PWCC Auction Yet Again

[mark evans]

I'll confess to being a buyer/collector who may find it difficult to put myself in a seller's shoes. My complaint is not with BINs per se, but with the fact that they are almost invariably set significantly above VCP values.

Let me offer a suggestion: how about auctions with low starting bids and reserves set in the general vicinity (+5%?) of VCP values? This should increase the likelihood of sales while at the same time allowing sellers to take advantage of bidding wars in appropriate cases.

[Snapolit1]

Maybe an economist would disagree, but I think you need to look at more than one motivated buyer to determine the true value of something. If my house is worth $500,000, but some guy comes and offers me $1,000,000 for the house, maybe because his father grew up in the house and it's his life long dream to own it again, that doesn't make the market value $1,000,000, its a half million dollar house that some guy overpaid for.

[edhans]

Another emphatic plus one to Rhett's comments. I've been trying to make this point to customers and auction houses for years. The market is created by arms length transactions between ONE buyer and ONE seller. This is especially true for rare, but thinly traded issues.

[1952boyntoncollector]

Im not sure where you can get set breaks which are the cheapest ways to get card in 99 cent auctions so regularly anywhere else

1954 Topps PSA 8s theres about 200 cards there. I am not sure I have seen any major auction house sell card by card PSA 8 or higher from 1954 to current.

1952 and 1953 yes. But not 1954 at least for years.

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by mark evans

I'll confess to being a buyer/collector who may find it difficult to put myself in a seller's shoes. My complaint is not with BINs per se, but with the fact that they are almost invariably set significantly above VCP values.

Let me offer a suggestion: how about auctions with low starting bids and reserves set in the general vicinity (+5%?) of VCP values? This should increase the likelihood of sales while at the same time allowing sellers to take advantage of bidding wars in appropriate cases.

Ebay charges an exorbitant amount to set a reserve price.
If you set reserves on multiple items you would wind up losing money.

[mark evans]

Thanks, Richard. I was unaware of that fact which obviously complicates my suggestion.

Mark

[Exhibitman]

I start at my minimum acceptable price and take it from there. I don't sell as many items but I make more money in the end. I tried the $0.99 and let it rip approach and I would literally have been better off selling the items at my minimums and throwing out the unsold items, that's how badly it went.