A new low in net54 lowball offers
 

I thought this was funny enough to share:

So, last week I posted a bunch of t206 for sale. Among them were a SGC 30 Mordecai Brown for $125 and a SGC 35 George Brown for $32. I received a PM from a member. He had mixed the two up, and thought I was selling the Mordecai portrait for $32.

But, apparently $32 was not quite a good enough deal, so he offered me $30 for it :D

can always list on ebay starting at 99 cents..will sell for sure ...

Had the opposite happen to me over the weekend. I went to the White Plains show and thought I'd buy some boxes for fun. I asked the guy if I bought two could we work out a deal? He said, "maybe I could knock off $3."

I walked away of course. He would prefer to make nothing than be reasonable.

You should have accepted the offer if he also agreed to buy the George Brown for $5 off at $120 :D

That's great. I needed something to laugh at today.

Most of those wax guys won't knock off much of anything. That seems to be a cutthroat part of the hobby for sure. I've bought a box here and there at the National for opening fun and RARELY will they take of more than $1-$2 and you have to buy multiples to get that. Business is really really good or margins are really really slim. I know I wouldn't want to lug in so much wax to make just a couple bucks off the sale of a box. Whew.....that would not be fun.

The wax guys cut throat each other they dont have the room and many times sell close to cost or worse unless it is a hot product----I sell vintage and refuse many offers---I will be fair with prices and sell a refused card later or at another show.

I had a funnier offer last night on some cards. Tempted to post it.

I was going to buy 2 boxes of 2014 Bowman Chrome. They were listed as $65 a piece. Guy said he'd sell them to me for $127. I was ready to pay $115. He preferred to not make a sale. I spent my money elsewhere. Don't have anything against the guy but seemed dumb to me. The show was nearly over and no one else was buying his boxes.

I had a 1963 Topps Reprint signed by Pete Rose PSA/DNA 10. If the card were real, it would go for $600-800, I had a BIN/BO for $75 I think.

A guy offered $45, then quickly cancelled the offer with a message. "Sorry, I thought the card was real."

If I had seen a real Rose rookie signed and slabbed for $75, I wouldn't have wasted time with an offer. I would have bought that sucker in a heart beat! It was an honest mistake, but still made me laugh.

Do it.

Around 8 or so years ago when I first started looking at N172 OJs there was a card for sale on the B/S/T. Lower grade but nice eye appeal, common player, asking like $150. Not wanting to spend too much on my first OJ I offered $125. Seller replied something to the effect of "this is a joke right?"

Turned out the common player was HOFer Sam Thompson and I'd misread the asking price $1500 to be $150. Haha, I really felt like a moron!

You perceived it as if he preferred not to make a sell. Perhaps he had more money into the boxes than your offer amount and he didn't want to lose money?

Just because somebody doesn't want to sell at a certain price doesn't mean they don't want to make a sale. If I walk into the Toyota dealership and offer them $20K on the new Camry that they have marked at $29K, it's not fair for me to say, "They preferred to not make a sale" when they turn down my offer.

On a side note, D & A has the same boxes for $69.95, so his price seems to be in line with what other dealers are charging.

http://www.dacardworld.com/sports-ca...ball-hobby-box

ive gone over this a lot of times........this is a hobby/business.... a lot of the sellers don't really have the same money motivations then the real world....lots of seller and buyers who love sports are also into the 'sport' of getting that last dollar/saving that last dollar...and they keeping score of it... never seen more deals blown cause of personal issues 'bad first offer offended' etc...in any other business.....

I can offer 2000 for a used car 'worth 4000' and I don't think the used car dealer will say 'ill block you from ever trying to buy a car from me again' ..that just doesn't happen in the real world but it does with cards.....

Not quite an offer story, but I've experience the curiosity of buyers and collecting psychology. One of my favorites was years back I had a mint condition 1950 R423 13-card strip including the cards of Ruth, Gehrig and Ty Cobb-- tiny gumball machine cards with perorations. I put the strip on eBay twice with min bid of $100 with no takers, then a third time with a min bid of $75 with no bids. I finally relented, took apart the cards at the perforations and put them up as single card lots. The Ruth, Gehrig and Cobb singles sold for well over $100 each, and the rest of the singles totaled over $150.

I also once had a Cal Ripken rookie that got no bids, so I relisted the same day with lower minimum bid and it ended up selling a week later for more than the first minimum bid.

So eBay can be a psychology experiment.

Jeff, my offers were fair!!!! Sorry you're such a big shot that Arby's coupons don't do it for you. :)

right when bidders see someone already bidding it 'validates' the value for some reason.. BIN's some people never look at assuming its always way to high

I've had BINs listed with no takers and at auction on same it goes for more...also I said on another post..the last PWCC auction..many 1954 topps psa 8 cards went for higher in the auction then the same card with same eye appeal was for sale in a BIN.....would of been cheaper just to buy the BIN...

My point was that I was ready to hand him $115 but he balked over $12 and instead made $0. You don't have to defend him, I understand economics. All I was trying to say was it was weird to me that you'd prefer not to sell over $12.

I'm not defending him or talking down to you, but maybe the $12 was the difference between making a profit and taking a loss.

I'm sure he'd have no problem selling on the internet. Just like I'd have no trouble buying on the internet. But the point of a show is that you're there then and now with the money in your hand.

I had 3 rare M101-5 blank backs in poor sec 10s with damage. 2 of them were only known examples if I recall. I had all 3 listed on ebay for $8K BIN OBO. I had a guy hammer me because I wouldn't take $2500 for the three. After about 4 years I decided to send to REA with my victory back McGraw. The McGraw was also a new discovery only known. The victory I broke even on and the 3 blank backs went for $35K before juice. You never know.

Jason

eventually a line is drawn...heck auctions are won by a dollar....a dollar the difference of buying or walking away....... if a dollar didn't matter than there would be bidding forever with a dollar increase till infinity eventually a line is drawn

It is easy to refuse offers no matter if the buyer thinks he is making a good offer---I was at the White Plains show this past weekend---I had 2 52 Mantles--sold a sgc 35 and have a sgc 10 52 Mantle---$6700---a customer looked at it sat and we talked---He came back sunday and threw down a bank envelope with 5 K cash in it---I just looked at him and said, I paid more for it than your offer---that ended the cash offer---just because he had 5 cash doesnt mean he will get his deal-----my one buddy said, if you accepted all the offers you receive, you would make a bundle---(I also would most likely lose a few bucks)----just another story on low offers.

Huh? In what auctions are the bidding increments a dollar?

you get the picture...check out ebay......lets say item is for $500 or less on ebay.. ....ok will change analogy..every auction will go up to $500 as bidding increments are less than $12.00...the guy said 12.00 blew the deal.....so everyone will keep bidding up to $500 every time cause increments less than $12...understand the example now?

or perhaps every single ebay auction will get bid up to whatever amount that caused bidding increments to go be more than $1.00....so no item ever will say for less than $3.00 , since bidding increments under a dollar...and will keep getting bid up since a dollar is nothing......like I said eventually a line is drawn and a dollar is enough (or less) for someone to walk away

1) Most of eBay bidding is via snipe.
2) Auction House bidding increments are not constant.

Maybe he prefers to sell them for more to someone else. Wanting more than 10% discount on wax is lowballing unless it's overpriced. In this case you were expecting a deep discount on a hot product. It's no suprised he declined.

items are still won by less than $12.00 when its a less than $100 dollars) eventually a line is drawn


OK you win... ...the guy is saying a deal was blown over $12.00.... I guess a line is not drawn and bidding goes forever to where the increments go over $12.00 on every auction.... my bad

I wanted to spend more money with him to get something back. Let me feel like I got a deal and I'm going to look for you the next time I'm there. It all worked out and I see both sides. Just something I was bringing up because $3 took me by surprise.

I've personally never let 12 dollars keep me from taking a loss.:p

"Let me feel like I got a deal and I'm going to look for you the next time I'm there."

+1

I received the "full price" Mordecai today and it is a fantastic card.

Thank you

Another point of view is that you also balked over $12.

+1

Thanks again Mark! I'm glad you're happy with it.

Yeah, I don't think this example really fits the discussion. The seller offered you a 2% ($3 off his $130 price) discount, and you countered asking for a 11.5% discount ($15 off his $130 price).

Your weren't lowballing him, but you are asking for a pretty big discount. If his margin is something like 8%, he obviously can't accept your offer.

I often price things as low as I can in order to sell quickly. In those cases, I would turn down a request for a 11.5% discount and it wouldn't have anything to do with me "preferring not to make a sale".

dunno? 10% discount is pretty standard...what's another 1.5%?

I agree that an offer for 10% off is going to be accepted most of the time. But I can understand why some sellers with certain products might not be able to.

Maybe on single cards, but not on new wax. Often the profit margin is only around 10%. Factory cost on this item was 53.24. Dealers are now paying more than the 57.50 offered. So how is that a standard offer?

Exactly!

my mistake...I didn't realize we were talking about new wax here...oopsie!

Last year I put a 2014 Topps Miguel Cabrera autographed card serial #ed to 25 on Ebay. After looking at completed auctions, there had only been two sold on Ebay. The first sold for $165 and the other sold for $135. So I listed mine at $150 BIN/BO, a price that field goaled the two previously sold cards.

Within the first five hours of the auction I received 5 Best Offers, the highest of them was $75.

Auto-decline is a wonderful feature!

Amen brother!

By the way, in that post you misspelled Lajoie Polar Bear as "Killian Topps Buyback". I'll give you $25 for it!

(The Lajoie that is)

can easily be a thread of insanely high asking prices as well that sit for years.........since theres no real value in cardboard, yes I know people will pay for it..but I mean compared to 'gold' or something useful in life.....I really think any offer that's worth more than the paper a card is printed on really cant be insulting........its just baseball cards people...

It is not a question of the people being cheap.
Many people just have to "win" when they make a deal, that is part of their enjoyment of the hunt. If they cannot "win" a deal they will let the buyer/seller walk away.
Their ego needs to be boosted more then their bottom line.

agree. I made a post on this...the sports collector is by nature into the sport of collecting....about 'winning'....I have had dealers email me 7 months later on ebay to say they sold a card for 10 more dollars then I offered (was like 60 dollar card)....I never seen that in any regular business transaction

people like to keep score ...

So, baseball cards have no value because cardboard is not inherently "useful in life". And then you use gold as an example of something that is "useful in life". Amazing. Lol.

Hey dude low blow !

When I was in Turkey a friend of mine was negotiating to buy a ceramic plate with the maker and his wife. He dickered and dickered for literally 2 hours over $10. He eventually got it for his price...and I asked him..."WTF...you just wasted 2 hours haggling with a toothless potter over a measly $10"...and it's not like he couldn't afford to have paid double the price. He just wanted to "win!"

IT's true! I'd have paid the extra $10 and moved on!