Buyer frenzy

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Bosox Blair

Last few weeks same with me on eBay...can't win a thing. And I agree - most of the time recently I'm losing by a lot! I also agree that these items are going way over VCP. Who knows why?

Cheers,
Blair

Seriously? I only run straight ebay card auctions when I can't get fair market value any other way - after expenses, I'm generally about 10% below my COST. So someone is getting deals. I guarantee you - my prewar cards, for the most part, sell well below VCP. Not whining, that's just the way it is.

[ullmandds]

Those ruth exhibits...like many ruth issues...have taken off last 6-12 months or so...esp in nice grade. There are still a fair amt of inexpensive...period ruth cards...but no longer strips...and no longer exhibits.

Surprisingly the 25' champions ruth exhibit is still kinda cheap?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Seriously? I only run straight ebay card auctions when I can't get fair market value any other way - after expenses, I'm generally about 10% below my COST. So someone is getting deals. I guarantee you - my prewar cards, for the most part, sell well below VCP. Not whining, that's just the way it is.

My guess is that there is more shenanigans going on, on ebay, than any place else in the hobby. I would bet some of those higher prices might be run up in a shill-type manner. ....

[theuclakid]

I do think it has been more of a sellers market this year than the last couple years...and coinciding, yes it has been much tougher to buy this year than the last couple years also....Memory Lane auctions just recently had many head scratchers....a couple examples of PSA 8'S, nothing extremely special...a 56T Williams sold for over $3000 with the juice, and a 61 Mantle sold for over $2600....both at levels I have never seen before....these were not 8.5's (let alone a 9) and probably would never be in an 8.5 graded holder.....Bruce Perry

[botn]

Originally Posted by theuclakid

I do think it has been more of a sellers market this year than the last couple years...and coinciding, yes it has been much tougher to buy this year than the last couple years also....Memory Lane auctions just recently had many head scratchers....a couple examples of PSA 8'S, nothing extremely special...a 56T Williams sold for over $3000 with the juice, and a 61 Mantle sold for over $2600....both at levels I have never seen before....these were not 8.5's (let alone a 9) and probably would never be in an 8.5 graded holder.....Bruce Perry

Hi Bruce!

It is ok if this happens in Memory Lane's auctions just not in Goodwin's.

Greg

[Peter_Spaeth]

The Williams was quite a sale. Here are the recent VCPs on that card in an 8.


6/16/12

eBay

Auction | Image

dogdirtbag

j***j

12

$810.00







5/30/12

eBay

Auction | Image

dogdirtbag

u***7

23

$851.99







5/25/12

Sterling Sports

Auction | Image





13

$862.50







5/25/12

Mile High

Auction | Image





7

$931.77







4/14/12

eBay

Listing | Image

mikedenero

i***g

BIN

$1,100.00

[Clutch-Hitter]

Noticed an Abbatichio (sic) t206 in PSA 3 going for approx 150.00 with a day left in auction format. Don't know where it ended, but that's what, 40.00 or so usually?

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Seriously? I only run straight ebay card auctions when I can't get fair market value any other way - after expenses, I'm generally about 10% below my COST. So someone is getting deals. I guarantee you - my prewar cards, for the most part, sell well below VCP. Not whining, that's just the way it is.

Can I respectfully make a suggestion? I looked at your auctions and you seem to have decided not to sell to Canada. Your calll, but with the CDN $ roughly at par with US, there are a lot of Canadians looking to buy from the US right now. And even on these boards, there are obviously lots of serious Canadian collectors. Population of Canada is roughly equal to California.

If an auction seller complained to me that he wasn't doing well, and I saw that his auction rules included "no bids from California", I'd have little sympathy. Just sayin...

Cheers,
Blair

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Bosox Blair

Can I respectfully make a suggestion? I looked at your auctions and you seem to have decided not to sell to Canada. Your calll, but with the CDN $ roughly at par with US, there are a lot of Canadians looking to buy from the US right now. And even on these boards, there are obviously lots of serious Canadian collectors. Population of Canada is roughly equal to California.

If an auction seller complained to me that he wasn't doing well, and I saw that his auction rules included "no bids from California", I'd have little sympathy. Just sayin...

Cheers,
Blair

EDITED - my original response sounded negative toward Canadians, which isn't my intent, so I'll try again

Nope - too many problems shipping outside the USA. Regardless of who's fault it is, it isn't worth the aggravation. The only reason I originally posted was to call BS on the claim that ebay straight auctions are resulting in HIGH prices. If you run an honest auction, your prices are generally going to be below VCP, regardless of what countries you include/exclude. I'm not paranoid enough to think that I'm personally being picked on by the entire ebay card-collecting community - it's a seller-wide thing.

[sox1903wschamp]

It would suck if I could not buy Hockey from Canada. 95% of my Hockey purchases come from the great country of Canada. Jusy sayin...

[zljones]

If you are a seller in the business of Hockey cards then I can see Canada inclusion as a must, but Baseball cards you can get away with excluding Canada bidders because of the shipping issues. If you sell let's say 100 items at once and maybe 20 high bidders are from Canada and pay at different times, you will have to make several trips to the post office. If you can't make it the PO to send those on time because of a busy schedule, buyers may zing you on stars for delivery, then ebay and Paypal will block you from receiving instant payment in the future.
I don't know if Ebay has a shipping label you can print for international orders at home, but I would not trust it, because I know the PO can come up with that it's wrong or some crap like that and return the item.

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by zljones

If you are a seller in the business of Hockey cards then I can see Canada inclusion as a must, but Baseball cards you can get away with excluding Canada bidders because of the shipping issues. If you sell let's say 100 items at once and maybe 20 high bidders are from Canada and pay at different times, you will have to make several trips to the post office. If you can't make it the PO to send those on time because of a busy schedule, buyers may zing you on stars for delivery, then ebay and Paypal will block you from receiving instant payment in the future.
I don't know if Ebay has a shipping label you can print for international orders at home, but I would not trust it, because I know the PO can come up with that it's wrong or some crap like that and return the item.

Hi Zach,

Not disagreeing with the hassle.

But here is something auction sellers often forget. It is not only about winning bidders. For every lot any bidder wins, they might place bids on 30 other lots they don't win. They might be the underbidder (the guy who drives the price up) on 15 other lots that the seller never has to ship to Canada...but possibly gets a much higher price on as a result.

The final price in an auction is not set by the winner...it is set by the underbidder.

Anyway, every seller needs to weigh the pros and cons - but if it was me, I'd never exclude 35 million people in a neighboring country with a fairly strong economy/currency from bidding on an auction I was holding.

Cheers,
Blair

[Runscott]

Blair, Have you ever had a winning bidder open a case against you because an item you sold was sitting in customs? It locks up your Paypal funds. It used to be that I could not actually stop Canadians from bidding (the ebay software didn't work). If they won, I would warn them of the border and insurance issues, they would say "fine", then they would still open a case and sometimes ding me on feedback. Go figure, those nice Canadians.

In addition, I prefer to offer free shipping, but I can't do that with Canada because of the high cost of insurance, and I simply won't send a $100+ item off uninsured, especially when another country is involved. I understand your frustration, and I'm not sure if the border hold-up issue is Canada's fault, or that of the USA, but it's a problem. We've had this discussion here MANY times, and the non-US collectors have yet to convince me that I'm making a mistake. Maybe I am, but I'm still waiting for a convincing argument.

Regarding hockey cards, most hockey teams are in the United States, so the main hockey market is also in the United States. Not offering shipping to your PRIMARY market would be kind of foolish. The main market for baseball cards is the USA, regardless of the actual population of Canada.

BTW - we run into the same issues with pool cues. There are some really major buyers of expensive cues in Indonesia, Japan, and other far east countries. Unfortunately, it's just not safe to ship to most of them. If ebay protected both buyer and seller in a fair manner, it might not be an issue, but they don't, so it is.

As it stands, I actually DO ship to non-US countries, but only via private, non-ebay transactions. More than anything, it's a problem with how ebay fails to protect sellers.