Auction amounts - how high is high

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

economists have successfully predicted five out of the last three recessions.

I thought they went 9 for 4?

Look, no one knows the future; if they did, they sure as hell wouldn't be sharing the information. What we do know, empirically, is that cards have a 40+ year track record that has been overall nicely positive for long-term owners. The real challenge is deciding where to get out, if at all. I am certainly tempted to cash out some of the really big gainers but my longer term plan is to retire from my work and make liquidating my collection my retirement project, so there is no reason to worry about it now. Seeing the prices does make me feel like a friggin' genius for buying so many cards 30 years ago and not selling most of them (sure wish I had that NM Aaron RC back again), but I know it was far less acumen than happenstance and laziness, respectively, that drove me to buy and hold.

As far as eBay goes, when I see a card of a certain price point, I am reluctant to risk that money on eBay. The AHs do offer a certain amount of security in making the purchase, with the added bonus of not having expensive cards traipse up and down and across the country multiple times so that PSA or CSG can vouch for them...because fakes and scams are so prevalent on eBay; that must be the case since eBay is forcing this review step into the process, and why would they do that other than to combat rampant thievery? Ironic how I never really sweated $500 eBay purchases until eBay signaled that I should.