Nat'l Dealers: Best Walk-in Purchase
 

Would love to hear from dealers at the National what their best purchase was. I know from prior years there were some amazing things that walked through the door.

Just being nosy , but
 

..I don't know the pricing structure of a normal Joe walks-in-off-the-street , but what would the cost be for that little old widow with the old cigar box full of her late husband's grandfather's "old baseball little pictures " if she just took the crosstown bus and went inside and went up to the first sign she saw proclaiming " WE BUY CARDS !" ? I've heard stories over the years that this actually happens at baseball card shows , but jeeziss at The National ??

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Good question. What's the usual practice among buyers who aren't trying to take advantage of such a seller? 50 cents on the dollar? Is it pretty much the same as it would be at a pawn shop?

Dealer named Meelypops has a video on youtube covering a walk-in of a person with a bunch of pricey Mantles. Meelypops accompanies him to SGC for grading and he endsthe video saying he will shoot him an offer on the lot in a follow up video.

It really depends on the item and the dealer. When I set up, if it is something great but I don't want it or cannot decide whether the seller is asking too much for it, I steer it to an AH. Otherwise, I buy it at whatever I think is right. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. That said, I am not in a non-profit. I paid a bundle to be at a show, so if someone is selling and I am buying I will drive the hardest bargain I can regardless of who it is doing the selling. I won't lie but I won't give out information gratuitously or overpay because the seller isn't a collector. In this day and age, with the degree of information on the web at one's fingertips, there is simply no reason to go into things blind. My experience, frankly, is the opposite: people show me beater 1970s cards and expect PSA 8 prices for them.

In this video they show the collection still in a photo album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiFyi3bbSEw

Their next video shows the collection after SGC has graded the HOF cards.

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Not specific to this thread but I am sure everyone has a memorable story or two about observing such a deal. Mine was set at one of the Fall shows (1980’s) held at Plymouth Michigan Holiday Inn. My brother and I usually arrived two-three hours early to be first in line. This one occasion we were second and third. After chatting for a while with the guys fourth thru sixth in line, the person first in line could not resist showing us the contents inside a crumpled brown grocery bag. A Lou Gehrig road jersey. The jersey never left the bag but word of its presence traveled down the line. Word must have traveled inside the ballroom where dealers were setting up. Before long Mr. Mint himself came abruptly out to chat with that individual. He ushered him into the ballroom. A deal was obviously struck as doors opened and Mr. Mint was beaming with his newly purchased “grocery bag & contents”.

Here's the follow-up video (for anyone like me who couldn't find it after watching the first video :)). The Mantle portion starts around the 5 minute mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K24SFAK6m0g

I was set up at the Chicago Nat'l in mid 90's and some old dude walked up to my table with a binder full of old post cards. I asked him if I could look them over and he could come back in an hour, which he did. Problem was I got so busy I had no time to really look into the binder so I cherry picked 2... A batting and portrait Ty Cobb from Wolverine PCs. I paid $400 for the 2 (they were raw). Within an hour I flipped them to another dealer for $800, thus doubling my $. I was thrilled.

DOH!!!

Awesome to see MeelyPops treating people the right way. He’s a good guy not far from me. I might have to go checkout some of those cards in person!

It's fairly well known that Mr. Mint demanded his table be the first one collectors would see when they entered the convention. I was standing near-by at one show when someone walked in with their "collection." Mr. Mint went through it quickly and made an offer. The patron said he would consider it. Mr. Mint's response was to the effect that "do that if you want, but if you come back here I'll assume no one else offered you more and that my offer was probably too high. My new offer will be less."

And of course, the one time the convention crowd was so big they opened a second door further away from Mr. Mint's "door." Even standing in the back of the room, you could hear him "complain."

Funny...I used to see him that University of New Haven show and he was right there when you walked through the door. Usually sitting alone with no one to talk to.

He had a much better reputation before the pokemon/ GI Joe box $3.5 million screw-up with BBCE. I've been to his shop in Gainesville, FL.

Worst case I have ever seen was this year at a mid sized show (200 tables)in NC. Old couple comes in and shops their grouping of hundreds of 1933 Goudeys at the first table through the door. I'm talking many Ruths and Gehrigs in the collection. Dealer one offers $2K for the lot. They go to the second dealer in the line and he offers $8K and they sell.

Word quickly spreads throughout the show to dealers and a friend of mine goes to look through the collection. He offers $100K to the dealer who just bought it for $8K and he declines the offer. My friend figured the deal was worth at least $250K.

I absolutely hate to see crooked dealers take advantage of unsuspecting owners of cards.

But, I guess it is seller beware. They were probably celebrating all the way home thinking they had hoodwinked the dealer with their pieces of cardboard.

Holy Crap! Wow what a story. Because the 1st dealer's offer was so ridiculously low, the 2nd dealer's offer looked like a windfall to the seller. Interesting moral dilemma...what's the correct amount to offer? Like Adam said it's not his job to offer top dollar and educate them to help get them the best price. But $8k for a collection that's worth over $100k?? Are you ripping them off when $8k probably looked like a great deal to them?

Couple years ago I was set up at the National and a kid and his Dad brought in a scrap book that was his Grandfather's filled with old tobacco cards. I tried to get them to consign it with Al and Love of the Game to maximize their windfall but they wanted to sell that day. Never found out what happened or how much they got.

Hard to say. If you try and be VERY fair and offer then 75k or whatever, a lightbulb probably goes off and they think ‘heck I’m sitting on a million bucks here!’ And they don’t sell to you at your fair price. So very double edged sword.


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I know a lot of dealers have made killings on walk-ins, but I always had trouble with them. Most people would say, "what would you offer me for these," and you know without a doubt they're just going to take your offer and, even if it's the highest they've gotten so far, use it as a baseline and take $5 more from another dealer. When I set up with Keating, I enjoyed watching his interactions with walk-ins, they could be a real trip. He would say, "Now, if I make you an offer, all you're going to do is take that offer around the room to see if someone will give you $5 more. How about if you go get their offers and come back to me and I'll give you $5 more!" And when he would ask them, "How much do you want?", they would usually say, "I don't know, that's why I'm taking offers." And Kevin would say, "But you're the seller, how are you going to ever sell them if you don't know what you want? How will you know if ANY offer is the right one? Just figure out what you want, and maybe I'll give you that right now and you're done." And in the rare instances when he did float them an offer, he would always add, "keep in mind that offer is only good right here and right now. When you walk away, if you come back we start all over again." Buying can be a funny business, certainly more of an art than a science.

Possibly true but I would rather lose a deal than steal one.

Like I said, they will probably never know they took a small % of what the wholesale collection was worth.

It would be great if there was a weird twist in the story and the cards turned out to be fakes.

Seller's need to do research before selling anything. It's not that hard today with all the information available. Don't blame the buyers who have the knowledge.

I'm sure you would be thrilled to know someone took advantage of your 80+ year old parents just because they could. I will blame the buyer for being despicable because it is my opinion and I am entitled to it. You are entitled to yours but don't tell me what mine should be.

I really hate to see an honest discussion degenerate into anger with loaded, judgmental stuff. Everyone is entitled to their $0.02 on how to handle a walk-in and as long as no one is doing anything illegal, no one is right or wrong per se, so let's dial down the contempt, shall we, and really dig into the issue as friends and fellow hobbyists.

So much of this depends on your perspective. I happen to think that anyone who relies on a complete stranger to do their homework for them is making a mistake. Taking a collectible you do not understand to a trade show and asking for offers on it from the first people you see inside the door rather than taking time at least to walk around at see whether the items you want to sell are there and what they sell for is just not a reasonable thing to do. My view, unapologetically, is that if someone asks me for an offer and I make it and they take it, that's the end of it. They are free to say no and ask the next guy for an offer. Every transaction is made because both parties think they got the better of it. The couple in the story probably found the cards in a box and were thrilled to pocket $8K in cash. We don't know.