Card Shows: Tech as a servant or master?

[notfast]

Originally Posted by brunswickreeves

Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” -Christian Louis Lange

What are thoughts (dealer/vendor and buyer/show attendee perspectives) on VCP tech use at live shows? Good, bad, or indifferent?

When deals were going down at the GBSCC show, I observed every dealer use VCP and took a lot of time to search for averages and lowest available comps of cards in same grade (despite in some cases dismal condition of those referenced in VCP, in comparison to a same grade card of better condition attempted to be sold or traded to the dealer by show attendee). Dealers reduced that lowest comp by 15-25% or even turned the attendee’s walk up card away completely since not enough margin in it. Great for the dealer to pay the least possible money for the best possible ROI.

Similarly, show attendees looking to sell or trade with dealers utilize VCP to rationalize why their card deserves a certain amount of money or trade value based on trending or same grade/same condition comps. Great for the show attendee who otherwise may not have had a clue about their card’s value.

However, for both stakeholders further along the card value maturity curve, antidotally dealer’s listed card prices for top-notch vintage are still aligned to the 2021-2023 Covid-boom, causing VCP to create an impasse (unstoppable force meet immovable object) and impediment to a square and expedient deal.

So has VCP tech been a useful servant or a master?

What is the alternative? A notebook with pricing? Going off memory?

Originally Posted by gunboat82

You're probably right that there's a bit of an impasse. I left GBSCC after an hour because I saw many of the cards I saw last year and the year before at the same or higher prices.

Even when there are cards that are priced to move, it seems like the dealers cannibalize each other's inventory. I had my eye on a particular slabbed Cracker Jack card that was at one GBSCC table last year, and I was close to pulling the trigger but held off. This year, the same card was at a different dealer's table but was marked up about 45%. I don't know if they're all consigning to each other, but it feels like the circle is getting smaller.

A year is a VERY long time…for cards to be bought and sold and for pricing to change…

[Eric72]

As a preface, I mainly collect T206 and vintage Topps cards. There is plenty of pricing info available on these.

Having said this, here's my card show attendee (buyer) perspective:

I do my research before going to the show. For the most part, while I'm there, my phone stays in my pocket.

I have a want list with me. The prices I'm willing to pay are on that list. If I bring cards to sell or trade, they're already priced.

My recent (2020s) card show experience has been confined to the Philly Show. It's a large regional show with lots of dealer tables. I'd rather not waste time "looking up comps" during the show, especially since I can do that in advance. The show is too big to waste time doing something I could have done before I got there.

It's the buyer's analog to dealers who put price stickers on their cards. Quick and easy.,

[brunswickreeves]

Every post needs a card…here are a few Mickeys (not Mantle) I pick up at the GBSCC show. I’m sure I paid up on them, but was happy to bring home some vintage Disney…

[Huck]

Originally Posted by Eric72

I do my research before going to the show. For the most part, while I'm there, my phone stays in my pocket.

I have a want list with me. The prices I'm willing to pay are on that list. If I bring cards to sell or trade, they're already priced.

+1 - Well said.

[G1911]

I’m not clear how looking up actual sales of an item when considering a deal on that item is making tech ones master. Seems like a pretty reasonable thing common sense thing to do. I would never object to someone using a valid dataset to check pricing. What is wrong with using data?

[Republicaninmass]

The new generation just takes what they've paid and adds 300% thinking someone doesn't know how to check the last sales. Should end well

[JimC]

Remember, if you can look at VCP information, weed out the outliers and adjust for differences in the cards and changes in the market, others can too. It's just a tool. I collect comic books and would love to have a service as good as VCP that covers comic sales.

[gunboat82]

Originally Posted by notfast

What is the alternative? A notebook with pricing? Going off memory?



A year is a VERY long time…for cards to be bought and sold and for pricing to change…

Sure, but this card (and most of the cards displayed at GBSCC) have also been listed in Facebook groups, Instagram, etc. in the interim. The price hike didn't happen organically due to the passage of time and an increase in demand.

To be clear, I don't have any problem with flipping or arbitrage. My only point is that buyers and sellers have access to the same information, and it's going to be harder for sellers to get Y when the buyer saw it for X just yesterday.

That's not an issue for the super-high-end investors with ultra-rare cards that rarely change hands, but it is a factor when selling cards that pop up frequently.

[Musashi]

How is it different from the 80's and 90's, when people walked around shows with a Beckett or Tuff Stuff (or had one with them behind the table for dealers)?

[brunswickreeves]

I don’t think dealers were picking the lowest purchase price from the past 36 issues of Beckett, or pricing the sale of their cards from the most expensive issue either…tech has enabled a much further reaching view to pick from, given VCP averages over a significant time horizon and makes data aggregation more accessible.

[JollyElm]

Coming soon to a new Collectorisms thread near you...

Phone Value - the updated, modernized version of “book value.”

[skelly]

I’m not looking up cards that I am inquiring to buy & I don’t expect a dealer to spend 2-3 minutes looking up comps. You look it up, I’m no longer interested. Quote me an immediate price, I might buy it even if you’re on the high side.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

If I even hear the word "comp", there is no transaction happening. Glad I'm in a part of the hobby where its usage is not yet as prevalent as it is with cards.