Is there a market?
 

We have been collecting rare baseball memorabilia for more than three decades.

Rarely does one have the opportunity to view an entire collection. Nor, to the best of our knowledge,
is there a way to search a photo and description of an item unless one goes through the catalogs of all the major auction houses.

Whilst selected collectors randomly post items from their collections on Net54baseball com,
researching individual items, is difficult at best.

We have given this a great deal of thought, and wonder if you believe there would be a business opportunity for the following:

1.Ability to see all items from a selected group of very important collections
2. Cross reference all the Auction catalogs from the past 10 years by item- again limiting to rare, unusual and/or valuable items.
3. Be able to download pictures/descriptions for one's own files.

The business model would be to form a company. Collectors who supplied photos would receive a percentage of
the revenue. the auction houses would receive credit on all their postings. There would be a list of all auction houses supplying items on the site.

Those who wanted to view the site, would pay an annual membership fee and there would be a fee for downloading.

Media who wished to download for use in an article or tv show would pay a royalty fee.

Do you believe that this could be a $5M or more business, if properly structured? Do you believe the auction houses and major collectors would cooperate?

Look forward to your opinion

Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want

Bruce,
What kind of demand do you see for this kind of a service? It would seem to me to be fairly limited.
Jeff

My numbers show closer to $6.5M.

I see Jeff spent the last ten minutes really crunching the numbers.:)

Bruce- don't many of the auction houses, such as REA and Legendary, already have their past auctions archived? I refer to them often and am able to get good images along the way. How would your business model differ?

Whenever I see annual Membership Fees, I usually don't bite. Unless it's directly related to my business, I don't see paying an annual fee for something that I might use a couple of times per year. Then you throw on a "per download" fee in addition to it? I would say you would have to pick one or the other. Either an annual membership fee w/ unlimited downloads, or a free access to the site with a "per download" fee, but not both.

I also think that your customer base would be very limited and when you ask people to pay for your content, it becomes even more limited.

Good point. The way the internet has evolved, people expect their information to be free. Once they see a charge, unless it is something they must have, they walk away.

I don't use cardpricer or VCP or one of the similar services, but isn't this basically it? At least as far as research is concerned, it seems that role is filled by such already existing services.

And I doubt the profit from licensing of photos for cards from Media outlets will bring much of anything. The only card that ever gets shown in media outlets with mild consistency is the T206 Wagner, and why pay when you can buy and photo a repro for like $5. I don't see this as a big hit.

Basically, I'm denying your application for a start-up loan.

1) To hit $5M, you'd need 25,000 paying customers contributing $200.00 each year, whether that came in the form of a membership fee or download fee. I don't think the hobby is that big, nor that deep. You might have to sell banner ads. I hear that's where all the big money is! ;)


2) Auctions houses? What's in it for them? I don't think the exposure warrants any work on their part, but if all you're asking for is permission to use their images, they might.

Major collectors? I'd guess not. Certainly, some would, but many are extremely secretive about what they own. Even the registry guys don't always make scans of their stuff available. Again, what's in it for them? The exposure is something they don't want.

3) "America's Toughest Want"? Is this your new signature? I like it!

Google Images. Learn it, know it, live it. :D

Bruce--I think there might be a business, but it would probably take a while to generate any significant earnings. You could provide low resolution scans in a data base that would require a small fee for use. High resolution scans of items could be purchased for an additional fee. This is what some libraries, and the American Numismatic Society, do.

poor business plan
 

I think Barry hit the nail on the head. It's an interesting conversation but at the end of the day very few collectors want to pay for anything on the internet. There is no doubt in my mind that this board has done well because it is free to all collectors. I think if I asked for a $1 a yr membership fee everyone would leave :o. (don't worry, I am not going that route, never will)

$1 a year...that's an outrage!

Barry
 

Barry- If you would pay for a whole year in advance I would be willing to give a 65% discount. Would that help any? I could also have a payment plan, take paypal, Western Union and might even consider trades!!

35 cents a year...I could swing that.:D

What do you think the incentive would be to join and pay a fee to look at images? I enjoy baseball cards and looking at other people's collections, but I don't think I would pay to see them online. It would be a different story if we were talking about opening some type of sports card gallery where the items were right in front of you like a museum. But even then it would likely be a one time trip. I would much prefer to spend my money on acquiring the cards rather than seeing them.

bruce
 

did you consume large amounts of wine this Valentine weekend?

you are talking very strange....


are you saying people will PAY just to see rare cards?

a little tunnel vision you may have....

Scott-that was funny :D:D:D

First a comment then just a question for Bruce.

I am glad to see that you are posting some of your pickups. Neat items you are getting.

The question is wasn't it you that said:

We do not post any items from our collection for both insurance and logistical reasons.

I am sure that this may fall the same way for other collectors. Also some of the bigger collections may not be able to be stored by Archive

I have not had to many problems in getting board members to post a pic of a card, player, or item I was researching or point me in the right direction. I believe this board is actually just like you may be talking about except you have to ask for the pics you need.

I think a nice book of the worlds greatest cards and collections would be really cool. A history of high end and rare baseball cards and it's collectors, pioneers to present.

I agree.

A nicely printed, hardcover book would be great.

not on a schnook or schwindle..... a real book I could touch.

 

While I doubt you could make any money at it, I've thought about collecting almost like this. Maybe make a virtual collection. What would be ideal, is to have the fronts and backs of all the cards from every set on your computer or on a site you could access. I'm sure this will exist in the future if it doesn't exist already. Go to the nonsport side and you can see that the effort is already underway there. This is not only a great resource, but also it doesn't take up any storage space, you don't need to worry about theft, you don't need insurance, and it's totally portable. Granted, you don't get to hold the item in your hand, but you can still enjoy it. And if they scan it large enough, you can actually read it without your glasses! I think it's the future of collecting!

Bruces

I'm not sure why I'm even replying, but here goes.

Referring to #1 in your post

A collector is given the choice to spend his/her money on an annual fee to view someone else's collection or use that money to expand/upgrade his/her collection. Which do you think the collector will choose?

There are so many resources to view with on the internet now, why someone would want to pay to view your collective gallery is a mystery to me.

Is this some kind of money making plan to get people to pay to view your collection? Good idea if it is. You could use the earnings to complete "America's Toughest Wantlist".

Jantz

I quoted the Bruces entire post in it's unedited form for future referrence. ;)

The profit margin would be next to nothing once each of the Bruce's are paid off.

My opinion,since you asked for opinions.........
 

Bruces-my opinion is you save your $$$ for your "want list".It actually sounded like a cool idea until I got to the part about fees for being a member,and fees to download images???I would think the fees for being a member would cover the downloading of images?:confused:

So,I'm wondering........would anyone who paid fees be able to say they belong to the "Bruce's Vintage Card Mafia"?:D (how many people are in this group anyways?:confused:)

Good luck on your endeavour.

I would think that "we" would have more than enough money if this is viable, why not start it up and give it a try if it peaks your interest? Than give us an update when the project is going.

Lee

I would strongly consider launching this business by taking out a 30 second commercial at next year's Superbowl. Good luck!

I know a number of collectors with astounding collections who will not post on a public board for safety and privacy reasons.

One great--and free--way to see exhaustive collections of great cards is to make friends with and not antagonize the collectors who own them. Then they will show you their cards as part of the iterated social interaction known as "friendship." If people think you are an insufferable blowhard they won't be your "friend" and won't open their collections to you.

The auction houses do indeed maintain archives of past sales. Heritage has a very nice function in its database that costs you nothing besides signing up for the auctions. VCP is a de facto database as well.

It is a shame that the Burdick Collection has not been digitized and made available--I'd pay for a CD of that--the only way to get to see it now is to be involved in a research project and get an appointment.

I believe it would be a tough sell as others have stated that numerous resources already exist, aka past auctions, archives and sites such as liveauctioneers.com(free) that is key word searchable for any and all items sold at auction for periods of up to 10 years around the world.

wasting your breath
 

Does anyone really expect Bruce to respond to any of the comments posted here?

Auctually I think such a list would be excellent to have. Being able to type in an item and look it up would be great instead of looking through 50 catalogs. However the cost would have to be way up there as what a time consuming thing it would be to make such a list.

I do not personally think Bruce wants to really start this business....I think this is a thinly veiled attempt at finding out where the cards and items he wants are. This is a way for Bruce to find items for his collections. I feel that if his website launched, the people who "provided" pictures would no doubt receive buy offers from Bruce.

Joshua

perhaps you make the entire site free of charge, providing low-resolution scans. Then - similar to what Jay said - you charge a fee for a high resolution scan. Maybe get a couple of advertisers to help with costs too, and give a % of any profit to those who donated their scans.

As much of a need for this as there is for a snow blower in Maui.

Also love how our Wharton grad tosses out a benchmark value of 5 million and then without any data asks the board our opinion. Expect more from a guy who claims to be closing 4 or 5 business deals a day.

A more acceptable thread would have been, If You Found 2 Million Dollars Which Cards Would You Buy?

I think Joshua nailed the reason why the Bruces created this thread in the first place.