Posted By:
cmoking"But did anyone else think money was left on the table by not arranging a private sale of some of the cards. I realize that pricing these may be difficult, but it sure seems like some of these bidders would pay virtually any asking price."
Ah, but if that happened, this thread would never have existed!
Seriously, I don't know what would have been a better way to sell these cards. Maybe a catalog auction like Mastro or REA would have brought even more money. Maybe a private sale would have brought more. But here are the negatives with both of those:
- catalog auction negative: each increment is usually 10%. When it gets that high, it is possible someone wants to pay higher than the next current bid, but not 10% higher. Thus the seller possibly loses say 5% more because of the auction format.
- private sale negative: some people don't like to negotiate a specific price because they aren't sure if they are paying too much. If they win an auction, they know they won it at slightly higher than the other guy's highest bid. But if they paid a private sale price, then they could have paid much higher. I think some people are more comfortable buying in an auction than a private sale for this reason.