Blast from the past...

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Posted By: Paul Adams

Wouldn't you construe the strategy of unslabbing it and selling it raw as being even more deceptive?

I emailed him as well and I have a different perspective on the issue and business in general that I am in agreement on with the seller.

The seller no longer buys baseball cards or related items and concentrates his efforts on the comic hobby. Which if anyone is currently following, is like a runaway 1000 car freight train. He's liquidating items purchased when he invested in sports-elated materials.
Investors make good investments and bad investments in trying to fill their cart with wares to sell but still will tenaciously sit on a mistake until they recoup their pay price on the item.

Not taking any consideration into the "shelf-life" of an item, they tie up countless thousands of dollars on inventory that they will never recoup their initial investment peacemeal. Then, they will try desperately to scrounge up X amount of dollars to buy a collection that they don't have the liquid funds for because they have X amount of dollars just sitting on shelves in dead weight.

You see it constantly. Go to any major show and there's guys that have bought major collections, made a good chunk of their outlay back (and then some) by selling the fast moving "meat", and now they have a million dollars worth of "potatoes" that they'll never move 1/10th of at the prices they have marked on them, and they're wondering why while grossing $300,000 in card sales last month, they don't have enough money in their account to pay the phone bill! Meanwhile, if they marked all the same items that they've been carting from show to show over the past two years, 50% off, 3/4 of the cinder blocks would sell and they could not only pay the phone bill but have another couple of hundred thousand to buy new inventory with.
If it's part of "permanent inventory", it's not helping anybody. Neither buyer nor seller.

If the card auctions at $5000, the seller is taking a $4000 bath on that particular buy, but it's also $5000 that he could probably roll into $10,000 buying comics, faster than he could get $10,000 as what it is dealing in a marketplace he's no longer involved in.

He's selling it, as bought. What's the mystery?