shutdown, I wasn't even sure what to do, so I left my two ports sit. So here we are.

What should I do? I have 2 inhand and will have 5 in hand after one of my ports gets delivered. I have 175 left over in my other port. I really hate the idea of letting them go back to Topps.
Do I let them go back to topps and take the $1.50 credit on all of them? I hate this option.
Do I try and reach out to Ryan and see if he'd like all 175 as the Etopps cards are some of the best looking cards out there? If I go this route, (which is a lot of leg work, etc and I wouldn't even know where to start) do I ask him if he'd like them for ~$2.60 a card? That sound upsurd doesn't it?
Do I spend $200 and take them in hand and try to sell them on Ebay to someone that has an interest in accumulating? Doesn't sound like a smart option.
Are there other options?

Also, I have 97 of the 749 print run of Troy Smiths football rookie so whatever comes of this thread I may do with the Smiths.

[dodgerfanjohn]

Originally Posted by Etopps

So back in the Etopps days we all had fun buying, trading, selling, and playing the games. Some tried to acquire all or a good portion of the print run of a particular card or player. I thought it seemed like a fun challenge, so decided to try my hand at a few. I thought Ryan Raburn would be a fun one to do that with. He had great potential but just wasn't getting the consistent playing time. I've seen him play many games on tv and thought if given a full year at a position he'd turn out to be a pretty good player so I went with him. Due to injuries and him being a utility player he didn't get the consistency and I think that ended up shortening his career. Even though, he was fun to watch and root for.

Whenever it was that I decided to start collecting him to the time Etopps decided to end production I had 180 of the 499 (36%). After the shutdown, I wasn't even sure what to do, so I left my two ports sit. So here we are.

What should I do? I have 2 inhand and will have 5 in hand after one of my ports gets delivered. I have 175 left over in my other port. I really hate the idea of letting them go back to Topps.
Do I let them go back to topps and take the $1.50 credit on all of them? I hate this option.
Do I try and reach out to Ryan and see if he'd like all 175 as the Etopps cards are some of the best looking cards out there? If I go this route, (which is a lot of leg work, etc and I wouldn't even know where to start) do I ask him if he'd like them for ~$2.60 a card? That sound upsurd doesn't it?
Do I spend $200 and take them in hand and try to sell them on Ebay to someone that has an interest in accumulating? Doesn't sound like a smart option.
Are there other options?

Also, I have 97 of the 749 print run of Troy Smiths football rookie so whatever comes of this thread I may do with the Smiths.

https://youtu.be/6MneA9pgLVw?feature=shared

[here2havefun]

Take the payout that Topps is offering. The fun times you had buying/selling/trading/collecting eTopps and the great memories is the real value in this equation. The actual physical cards are meaningless at this point. Keep one copy in-hand for your PC, as a reminder of the fun times.

[no10pin]

The idea of driving up the price of an eTopps card by hoarding them went away when they stopped putting out new cards.

The thought that anyone out there is looking for almost a couple hundred Raburn eTopps cards would probably be limited to Raburn himself and maybe his mom. I'm assuming he's not going to want them, and I wouldn't spend hundreds assuming he might, so I'd be taking the $1.50 each and moving on.

[teosdesserts]

The $1.50 per card is a lot more than the roughly $0 each they are worth.

[towerymt]

I'd take $1.50 total.

If they're offering $1.50 per card...take it.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by no10pin

The idea of driving up the price of an eTopps card by hoarding them went away when they stopped putting out new cards.

The thought that anyone out there is looking for almost a couple hundred Raburn eTopps cards would probably be limited to Raburn himself and maybe his mom. I'm assuming he's not going to want them, and I wouldn't spend hundreds assuming he might, so I'd be taking the $1.50 each and moving on.

This, and the main death of etopps thread are being back so many memories. Mainly of people trying to scam a system that was doomed to failure.

[Etopps]

Thanks to everyone for the replies. Those years of Etopps do bring back a lot of memories. I had a lot of fun during those years. I had some killer cards I traded or sold and no longer own. If only I'd knew at that time what I know now! Since starting this thread, I have went back into my emails and definitely forgot about a lot of things...the reward points, the autos that were offered, the non-allocations, the times your credit card would be declined for no reason at all resulting in the non-allocation. Those feelings come back so fast! As to the Raburns, Smiths, and a few others, I enjoyed accumulating them. The time I collected the Raburns I just thought he was a good all around utility player that given a full year at a position would blossom and have a great career. I'm not sure what exactly I thought of Troy Smith. Most likely I thought he'd be a star. I paid/traded a lot in the beginning for these cards but eventually kept collecting just for the fun of it. My last purchase of Raburn was $3.19 and Smith $3.51 so I wasn't getting anywhere if I was trying to game the system. Some of the others that I ended up accumulating were just throw ins with other trades. I thought I'd see how many I could get! That part ended up panning out in the store credit per dollar part!

So I've decided to take your guys advice and take the store credit on them. The 5 I have in hand will be a good memory. Before I eventually hit that send button on the Etopps site, I felt the need to at least reach out and offer them up to him if he has any interest. I decided to Google his name just to see if there was an easy way to contact him that wasn't too intrusive. He has a business website where he teaches baseball mechanics and it had an email to contact him, so I thought I'd try that route. I've never written to a ballplayer before, but I did my best to not make an idiot of myself. My fun with these cards will be over soon, but if I could pass that along instead of letting them go back to Topps, it would bring that Etopps happiness back one last time! For those wondering, I offered them to him for the cost of the Etopps shipping. I just sent that email off an hour or so ago. We'll see how it goes.

[here2havefun]

Hope that you hear back from Ryan! Keep us posted.

[ewokpelts]

If they let you choose the quantity to ship out, I’d recommend you get a few cards, but this shutdown is all or none. Hey tops, maybe I don’t want six Kyle Orton rookie cards, just one.

[Etopps]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

If they let you choose the quantity to ship out, I’d recommend you get a few cards, but this shutdown is all or none. Hey tops, maybe I don’t want six Kyle Orton rookie cards, just one.

Yep, I 100% agree with that. It makes things difficult. Good thing I had 3 raburns in my other port so I didn’t have deal with that one. Someone did reach out and we’re splitting up some of the numbers. Example, I don’t want all the chipper jones but did want one. He’ll take the rest.