Right now, where do you buy the majority of your cards?

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by skelly423

Respectfully, with the caliber of cards you buy, eBay is not meant for buyers like you. In my experience, it's the best spot to find $00, $1000, or even $10k cards, but dries up in a hurry when the numbers get any higher. I suspect the selling fees are the reason higher end material is scarce on eBay.

This is a valid point, sort of. I remember when there used to be many Ruth, Wagner, Cobb and rarer-back t206 HOF cards on eBay, as well as T213-6, the occasional M131, T208s, and rare E backs. Now if you search for Ruth, it’s almost all 1933 Goudey. If you search for Cobb, it’s almost all t206. There are a few non-commodity examples, but they are completely overpriced. Maybe it is because the rarer stuff has gotten more expensive, but I feel like EBay is a mover of commodity cards, where it used to have more diversity and depth. Search for T3 and there are few viable examples aside from a bunch of crap from Deans. Same with 1914 CJ (I fully acknowledge the Probstein auction but this is an exception).

From what I hear, ebay has become very unfriendly to sellers. I bet this has deterred the collector and casual seller from using ebay to sell and steered them more to AHs, where you don’t have to deal with all the headaches and potential fraud in ebay. And, since PWCC was booted, there are almost no larger sellers of prewar; Probstein sometime and Tony A (although just buy direct from website), and I ignore Deans as a viable option.

Yes, I collect some advanced stuff, and that is certainly part of it. But I just don’t think eBay is the same venue as it was 3-4 years ago, let alone 10 years ago, which is also part of it