Hundreds of pre-1930 cards on Ebay

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Posted By: Richard Wong

This happened a couple of years ago when I was first starting to get into vintage cards:

I was selling a goudey gehrig in my ebay store about 2 years ago. I get an email from Levi asking about the price. We go back and forth a little and we settle on a number. He then says for me to ship him the card, he would examine it and if he liked it he would send me my payment.

Huh?

I replied that I didn't know him and that I would not be comfortable sending a couple thousand dollar card in the mail to someone I didn't know, have never dealt with before or had ever heard of, website or no website. (keep in mind this is before I started heavily in prewar) Typically, on ebay, a buyer would send payment and then the seller sends the goods. I also had large clear front and back scans of the card up in the ebay listing.

He tells me that this is the way he does business and has always done business. Everyone sends him the cards first. If I didn't get used to "the way things really work in the card business", I would soon be out of it.

That was literally his answer to me.

Needless to say, I did not complete the transaction with him.

Maybe he is a good guy. Maybe not. Maybe I caught him on a bad day. Maybe not. I guess everyone's experience is a little different.

The way he treated me, though, on that particular day, left a lot to be desired.