Adam - enjoyed your blog post on the subject. Fair and balanced as one bogus news outlet likes to claim. Yout point is the same one I made, albeit maybe not in the assholish fashion I did. Regardless of your motives in trading, its always an economic transaction for the dealer paying rent for his table. Very unlikely the dealer is trading with you because he personally wants the card for his collection. He wants to sell it. And sometimes it might make sense for the dealer to engage in a trade for a lesser value card for other reasons like you offer. But the dealer is not trading with you because the trading thing is giving him a warm fuzzy feeling about those days of yore when he and his buddies met in his grandmothers basement in 1976 and traded cards. He's making a business decision. Economics 101.

trading
 

Snapolitano- It's not gonna be that easy, partner. It's also "Econ 101" for
the other party, and the "warm and fuzzy" comment is a non-starter. You're
reach exceeded your grasp on this one, you whiffed. Ignore me if you wish,
you are wrong here.

Trent King

I traded for this E121 Ruth at the Philly Show. I gave up five cards (1951 Bowman Mays, 1957 Topps Bill Russell, M101-5 Honus Wagner [blank back], 1957 Topps Sandy Koufax, and 1921 Exhibits Walter Johnson), plus some cash. I am very pleased with the trade and believe that the dealer was very fair with the values he assigned to my cards. Could I have gotten more for them if I had sold them myself? Probably, a little more, but there would likely be fees/expenses associated with that also. I think from his perspective, he will be able to move the five cards he received, easier than the Ruth, and as a larger dealer, probably has the ability to make a little more on them than I could. I guess it worked out for both of us.

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Really nice card.

I have had some success making surprisingly fair trades with a dealer at a nearby monthly card show. The guy generally pays 80-90% range and his trades are even closer to market. If you factor in the ability to offload cards safely without having to deal with shipping costs and risks, it has worked out really nicely. Selling cards isn't always super easy. The best and easiest way is eBay but you are only getting 85% that way and so an in-person show transaction for similar value can work out well. Plus it is fun. It doesn't hurt that the dealer is a cool guy with fair prices and tons of good vintage inventory.

Also, a lot of dealers don't really look beyond card / grade / VCP, so it's possible to offload below-average cards for the assigned grade and get the market value, minus whatever discount the dealer assesses. This has enabled me to trade cards that are weak for the grade in exchange for examples that are strong.