Combined Shipping Strikes Again

The biggest downside to me when it comes to buying cards online is the cost of the shipping. Most single cards cost $2-$3 to ship (for reasonable sellers) and as someone who ships trade packages and sells the occasional card I understand the need for the shipping. However, I am always on the lookout for a good combined shipping deal where the seller either ships additional cards for free or at a heavily discounted rate.

I hadn't found a new Vida Blue card in a few weeks and went search eBay a couple weeks back and found this card I needed in my collection for a fairly reasonable price.

There are two different Vida cards in 2013 Tier One, the one as an Oakland A and one I already have as a Giant.  This is considered the base version with a few colored and lower numbered parallels.  I love the photo on this card and the on-card autograph is great.  I was ready to buy the card but the shipping was a little more that I really wanted to play.

A quick search of the sellers other items for sale and I found these items to add to my shopping card.

 A really nice numbered base card of Roger Craig, former 49ers star running back.  This card looks great with his eyes being clearly visible as he rushes through the enemy defense.  This is a nice thick base card and a great addition to a player collection I haven't put much focus on in the last 4-5 years.

 These cards are all smaller than normal with 3 Bowman Chrome minis and a nice group of Colgan's Chip inserts from the 2013 Panini Cooperstown release.  I now have all the Bowman Chrome minis and only need a Jesse Burkett Chip to complete the Giants team set.

Finally I picked up 4 hits with two relics and two autos.  I have considered a JT Snow player collection in the past but at this point I have just decided to focus on his Giants cards for the Giants binders.  This jersey car was a nice pickup and it is numbered 215/250.  I like the mini relics that Topps does with Allen & Ginter and here is a pre-Ginter example out of Topps 206 of short time Giant Tsuyoshi Shinjo.  Shinjo didn't do much as a Giant but this is a good looking card.  The Ramon Martinez is a minor league release but he did play with the major league Giants for a while and this is a nice card for the minor league binder.  Finally a duplicate of one of my favorite former Giants Glenallen Hill.  He was one of the strongest players and hit the ball as hard as anyone I have seen when he connected.  I had this card already but for a buck or so it was a good pickup.

I am pretty happy with the other cards I was able to add and thank that Vida Blue auto for leading me to these other great cards.