Dean's Cards - Deja Vu All Over Again

[PowderedH2O]

I have bought some lots from him on a few occasions. He posts photos of every single card and grades every single card. I was pleased with that, and the prices were about the same as everybody else. I didn't buy any star cards, but that's ok. I got what I wanted at a fair price with good service. I think his star cards are priced too high. So, I stay away from those. But, I could say that about 75% of the sellers on ebay, or here for that matter. He can ask any price he wants. He will get my business only when the price is right, which is a couple of times a year.

[pokerplyr80]

Maybe he primarily uses Ebay as an advertisement to direct traffic to his website. I have no idea what he makes but from what I hear it's a fairly large operation. I doubt he really cares what those outraged here think about his prices. And I couldn't care less either.

[familytoad]

I didn’t see any prewar cards in the examples nor much mention of Dean selling them.
A few prewar dealers have high list prices for rare cards. If I wanted them cheaper I don’t know that I could find them.

But...the Topps cards are hawked by *hundreds* of sellers in all different grades, conditions and prices. I’m not certain that he (Dean) needs to be called out for higher asking prices since everyone seems to just want to pay the lowest price.
That means * hundreds * of guys have prices higher than the lowest one.
Do we have to call them out as too high as well?

Skipping over a certain seller doesn’t seem difficult, and despite all the threads complaining about them, they don’t appear willing to lower the prices. I suppose you can keep trying though, since it’s your prerogative, much like it is his (or theirs)

[Luke]

Can someone who has contacted him and got a better deal than his website price please send me a PM? He has a few cards that I'd pull the trigger on if I could knock a decent chunk off the website prices.

[Rhotchkiss]

Deans cards is a non-factor to me; rarely do they come up in my EBay searches, and when they do it’s never a card I want. They do appear to be absurdly expensive though. The one who drives my nuts is davidssportscards. That guy has great stuff and he always comes up on my eBay searches - always (so does TonyTrade, who I know, have done deals with and highly endorse). But the cards listed by davidssportscards are so wicked overpriced (in my opinion) it’s annoying, and I wish ebay would just kick his ass back to Corona, CA (wherever that is). If his prices were even somewhat reasonable, or he would accept reasonable offers, he would have lots of my money (Oh man - W600 Wags, high grade t206s, rare Planks, Jacksons, etc); I mean that green 33 Goudey Ruth SGC 7.5 has been sitting on eBay at that same price for over 3 years. Lower your prices people and let us give you money for cards!!

Ryan Hotchkiss

P.S. I find it near impossible to buy off ebay anymore; all sellers seem to be smoking something with BIN prices and (to their credit) the major auctions (pwcc, probstein) are commanding crazy hammer prices, maybe justifying the silly BIN asks....?

[phikappapsi]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Deans cards is a non-factor to me; rarely do they come up in my EBay searches, and when they do it’s never a card I want. They do appear to be absurdly expensive though. The one who drives my nuts is davidssportscards. That guy has great stuff and he always comes up on my eBay searches - always (so does TonyTrade, who I know, have done deals with and highly endorse). But the cards listed by davidssportscards are so wicked overpriced (in my opinion) it’s annoying, and I wish ebay would just kick his ass back to Corona, CA (wherever that is). If his prices were even somewhat reasonable, or he would accept reasonable offers, he would have lots of my money (Oh man - W600 Wags, high grade t206s, rare Planks, Jacksons, etc); I mean that green 33 Goudey Ruth SGC 7.5 has been sitting on eBay at that same price for over 3 years. Lower your prices people and let us give you money for cards!!

Ryan Hotchkiss

P.S. I find it near impossible to buy off ebay anymore; all sellers seem to be smoking something with BIN prices and (to their credit) the major auctions (pwcc, probstein) are commanding crazy hammer prices, maybe justifying the silly BIN asks....?

I think the reality is, these guys all have deep enough pockets to take on the inventory for long enough periods of time to let demand catch up to scarcity. They all do it, so it clearly must be working. When every collector eventually needs "that last piece" to finish something, they pay up for it; and these guys don't need to trade on volume to stay afloat.

And yeah, auction prices seem to be going up (generally) which in turn makes the prices they sit on come back to reality and seem better than they did 3+ years ago at the same price.

I don't begrudge these guys their pricing power; but I also wish I could justify getting my hands on some of the things they basically have walled off with huge prices.

[ALR-bishop]

I heard that when Dean and Levi and Yep were little guys they had some great cards that had gone up in value so they sold them. But then the value of such cards went up a lot more and they were sorry they had sold them so cheap. So when they got older and got some more neat cards they decided to put them up for sale at really high prices and not sell them unless they got that price, no matter how much people complained about it or made fun of the fact they would not sell them cards at a lower price.

But I have not checked the factual accuracy of this with snopes

[ajquigs]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

Maybe he primarily uses Ebay as an advertisement to direct traffic to his website. I have no idea what he makes but from what I hear it's a fairly large operation. I doubt he really cares what those outraged here think about his prices. And I couldn't care less either.

I always assumed this ^^ about eBay driving other sales.

FWIW, this link to WatchCount shows 700+ items sold on eBay over the past three months. There are some graded and other $50, $100, $200+ cards sold for list price and many $1 to $20 cards ... including single-buyer bulk orders (same transaction time).

http://www.watchcount.com/completed....ans_cards#serp

[mintacular]

I think the people who keep saying that they have the "right" to list the cards at whatever price they choose fail to account for the fact that these listings are clogging up all the major websites (eBay, COMC, etc.) and yes while there are ways to screen them out, why do we have to bend over backwards to do so? Imagine going into a grocery store to buy a can of soup for $2 and is is buried behinds 50 cans of Dean's Split Pea listed at $8, $10 and you have to dig around /spend the time to find the one or two reasonably priced ones at the back of the shelf?

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by mintacular

I think the people who keep saying that they have the "right" to list the cards at whatever price they choose fail to account for the fact that these listings are clogging up all the major websites (eBay, COMC, etc.) and yes while there are ways to screen them out, why do we have to bend over backwards to do so? Imagine going into a grocery store to buy a can of soup for $2 and is is buried behinds 50 cans of Dean's Split Pea listed at $8, $10 and you have to dig around /spend the time to find the one or two reasonably priced ones at the back of the shelf?

Very well put. This more than anything is my problem with Dean's when I look for 50's and 60's HOFers on eBay. By the time I say "You've got to be kidding me..." for the fourth time, I think it's a little ridiculous.

[x2drich2000]

Originally Posted by mintacular

I think the people who keep saying that they have the "right" to list the cards at whatever price they choose fail to account for the fact that these listings are clogging up all the major websites (eBay, COMC, etc.) and yes while there are ways to screen them out, why do we have to bend over backwards to do so? Imagine going into a grocery store to buy a can of soup for $2 and is is buried behinds 50 cans of Dean's Split Pea listed at $8, $10 and you have to dig around /spend the time to find the one or two reasonably priced ones at the back of the shelf?

I think the idea of this analogy isn't bad except for the fact the cards you are looking for are not hidden behind Dean's. You don't have to move Dean's out of the way to get to your purchase. Dean's, 707's, etc show up in the same way on the shelf (your search) as the cheaper option. Instead what I think you are looking at is more akin to finding the 1 foot section of generic soup when it is between the 8 foot section of Campbell's and the 8 foot section of Progresso. All three types are in front of you, but your eyes see the bigger name companies with more space a lot easier than the small company with little space.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by mintacular

I think the people who keep saying that they have the "right" to list the cards at whatever price they choose fail to account for the fact that these listings are clogging up all the major websites (eBay, COMC, etc.) and yes while there are ways to screen them out, why do we have to bend over backwards to do so? Imagine going into a grocery store to buy a can of soup for $2 and is is buried behinds 50 cans of Dean's Split Pea listed at $8, $10 and you have to dig around /spend the time to find the one or two reasonably priced ones at the back of the shelf?

As long as those companies are paying to put cards on Ebay, COMC etc. than it's their right to do so. Those companies have a fiduciary responsibility to not limit sales and I'd wager Dean's would have a heck of a law suit if someone was to arbitrarily remove their items without due cause.

Sorry but again this is capitalism and we have to accept the good with the "bad".

regards
rich

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

As long as those companies are paying to put cards on Ebay, COMC etc. than it's their right to do so. Those companies have a fiduciary responsibility to not limit sales and I'd wager Dean's would have a heck of a law suit if someone was to arbitrarily remove their items without due cause.

Sorry but again this is capitalism and we have to accept the good with the "bad".

regards
rich

And in a free society, you have to accept that we have the right to complain about ridiculously "bad" sellers, right?? Plus, can you point out who said they want to "arbitrarily remove their items without due cause"?? I guess everyone else reading this thread missed that post.

[trdcrdkid]

For those wondering about the size and nature of Dean's operation, here is a video from 2013 where he gives a tour of the office in Cincinnati and shows the staff at work. At the time he had 14 employees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI75Cei9qXA