Kerry Wood retired today/OT but a question

[Rich Klein]

I know this is OT for this baord but I got to thinking and writing about Kerry for my occassionaly column for Sports Collectors Daily.

One of the themes I discussed was that after his classic one-hitter versus the Astros in 1998 the prices of his Bowman Chrome card exploded on BBay and that really helped to make EBay the market force it has become for baseball cards.


When did you rezlalize that a form of buying cards other than at shows or through ads in trade papers would be a cool way to purchase cards or to sell cards.

Regards
Rich

[FrankWakefield]

The "when" for me was June 7, 2001.

Great perception of the situation, Rich. It would be neat to see a chart showing eBay membership numbers from 1996 through 2002... and look to see how many peaks or bubbles there are, then trying to match those up with something happening in the sports world.

[drc]

There were a few good email auctions in 1996 and a couple of years after. Solomon Cramer ran a good email card auction. As the name suggests, everything was done through email.

[Bilko G]

I was a late bloomer, i got my first computer in 2002 sometime and within a month i was buying on Ebay and Naxcom. I actually didn't like Ebay at first because i didn't like how you had to bid and wait up to 10 days before you could actually "buy" the card. I liked going to Naxcom better at first because i could instantly buy and pay for the card without having to wait for a week on ebay. Took me a few weeks to realize that bidding on cards on ebay was better because 90% of the time i could win the cards on Ebay for a lot cheaper than paying the "Buy It Now" prices on Naxcom.

[CubsFanCurt]

For me it was 1999. I went on a big spree of collecting Mark Grace cards and was able to pick up stuff that shops didn't have. From there I started going for vintage cards and loved that I could find any card I wanted on the internet. Around the time of 98-99 the card shops by me only focused on the newest cards and packs and the hope of the ever elusive "chase card". I only have 1 shop within a few miles of me but I can get whatever I want with a mouse click instead of taking a crap shoot and usually losing by walking in the doors of the shop. Prices are better on the net because there is a low overhead

[HOF Auto Rookies]

About the question in charts showing prices, what I really miss was at beckett.com when you searched a card and clicked on the card, you could see a graph on the history of that card. Went up, down, stayed the same etc, it was a pretty neat tool to see. Wish they still had that. Always fun looking back at Pujols' cards before he blew up.

[drc]

I was living and working in the same city where my dad was a professor. So my first internet account was borrowing my dad's 1990s university account. I remember I took a free class at the university on how to browse the internet-- pre-Netscape and pre-browser. And the funny thing is I was a software programmer for an engineering firm.

On the mid 1990s university account, you'd have a tough time because the all the lines would often be busy-- dial up naturally. And the rule was you weren't suppose to stay on long so others could get on. And the software came on about 10 floppy disks.

[BradH]

I remember there was a small auction site I used in 1995-96, but the name escapes me – I actually did more selling on it than buying on it. Then a friend introduced me to eBay in summer 1998 and in the 14 years I’ve been on it I have only made about 250 purchases and zero sales. Conversely, my wife joined eBay in 2006 and has made well over a thousand purchases. GO FIGURE! But my eBay buys have slowed down in recent years and are really only for things I think I’m getting a good deal on.

I just recently spoke about this topic to the friend who originally introduced me to eBay years ago and he was shocked that I’ve only made 250ish purchases. He’s at over 10,000 purchases and nearly as many sales.

I remember those first 2-3 years of eBay, there were some AMAZING deals on T and E cards. Not so much anymore, so most of my purchases now are thru auction houses or the occasional card show.