The three shops near where I used to live were similar to what you described in some ways. Having talked to the owners, I have a few theories, some have already been mentioned. Vintage cards are found in the full range of conditions (whereas modern cards are near the high end of the grade scale or else they aren't in the market). All three of the shop owners priced their vintage cards at HBV. No one was going to pay HBV for those cards. The one guy who I'd say was the most market knowledgeable had a sign with his to make an offer. But it is hard to make an offer 75% off the HBV with a straight face. So any vintage buyers are going to buy from ebay where they can get a real time market price aligned with the condition rather than these shops. If the knowledgeable guy had a card come in that was of a quality that would fetch HBV, he would sell it on ebay, not in his case. The other side of it is that if they did take the time to figure out what the market price of what they had was, they could probably move them, but they weren't the kind of shops that could spend the time to replenish their vintage supply at costs they could then profit from.
Now, the one thing that one of the shops had going for it was that he had a bid board, so collectors could bring in their stuff and put it on the bid board for a small consignment fee. That was fun to check out every week because you could get vintage stuff there at a good price. Very rarely anything pre-war. And nothing major, but I remember one week getting a bunch of 1968 Topps stars for $27.
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