[Exhibitman]

The other posts here have covered it well but I thought this:

Earlier this year I needed to sell off some cards. I consigned the cards to an eBay auctioneer. I got slaughtered. I netted less than 50% of what I spent on acquiring the cards, many of which I purchased in the heady market of 2004-2008. I moped around for a while then thought about it and realized a few things:

1. I wasn't using the money anyway. It wasn't the rent money, just some excess cash I spent in cards. I'll earn more.

2. If I spent the money on any number of other things I'd have nothing to show for it anyway. The money I lost is roughly the cost of season tickets to the Dodgers over the last few years and if I'd had that I'd have nothing, not even a World Series to attend. So from that perspective I am no worse off. Probably even had a less frustrating time and definitely ate way less junk food.

3. As compared to what my wife and I have lost on stocks and real estate over the years, and even bad receivables in my practice, the card loss is a drop in the bucket. Heck, I'd be halfway to retired right now if we'd made a few decisions slightly differently. If that doesn't chew my guts out, some freakin' baseball cards won't either [see my tag line below].

It feels lousy but it will pass.

Your mistake, if you want to call it that, was getting emotional about a business transaction. If you are going to be a dealer you need to be detached about the dealing: "no deal is better than a bad deal" has to be your mantra. I went through a small collection at our show in May, made an offer, and got outbid by another dealer. So be it. The seller tried to get me to compete but I had my methodology for valuing the lot, my valuation dictated the offer I made, and that was the end of the story. If I upped my offer I'd have fallen out of my valuation range and been reacting with my heart not my head. Sounds like that is where you went astray. Chalk it up to inexperience and learn from it.