Quote:
Originally Posted by 2dueces
In the end it was Rosen who offered big bucks (at the time) for old pieces of cardboard in the 80's. So instead all that material going out with the trash it came to the market place. How many cards in our collections are there because of him? Even if they never touched his hands? Like him or hate him, he helped start the boom.
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Disagree. Yes he was a master self promoter and got the best tables right by the front door of shows. He just bullied many unsuspecting people and family members as they walked into a show to sell a loved one's estate. Back in the 80s that was pretty much the only way to do it, other than going to the local card shop as there was no Enet. He used cash as his weapon and used car salesman tactics like if you walk away from me I'll pull my offer. Then pressure people when they should have gone to the next row down to most likely get offers twice as much or at least higher.
Then he would go to his downline like a pyramid scheme of his dealer network to sell everything he bought at a pre determined mark up and the dealers had to buy it all, no matter what it was. I think the mark up I heard back then was 20 percent. The dealers just had to move the stuff ranging from cheap wax to rare 19th century items. Everyone made tons of money because of the clubbing the original seller or estate took when they unfortunately took the first offer and was bullied into selling. I think all the cards in the hobby that we collect still would have made it into our collections as I don't see family members just "throwing" cards in the trash.