Some of you know that I have been working on the 1957 Parkhurst set for a number of years. I actually got to the point that my set was only missing a few cards, but some of them were SGC and KSA. I was able to crossover the SGC cards, but I had to sell the KSA since they didn't cross over to PSA 7's.
I was down to 4 cards last winter--Dick Duff, Henri Richard rookie, Maurice Richard and Jacques Plante. 3 of those are SP's. I found the Duff this Spring. It had a BIN price, so I grabbed it. Which brought me to these 3.
Every time I saw one of these cards, it was either a PSA 6 or PSA 8. I was working on a PSA 7 set, and didn't want to spend the extra money on a PSA 8.
About 3 weeks ago I contacted a collector from the PSA Set Registry about selling his M. Richard PSA 7 (pjaamaa). At first he didn't want to sell, but then he emailed me back and made me an offer. I made a counter offer which wasn't much lower. He then told me that he already had a buyer, but if that person didn't follow through he would get back to me. We emailed back and forth for a few days and he claimed to be waiting for the first buyer to send payment.
Meanwhile, a 57 Parkhurst Plante PSA 7 showed up on eBay. I watched it for 3 days with no bids and on Friday, called the seller, Gerry Chartrand. Since it didn't have any bids he agreed to end the auction early and I sent him the payment. I told him that I was still looking for both of the Richard brothers cards to finish the set.
On Saturday, pjaamaa emailed me again and told me that he was giving the original buyer until Sunday to send payment. I was getting very excited about picking up that card too!
On Sunday evening, I got home and checked my email. I had a message from Gerry about a Hanri Richard PSA 7 rookie. He originally had a PSA 8 on eBay. Another collector contacted him and offered to trade him a PSA 7 along with some cash for the PSA 8. He agreed and emailed me about it. (This was totally unexpected!) I called him and confirmed that I wanted the card.
Sitting in my Inbox was the message from pjaamaa. He gave up on the first buyer and accepted my offer! Somehow the last 3 cards that I needed fell into my lap in one weekend! All 3 have now arrived and my 1957 Parkhurst set is complete! (Sorry that the story was so long.)
Here is a scan of the last 3 cards in my set.
This summer sure hasn't been a slow collecting time for me!
