Trading with Dealers at Card Shows?

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by ncinin

Probably as entertaining as hearing a customer lecturing a dealer as to what comps are on the card (most of the time comps on an card with crappy eye appeal) and hearing the dealer say offer to buy a nice example of the card at those comps and don’t care what comps are and watch the buyer get pissed and storm off.

Heh. I run into this all the time and my answer is usually "that's very interesting, thanks for the information. I think you should buy it on eBay." Gets some real head-scratching in response.

The comp bandits don't think deeper about what the comp represents. A sale online and in person are not the same, especially in lower priced cards. The financial reality is that most buyers at a show are already enjoying a substantial discount over the online cost to them simply by taking shipping out of the equation on a card worth $20-$50, so the online comp isn't really apples to oranges. But I'd say that a substantial majority of collectors forget the shipping costs when looking at an online price.

There really isn't a rule for how to make a trade because there isn't a static situation and there are a variety of factors going into it on both sides. At best, there are guidelines for what to expect, but every situation has its own norms. There are so many factors:

Is the card a hard to move niche card not blazing condition?

Is it an eBay or smaller auction kind of a card? If I sell it there, I don't get the market price, I net out 80%-85% of market with the vig, so if I can trade it at a full retail valuation, I am already ahead of what I could net by selling it.

Is the item in my wheelhouse and can I trade into something I really collector or deal in? if not, I am going to pay less for it.

Is the card slabbed or raw and whichever it is, does it fit with what I do? I deal primarily in raw vintage cards. Many newer dealers lack the expertise to handle raw cards and will trade at a premium to get slabs.

Is there an opportunity to leverage my knowledge of a niche? If I find a dealer who has certain types of cards but little apparent knowledge of them, I can cherry-pick all of the underpriced raw cards he had in his inventory and end up with cards that I would retail at substantially more than the value of what I traded. Many newbs are unaware of the price multiple on high numbered cards or variations, for example, and if I am trading into $3-$5 commons at $0.50 each, I am going to do very well when I sell them to set builders. One of my niche areas is printing freaks. I found one batch of cards with some really radical miscuts and misprints and the dealer was so amused that I was buying those 'crappy' cards that he even joked about it with his co-worker. Yeah, and I am pulling $10-$100 cards out of your dollar bin, so feel free to laugh away.