Either a mistake, or a world record

[vintagesportscollector]

Originally Posted by arc2q

But if it is only .05 a month over 24 months that has only cost $1.20 to keep it up.

PLUS the cost of money..money isn't free..people often forget that. Money tied up in inventory is money that can't be invested elsewhere. He could have made 15-20% on that $75 over the past two years. If you have a lot of money tied up in sitting inventory, it really adds up.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by vintagesportscollector

PLUS the cost of money..money isn't free..people often forget that. Money tied up in inventory is money that can't be invested elsewhere. He could have made 15-20% on that $75 over the past two years.

I don't know about that. The cost of money is usually measured in terms of the risk-free rate of return, i.e. U.S. Treasury bonds, which have been yielding around 2% annualized over the past couple of years, or about 4% in this case.

Originally Posted by vintagesportscollector

If you have a lot of money tied up in sitting inventory, it really adds up.

That's true, but I assume that Dean Hanley is making it work somehow, given that he has 10 full-time employees and a million cards in his inventory. Somebody earlier in this thread looked at his eBay sold listings, but he also sells a lot of cards directly through his web site, and I'm guessing that's quite a bit more than he sells through eBay.

I have to admit that I bought some cards through his web site about 10 years ago, 1970 and 1971 Topps commons when I was working on those sets. Convenience was the main attraction -- he had multiple copies of every card listed on his web site in various conditions, and they did arrive quickly. While his prices weren't exactly rock-bottom, they didn't seem overly exorbitant from my perspective, and avoiding the hassle of tracking down each card individually was worth something. I can't imagine ever buying a T206 or Old Judge from him at the prices he charges, but he has a lot of cards (1,364 T206s and 334 T205s, according to his web site), and I suppose there are just enough people who don't know any better and have money to burn.