Posted By:
Tom BoblittI've bought quite a few items from Mike over the years dating back to early 1990's at the big show in Cincinnati every year. A few of the T206's from my set are from him, some nice Exhibits in my exhibit set are from him and other items. I've found his service to be EXCELLENT. The turnaround time from order to receipt is great. I also won a lot of items in his online auctions that he did that were priced very fairly. His static website prices are generally 20-40% too high and even more in some cases for cards that are often 1-2 grades lower or trimmed in some cases. I have never had a problem with returning items to Mike and feel he is fair in that regards. Much like some of the old time players in the market (Frisch, Kit Young, et al.....), I think the approach to grading/pricing equation is a little off but as Leon says, caveat emptor. Some of this stuff is such that if he has it no one else might not, so for pre-war you may have to pay more than what you think you should for somewhat inferior cards. But.......we aren't being forced to buy anything from him. This thread is definitely proof that his 'tactics' turn off enough people that he loses business.
As for the mass posts on ebay.....until they change their rules, he's well within them. I, like everyone else out there, have to WADE through them but they are generally fixed price auctions and done so they can be easily gone through. In the big scheme of things if he sells ANYTHING from listing 5000 items, he's done well because he either has software to dump his whole inventory out there or has it set up some way to get it on there in a hurry! Ebay loses minor bandwidth, which doesn't cost them really anything.....