What Should A Dealer Do?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

For anybody that thinks the dealer has an obligation to educate the seller, let's turn the situation around. If you were buying the same card from a dealer and he had it marked at $50, would you tell him you think it's worth $3K (just throwing that number out there) and offer him more, or would you just pay his $50 asking price?

I'm just curious how you answer the question when the scenario if flipped.

Some interesting comments all around.

I went with the "educate the buyer and offer a bit less than a recent sale" option.
But I could just as easily have gone with the "tell them about some auction houses" option.
If I were a dealer the choice between the two would depend on whether the card was a good fit with my inventory and if I had enough on hand to make a reasonable offer.
I might also refer a seller to another dealer who'd be a better buyer, or possibly to a particular collector if they were there.


As far as what I'd do from the opposite side of the table, that to me is different. Some random person who has a card or cards to sell might have a hard time finding enough information to have a decent idea what they have, unless the card is an easy one to identify like most mainstream postwar cards.

A dealer on the other hand should have the knowledge to at least know if something is "special" or not. And enough sense to look it up. So if it was on a dealers table for $50 yes, I'd buy it. (Making a handful of exceptions for dealers who I've known long enough to be closer to friends than just someone I do business with - But it's rare that I know something they don't) Overall it's a bit more complex when it's a dealer.

I have bought some stamps from dealers on Ebay who are fairly advanced and should have known what they were selling but didn't take the time.
One very advanced dealer I asked about stuff like that told me that for the difference in price he'd get on specific items I'd bought (Not from him) he couldn't be bothered to look up the special varieties. The time to become a specialist would be too costly. Note, this is a guy who typically has stuff in inventory in the mid 5 figures, so learning about the stamp with a $2K catalog value that there's only a handful known genuinely isn't worth his time.

I've also known dealers like someone else mentioned who thought their escapades in seriously lowballing people showed their smarts or something. I didn't avoid buying from them, but did make the rounds of their shops a couple times a year. They made their own mistakes......

Steve B