Sunk Costs in the Hobby Video

[parkplace33]

Great video about sunk costs in the hobby:

https://youtu.be/EiFX3a-x4nw

Chris does a great job explaining this. Many people in the hobby (and business) do not understand this concept.

[Johnny630]

Many Dealers say I have this much into the card I have to get this number.

I don’t think they realize it’s irrelevant to me as a buyer what a dealer paid for the item. Just let me know your price lol.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Many Dealers say I have this much into the card I have to get this number.

I don’t think they realize it’s irrelevant to me as a buyer what a dealer paid for the item. Just let me know your price lol.

But it's relevant to them and the conversation especially if the customer made some kind of counter offer.

[parkerj33]

The key aspect that is differnet about cards versus the example cases, is that card values are variable. so there is some worthwhile consideration of "hey this card WAS $1000, its $500 now, maybe it will rise back to $1000 some day".

future potential value does cloud the discussion, but overall very valuable lessons presented here...and for a decision about present value, spot-on.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Pat R

But it's relevant to them and the conversation especially if the customer made some kind of counter offer.

If a dealer over paid for an item he shouldn't expect a future buyer to do the same. I can't be responsible or feel sympathy for what a dealer paid.
Idk just my thoughts

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

If a dealer over paid for an item he shouldn't expect a future buyer to do the same. I can't be responsible or feel sympathy for what a dealer paid.
Idk just my thoughts

What I have into a card is my business. When someone asks me what I paid for a card, I have for sale, I tell them $1.

.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Leon

What I have into a card is my business. When someone asks me what I paid for a card, I have for sale, I tell them $1.

.

Leon, You'd be surprised how many times dealers tell me what they have into a card as a reason for their asking price. I never ask them what they paid I just ask what's your number, that's it.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Leon, You'd be surprised how many times dealers tell me what they have into a card as a reason for their asking price. I never ask them what they paid I just ask what's your number, that's it.

Don't get me wrong, I do base my price on cost but that isn't anyone's business but mine. And yes, dealers can tell you what they have into a card but is that always the right amount?
.

[Republicaninmass]

I was once told it was "impossible" to sell something for less than you paid... by a government employee.

I quickly determined They have a lot to learn about the real world!

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Leon

Don't get me wrong, I do base my price on cost but that isn't anyone's business but mine. And yes, dealers can tell you what they have into a card but is that always the right amount?
.

I agree it is your business I'm with you. Do they always tell you the right amount? Maybe maybe not, don't care. That's why it's irrelevant to me, just tell me a price. That's it. Lol

[mrreality68]

interesting video but also dealing without alot of variables in the videos examples.
For example everyone is right as a buyer we do not care what the seller pays and if they make money or not
But in his example where that seller was offered $100 and the seller said but 3 months ago I have $150 into it he said the seller should just sell it at a loss and move on.
That is an option but if the seller does not "need to" sell it then he can decline the offer and wait to see if he/she gets better offers or can hold it until the market value goes up and sell it at that point.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

I was once told it was "impossible" to sell something for less than you paid... by a government employee.

I quickly determined They have a lot to learn about the real world!

I guess they never had to realize losses in a portfolio at year end for tax purposes...

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by mrreality68

if the seller does not "need to" sell it then he can decline the offer and wait to see if he/she gets better offers or can hold it until the market value goes up and sell it at that point.

+1. When someone tells me I 'need' to see a card for a specific price my answer is that the only person who gets to tell me I 'need' to do something is my wife, and she says it plenty.

[obcmac]

While I agree with the discussion presented in the video, this analysis and discussion always seems to miss the key element of the market. There isn't one objective price for an individual card, but rather there are a group of buyers all with different valuations of the same card (aka, the good old demand curve). Dealers are buying in a competitive, but limited (due to time and information constraints) markets, and trying to reallocate to those with the highest valuation. A market clearing price isn't the "true price". A dealer will seek out individuals with highest willingness to pay and try to sell to them near their maximum. This is where supply matters a lot...89 UD Griffey, then you are going to get a price near the market clearing price since the selling market is competitive...cards with limited population can sell closer to the buyer's valuation instead of the underbidder valuation + 1 bid. A good business rule of thumb is to sell cards for more than you buy them for...and if you offer a dealer less than they paid, then it is often in the best interest of the dealer to wait until they find someone with a higher willingness to pay. So...if you paid $100 for your Kevin Seitzer rookie, holding out for $150 would be a sunk cost fallacy...but holding out for someone to pay a little more on a rare pre-war card isn't an example of the same error, even if one or two sales appear at lower levels.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Many Dealers say I have this much into the card I have to get this number.

I don’t think they realize it’s irrelevant to me as a buyer what a dealer paid for the item. Just let me know your price lol.

But it is relevant to them. They are in the business to make money. If they sell cards at a loss, they will eventually go out of business. There certainly are times when you have to get out from under a bad buy, but not just because someone is interested in buying a card. To me the relevant question, which Chris didn't mention, is what is my replacement cost? If I can replace the card easily for much less today, then sell at a loss. If it is a Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, etc. and maybe I over paid, I will just hold out for my price because I will eventually get it. Those type of cards also draw eyes to your showcases and can help sell other cards. If a dealer just has less desirable cards, collectors may just give their table a quick look and move on.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by rats60

But it is relevant to them. They are in the business to make money. If they sell cards at a loss, they will eventually go out of business. There certainly are times when you have to get out from under a bad buy, but not just because someone is interested in buying a card. To me the relevant question, which Chris didn't mention, is what is my replacement cost? If I can replace the card easily for much less today, then sell at a loss. If it is a Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, etc. and maybe I over paid, I will just hold out for my price because I will eventually get it. Those type of cards also draw eyes to your showcases and can help sell other cards. If a dealer just has less desirable cards, collectors may just give their table a quick look and move on.

In the video it looks like there is a lot of junk wax in the boxes behind the speaker, so he is obviously well aware of “sunk” costs.

[Leon]

Nice analogies but I respectfully disagree about supply. It really just doesn't matter. If I have a unique card and there is no demand then the sales price will be low. That said, there are over 1000 Jordon's in a 10 holder (I believe)....but the demand is through the roof so it's valuable. Supply rarely has to do with price since demand will set the price. All in my humble opinion...

Originally Posted by obcmac

While I agree with the discussion presented in the video, this analysis and discussion always seems to miss the key element of the market. There isn't one objective price for an individual card, but rather there are a group of buyers all with different valuations of the same card (aka, the good old demand curve). Dealers are buying in a competitive, but limited (due to time and information constraints) markets, and trying to reallocate to those with the highest valuation. A market clearing price isn't the "true price". A dealer will seek out individuals with highest willingness to pay and try to sell to them near their maximum. This is where supply matters a lot...89 UD Griffey, then you are going to get a price near the market clearing price since the selling market is competitive...cards with limited population can sell closer to the buyer's valuation instead of the underbidder valuation + 1 bid. A good business rule of thumb is to sell cards for more than you buy them for...and if you offer a dealer less than they paid, then it is often in the best interest of the dealer to wait until they find someone with a higher willingness to pay. So...if you paid $100 for your Kevin Seitzer rookie, holding out for $150 would be a sunk cost fallacy...but holding out for someone to pay a little more on a rare pre-war card isn't an example of the same error, even if one or two sales appear at lower levels.

[packs]

The only times I've ever lost money on a sale have been when I've bought a card I was only interested in selling. Every card I've ever bought for my personal collection has only appreciated.

[raulus]

Any chance you are both right?

I would posit that when it comes to items that are abundantly available, and where there is similarly robust demand, they often sell like commodities, with prices that fall within a fairly tight range.

On the other hand, for items that are rare and difficult to find, especially where there is very thin demand, assuming the owner has no immediate financial pressure to sell, the market is ultimately whatever the seller is willing to accept, which is often going to be a function of the most aggressive buyer.

Naturally, not every item in the universe falls neatly into these two categories, so you're going to have lots of pieces that fall somewhere in-between, depending on the relative availability and demand for the item, with some a bit more on one end of the spectrum or the other. And over time, some items may even shift as relative demand for the item waxes and wanes.

Originally Posted by Leon

Nice analogies but I respectfully disagree about supply. It really just doesn't matter. If I have a unique card and there is no demand then the sales price will be low. That said, there are over 1000 Jordon's in a 10 holder (I believe)....but the demand is through the roof so it's valuable. Supply rarely has to do with price since demand will set the price. All in my humble opinion...

Quote:
Originally Posted by obcmac
While I agree with the discussion presented in the video, this analysis and discussion always seems to miss the key element of the market. There isn't one objective price for an individual card, but rather there are a group of buyers all with different valuations of the same card (aka, the good old demand curve). Dealers are buying in a competitive, but limited (due to time and information constraints) markets, and trying to reallocate to those with the highest valuation. A market clearing price isn't the "true price". A dealer will seek out individuals with highest willingness to pay and try to sell to them near their maximum. This is where supply matters a lot...89 UD Griffey, then you are going to get a price near the market clearing price since the selling market is competitive...cards with limited population can sell closer to the buyer's valuation instead of the underbidder valuation + 1 bid. A good business rule of thumb is to sell cards for more than you buy them for...and if you offer a dealer less than they paid, then it is often in the best interest of the dealer to wait until they find someone with a higher willingness to pay. So...if you paid $100 for your Kevin Seitzer rookie, holding out for $150 would be a sunk cost fallacy...but holding out for someone to pay a little more on a rare pre-war card isn't an example of the same error, even if one or two sales appear at lower levels.

[Yoda]

Part of the reason dealers so often put on a sticker price bearing no relation to reality is their deep emotional attachment to the card. The thought of actually selling it at whatever price makes them nauseous. It is part of the conundrum of being a collector/dealer. That's one of the reasons you see 'for display only' in some dealers' cases at shows. The demand side is there but the supply side can be very reluctant.

[parkplace33]

Originally Posted by Yoda

Part of the reason dealers so often put on a sticker price bearing no relation to reality is their deep emotional attachment to the card. The thought of actually selling it at whatever price makes them nauseous. It is part of the conundrum of being a collector/dealer. That's one of the reasons you see 'for display only' in some dealers' cases at shows. The demand side is there but the supply side can be very reluctant.

I actually believe this is no longer the case. Most dealers I know and deal with are straight dealers, very few collector/dealers these days.

[notfast]

I’m amazed at how dumb this guys college classmates were on the examples that were given.

[Snowman]

I used to joke with my business-major friends in college that they were just getting a degree in common sense. However, reading through the comments every time this topic gets discussed, and hearing Chris say that 75% of his classmates got it wrong, highlights the fact that common sense isn't quite as common as one might think.

Sometimes, people just over complicate things. In this case, whether or not a dealer, for whom running a profitable business is the primary goal, should sell a card or not depends only on two factors: what it's worth, and what the buyer is willing to pay. Everything else is completely irrelevant.

As a side note, asking, "what is my replacement cost?", while perhaps a more helpful way of looking at it for some, is just another way of saying, "what is it worth?".

[Snowman]

As someone pointed out above though, determining a card's value as a buyer isn't always as simple as seeing what a similar one last sold for at auction, unless it is a highly traded commodity card like an 89 Upper Deck Griffey or a red T206 Ty Cobb. The same is true for realizing a card's potential as a seller. Some cards have much stronger valuations in very niche segments of the hobby, and if you just toss one of those cards up for auction on eBay, you're gambling on whether or not the right buyers will see it, because if they don't, you could easily end up taking a bath on the card if it sells to someone in a different segment of the hobby.

When a card is difficult to price, I think sometimes dealers who aren't very good at pricing/math will often just resort to looking at what they paid for a card as a surrogate for what it might be worth today because they're not confident in what they could actually get for it and they're afraid of making a mistake. Especially for a card that's not easy to find.

As an example, I primarily collect perfectly centered mid-grade cards with strong eye-appeal. Historical sales prices for these cards have extremely high variance because the hammer prices depend heavily on who happens to be watching the auctions. If you take a card like a perfectly centered PSA 4 Hank Aaron RC for example, there are multiple cohorts of collectors who will value it very differently. This card is notoriously difficult to find perfectly centered. The VCP median price for recent sales of a PSA 4 is around $4500 for an off-centered copy of this card. But when a perfectly centered copy hits the auction block, you have investors/flippers who might bid $3500-$4000 hoping to turn a profit on it if they get lucky and win. Then you have collectors who zoom in on the corners and shrug their shoulders over the centering that might pay $4500 for it. Then you have the largest cohort of the market that will notice the centering and will add a premium to it, perhaps bidding it up to $5000-$5500 or so. Then you have a smaller cohort of what I call the "true collectors" who really care about eye appeal, and they might pay upwards of $7k for it, reasoning that it's worth a full grade bump in price due to the eye appeal. Then, you have an even smaller cohort of the truly OCD-centering-obsessed collectors like myself who even cringe at a 55/45 copy and that have been looking for a dead-centered Hank Aaron RC for years to replace their "off-centered" 51/49 copy, knowing that there are only a few dozen of these to have ever surfaced. Those buyers will gladly pay $10k for it because they'd MUCH rather have it than an off-centered PSA 6, 7, 8, or 9 and $10k sure seems like a bargain in contrast.

Someday, I might start a thread about estimating the value of cards that are difficult to price, as there are some fairly interesting mathematical nuances or mechanisms that can come into play. One of the more interesting ones is the non-linearity of centering premiums across both grades and sets.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by Leon

Supply rarely has to do with price since demand will set the price. All in my humble opinion...

I would absolutely agree with this.

And as a buyer when a seller rejects my offer I appreciate it if they tell me why which is usually that they have paid too close or more than what I was offering.

Cards are not like shares of Apple stock. Cards change hands when the numbers make sense to both sides and each person comes with their own expectations and limits.

[raulus]

I think the reason why the sunk cost fallacy exists as a phenomenon is because humans are often illogical and emotional, in spite of our better judgment. That and we hate to lose money and/or experience pain. Studies have consistently shown that people will routinely choose illogical options if it means that they can avoid loss/pain.

The other element is that we are all perpetually optimistic when it comes to our items. Just because it's down today doesn't mean that it will be down tomorrow. And if I'm convinced it will be back up tomorrow, then I'm less inclined to sell today unless I feel like I'm getting tomorrow's price.

[Exhibitman]

I've had the experience more than once (and as recently as last week) where a buyer eventually met my price on a good item. On those occasions, I've declined earlier lower offers with a sunk cost argument. It may be a fallacy, but the reality is that if you are not motivated to sell an item, you do not need to take a loss on it and telling the buyer you will not is a valid position to take, but only if you really are willing to let the sale walk. Otherwise, you're just lying.

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

I was once told it was "impossible" to sell something for less than you paid... by a government employee.

I quickly determined They have a lot to learn about the real world!

They must have never been to a government surplus auction. If anyone loses money on a regular and massive basis, it's the government.

[Hankphenom]

Try having a table with nothing but memorabilia, the buying and selling of which is a lot more art than science. You're always guessing both ways, and have to be nimble unless you want to cart the same stuff around from show to show, which some old-time dealers seemed to do little but. It's challenging but also great fun, and when you hit one out of the park you feel like a genius. But if something sat undisturbed and unasked about for more than a few shows, I had no problem re-pricing until I found the market I had overestimated when I bought it. I might have lost money on 15-20% of my inventory over the years, but not much on any given item and the total of losses was small in comparison with the gains or I wouldn't have done it for long.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Leon

Nice analogies but I respectfully disagree about supply. It really just doesn't matter. If I have a unique card and there is no demand then the sales price will be low. That said, there are over 1000 Jordon's in a 10 holder (I believe)....but the demand is through the roof so it's valuable. Supply rarely has to do with price since demand will set the price. All in my humble opinion...

I think obcmac's point (and I think it's a good one) is that supply is an important factor to account for when determining whether or not a card is likely to reach its full price potential if auctioned off.

I see this all the time as an OCD-centering-obsessed collector. If I'm buying a card to complete one of my centered vintage sets that is really difficult to find, I might bid $100 for it at auction but win it for $20 because the right people didn't see it that week. The next time that same card goes up for auction, it might sell for $80 though. It happens all the time with difficult-to-find centered cards in widely collected sets. However, with a Griffey Upper Deck RC, there's no question at all about what it's currently worth or what the next one will sell for because of the supply being as high as it is. It is traded multiple times per day, every day on every major auction site. Just look up what it's been selling for recently, and you can predict with a high degree of certainty what the next one will sell for +/- a few dollars. But if you take a card that trades hands once a year or once every few years, it's much more difficult to predict what the sales price might be if it were to go up for auction, and the variance in prices realized will be off the charts. Instead of a card selling for $X +/- 5% with cards that have an abundant supply, it can easily be $X +/- 75% with something much rarer.

Also, supply in itself can even be a driver of demand. There is a harmonic mean that comes into play sometimes between supply and demand. We see this often. There are a ton of cards with extremely low supply and almost zero demand. This is precisely why the T206 Wagner is worth as much as it is though. The supply of T206s in general is fairly abundant, though not excessive, which operates as one of the drivers of collectibility. This in turn creates added demand. It's similar to 1952 Topps cards being plentiful enough to make the set worth chasing, while still rare enough to support strong prices.

We also see it with the 1948 Leaf set where the supply of regular and short-printed cards causes a divide in the set. There are enough of these cards in total to drive people to want to collect the set, which creates additional demand pressures on the less obtainable cards like the Satchel Paige. Then, copies of the Paige go for bonkers prices because of the harmonic mean between supply and demand of the set. It creates a virtuous loop of sorts.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Then, you have an even smaller cohort of the truly OCD-centering-obsessed collectors like myself who even cringe at a 55/45 copy and that have been looking for a dead-centered Hank Aaron RC for years to replace their "off-centered" 51/49 copy, knowing that there are only a few dozen of these to have ever surfaced. Those buyers will gladly pay $10k for it because they'd MUCH rather have it than an off-centered PSA 6, 7, 8, or 9 and $10k sure seems like a bargain in contrast.

Curious about how you differentiate between true 50/50 and 51/49 centered cards. Are you using lasers and high-def cameras? Maybe I'm just old with bad eyes, but it seems like it would be challenging to identify the 1% shift based just on the eyeball test.

[rhettyeakley]

Buyers get annoyed by sellers talking about what they have into the item.

I know as a seller I get annoyed by buyers bringing up “comps” (especially on rare or thinly traded items)

Each of those approaches are simple negotiating tactics that are only brought up when it benefits the person bringing them up

[raulus]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

Buyers get annoyed by sellers talking about what they have into the item.

I know as a seller I get annoyed by buyers bringing up “comps” (especially on rare or thinly traded items)

Each of those approaches are simple negotiating tactics that are only brought up when it benefits the person bringing them up

Maybe we need to move to a system where negotiations are entirely non-verbal, like something out of Gulliver's Travels:

"We next went to the School of Languages, where three Professors sate in Consultation upon improving that of their own country. The first Project was to shorten Discourse by cutting Polysyllables into one, and leaving out Verbs and Participles, because in reality all things imaginable are but Nouns. The other, was a Scheme for entirely abolishing all Words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great Advantage in Point of Health as well as Brevity. For it is plain, that every Word we speak is in some Degree a Diminution of our Lungs by Corrosion, and consequently contributes to the shortning of our Lives. An Expedient was therefore offered, that since Words are only Names for Things, it would be more convenient for all Men to carry about them, such Things as were necessary to express the particular Business they are to discourse on. And this Invention would certainly have taken Place, to the great Ease as well as Health of the Subject, if the Women in conjunction with the Vulgar and Illiterate had not threatned to raise a Rebellion, unless they might be allowed the Liberty to speak with their Tongues, after the manner of their Ancestors; such constant irreconcilable Enemies to Science are the common People. However, many of the most Learned and Wise adhere to the New Scheme of expressing themselves by Things, which hath only this Inconvenience attending it, that if a Man's Business be very great, and of various kinds, he must be obliged in Proportion to carry a greater bundle of Things upon his Back, unless he can afford one or two strong Servants to attend him. I have often beheld two of those Sages almost sinking under the Weight of their Packs, like Pedlars among us; who, when they met in the Streets, would lay down their Loads, open their Sacks, and hold Conversation for an Hour together; then put up their Implements, help each other to resume their Burthens, and take their Leave.

But for short Conversations a Man may carry Implements in his Pockets and under his Arms, enough to supply him, and in his House he cannot be at a loss: Therefore the Room where Company meet who practise this Art, is full of all Things ready at Hand, requisite to furnish Matter for this kind of artificial Converse.

Another great Advantage proposed by this Invention, was that it would serve as a Universal Language to be understood in all civilized Nations, whose Goods and Utensils are generally of the same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their Uses might easily be comprehended. And thus Embassadors would be qualified to treat with foreign Princes or Ministers of State to whose Tongues they were utter Strangers."

[Leon]

It's always ok to politely disagree. As someone who has collected some of the rarest cards in the hobby, not in a grade but in total population, I have some experience in the matter. I think the collection I sold is still online. Rarity doesn't equal value, plain and simple. Sure, it can be part of an equation, but demand is what makes value for the most part.
Otherwise, these cards below would be 100k cards....

Originally Posted by Snowman

I think obcmac's point (and I think it's a good one) is that supply is an important factor to account for when determining whether or not a card is likely to reach its full price potential if auctioned off.

I see this all the time as an OCD-centering-obsessed collector. If I'm buying a card to complete one of my centered vintage sets that is really difficult to find, I might bid $100 for it at auction but win it for $20 because the right people didn't see it that week. The next time that same card goes up for auction, it might sell for $80 though. It happens all the time with difficult-to-find centered cards in widely collected sets. However, with a Griffey Upper Deck RC, there's no question at all about what it's currently worth or what the next one will sell for because of the supply being as high as it is. It is traded multiple times per day, every day on every major auction site. Just look up what it's been selling for recently, and you can predict with a high degree of certainty what the next one will sell for +/- a few dollars. But if you take a card that trades hands once a year or once every few years, it's much more difficult to predict what the sales price might be if it were to go up for auction, and the variance in prices realized will be off the charts. Instead of a card selling for $X +/- 5% with cards that have an abundant supply, it can easily be $X +/- 75% with something much rarer.

Also, supply in itself can even be a driver of demand. There is a harmonic mean that comes into play sometimes between supply and demand. We see this often. There are a ton of cards with extremely low supply and almost zero demand. This is precisely why the T206 Wagner is worth as much as it is though. The supply of T206s in general is fairly abundant, though not excessive, which operates as one of the drivers of collectibility. This in turn creates added demand. It's similar to 1952 Topps cards being plentiful enough to make the set worth chasing, while still rare enough to support strong prices.

We also see it with the 1948 Leaf set where the supply of regular and short-printed cards causes a divide in the set. There are enough of these cards in total to drive people to want to collect the set, which creates additional demand pressures on the less obtainable cards like the Satchel Paige. Then, copies of the Paige go for bonkers prices because of the harmonic mean between supply and demand of the set. It creates a virtuous loop of sorts.

[IMG][/IMG]

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by raulus

Curious about how you differentiate between true 50/50 and 51/49 centered cards. Are you using lasers and high-def cameras? Maybe I'm just old with bad eyes, but it seems like it would be challenging to identify the 1% shift based just on the eyeball test.

I can spot a 51/49 card from across the room lol. I don't know why or how, but it bugs the hell out of me. I'm extremely OCD with centering (and many other things in life). Perhaps it's because I'm neurodivergent, I'm not sure. But I consistently pass on cards that are 48/52 or 49/51 because they don't cut the mustard for me. I will occasionally allow myself to go upwards of 45/55 in one direction for a high-end key card that is notorious for centering issues, but I'm never happy about it.

As far as measuring the shift goes, it's easy to do on your screen. I just count the pixels of the borders. But I've done it so many times that I can tell what the exact number will be with fairly alarming accuracy. I think it's similar to how I used to be able to pick up a package by hand and know exactly how much it weighed to the ounce (for packages less than 1 lb) without needing a scale simply because I had weighed and handled so many packages.

[todeen]

I was at an antique show in early October. There were two baseball games (cardboard mat and paper mat) I was interested in buying. The paper mat was also associated with a gas station. I had already spent my budget for the day, and I told the dealer I was willing to meet his price + shipping if he would give me his business card and I could contact him later. He told me he refused to ship because he was retired and didn't want that hassle in his life. I walked away without them, and he missed a sale because he valued his "free time" more than the shipping cost. I was completely blown away by that decision.

[JollyElm]

For me, the 'A seller saying "I have this much into it" debate' can be assessed thusly (can't believe I just used "thusly"):

• If his number is a true evaluation like, "I bought this graded Aaron card for XX dollars recently, and would like to make a bit of a profit on it," then it is a reasonable 'request' in a two-sided negotiation. No problems whatsoever.

• When a seller has a stupid price, saying I have this and this and this into it, so I need to get a king's ransom for it, I'll walk away and talk to someone else who has the same card available.