Kalamazoo

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Posted By: Justin Manning

Any one else see this auction before it was ended?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=016&item=260026684082&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

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Posted By: Bobby

Someone here must of seen it because the seller ended the item early. I am sure they where made an offer thehy could not refuse.

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Posted By: Joann

Wow - who says there are no more finds to be found?

Joann

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Posted By: Ben

And 2/3 were Mets! Amazing...

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Posted By: Scot

I was watching this one as well. Maybe next time....

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

If you look at the cancelled bids you might figure that CWICK74 could have been the person to get the seller to end the auction early. That bid was pretty far up there (when compared to the rest of the bids). I wonder how much the seller got for the book.

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Posted By: Eric B

CWICK74 usually buys non-sports cards. He may actually have no interest in the KB's. I also heard he has a private museum, so the cards may just stay in the album as a display. Just hunches.

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Zero feedback seller sends a red flag. Without EBAY and PAYPAL, buyer might might be getting hosed here. Then again, why not wait for the auction to run its course. Seller might have cost himself some big bucks by ending early.

Frank

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Posted By: barrysloate

CWick has every interest in keeping the Kalamazoo Bats. That is the best Victorian scrapbook I have ever seen that included baseball incidentally. That was the seller's first foray on ebay and almost surely made the beginner's mistake of giving it away for a song.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

They claim to have 20 years experience in antiques; surely such experienced folks would realize the great value of what they have...not.

Sorta gives us low-income flea marketeers hope of a big find some day.

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Posted By: Mike H

What do you think the value of the book is on the open market?

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Posted By: T E

I learned back about auction #40 or so (I've completed well over 5000, don't know exact #, hoofaway is my seller ID) NEVER NEVER NEVER end an auction early. In fact, when someone asks me to end an auction early, it tells me that the item is worth a hell of a lot more than I thought.

It is weird, though, that seller has 0 feedback...

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Posted By: bcornell

I bid on this item and told the seller at that time not to end the auction early. I got the response below. She was able to keep her word for an astounding 48 hours. Sigh.

I had no doubt that the item was legit. No scammer would provide multiple photos of so many different issues - that would be way too much trouble. Besides, the items looked good.

Bill

Thank you so much for taking the time to contact us. You are right, we have received several offers to end the auction early. Some of the offers were very high, however, we want to give all collectors the same fair chance with the item.

Thanks again and have a GREAT weekend.

Best Regards,

Sharon Lynn

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

The big question would be whether or not to strip the album clean and sell the parts off to make money or keep it intact as a historical piece.

I'm guessing that most people would say they would keep it whole. I'm sure a few would piece it out. Personall, I would at least remove the K-Bats and keep the rest intact.

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

My grandmother put together an amazing album circa 1880s but sadly, no sports related cards. No tobacco cards at all, just trade cards and business cards of the period. Very colorful stuff. She lived in San Francisco where my great grandfather was a coal dealer.

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Posted By: barrysloate

The rest of the album is probably worth a few hundred dollars. Each of those Met players is worth five figures. You have to remove the three baseball, they are too valuable to keep in a scrapbook. I'm amazed she agreed not to close early, then closed down anyway. Didn't she sense she might make more if she let the auction run its course? Then again, we have no idea what the offer was she received.

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Posted By: T E

The last time I ended an auction early, about, as I said, 5500+ auctions ago, it was on an item that I thought was worth $20 or so. I got an offer of $100 for it so I sold it and ended auction. I got a message from another bidder saying "I bid $200 and would have gone higher." Yeah, right, I thought until I looked at cancelled bids-he had bid $200. I have never done that again and each and every time I get an offer on an item, it ALWAYS closes higher than the offer.

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Posted By: Eric B

If you didn't see the cancelled bids until later, it's possible someone else swooped in and got it below CWICK74's bid.

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Posted By: jackgoodman

But also, looking at the bidding, cwick's bid is totally in line with the other bids if you consider he may have hit an extra "6" by accident. Then all bids are within a similar ballpark amount. Is everyone following the item to see if it is relisted?????????

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Posted By: David Smith

Maybe they ended the auction early so that they could get the baseball cards out to sell seperately?? If so, I hope they take real care and not damage the cards.....

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Posted By: davidcycleback

My hunch is that in a number of these types of auctions, the seller is contacted
by a big auction house to consign.

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Posted By: Jim Clarke

Barry,

The value on them would be hard to figure? If a couple of power collectors needed them, they might bring silly money. If they do not need them for their sets than it would come down to the "type" collector who needs a "Met" player. My guess is that there are about 3-5 cards on each Met player out there. I'm sure you, Jay, Lew, or Keith would know for sure. I thought REA had some K-bats "Mets" 1 or 2 years ago in auction? I have to go back and check it out.. What do you think a low or high price would be in a major auction?

JC

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Posted By: Rhys

Another problem lately are the sharks looking to make a finders fee. I know of at least 3 and maybe more collectors who search ebay and find things that the person has which are Mastronet/big auction type material, then e mail either the auction house or the seller and convince them to consign the item, then the collector who refers the deal gets a cut which is much larger than I had thought would be in line for something like this. If these things ended up going to a big Auction and selling for $5K-15K each, it would not be out of the question for the "finder" to receive $3000+ for doing the leg work of getting the seller and auction house to make a deal and having never even touched the cards. I think it sucks, but that is the Free Market well at work in America.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I think Kalamazoo Bats Mets players are really rare, tougher than their Giant counterparts and hovering in almost the same neighborhood as Four Base Hits. The two in the album are clearly creased and likely to have back damage, so they would probaly both grade a 1 or at most a 2. Even in that grade, a type collector could be looking at 7-10K. But add into the mix that a major set collector might need it, and you could be talking multiples of that number. Of course, you wouldn't know that until the last couple of hours of an auction. I don't think there are several known of each, more likely one or two. It is disappointing that these great ebay finds disappear- that is the one and only argument for establishing a high bid quickly to keep the auction alive.

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Posted By: martindl

.......we not only miss out on knowing what the end of auction price might be, we're also presented with a pasty page where a card once sat, right under the Mays - surely it was another Kalamzoo, but who and where is it now?

Robbery times two!

Out of my league unfortunately, but who doesn't have a huge appreciation for things like this and watching a good fight at the end.

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Posted By: Dan Koteles

is in Michigan .Home of Western Michigan University.

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Posted By: joe brennan

I think the card that was pulled out was not a baseball card, but is the card on top of the closed book used in the first picture. Looks like a man sitting in a chair? There are other blank spots that are also sitting on top of the book for the photo.

People said it was a million dollar wound. But the government must keep that money, cause I ain't never seen a penny of it.

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Posted By: Jay

Being the world's greatest detective I tracked down the sellers of the album. Much to my disappointment it was sold, not consigned, for $24,500. Now would someone else please find out who bought it.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jay- while the album probably would have sold for more if they left it up, at least they didn't give it away for a few shekels. I can understand why they would be willing to accept that offer. That said, they still left some money on the table.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

My working philosophy as a seller is if you sell something for good profit and the buyer
resells it for even more, that's a good deal. You both made money and you will have a
repeat customer. I'd rather have it that way then have the buyer resell for big loss.

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Posted By: Jay

Nice philosophy David. The chances of this buyer and seller dealing again are somewheres between slim and none. The seller left money on the table and the buyer got a good deal. That is the bottom line.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I agree with Jay. There's no repeat business here. This is your once in a lifetime find, and you don't want to mess it up.

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Posted By: Bob

At least it didn't sell for $750 or we would all be going ballistic.