Deans Cards - something I never knew...

[brightair]

I have been getting some low grade commons from Deans Cards lately for a project I am working on, and an interesting situation arose. It taught me something new, but maybe many of you already knew this. I really want to know what others think of this since it strikes me as, well, at least, odd, but maybe it happens everywhere and I just never noticed.

Please forgive me if I am repeating an old topic, but I searched files back 2 years and couldn't find a similar thread.

Here's what happened: I've been putting cards in my cart and when I reach $100 I pay and get a reduced shipping rate. On my way to my next $100 lot, something happened which you can follow from the verbatim email exchanges below...

On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 10:42 PM, richard dingman <brightair@msn.com> wrote:

Hi,
Starting tonight I had in my cart 35 cards totaling $33.05.
I added one card for $0.85 to my cart and now my totals read 36 cards for over $7.6 million!
That's a little beyond my budget and my wife will kill me.
Can you please correct this??
Best,
Richard D
brightair

From: orders@deanscards.com
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:28:45 -0500
Subject: Re: error, please fix
To: brightair@msn.com
Hi Richard!

So sorry for the error. I have fixed the problem card in your cart, so you should be able to place your order. So sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks,

Jennifer Mills
Customer Service
DeansCards.com
513-898-0651

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 9:40 AM, richard dingman <brightair@msn.com> wrote:

Thanks Jennifer.
One thing, I thought I had 35 items for 33.05 and then I bought one card for 0.85, now I have 36 items for 34.80.
Something is wrong, did I make a mistake or did you?
Best,
Richard D

From: orders@deanscards.com
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 11:06:51 -0500
Subject: Re: error, please fix
To: brightair@msn.com

Richard,

One of the cards in your cart may have increased in price. When we have a high quantity of cards in stock the price goes down, but as the quantity goes down the price does increase. Hope this answers your question.

Thanks,

Jennifer Mills
Customer Service
DeansCards.com
513-898-0651


On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 1:23 PM, richard dingman <brightair@msn.com> wrote:

You mean that I can buy a card at a certain price and then after I buy it the price can go up??
That sounds weird.
If that's the case, please tell me which card went up and what the original price was and what the new price is and I will decide if I want to pay the new price.
I am not necessarily going to agree to pay any price you decide to raise it to without checking it out first.
Thanks much and look forward to this information.
Richard

From: orders@deanscards.com
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:38:08 -0500
Subject: Re: error, please fix
To: brightair@msn.com
Hi Richard,

Yes. Our prices are based on our inventory. The more quantity of a card that we have the deeper the discount that you will receive. This is to ensure that our customers get the best price possible. As you noticed earlier today we had some pricing issues. We have a software on our website that goes through our million card inventory and reprices all of our cards. It changes the prices of thousands of cards at a time. Because the cards are in your cart and you have not placed an order, those cards were still in stock and subject to change. I do not know specifically which card in your cart changed. Sorry for any inconvenience, if you have any more questions please let me know.

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 8:15 PM, richard dingman <brightair@msn.com> wrote:

Jennifer,
Wonderful.
This is a surprise to me and I imagine might be to many Deans Cards customers, but I don't yet know.
To find out, I am going to start a thread on net54 detailing our conversation and see how many people know that you will change the price on cards that people have already put in their cart so that customers will end up paying more for cards than they intended to, and without their knowledge that it is happening, or for what cards it is happening.
To be fair, I will copy exactly our conversation thread so that people can see for themselves. Since their are literally thousands of card collectors who use net54, I am sure I will find out how many people already knew this (maybe I am the last to know), and also, all those who didn't know will then be advised.
Since I also belong to several online card trading groups (OBC, VCT, Dugout, etc) I will share the same info with them and get their feedback. They all buy a lot online so I'm sure they will want to know.
This way I will help you get the word out about Deans Cards. You can follow the thread yourself to see how it goes.
Thanks again for your help.
Richard Dingman

[D. Bergin]

I imagine if you are putting cards in your cart and not actually paying for them until you are ready, prices can tend to fluctuate over time.

[tiger8mush]

I imagine if you are putting cards in your cart and not actually paying for them until you are ready, prices can tend to fluctuate over time.

Agreed, I'd think it works like amazon.com. I put items in my cart, but I go back a week later and look at my cart and the price may have gone up or down. If you want to pay the current price, pay for it now.

But then again, I've never done Ebay cart. I've only done BIN and auction. Good luck!
Rob
:)

[Mikehealer]

I don't know how that guy could ever raise his prices on cards without wearing a ski mask.

[freakhappy]

Agreed, I'd think it works like amazon.com. I put items in my cart, but I go back a week later and look at my cart and the price may have gone up or down. If you want to pay the current price, pay for it now.

But then again, I've never done Ebay cart. I've only done BIN and auction. Good luck!
Rob
:)

Amazon kills me when they do that! I'll literally put an item in my cart, shop for a few minutes and go back and wham! the price jumped. You gotta get it while it's low and not mess around :cool:

[kailes2872]

You gotta get it while it's low and not mess around


I don't begrudge anone who has a million cards, can hire multiple folks to process orders and deal baseball cards for a living...

However, the quote above in regards to Dean's Cards, is the absolute peak of irony.

Kevin Ailes

[autograf]

I exclude them from any post war searches I do........

[bigfish]

Go up in value? Richard, I would shop somewhere else. Go patriots.

[4815162342]

I don't know how that guy could ever raise his prices on cards without wearing a ski mask.


This cart-shilling must end!

[D.P.Johnson]

I've always wondered who bought cards from Dean and now I have my answer...J/K...

[EvilKing00]

When putting cards in your cart, how long were they there for? Minutes, hours, days, weeks? Just wondering

[Peter_Spaeth]

I find their prices at least on graded cards repulsive, but you have nothing to complain about here, as you hadn't bought the cards. Putting them in your cart is meaningless.

[brewing]

I'm still in shock someone bought cards from Deans overpriced cards.

[Brian Van Horn]

So, the shopping cart can have stock market fluctuations?! :rolleyes:

[frankbmd]

I wonder how often the price of cards in the cart goes down.:eek::D

[David W]

They used to have Dean's Cards in all their listings, they no longer do, as too many people were searching and excluding Dean's Cards in the search. Now they all have a number like D2342 or something.

It is hard to believe they sell anything.

[mrvster]

his new listings earlier today.....he has a huge over size 206 and 2 diamond cut 206 with the exact cut and half name at top.....those 2 diamond cut t206 are definitely sheet mates.....neat little pieces....

but agree, who would pay those ridic prices???????:confused:

[D.P.Johnson]

Some people like to pay a little extra for the security of buying from a reputable dealer...I'm not one of those people...:)...

[Rich Klein]

Actually I think Burbank lowers a lot of prices on modern cards when they feel they are overstocked.

Way back in the day, Kovacs used to raise prices on cards he kept selling at shows.

If you think about this, that actually makes business sense and if in a cart and not paid for that can happen.

Sounds goofy but that's actually fairly normal business in many ways.

I'm going to say this, but if you think it's a good deal, sometimes it's just worth paying the price now and not worrying about tomorrow.

[JollyElm]

I just can't stop laughing hearing that someone is actually buying from Deans cards!!! You got to be kidding us, yes??????? They are an absolute joke!!!! They are beyond laughable!!!!!! I and many others have done numerous threads on their ridiculous, insane, utterly STUPID pricing. No human being with an IQ higher than something in the single digits would ever even consider buying anything from these ripoff artists. What a freaking joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Nothing personal, OP.)

[swarmee]

Amazon kills me when they do that! I'll literally put an item in my cart, shop for a few minutes and go back and wham! the price jumped.
On the Amazon side, you have a lot of flippers on COMC.com (which is the subcontractor to Amazon for baseball cards) who will buy newly listed cards or cards that are discounted on COMC's site and then reprice them. I have had cards I listed at 2.50 get bought and be re-listed for $20, just so that guy can run a 75% off sale to try to get $5 for it. However, none of the sales show up on Amazon. So if you're buying a lot of cards from Amazon, you should really sign up for an account on comc.com instead. Then you wouldn't have to pay shipping on every order. You could just wait until you have all the cards you want for a set/order over weeks or months and then take delivery. Plus you get to take advantage of the sales (invisible on Amazon) and even get to make offers on cards.

[JollyElm]

This is a card I bought recently (NM with nearly perfect centering. An almost exact clone of this very card) for $6 with free shipping, so I thought I'd do a quick ebay search for it tonight in NM, and there were absolutely no surprises here. Look at the results with his dumb 'actual image' logo (I, too, eliminate this moron from my searches, but sometimes he squeaks through and when you see that logo, you know it's time to just zip past that listing). He prices his card at basically ten times what the other people are asking and with them your shipping is included. Granted, the other two cards are o/c, but if they were greatly centered, the cost would probably be the same. As I said, mine cost a mere $6.

And I won't even mention that he (yes, I purposely personify this laughable company as 'he') calls a card with an obviously rounded/damaged lower left corner as NM. And this isn't some isolated incident. He does this ridiculous pricing with all of his cards. He annoys the living crap out of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

177299

[Tao_Moko]

Overpriced yes. What he is doing with inventory is understandable to me. Your cart is not a place holder and only a reminder and organization tool for you. I don't see an issue.

[vintagesportscollector]

Darren, how do you really feel? Just come out and say it. You don't have to mince words. ;)

[JollyElm]

Darren, how do you really feel? Just come out and say it. You don't have to mince words. ;)

It's because we've discussed this guy's stupid prices before. In one thread we said how it's easy to add (-Dean) to your search and his ripoff listings wouldn't appear in them. A perfect solution. But then suddenly, a couple of days later, he eliminated his name from all of his listings, so it didn't work anymore. He obviously reads these boards...and he disgusts me!!!

[bobbyw8469]

Looking at this guy's feedback, I am 100% totally amazed that he is able to sell ANY graded cards!!! His prices are so exorberant, he appears to prey solely on the uneducated. His prices make 707 look like a yard sale (and I never, ever thought I would say that!).

[Orioles1954]

I would love to see this sign at a show one day: "our cards are priced a little more than ebay and far below our competitors".

[1952boyntoncollector]

right I agree that its just a cart ..not a commitment to buy so prices can change though I wouldn't think that would happen a lot..

weird how you wrote such a long email sort of saying their actions were wrong in a passive aggressive threatening manner....why not post it first and find out..it appears most people agree the cart is just a cart and nothing shady there by rasing the prices on that one card.....no reason to tell them you will do that unless you were trying to get something from them which would look really wrong now since it appears from everyone on the board that their behavior wasn't wrong....

funny if you said that to a lot of ebay sellers they would of banned you..they don't care how good a customer you are..they will ban you for saying much less than that

[swarmee]

Time to call off the dogs on this practice and delete your thread, IMO. Obviously you had an axe to grind, and while the card is still their property, they can price and re-price as they see fit until you buy it.

[Leon]

I have been getting some low grade commons from Deans Cards lately for a project I am working on, and an interesting situation arose. It taught me something new, but maybe many of you already knew this. I really want to know what others think of this since it strikes me as, well, at least, odd, but maybe it happens everywhere and I just never noticed.

Please forgive me if I am repeating an old topic, but I searched files back 2 years and couldn't find a similar thread.

Here's what happened: I've been putting cards in my cart and when I reach $100 I pay and get a reduced shipping rate. On my way to my next $100 lot, something happened which you can follow from the verbatim email exchanges below...

On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 10:42 PM, richard dingman <brightair@msn.com> wrote:

Hi,
Starting tonight I had in my cart 35 cards totaling $33.05.
I added one card for $0.85 to my cart and now my totals read 36 cards for over $7.6 million!
That's a little beyond my budget and my wife will kill me.
Can you please correct this??
Best,
Richard D
brightair

From: orders@deanscards.com
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:28:45 -0500
Subject: Re: error, please fix
To: brightair@msn.com
Hi Richard!

So sorry for the error. I have fixed the problem card in your cart, so you should be able to place your order. So sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks,

Jennifer Mills
Customer Service
DeansCards.com
513-898-0651

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 9:40 AM, richard dingman <brightair@msn.com> wrote:

Thanks Jennifer.
One thing, I thought I had 35 items for 33.05 and then I bought one card for 0.85, now I have 36 items for 34.80.
Something is wrong, did I make a mistake or did you?
Best,
Richard D

From: orders@deanscards.com
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 11:06:51 -0500
Subject: Re: error, please fix
To: brightair@msn.com

Richard,

One of the cards in your cart may have increased in price. When we have a high quantity of cards in stock the price goes down, but as the quantity goes down the price does increase. Hope this answers your question.

Thanks,

Jennifer Mills
Customer Service
DeansCards.com
513-898-0651


On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 1:23 PM, richard dingman <brightair@msn.com> wrote:

You mean that I can buy a card at a certain price and then after I buy it the price can go up??
That sounds weird.
If that's the case, please tell me which card went up and what the original price was and what the new price is and I will decide if I want to pay the new price.
I am not necessarily going to agree to pay any price you decide to raise it to without checking it out first.
Thanks much and look forward to this information.
Richard

From: orders@deanscards.com
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:38:08 -0500
Subject: Re: error, please fix
To: brightair@msn.com
Hi Richard,

Yes. Our prices are based on our inventory. The more quantity of a card that we have the deeper the discount that you will receive. This is to ensure that our customers get the best price possible. As you noticed earlier today we had some pricing issues. We have a software on our website that goes through our million card inventory and reprices all of our cards. It changes the prices of thousands of cards at a time. Because the cards are in your cart and you have not placed an order, those cards were still in stock and subject to change. I do not know specifically which card in your cart changed. Sorry for any inconvenience, if you have any more questions please let me know.

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 8:15 PM, richard dingman <brightair@msn.com> wrote:

Jennifer,
Wonderful.
This is a surprise to me and I imagine might be to many Deans Cards customers, but I don't yet know.
To find out, I am going to start a thread on net54 detailing our conversation and see how many people know that you will change the price on cards that people have already put in their cart so that customers will end up paying more for cards than they intended to, and without their knowledge that it is happening, or for what cards it is happening.
To be fair, I will copy exactly our conversation thread so that people can see for themselves. Since their are literally thousands of card collectors who use net54, I am sure I will find out how many people already knew this (maybe I am the last to know), and also, all those who didn't know will then be advised.
Since I also belong to several online card trading groups (OBC, VCT, Dugout, etc) I will share the same info with them and get their feedback. They all buy a lot online so I'm sure they will want to know.
This way I will help you get the word out about Deans Cards. You can follow the thread yourself to see how it goes.
Thanks again for your help.
Richard Dingman

It seems a cart's cards can change prices before they are purchased. This is my take away from this thread....and Deans cards are way overpriced in general.

[D.P.Johnson]

It seems a cart's cards can change prices before they are purchased. This is my take away from this thread....and Deans cards are way overpriced in general.

BINGO!!!....And, while I feel it's good information to make people aware this can happen, to spend a bunch of time bitching and complaining over a few extra cents is a little over the top...IMHO, of course...:)...

[AustinMike]

In essence, I agree with the gist of most replies. My one caveat would be the timing of the increase. I do not think the price should increase for an item in a cart until you leave the site. Once you end your session (leave the site, walk out the door, etc.), the owner has the option of changing the price. In this case, the OP hasn't indicated the timing (EvilKing00 did ask about the timing and no response thus far). My impression from the OP is that he puts items in his cart, leaves the site, comes back and adds more items, etc. until he's up to $100. If that's the case, then yeah, Dean's Cards can increase their already exorbitant prices.

But since you're already paying many dollars more than you should be, why complain about a few pennies? :)

[1952boyntoncollector]

In essence, I agree with the gist of most replies. My one caveat would be the timing of the increase. I do not think the price should increase for an item in a cart until you leave the site. Once you end your session (leave the site, walk out the door, etc.), the owner has the option of changing the price. In this case, the OP hasn't indicated the timing (EvilKing00 did ask about the timing and no response thus far). My impression from the OP is that he puts items in his cart, leaves the site, comes back and adds more items, etc. until he's up to $100. If that's the case, then yeah, Dean's Cards can increase their already exorbitant prices.

But since you're already paying many dollars more than you should be, why complain about a few pennies? :)

Pennys add up when buying 1000s of cards for sets....plus if an increase of 8 cents doesn't matter then why don't auctions go on for infinity with people keep adding 8 cents to enternity since its only a few pennies..

[brightair]

OK, I am the original poster.
Unfortunately I apparently didn't identify the issue that concerned me well enough because the thread seems to have gone off the tracks.
I know well enough that DC prices are high, but I have other reasons to buy from them that are not relevant here.
I also know that cards in the cart are not yet bought, and that also is not my issue.
I also am aware that we are talking small change here, so that also is not my point.
The cards were sitting in the cart for perhaps a week or so, with me adding every day to them.
My point is that prices were raised on items I can neither identify nor tell how much the raise was, AND I never would have been made aware of this fact had I not accidentally noticed that my total cart cost had jumped up beyond what I had agreed to pay. That is what I object to and what I was hoping to get some other opinions about to see if anyone else felt that such a practice was unethical.
If anyone cares to comment on this, I'd be interested to hear opinions.
Richard

[mattsey9]

I've always wondered who bought cards from Dean and now I have my answer...J/K...

I was about to type the very same thing but you beat me to it!

[Section103]

OK, I am the original poster.
Unfortunately I apparently didn't identify the issue that concerned me well enough because the thread seems to have gone off the tracks.
I know well enough that DC prices are high, but I have other reasons to buy from them that are not relevant here.
I also know that cards in the cart are not yet bought, and that also is not my issue.
I also am aware that we are talking small change here, so that also is not my point.
The cards were sitting in the cart for perhaps a week or so, with me adding every day to them.
My point is that prices were raised on items I can neither identify nor tell how much the raise was, AND I never would have been made aware of this fact had I not accidentally noticed that my total cart cost had jumped up beyond what I had agreed to pay. That is what I object to and what I was hoping to get some other opinions about to see if anyone else felt that such a practice was unethical.
If anyone cares to comment on this, I'd be interested to hear opinions.
Richard

So.....you want them to show before and after pricing on every card in their inventory? Not gonna happen. I understand the inconvenience but they arent doing anything unethical beyond price gouging.

[Iron Horse]

When i look at their auctions on eBay, i RUN!
Their prices are perhaps 50 years in the future.
They have a card in a SGC 1 holder which they are asking more then what i paid for the same card in a SGC 2.5 holder still in my collection.

[Iron Horse]

I do agree if they are going to raise the price on a certain card in your cart there should be some way of identifying which one and how much.
I don't think what they are doing is unethical but does not come across nice.

[EvilKing00]

A week is a long time

[D. Bergin]

OK, I am the original poster.
Unfortunately I apparently didn't identify the issue that concerned me well enough because the thread seems to have gone off the tracks.
I know well enough that DC prices are high, but I have other reasons to buy from them that are not relevant here.
I also know that cards in the cart are not yet bought, and that also is not my issue.
I also am aware that we are talking small change here, so that also is not my point.
The cards were sitting in the cart for perhaps a week or so, with me adding every day to them.
My point is that prices were raised on items I can neither identify nor tell how much the raise was, AND I never would have been made aware of this fact had I not accidentally noticed that my total cart cost had jumped up beyond what I had agreed to pay. That is what I object to and what I was hoping to get some other opinions about to see if anyone else felt that such a practice was unethical.
If anyone cares to comment on this, I'd be interested to hear opinions.
Richard


I would imagine they don't even know what cards you have in your cart until you check out. They could conceivably run out of stock on a card and you could lose out on it between the time you add it to your cart and when you check out.

You don't actually commit to buy, until you hit the buy button.

I run a couple websites and sell on Ebay, and I've had people call me and say they've got such and such in their cart, can you check it out for me, and I have to tell them, I have no way of knowing what's in your cart unless you pay for it.

Also, on the Dean gouging issue. I'm sure they do as plenty of evidence has been put forward already. However in the OP's case it looks like he's paying about a buck a card, for whatever his project is.

Even if it's the commonest of commons, I don't see an issue here. This isn't a card show where somebody just throws 1000's of commons in a bunch of monster boxes, with no labor involved whatsoever, and you have to go through and dig out your own nickle & dime cards.

Anytime there's inventory, labor, scanning, shipping involved, those nickle cards become $1.00-$3.00 cards.

I do this myself with boxing card commons, because I have no interest in selling cards online in which the transaction fee on the payment alone, eats up the entire cost of the card. I'd rather just not sell the card at all and let it sit.

Now once it gets up to a certain level, you know.........legitimate $5-10 cards or so, I understand the concern for gouging.........but I don't think the OP should catch flack for spending a buck a card from Deans or anybody else.

[D. Bergin]

To add. I guess the easiest way to find out in the future, which cards change prices in your cart. Print out your cart whenever you add to it, and then you can price comparison later on when your ready to check out to see what's changed.

[Cliff Bowman]

The OP and I collect obscure, uncataloged, and little known printing error/variation cards, and Deans Cards is a good source because they show good scans of the fronts and the backs. I found some 1963 Topps printing flaw error cards on their site that I have never seen otherwise. As far as buying regular cards, I agree it makes no sense to buy from Deans Cards because you can easily buy the cards in comparable grade much cheaper on eBay.

[Edwolf1963]

Richard, tend to agree with most - the cart is just a placeholder and prices aren't guaranteed until check-out. Much like the Amazon reference noted earlier or other industries, like airlines (IE: ticket prices aren't guaranteed until time of ticketing)

As far as Deans - I never understood buying anything from them as many have noted. The "..makes 707 look like a yard sale" was funny as well as accurate IMO. If you find one-of-a-kinds and don't mind overpaying, more power to you. But I'm sure the common police reference "move along, nothing to see here" had roots born from stumbling over their cards/prices at some point.

[vintagesportscollector]

Agree with all that has been said about their prices and why anyone would buy from them, but they must be making money somehow, and a fair amount of it.

Does anyone have any closer knowledge of their business model? I imagine they are reading all this criticism and laughing all the way to the bank. They must be doing something right. Is that they serve a large clientele of high wealth customers - some of who have more dollars than "sense" - and prefer to deal with someone they perceive as large and reputable and gives them more service?

[savedfrommyspokes]

Some independent (non-ebay), e-commerce sites offer a feature that allows the admins to view "abandoned" shopping carts...from the Volusion (an e-cart) website, here is the "benefit" of the abandoned shopping cart report:

Boost sales by identifying shoppers who added products to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase. This profit-building feature shows all abandoned carts for your store, including key customer contact information.

[Rich Klein]

*The OP and I collect obscure, uncataloged, and little known printing error/variation cards, and Deans Cards is a good source because they show good scans of the fronts and the backs"


So basically, both of you look for cards not readily known so you can re-sell for a nice profit on the secondary market.

I'll repeat what I said, if you know something is good, complete the purchase and move on. After all this, I don't think the original poster has one thing to complain about.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Rich, I have never seen either of these variation collectors "flip" any of their cards ....they simply collect them. See the OPs webiste (he recently shared this link in the post war forum) for details on his variation collection:

https://sites.google.com/site/richarddingmancards/

[Cliff Bowman]

*The OP and I collect obscure, uncataloged, and little known printing error/variation cards, and Deans Cards is a good source because they show good scans of the fronts and the backs"


So basically, both of you look for cards not readily known so you can re-sell for a nice profit on the secondary market.

I'll repeat what I said, if you know something is good, complete the purchase and move on. After all this, I don't think the original poster has one thing to complain about.
I checked my eBay account and I have sold one card in the last two years or so. The point I was trying to make was I giving a reason as to why anyone would buy from the much maligned Dean's Cards. I have found many more of these cards on CheckOutMyCards, an awesome site which I believe you have something to do with.

[rkrolewicz]

It hurts me to hear some posters say things like (paraphase) "you are crazy to buy from dean's". The original poster obviously buys from dean's so in essence you are criticizing him. Who are you to judge. It seems like there are mean people on this site.

[Cliff Bowman]

It hurts me to hear some posters say things like (paraphase) "you are crazy to buy from dean's". The original poster obviously buys from dean's so in essence you are criticizing him. Who are you to judge. It seems like there are mean people on this site.

This site has nothing on the Collectors Universe Forum, there are some cruel and vicious posters over there.

[rkrolewicz]

This site has nothing on the Collectors Universe Forum, there are some cruel and vicious posters over there.

Thank you, but that is not very consoling. :(

[Rich Klein]

1) if you are just doing this purchasing for collecting interests, I do apologize for saying it was for re-sale purposes

2) What I'm NOT going to back down on and this is the same for COMC, where I was doing the COMC Challenge for as part of Rich's Ramblings in 2013 is, if you did not complete the purchase then don't complain.

Look, and this is also true for COMC -- if someone buys the card you are working on then it will be removed from your cart if you leave it open

And

if there is a run on a specific card for any reason, whether it makes sense or not, then the seller has a right to adjust his prices upwards for any reason and this is true for Dean's, COMC or even for same seller on EBay. As I said, and I'm sure in today's world it can be adjusted even quicker, if a card starts selling and you have inventory triggers prices can go up or down.

I'm sorry the price changed on you, but that's part of any collectible business.

If I put out a Clayton Kershaw RC at $3 in January 2014 and I find a year later the book price is $30, I can raise my price now and if hehas a sore arm and his price collapses in 2015, I can put the card out for $3 again next year.

Rich

[slidekellyslide]

Obviously people are buying from Dean's...I just looked at his completed auctions and he sold exactly (as of a few minutes ago) 100 cards today with BINs.

[rhettyeakley]

Obviously people are buying from Dean's...I just looked at his completed auctions and he sold exactly (as of a few minutes ago) 100 cards today with BINs.

It blow's my mind a bit that he has as many sales as he does given his prices but the majority of sales are low value items (although someone paid $48,000 for an overpriced T206 set back in November!), that being said with 101,000 listings active he is bound to sell some stuff I guess.

On a fun note (for those eBay sellers) just today I got an email from a long winded ebayer that was more than a little condescending about how he thught my pricing on an Old Judge boxing card was wildly overpriced and that he just moved to the US from the UK and that we here in the States don't know how to price cards (ie we are way too high). I don't feel like my prices are out of whack but I can't imagine the type of messages Dean's gets from people that have nothing better to do with their time. :)

I wonder what the monthly fee is to simply have 101,000+ listings on ebay after taking into consideration the final value fees? As far as the listing fees alone, the cheapest you can get (I think) is .05 listings per item with an anchor store (you get like 2.500 free listings) but have to pay $200 for the right to get the .05 listings. Thus at a minimum it is roughly $5,000/month just in listing fees alone for his stuff.

[the 'stache]

This is a card I bought recently (NM with nearly perfect centering. An almost exact clone of this very card) for $6 with free shipping, so I thought I'd do a quick ebay search for it tonight in NM, and there were absolutely no surprises here. Look at the results with his dumb 'actual image' logo (I, too, eliminate this moron from my searches, but sometimes he squeaks through and when you see that logo, you know it's time to just zip past that listing). He prices his card at basically ten times what the other people are asking and with them your shipping is included. Granted, the other two cards are o/c, but if they were greatly centered, the cost would probably be the same. As I said, mine cost a mere $6.

And I won't even mention that he (yes, I purposely personify this laughable company as 'he') calls a card with an obviously rounded/damaged lower left corner as NM. And this isn't some isolated incident. He does this ridiculous pricing with all of his cards. He annoys the living crap out of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

177299

Darren, this will blow your mind then. Here's a direct excerpt from an email correspondence I had with Dean's Cards regarding their claim of having "low prices".

Also realize that try we keep EVERY post-war vintage card in stock, in every condition. To do so, we have to pay more and charge more, depending on the card. So we are not the cheapest on every card, but we have every card. Also, our prices have come down by that percentage in the last year. Please check out the post-war vintage commons that we have listed and this should answer your questions.

This morning I was looking at 1957 Topps commons on our site. Considering the most cards on eBay our overgraded by at least one grade - if not two - our prices were far lower than most other options. Again, focus on the cards, in which we have higher quantities. Those our the best deals.

http://www.williamgregory.net/images/doh.gif

This communication was from January 2nd of this year.

The rationale here is "we keep every Marco Mendoza card in stock, so, therefore, we are justified to charge $60 on a 1962 Topps [finger quotes]near mint[/finger quotes] Dick Stuart card that nobody else charges more than $10 for.

But if we go to their website, we can save 20% there! So, we could go to Dean's Cards .com, and pay only $48!

[brightair]

OP here again.

I'd like to thank all who responded, and I did learn something from this thread. I learned that the practice of adjusting the price on a card when it is in your cart is not unusual.

What I did not learn much about, and what I was most interested in, was how people felt about this system having no transparency. I guess I could, as one poster suggested, keep copies of my cart and look for changes. Perhaps I will have to do that. I would rather be advised that a card price has been adjusted. Then I can respond as I see fit.

Maybe if I had worded my original post differently, I could have been more precise, and gotten more of the replies I wanted. I did not intend a DC bashing thread. My fault there.

I'd like to say one thing more in defense of DC (and I know I will take flack for this, but I feel it needs to be said for fairness and balance) since so much of the opposite has been aired.

There are not many online sites that will show both sides of thousands of commons at several different grade availabilities. I say not many, but I can only really think of one. This is very important to me. This service costs Dean time and energy, and his customers should pay for it. So it is not surprising that DC prices are higher than others who don't offer this service.

Further, from my, somewhat limited, experience, their grading is fair, and they deliver quickly and pack well.

I don't buy a ton from DC. I pick and choose and look around a lot. But some special things I can't find just anywhere. I am a bit of a cheapskate and will get the best deals I can wherever I find them, but I don't have the time or resources to search thousands of commons in any other way but online. And that is often what I need to do to find the cards I want. So DC really fills a niche that I appreciate. I would love it if they were cheaper, but I also would love it if I were a few inches taller and a few decades younger.

Thanks again to all, and to all a good night!

Richard D

[Rich Klein]

Now that is a good question

If you have cards in a shopping card and prices change while they are sitting in your cart, if there some way of getting notifications of price changes,

I'm not a programmer but I think that is, and not just for Richard but for anyone, the real crux of the question.

If the question had been asked like that, I think we could have avoided the DC thread and kept it to the real question at hand

[slidekellyslide]

All sellers should scan both the front and back of a card....I assume that for his ungraded common cards he uses a scanner like a Fujitsu SnanSnap...that will scan both front and back of an item with one pass through the scanner. It's what I use for postcards and it adds maybe 10 seconds of time while preparing a listing to add the extra scan.

Edited to add: I can scan 10-15 postcards at a time with the ScanSnap S1500...it takes me less than 10 minutes to scan 100 postcards front and back. This used to take me an hour or two with my old flatbed scanner.

[D. Bergin]

All sellers should scan both the front and back of a card....I assume that for his ungraded common cards he uses a scanner like a Fujitsu SnanSnap...that will scan both front and back of an item with one pass through the scanner. It's what I use for postcards and it adds maybe 10 seconds of time while preparing a listing to add the extra scan.

Edited to add: I can scan 10-15 postcards at a time with the ScanSnap S1500...it takes me less than 10 minutes to scan 100 postcards front and back. This used to take me an hour or two with my old flatbed scanner.

Isn't that a sheet fed scanner? Does it crop the image properly around the outside of the borders?

I was never comfortable putting cards or photos through a scanner like that. I also prefer to preview the scan before actually scanning it, so I can adjust cropping, sharpness and matte patterns, depending on how the scanner is reading a particular type photo or print, to try and get it as close to actual appearance as possible.

I've always been on the lookout for a two-sided flatbed scanner to eventually hit the market, that doesn't cost thousands of dollars.

[Cozumeleno]

Personally, I'd love to know what they offer as buyers when acquiring a collection. Anyone ever sold anything to them? Even with the inflated prices I can't imagine they're paying more than anyone else.

[bobbyw8469]

Personally, I'd love to know what they offer as buyers when acquiring a collection. Anyone ever sold anything to them? Even with the inflated prices I can't imagine they're paying more than anyone else.

I would think less.

[slidekellyslide]

Isn't that a sheet fed scanner? Does it crop the image properly around the outside of the borders?

I was never comfortable putting cards or photos through a scanner like that. I also prefer to preview the scan before actually scanning it, so I can adjust cropping, sharpness and matte patterns, depending on how the scanner is reading a particular type photo or print, to try and get it as close to actual appearance as possible.

I've always been on the lookout for a two-sided flatbed scanner to eventually hit the market, that doesn't cost thousands of dollars.

Yes...I have used it to scan all kinds of cards without any problems...it doesn't always scan an entire card if the border is white though and it won't scan cabinet photos or anything with about that thickness. I don't think I'd use it to scan something I considered to be a PSA 8-10 candidate.

[savedfrommyspokes]

All sellers should scan both the front and back of a card....I assume that for his ungraded common cards he uses a scanner like a Fujitsu SnanSnap...that will scan both front and back of an item with one pass through the scanner. It's what I use for postcards and it adds maybe 10 seconds of time while preparing a listing to add the extra scan.

Edited to add: I can scan 10-15 postcards at a time with the ScanSnap S1500...it takes me less than 10 minutes to scan 100 postcards front and back. This used to take me an hour or two with my old flatbed scanner.

The Scan Snap s-1500 is a great scanner and worth every penny....1000 (crisp, non-glossy) singles scanned front and back(on a single pass), auto numbered and linked to my listings, all in an hour. I self-host the images for my ebay listings, so with the front and back scan, I create a file path that I link to each listing so that both images appear in the listing. Takes less than a second to link the 2000 (f/b) images to the 1000 listings. I have not had any damage caused to the cards I am scanning....I tested it with several hundred clunkers before trying on normal cards.

The only downfall to this scanner is that the auto-cropping feature does crop along one edge. The whole card is indeed shown, however, some buyers feel that they are not seeing the whole card due to the one edge being cropped closely.

[pokerplyr80]

OP here again.

What I did not learn much about, and what I was most interested in, was how people felt about this system having no transparency. I guess I could, as one poster suggested, keep copies of my cart and look for changes. Perhaps I will have to do that. I would rather be advised that a card price has been adjusted. Then I can respond as I see fit.

Richard D

In response to the OP's question, I think it's common knowledge that prices on any website can fluctuate. Just because an item is in your card does not mean it has been purchased. The item can also be purchased by someone else, and happens on major sites like ebay and amazon. If the cards were only in your cart for minutes before you made your purchase than the timing is unfortunate. But I don't believe a website should be expected to notify you of a price change for something in your shopping cart.

Just my opinion.

[slidekellyslide]

The Scan Snap s-1500 is a great scanner and worth every penny....1000 (crisp, non-glossy) singles scanned front and back(on a single pass), auto numbered and linked to my listings, all in an hour. I self-host the images for my ebay listings, so with the front and back scan, I create a file path that I link to each listing so that both images appear in the listing. Takes less than a second to link the 2000 (f/b) images to the 1000 listings. I have not had any damage caused to the cards I am scanning....I tested it with several hundred clunkers before trying on normal cards.

The only downfall to this scanner is that the auto-cropping feature does crop along one edge. The whole card is indeed shown, however, some buyers feel that they are not seeing the whole card due to the one edge being cropped closely.

Yes...this is info that I will freely share here on Net54, but I never tell my local competition at auctions and tag sales that it is this easy with the ScanSnap. For the most part they stay away from postcards because they find it too tedious to list them on ebay. :D