Crazy idea

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Posted By: brock

I was just thinking about the t206 Honus Wagner. Has anybody ever formed a group to buy one, like im talking 50-100 people. Like you split in up into shares. Say the card goes for $300,000 and we have 100 people thats $3,000 a share and i know some people would buy more than 1 share. And if we won the card we can make little stock cards that show how much of a t206 Honus wagner you own then if the group decided to sell the card you would get that percent of the money(based on how many shares you own). Yeah i know its a crazy idea, do you guys think it would ever work.

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Posted By: Rick McQuillan

Brock - interesting idea. A lot of details would have to be worked out, but it would be a fun project. Could a person sell their shares? Buy shares from others?

I'm looking forward to some other responses to this thread.
Rick

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Posted By: Marty Ogelvie

Not a new idea, although It has not been done on the Wagner but there was a site that recently went belly up that did just that.  Groups of folks boughts shares of expensive cards... Apparently it didn't go over as well as they had hoped because they just recently suspended operation.  I can't remember the name of the site but I know someone  from here would.

I am too stingy and I would want the card all to myself vs sharing it. 

martyOgelvie
New York Yankee cards

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Posted By: Jim VB

I believe that Bruce McNall was one of the first to buy a Wagner with other people's money. Funny thing, he neglected to tell the other people where their money was going and it caused him a few problems.

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Posted By: Mark T

the name of the company was cardtarget.com

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Posted By: ali_lapoint

i feel like unless it was you and 50-100 people you knew extremely well and trusted it would never work. there are just too many details that would have to painstakingly be combed over and put into legal writing when you're dealing with strangers.

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Posted By: barrysloate

It is a good idea but getting that many people on the same page will be the real hurdle. How do you get everyone to agree when some want to sell, and others don't? Who gets to keep it? You may be buying a million dollar card along with a million dollar headache.

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Posted By: Jason

"Not a new idea, although It has not been done on the Wagner but there was a site that recently went belly up that did just that."

As an active member of that site, it's incorrect to say they went "belly up."

The program was suspended for the most part due to the fees the company had to pay for insurance and storage of the cards. There really was no way to pass those costs on to shareholders in a fair manner (what if you sold a share a week after you just paid your share for the annual fees, etc).

Cardtarget is still very much alive, back to its focus on eTopps, and from not-so-subtle hints from the guys that run the place, will be launching another initiative soon.

From my perspective the partial shares marketplace worked great. But until you solve the problem of how to manage the annual costs as posted above, in it's current form it just wouldn't work.

regards,
Jason

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Posted By: brock

Got one more question with this. I know some of you guys have complete t206 sets with out the big 4. So would PS or SGC let 75+ people list this in your sets or is their a rule that a card can only be in one persons sets.

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Posted By: Tim

"Got one more question with this. I know some of you guys have complete t206 sets with out the big 4. So would PS or SGC let 75+ people list this in your sets or is their a rule that a card can only be in one persons sets."

I know with PSA only one person can have a card in their inventory.

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Posted By: Jason L

I don't know how many card we are talking about with the Cardtarget enterprise, but if it's fairly few, very expensive cards, how hard is it to rent a safe deposit box at a bank?

You could get one that holds 50 cards for $125 per year.

must be much larger volume, yes? Cuz that seems like an otherwise silly reason to suspend operations

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Posted By: Marty Ogelvie

Jason,

Thanks for the update on cardtarget, glad to hear they are doing well.    I joined the site when they first launced but never invested..

martyOgelvie
New York Yankee cards

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Posted By: leon

I was at my safe deposit box yesterday. It's at Capital One and I pay about $100 per year....I would say I have around 400-500 cards in it......and most are in plastic. Concerning this idea I agree with Barry....A million dollar card and a million dollar headache.....

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Posted By: Sean BH

When you have a safe deposit box does it come with any insurance? I know they are pretty safe from fire, but what if Short Circuit 2 came true and someone breaks into the safe deposit box and steals it?

But to answer the question, I think multiple owners sounds like a headache...unless it's the Bruces.

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Posted By: Marty Ogelvie

Safe Deposit boxes are easy to break into. I used to work at a bank and had to bust 'em open anytime someone lost their key..   the problem is getting INTO the vault.  big headache! 

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Posted By: leon

Ya know....I was there yesterday (safe deposit box) and asked the bank employee if it's "safety deposit" or "safe deposit" box? I then looked at the wall and there was a big sign that said "SAFE DEPOSIT"....so I answered my question....even my wife (the smart one in the family) didn't know that answer.

Back to your question....I don't know ......I actually don't think there is insurance that comes with the boxes.....I do know that I watched the bank where mine is as it was being built. They used all steel and concrete...so I don't think fire is a concern. As for a bank robber....my guess is they go for cash and get out....regards

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Posted By: T206Collector

...and their answer is no insurance on safe deposit boxes, of which I have one. So, I have insurance as well as a safe deposit box.

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Posted By: barrysloate

That is correct. There is no insurance offered by the bank, but the risk is pretty small. My safe deposit box area is so secure that it would take a nuclear bomb to break through it...but the boxes themselves can be opened by a locksmith.

Leon- I had a friend who used the term "Safety D" in lieu of "safe deposit box." Thought it was catchy.

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Barry,

You can dance if you want to. You can leave your friends behind.

I think that's what your buddy was really trying to say.

-Ryan

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Posted By: Scott M.

Ryan,

Thanks for putting that god awful song into my head

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Posted By: Mike Masinick

Hey guys,
It's been tried... with $20,000 cards. And it was VERY difficult for a variety of reasons. Our final few items from CardTarget.com are being sold at the upcoming Goodwin & Co auction. Once that is complete I plan on putting together a white paper about our business experience and lessons learned from this marketplace that I'll be sure to post here.

Bottom line is that at one point we had a $200,000 insurance policy on cards that were sitting in a safe deposit box that cost us over $3500 a year. We looked all over for a better insurance policy, but collectors insurance company was the ONLY company who understood that the cards would be owned by potentially hundreds of people and made us take out a dealer policy since their dealer policy is the only policy that would cover other people's cards in your possession. Those aren't cheap... and there is no break for having the cards in a safe deposit box (which we did).

I talked to at least 10 other insurance companies over the two years we were active and not one of them would even give me a quote for insurance on "shared" cards that were owned by multiple people (they might have gone for 2-3 people, but when I told them hundreds of people they all freaked out). Sure, you could always say that one person owned the cards, but if you're not doing your insurance 100% by the book, why do it at all? If they're not going to pay when something goes wrong because you lied about your policy, then there's no point in having insurance.

Anyway, I don't think it would be possible for a PUBLIC website or group to do a group buy of a Wagner without some very large name behind them (IE: Beckett) self insuring the process and guaranteeing any unsold portion. I think it would be possible if everything was done outside of the public eye... but I don't see it being worth it for the person running the show as there is a lot of work and risk involved and pretty much no reward.

Hope that helps, and let me know if you have any questions about how we ran our marketplace (if somebody seriously tries this in the future, let me know... we have the marketplace code written and it functioned for 2 years, it's just a matter of the logistics that we just couldn't make work).

Mike Masinick

mike@cardtarget.com

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Posted By: Jason L

Sean, I think if ShortCircuit2 came true, we'd all have bigger problems than the safety of our cards!

Leon,
it's all about the cost of real estate, I guess. My box probably holds about 50-75 slabbed cards and costs me $125

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Posted By: Jim Dale

I'm not in this for business, but I asked the question when Cardtarget was having issues with its insurance cost and don't believe anyone had an answer.

What does a "card shop' pay for insurance on their inventory? How do they insure the inventory? Particularly if they are sitting on high dollar cards - or since they own it themselves are they risking it without insurance?

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Posted By: barrysloate

Mike- I look forward to one day reading your report, and while I was one who was skeptical of Cardtarget, I have to say you handled it as well as anyone could.

One of the biggest collections I ever bought consisted of a baseball library so large it filled a big uhaul, and its highlight was five Harry Wright season scorebooks. We split the collection four ways, and each of us knew the other three very well and for the most part we were all friends.

It went pretty smoothly but certainly not perfectly. We didn't always agree on everything, and only two of us handled the sale of the collection, while the other two were silent partners. As a result, they often felt they were being left out of all the decision making (some of the transactions were too small to have to consult each of the partners).

So imagine a partnership that encompassed dozens of stockholders, each owning only a small piece of the card. It would be really complicated. That Mike was able to pull this off at all really is a credit to him.

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Posted By: Jason L

how much insurance coverage should someone carry on anything if it is in a bank vault?

Insurance is a bet that something will happen. Many times it is excessively costly and I would think that the correct decision is to forego it. I know a guy who collects expensive cars and rather than insure them, he stores them in various parts of the country. The insurance would bankrupt even he...

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Posted By: Mike Masinick

We had a very strict terms and conditions document that really detailed how the cards would be bought and sold. This, while obviously important, also hampered our ability to "move" some cards when we had interested buyers. We found that people are so used to wheeling and dealing for cards that when I said "This card is for sale for $5500" they almost always respond "I'll offer you $5250". Unfortunately I gave almost everybody our bottom line at all times when they asked for a price and it turned a lot of people off when we couldn't accept their very fair offers just a few percentage points below our "buy it now" price. We lost out several good sales at good prices in two years when I wasn't able to negotiate because of the terms and conditions.

I think when all is said and done we'll sell the collection for slightly more than we paid for it, even after credit card fees for our users - and like I said before I think we converted MANY people from modern cards to vintage by introducing them to the history of the game and the cards.

I can't wait to meet a lot of you guys at the Net54 dinner. I'll be there for the first few hours (hopefully including the open bar). =)

Mike

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Posted By: Cobby33

For a group that spends 250 posts trying to agree on a place to eat dinner, trying to raise $300K for a card seems insurmountable.

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Posted By: Steve

Oh yea, I like this idea.

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Posted By: Mike Masinick

It's overkill until the bank burns down or floods in a freak accident... then somebody loses their house after getting sued by a few hundred people. Worth the risk?

Obviously it's worth the risk if one person owns the cards because then that person just loses the card. But we're not talking about that situation, we're talking about if a single card (or group of cards) has a large number of owners.

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Posted By: Anthony S.

Impractical. It would take much too long for me facilitate "accidents" for the other 99 people in the group.

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Posted By: Jason L

perhaps there's some way to legally protect the limits of your liability in the case of a catastrophe? like set up a LLC or something?
I don't know, just thinking out loud.

And if you documented how difficult it was to obtain fairly-priced insurance that wouldn't impede a viable business, perhaps that could serve as a best-faith effort sort of thing?

interesting problem, nonetheless.

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Posted By: T206Collector

<<how much insurance coverage should someone carry on anything if it is in a bank vault?>>

I don't have insurance so much for the freak bank robbery/fire/flood as much as I want the ability to safely take my cards out periodically, bring them home or to a show, and then return them to the box later. My insurance covers me for loss in those sort of transition periods -- as well as the stranger bank implosion scenarios.


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Visit http://www.t206collector.com for signed deadball card galleries, articles and more!

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Posted By: leon

As stated many times before the open bar a the Net54 Dinner is from 6pm-12am.....anytime in between those and you are good to go....the 6:30-7:00 "free" bar is more about me not having to eventually pay for those drinks...Otherwise each ticket used will be paid for by me, at the end of the evening.....All attendees just need to go and have a good time and leave their wallets in their pockets.....I look forward to finally meeting you. In the few years on the board you have handled yourself in a very professional way, and many times, under adverse conditions....take care now

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Posted By: JimB

There is not specific insurance for safe deposit boxes because banks do not know what you have in them. That is the response I got when I asked.
JimB

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Posted By: Mike Masinick

Leon, I met you for a few minutes at your table last year in Cleveland. I guess I'm not memorable enough. =) I almost purchased a Hughie Jennings caramel card from you (though I don't remember which one at this point).

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Posted By: leon

Sorry about that. Don't feel bad. I was introducing myself to Scott B till last year....and have set up with him at the last 4-5 Nationals!! See ya soon...

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Posted By: Fred C

About the only way this crazy idea would work is by having a trusted name in the hobby as the care taker for the card. You could "create" shares for the card but you'd have to ensure that all understood the rules of ownership. Also, you could make the shares transferrable. That would be one vehicle to make it like a stock share. If someone paid $3k for it they could sell their share (at any time) for what ever price they wanted to sell it for. They could sell it for a profit or for a loss (if they needed the cash). In any case the new owner would have to understand the rules of ownership before they are allowed to purchase share(s).

I don't see why this couldn't work but to be honest with you it's really not something that is going to enhance your cardboard collection because you really wouldn't be taking ownership of the card. This is only an investment vehicle. The other part of this is that about the only way you are going to maximize your profit is by having a trusted auction house selling it. I thnk we all realize that the auction house isn't going to do this gratis.

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Posted By: JC

Wasn't there a site called The Pit years ago that would let individuals own sportscards without actually taking possession of them? Did they go out of business too?

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Posted By: Marty Ogelvie

thepit.com is still operational and have been around for almost a decade now.  I joined, read a lot but never did invest.  Story of my life. 

 

martyOgelvie
New York Yankee cards