Buythatcard needs to tell us his secret.

OK. I agree. Sellers of oddball items may have to work a little harder to have their item be randomly "found."

Sellers of more mainstream items may have to work a little harder to be sure their listings are accurate in their use of item specifics.

And browsers may have to be just a little more creative than we were to create search/browse categories that fit our desires.

But... it's better than it was this morning, albeit worse/different than it was two days ago.

e bay mess
 

many of you have good responses regarding refining searches and that is important HOWEVER....

Browsing is different than searching and many of us browse and find era related material by era categories... what makes NO sense is collectibles such as coins still have easy to navigate & selling sub categories by era, US, foreign gold, US, professional graded & non graded (different wording, same thing) and they are a similar type rare collectibles with recent shiny junk too, but they are not MIXED TOGETHER...you can still search for lots or singles and not be lumped together. Their categories were NOT changed, ours were.....why? If e bay was to benefit on a profitable level for this stupidity, why destroy the cards categories and not do same w/ coins?

I can still browse gold coins and get a single search for all gold coins but if I want to find all Mickey mantle cards 1950-1959 graded(PSA,GAI,SGC BVG) etc. in one search (which I could last week), it will be Mickey Mantle reprint garbage mixed w/ good cards, graded mixed w/ non graded, now the search MUST be refined or you will lose the ability to "browse" not search.

Sellers are going to lose 1/2 of their watchers, we see our results last two days and it is way down from comparible watchers of similar items this month.

It just makes no sense from any point of view.....

The worst part is that they didn't screw up the other categories. That means they will get only a minimum number of complaints -- probably a number similar to the number of people who read this board. There just aren't that many prewar collectors out there. So it will be much tougher to get them to change.

I originally thought these changes were across the whole website, and I was about to invest heavily in selling ebay stock short. With only cards affected, it probably won't make a difference.

I might have spoken to quickly when I said teh categories were back.

I can see the categories when I do a refined search. I was not able to do that over the past 2 days. It looks the same to me as it did before we had these problems.

But, I still cannot choose any subcategories under baseball when listing new items.

So, it's still a mess.

Actually, it does; here's another conspiracy theory to chew on: ebay wants to be rid of the auction format and has been doing things to favor fixed price sales for quite some time. Perhaps chopping out the browsing contingent is part of that strategy--drive the prices down on auctions and force everyone to go to fixed price listings to protect their suddenly much larger downsides.

I agree with Larry, Matt and Adam. No searching can accomplish what the browsing of an era category did. The flip booklet with no year in the title is a great example, Matt is correct, listed now, that book brings $50 to $75 as many would not have seen it.

I also think Adam is on to something: Ebay is really pushing the direct sale and no auctions. This loss of sub categories will cause loss of revenue for sellers and for them to list with BIN's.

All sellers will do the inventory dumps.

Also, there are doctored fakes popping up like crazy now and the report item feature hasn't worked for 2 days.

Amazing!

Adam makes a good point, but I've been wondering: why does ebay want to get rid of the auction format? Why is a fixed price site to their advantage? Is it too costly to run the auction software?

It's easy for us to sit here and say ebay is really stupid to make the changes they have made, but the fact is a good deal of thought is put into these decisions. And it is done because the company believes it will make them more profitable. But why? That's what escapes me.

I would suspect
 

Because in "fixed sales" mode EBay would have a higher percentage of high volume sellers instead of the Mom and Pop sellers who do auctions.

It's much easier for a business to deal with a smaller number of "distributors" then it is to deal with a large number of "retailers".

Rich

Not a smart move
 

Just b/c this decision has been made doesn't mean eBay it works for the consumer or that their "research process" was conducted accurately. There are many companies (like Enron) that make poor decisions and pay for it--getting too big can contribute to MORE errors, not less.

There are two options of what happened here in my opinion:
1) Some wonk in corporate has no idea how collectors search/buy cards & proposed this reconfiguration to save $ on server space, etc.
2) This was a strategic & deliberate choice to kill off auctions/small sellers in their continued transition to fixed BINS/stores

I'm leaning towards option 2 at this point. The consequence of this change will immediately kill penny auctions which no doubt hurts the big seller who offers the same product in their stores, but at a higher price. Also notice the new seach options which allows you to easily search for specific sellers. To me, this option further confirms my suspicions regarding WHY this change was implemented.

Responding to Rich and mintacular, who both made good points, I guess the auctions are in some ways not as profitable as the fixed price format. It would seem like both large corporations and mom and pop sellers could live together harmoniously, as there's a need for both of them. So why not let the auction business grow too, even if they want to draw more attention to the bigger retail sellers?

I know that vintage baseball cards comprise maybe 1/10 of 1% of all ebay sales, so I don't think they are losing too much sleep over our issues. But for that reason alone, why not just leave it be?

e bay mess
 

If e bay wants to rid the auction format and that was their purpose, WHY DID THEY KEEP THE SUB CATEGORIES FOR COINS???????

You can still separate and BROWSE graded and non graded coins, I just think they wanted to consolodate categories as their "efforts to improve the e bay experience" and there was no one at e bay that really understood the severity regarding baseball card era categories...it does not mean they are not intending to long term go to a BIN/best offer/best match structure...it would be more evident if every collectible category was destroyed like cards were.

Coins, etc. are NEXT
 

From my last 10 years of experience on eBay, these changes usually fall like dominos--cards this week, coins next month, etc. I am still hoping this is one bad dream.

If not, I hope a new site that specializes specifically in sports cards, etc. can swoop in & offer a better alternative. eBay is clearly out of touch with how collectors shop and is too big for its own britches.

This theory makes a lot of sense. If you get all of your sellers paranoid that buyers won't find their item, they are all going to start listing items as Buy it Now to make sure that they don't take a huge loss on their item because nobody saw it.

I think the answer is simply a case of too many cooks spoiling the stew.

Too many salaries, too many people with input into the decision making process, too few people with actual experience using the platform.

I think the descent began years ago when Ebay first went from a private company to a public company.

The stock went crazy and with it came unrealistic expectations of continued growth in feeding the Wall Street machine. Dumb decisions were made in the chase for short term profits and eventually Ebay decided they wanted to become the company whose ass they were metaphorically kicking for years and years...........Amazon!!

Ebay keeps saying "auctions are dying"................that's because they have been killing them off themselves! :confused:

When Ebay began it was nothing more then a few people..........a server and some fancy software.

Ebay doesn't keep any inventory.............overhead should be nill. Every one of these poor decisions creates more overhead for them and in turn more pennies they are obligated to suck off it's users to meet demand from it's stockholders.

Pretty soon the vampire's going to run out of blood to suck.

I'll be rooting for Leon.

Meanwhile..............I've got some items to list on Ebay! :D

NonSports Cards
 

Leon if you do start an auction site here, please include NonSports cards.

As much as I've supported Leon with the idea of starting an auction site on Net54, the fact is no one can compete with the audience ebay reaches. It is simply remarkable, and probably the best thing about it.

When I was at my peak of selling on ebay, probably 2-3 years ago, the number of new names and new bidders I would get was extraordinary. And that in turn led to high prices realized. A site similar to ebay, hosted here, would only get a fraction of the views. So that would concern me.

Barry - you are correct as that has always been the issue with eBay competitors. But with people generally leaving eBay in chunks due to their decisions over the past year, and then sports-collectibles-specific folks leaving in droves over this mess, added with the fact that a significant percentage (vast majority?) of pre-war card collectors are already on this site, I think there is a good chance for success.

Matt- I agree that now would be an opportune time to start a new auction site. People are angry and looking for an alternative.

Bingo!

The only thing that ebay concerns itself with is money. Why should they care how we feel, as collectors, about this idiotic new move? I think the only thing that would make them change their mind is a boycott by sellers and buyers. Perhaps, as Barry says, the money derived is a drop in the bucket but 1% of ebay revenues is 1% of ebay revenues and some bean counter is going to notice. Maybe giving them a "Black October" for cards would do some good and convince the miscreants to change things back. Who knows?
In the meantime I have to shake my head at some of the responses on this board. It appears very obvious that each one of us who calls or writes is dealing with one different person each time. It's too bad they don't have a single person or group of people you can complain to who would see that the complaints are not singular in nature but shared by a large group of people.
It just p.o.'s me that I have a feedback of over 6500 and have made them a lot of money through the years (and Paypal too) and yet I am treated like someone who collects string. :mad:

I don't think a vast majority of prewar collectors use this site. I have no idea what the percentages are, but I would bet it doesn't even reach the 50% plateau. No disrespect intended, this is just my personal opinion based on years of buying and selling on eBay. It doesn't make me an expert. All I know is that over the years a few of the buyers names have stayed the same, but (as Barry mentioned) most are constantly new.


At this present time, I would welcome any viable "baseball card" alternative to eBay. Actually, I'm jumping at the bit for it! To become really successful an ebay competitor would have to attract the hard core collector (easy to do) and the casual one (not so easy). I'm a small fish, especially when compared to Barry during his "heyday", but I've made a few sales to "whales" (which are always nice when they are biting). However, it has been the housewife purchasing an anniversary present, or the guy who just likes old stuff, or the collector in Japan.....these are the people who have consistenly given me the most bang for my buck. I'm not sure how you duplicate that?

Lovely Day...

I think adding a cards section to "Vintage Sports Memorabilia" might be the easiest solution for Ebay and the group here.

Ebay made the move because even though many browse the pre-1930 category, I'm sure VERY few browsed by the literally dozens of other categories and sub-categories in the main cards section.

eBay Competition
 

I think that the problem with eBay wannabees was that they just imitated eBay and tried to pull off an identical site with tons of categories. The reason why I think that Leon has a chance (although a small one..I admit) is because it will be specific to one category and he has experience in the auction business already. JMO.

Jeff

One thing I learned from the 1990 Texas National .....
 

If you don't stand together ... You get what you deserve!

See post # 146 .....

Unfortunately it will only get worse.
 

As Ebay moves towards an Amazon.com type of model. Inevitably they will get rid of auctions entirely as they theorize that auctions were "just a fad" I find that thinking ridiculous. People love Ebay, especially collectibles folks. Auctions are so much more fun than BUY IT NOW garbage.

cheers
Leo

Yep, there is just no competition for ebay...I've auctioned a few items on the BST and they just don't go for what I can get on ebay...I even tried to auction two sports related tins on the BST and nobody even posted the minimum $25 bid so I took them to ebay and combined they sold for $180...I had a $50 BIN for them on BST and there were no takers. I think the only way a dedicated auction service on N54 works is if Ebay gets rid of the auction format completely.

Don't know why eBay thinks it has to choose to be more like Amazon and less like eBay (in its heyday)
Why can't it take advantage of both venues instead of choosing to lean towards one format?

as stated before
 

The little do it yourself auctions on our BST are supposed to be mainly for fun and lower end items. That's not to say you can't try anything you want but it is mainly for fun. I sold a few sub $100 items as I didn't care what they brought.

With the newer auction proposition that I/we are considering, it's the real deal. It won't be rinky dink and it will be run a heck of a lot better than ebay (which won't be hard to do). Of course we won't have the audience ebay does. Hardly any site except Amazon does. There will be ways for sellers to protect themselves while running higher end, as well as lower end, auctions. Hey, the worst thing that can happen is it doesn't work out. Since I have always wanted to try it I am sure I/we will. Except for a link on Net54baseball.com it won't be affiliated with this forum too much. As I said before everything on the board is staying the same...same BST, same categories, no cost for anyone unless you want to advertise etc.......regards

Hey Leon,

Will this proposed auction site have categories below Baseball? :D

no
 

No Howard, I was thinking we would just have 1 category called "Sports and everything else too".....that should narrow it down in an ebay-like way. :eek:

e bay mess
 

Leon- I say it is time to make a stand!...I have 5000+ names on my mailing list from 11,000 e bay transactions since 2004, I will give that to you, you can mail a notice/letters/brochure of a prototype NET54 card/memorabilia auction site and it should be all collectibles sports , properly defined and categorized plus non sports cards...also have to get PSA/SGC/VCP/ etc. all are who are affected in some way from this e bay decision, to get aboard. We are all affected by this e bay direction even if you do not buy on ebay . Collectors, dealers, occasional e bay glancers, show promoters, grading services, etc., all need to realize the severity of e bay's directives and I will donate the first customer list for you when you are ready. I want to be one of the first to defy this debacle and try something that can really work, hope everyone is up for a challenge that will be to the hobby's benefit in the long run and hopefully wishing is now....Larry.

sounds great
 

Hey Larry
Sounds great. I am not sure how long it will take for the real auction I am looking at doing, but it will happen. I will take you up on your offer too. We are a bit of a ways out though. We are looking at a way to potentially get sniping on a site other than ebay but that is the obstacle right now. I/we (Matt is my partner on this venture) have contacted another programmer that has an idea of how to do it but it's not an immediate solution...it will take a bit of time....My guess is 30-60 days but hopefully less. Rome wasn't built overnight.

Leon, I didn't mean to imply that it would be "rinky dink"...I just don't think any auction site will compete with ebay until they finally turn out the lights. They are just that entrenched...I have a feeling that whatever you set up the first time someone runs a true auction without a reserve and it goes for less than they expected that they'll either do the same thing they do on ebay which is to set a reserve or a ridiculous BIN. A site like yours is going to attract a lot of card dealers and card collectors..one element it won't have is the clueless or casual seller who actually does find a stash of OJ's at an estate sale or finds a stash of Clement Bread cards in their attic. That is/was the true beauty of ebay.

I'm not sure I see the need for any organized boycott. I'm not going to use ebay much any more, if at all, because it's pretty useless. I think most collectors of prewar cards will reach the same conclusion. So ebay will simply die on the vine for vintage card collectors.

The problem is -- if they didn't screw up the other categories, ebay won't even notice. The sellers of shiny new cards (as well as the sellers of pots and pans and whatever else people buy on ebay) will keep buying and selling. Ebay won't even be keeping track of the former pre-war categories anymore. So they won't even notice the difference.

I would bid/sell some stuff over here
 

Leon--Though I'm new to the site, as a collector I can tell you that there is a need/demand for a simple yet professional site that caters to collectors. Even if the auctions were BINs for now until traffic picks up, I think a site like this one could meet the needs of niche collectors. Clearly eBay has lost its "true north" and will never be the final answer passionate collectors are looking for.

Maybe it sounds like a pipe dream but Carnegie didn't become a steel magnate overnight--it had to start with an idea and a drive to follow through. Either way, you have my support and if/when you get serious about launching an auction site, I would be glad to help in any way I can. Good luck-Pat

Leon and Matt- although you guys are still in the planning phase, Dan made a really good point. If your new site is relatively cheap, and dealers are allowed to place reserves, you are going to be filled with thousands of overpriced BINs, and cards that will never sell. That's the one thing about ebay that just about everybody hates (except the guys listing these unsellable lots), and I'm sure that's not the look either of you want.

So you need to come up with a format that allows for a real auction environment, not a long term parking lot for overpriced inventory.

EXCELLENT point, Barry!

I too never liked the ridiculously overpriced BINs, though I can't say they detracted that much from my eBay experience - if given an option between having them as true auctions vs having them as BINs, obviously we'd all want them to be true auctions, but we're probably dealing here with having them as overpriced BINs, or not having them at all. Keep in mind we need to minimize seller risk to attract sellers, so allowing sellers to set reserves/BINs they are comfortable with is important. Not sure how to automatically distinguish between a reasonable BIN and an overpriced one, even though we all know it when we see it. Certainly am open to any solutions to that issue...

I always hated the overpriced BINs. But, to their credit, ebay implemented a feature that allows you to select auctions only. That was a godsend.

Off the top of my head, and perhaps a horrible idea, how about allowing a seller to list an item twice at his absurdly-high BIN, and then if --- and by if I mean, when --- it doesn't sell the second time, give them the option of either removing the item from the site for 30 days or re-listing the item at a lower price. And not a penny lower, but perhaps a set percentage.

Anthony - I have thought of the same thing - it's not a bad idea. I'm open to other options as well...

I thought of the same thing. If a dealer pops onto the site and lists a thousand cards with clearly overpriced BIN's, he needs to be charged a fee on each lot after a certain period of time. That's the kind of listing you really want to discourage.

Here's my early prediction: if you can develop a real auction site, in the spirit of the early days of ebay, you have an excellent chance of it being a huge success. I think collectors will love it and flock to it.

But if the site is instead mostly overpriced BIN's with very little inventory moving, then I don't think it will work. Collectors will quickly tire of it and move on.

There are so many posts that I hope I am not repeating but it looks like when you are in the Ebay baseball card category you can choose the years you want to view on the left side. If you check "Choose More" you can pick any and all years that you want to view.

OK, but...
 

what you have posted is a whole lot more complicated than clicking on one subcategory that matches your interest....that's the point. Until the avg. consumer gets use to this more sophisticated way to search for cards, cards with actual value are going be less visible as they are now thrown into a pool of 80s-90s garbage...

Also, listing hundreds of items a day will require the seller to specify more info and take more time to sell each single item. Lastly, it is very difficult to sell mixed lots as you are now constricted to choosing one attribute for each item even though the cards might be different years. For example, if you have a lot of PFG commons from 1953-59 you will need to choose one year for the whole group, whereas the old system would allow you to place that group in the "Lot of 50s" subcat. Make sense?

Robert, that's the method I used when I re-saved my Ebay searches yesterday. The most glaring problem with that new method, though, is that at the very bottom of that list of years is the option "not specified" and there are currently 10,000 cards in the not specified category. I'm probably not going to add those 10,000 cards to my browsing list, but what am I potentially missing out on by doing so. Hobson's Ebay.

In addition msot T206's are listed without a year so its a huge problem. The only way i can look at what i want is t206 psa or t206 sgc, etc.

And
 

the old system allowed you to search by category AND attribute...

e bay mess
 

Easy solution-

If you are going to have a collectibles on line site...
You would have 2 types of listings, BIN/best offer type on one screen selection and low minimum bid auction style, these would both be offered but not in the same listings if you choose to filter all BIN's out just as e bay did however fees should be based on zero listing fees for auctions as they should be charged when SOLD to get more people to list this way, and offer the other format should have an upfront fee for 7-14 days, if it does not sell, you cannot relist at that price or higher for 30 days and a smaller fee schedule if it does sell.

MIXED lots should also be able to be sorted easier as everyone loves to sort through lots to break up instead of single cards(graded or ungraded)

Pre 1979
 

Leon/Matt,

Why not make the site pre-1979 sports cards and memorabilia only....A true vintage site?

Jeff

Overpriced BINS
 

One of the reasons you get them more and more is that Ebay doesn't charge a seller more as the price of the BIN rises, unlike an auction. It is the same $0.35 for a $2,000 BIN as a $20 BIN. I know that I will periodically list cards that I don't really want to sell at BINs that I don't expect to get, just on the offhand chance that someone will grab the card at the BIN. If you were to construct a system where the BIN price dictates the listing cost, you would ratchet back on the silliness.

Maybe this will be a good thing...ebay will finally drive the collectors off and we can go back to having shows!

I miss the shows :(

Joshua

Not good for those of us who live in the sticks. My collection wouldn't be 1/50th of what it is without ebay....and there have never been card shows worth a crap anywhere near here.

Sticks
 

Don't ever say that. Just b/c you live in the "sticks" does not mean your collection is worth "1/50th". In fact, in some ways eBay represents a lower value of your collection. eBay buyers bid less due to the uncertainty factors (Are these cards really NM? Oh, and I need to subtract shipping from my top bid.)

While eBay prices are much closer to market value than Beckett HBV ones, they are not the end all, be all. You might be suprised what you could get in your local market, and if you are in the "sticks", wait for a big show in your region and pay $50 in gas to get there. It will be worth it.

In short, eBay does not make ones collection worth x50 and in many cases it reflects a lower actual value as mentioned. JMO

I think Dan meant he wouldn't have had the opportunity to pick up more than 1/50th of his current cards without ebay.

Yep. That's what I meant. Because my collection is so specialized ebay is really my only reliable marketplace to pick up the items I collect. Kansas City is the closest city that would have any type of sizable card show, but is it worth my time and money to drive down there and have maybe a 1% chance of finding something that fits my collection? I'm guessing my odds would only be slightly better at the National convention of finding something that fits my collection. The end of ebay would make it verrrry difficult for me to continue collecting.

Response
 

I'm just saying while eBay is convenient & quick outlet for selling your cards/collectibles, I think some people (wrongly) fall into the trap of dependency on eBay when in fact their cards can be sold at other venues, oftentimes at a HIGHER $ than eBay could command...

In short, eBay is only one of many markets to tap for selling collectibes. I have received hundreds of dollars ($ and trade) for collectibles that would have only received a fraction of that had I sold them on eBay.

Ebay is dead to me! RIP ol friend

eBay Mess
 

After a lot of phone calls and emails - my eBay response is below

they did say they will add the prewar and post war searches

these are just changes sellers and buyers will have to adjust with, but I still told them they should change back to what it was!!!

Dear James, Our apologies for not getting back to you sooner. And we sincerelyapologize for any business impact associated with the change in theSports Card categories. The change to the categories within Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop >Cards, is as announced here:http://pages.ebay.com/categorychanges/sportscards.html This change was made to eliminate the duplication between categories andItem Specifics. The Item Specifics changes were announced here:http://pages.ebay.com/sell/itemspecs.html issue we were experiencing earlier in the week, which has now beenresolved, is the ability to refine a browse or search within aparticular Sport by Product (Box, Pack, Single, Set, etc.), CardAttributes (Rookie, Serial Numbered, Autographed, Piece of Authentic),Year (selected singly or in multiples through the use of the ChooseMore.. option), Professionally Graded, and Original/Reprint. These are the refinements available for sellers to specify in the ItemSpecifics. As indicated in Seller notifications and Best Practices, itis important to fill out the Item Specifics as accurately and completelyas possible to ensure the best possible relevance of items to searchresults. We have added Team and Player as options for sellers in the ItemSpecifics, as applicable by Sport (with Driver being an option inRacing), and shortly we will be adding these options for buyers to beable further refine their browse or search. We will also be adding an Item Specific for Era (Modern, Post-WWII,Pre-WWII) in Baseball Cards, and about a week afterwards we will addthis as a buyer option as well. With the accurate use of Item Specifics, it is not necessary to searchor browse through all 205k+ cards in Baseball. One simply has to usethe filters on the left hand side, or combine these filters withspecific title searches, to reduce the results to those items ofinterest. Once again we encourage all sellers to use Item Specifics, as these arethe primary mechanism for browsing and searching within a category. If there are specific ways you like to browse or search, and/or forspecific kinds of Sports Cards, you can email that information to me andwe will do our best to help you to do comparable browsing or searchingunder the new category and Item Specifics. Sincerely,MahinaeBay Classification Team

Here is a month-old story but it relates to Ebay's demise.............err, I mean.......grand vision of catering to giant retailers and third-party vendors (ala Amazon). They are now getting some serious competition from Sears and Wal-Mart.

http://www.apparelnews.net/features/...Style-Business


You can now go to the Wal-Mart website and purchase a replica Mark McGwire Autographed rookie card picture for only $499. Heck, your wife can now type-in the name Babe Ruth in their search facility and walk away with some nice looking (but expensive) picture frames........http://www.walmart.com/search/search...rch_query=ruth


It is just a matter of time before eBay goes "poof" and reverts back to catering to the medium-size and smaller-size seller. By then it will be too late, the only question will be whether the grave will me marked or unmarked?

Lovely Day...

So, in their effort to reduce duplication, they are creating confusing duplication. In the "item specifics," assuming sellers even use them, they will now have a "pre-war" and a "year." Will sellers check both the pre-war box and the year box? I hope so.

Basically, what ebay has done is taken a mandatory filter (categories) and converted them into optional filters ("item specifics"). If sellers truly take the time to use the item specifics options, maybe it won't be so bad. But what was the point?

I've looked at those item specifics when I list something to sell, but they are not always applicable. Maybe they plan on improving them. Why couldn't they just leave it alone?

not so fun anymore
 

As I told someone this morning...I have a search set for each year below 1930 and it works. The problem is that a lot of the really neat stuff I have found doesn't have a year exactly associated with it or is not in the title. No matter what ebay says they have really screwed it up. It's their business so I guess they are doing what they think is best. Only time will show them that they are wrong. Their financial numbers, in our cards categories, will dwindle. At that time they might re-evaluate their idiocy.

As much as I sometimes want to bang my head against the wall dealing with eBay, I agree completely. Ebay has been the one constant source of securing caramel and tobacco cards for me. I do bid in auctions also and go to most Nationals but ebay has been integral in my building my collection. Also, through ebay I was able to meet many collectors, many of whom are now on Net54 but some are not. That was before ebay came up with the nitwit disguising of buyer's ids about a year or so ago. Before that you could easily contact buyers and sellers and develop online friendships with collectors.

So, if you check all of the pre-1930 "item specific" boxes, do you only get items for which the seller checked one of those boxes? Or do you also get items that have a title that includes a year before 1930? I think it is only the first, but it certainly would be better if it's both.

Gosh you can get a heavily circulated, beaten up 1936 nickel for only $400 on WalMart.com, what a deal! :rolleyes:

And this is the business model that eBay is striving to replicate. Phase-out the auction format because it is so 1990's (plus, their research have showned that people are weary of them). Get the power sellers and third-party retailers to sell everthing via buy-it-now.

Lovely Day...

One Thing
 

I might suggest is that any sellers that read this board start using the phrase "pre 1930" in their auction headers or listings. Wouldn't that turn up on a search?
Maybe something as simple as "P30" would work.

This thread may help narrow your search
 

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?LH_Aucti...d=p3286.c0.m14

Copy, paste in your url