Is It Just Me?
 

And not to hijack any recent threads. But am I wrong here? It seems that cards of any kind, pre-war, post-war, tobacco, there are fewer and fewer for sale anywhere of late. Seems like no matter what I am looking for, of which there many when last I looked, there are less or even none coming up when I search now.

Sales seem to slow down before the National. I would also bet the new $600 tax rule has a lot to do with it. I know the things I buy have really slowed down on eBay with way less listings.

There's a lot of marginal examples of good cards available right now, it feels like an overpriced hangover from the run up. There's gems out there, it just takes a little time to separate the chaff from the wheat. That being said, my watch list always seems to exceed my budget.

Agreed my watch list exceeds my budget.

However, my issue seems to be every auction seems to have 1 or more items that I want (not necessarily my I immediately want) but a want.

And every other auctions seems to have a must have item that I pass on since it exceeds my current budget.

The joys of collecting lol

Is it just me?
 

Hi James- I think it's you:) Try a live show that is NOT a National. Last week
I went to a local show and checked a table run by a younger seller (25 years
old?). He had tons of new stuff, of players I know little about and care even
less about. However, in the corner of his case was a 72 Topps Carlton Fisk
rookie in a new SGC 5.5 case. The price was $30! I didn't even bargain.
The deals are out there! Trent King

Although never a large seller, I stopped selling much in the way of vintage sports cards on ebay after they removed the category for pre war baseball cards. The 1099 threshold discouraged a lot of sellers as well. Now Ebay has changed the way they count page views . This change revealed a much smaller number of viewers than sellers were led to believe just a few months back. Ebay's explanation to the page view shrinkage is that they stopped counting bots, and web crawlers. One of their customer service reps told me that many people have called and were quite concerned that page views had diminished significantly. As an example I have one baseball postcard on ebay from 1907 that has been up for a few months. Prior to the page view change I would refresh it every week or so and get 20 or 30 views on the first day. Now it has 1 view. Ebay's explanation that the change was made for accuracy seems unlikely. Why would ebay want sellers to see that the actual views are way less than they had been reporting for years. Maybe that explains the lack of better items on ebay . Dealers may be holding back for the National as well. I think the ebay issues may also explain why there are so many pre war items appearing in National Auctions.

Call me naive....
 

Hey Rick! When did eBay start 1099ing sellers? What is the threshold amount? Or is there even any? I recently listed some items and thought I saw some kind of message on this, however, it may have been 12-24 months ago since I last listed anything on the Bay. If they 1099 me, I am done with eBay. Nutz.

$600 and you get a 1099.

To me it’s the Inflation That has people holding on to their good stuff. I think the inflation has peaked. Does that mean it’s going to go down a lot over the next couple months ? No in my mind it will stop going higher due to gas prices coming down and interest rates rising. That being said the consumer is still spending. I think the end of the year come October the economy will be back on a roll people will be over spending on experiences and trips they will start spending more on cards. Santa Rally

Rick, If you don't accept eBay's explanation, what is your alternative theory as to why they would make the change?

They used to increment page views even when you clicked it to make an edit. It even counted when you listed the item. It seems far more accurate to me now. I also have noticed that I have made quite a few sales on 1st click.

I would not bank on inflation having already peaked. The latest Producer Price Index (ending May 31) rose to 138.66. These increased costs have not yet been reflected by retailers. and the current administration is still in the process of canceling domestic oil leases. So it could be a bumpy ride for quite a while longer.

Inflation may finally hit its peak after the next couple rounds of Fed Rate Hikes, but that could take at least 4-6 months. Just my opinion, though I have no idea how all of this impacts card prices or available inventory.

I would suspect that those who need to sell (to cover increased living costs) will do so, and better-funded consignors who don't need to sell might sit out the next few rounds of auctions. It could result in a glut of mediocre/common items and a shortage of available higher-end material. But only time will tell.

Jim,
I don't know the actual reason why ebay changed the way they count page views, but I doubt it was voluntary. Probably regulatory (either internal or external). From a business point of view, it is a negative to show sellers they have 1/4 as many viewers as they use to you. I was aware they counted viewing your own item as a page view but was surprised to hear that most of the views on my items were from bots. As an answer to a post on why there are less items showing up for sale , I pointed 3 potential reasons there is less on ebay, the new 1099 regulations, the removal the of prewar category and the new "actual" page view count as reasons why there are less sellers on ebay of vintage cards.

Open the Keystone pipeline project. We have refineries here that can handle heavy Canadian crude.

Things are slow for me as I am looking for very specific cards to complete my main focuses and they do not come along often. When I see them, I buy them unless a price is completely out of line.

Yeah, I agree it is psychologically damaging to see zero views :D. I don't know the real reason they fixed it, but it does mark a bit of return to the old days where it was much more relative stat. I just don't see any seller just not listing something because of that.

Before the bots and scrapers, many times I would look at the views and wonder "Why only 1 view?" and discover I had listed in wrong category or the photos loaded wrong or something like that.

I agree that a LOT of folks not used to paying income tax on E-sales are turned off, but I think that the increase of fees is a big factor as well. A lot of sellers 'boycotted' when eBay started FVF-ing postage (which still pisses me off :mad:).

In Summary, lol, I think that we all have times when our searches dry up for a time. Most are just perception, but some can be caused by an unknown change in eBays categorization or item specifics. I occasionally delete my saved searches and when I re-search, I get different results.

Purely anecdotal, but I agree with you. It seems like the supply of high quality cards seems to have dried up significantly.

I have less a problem with eBay per se than I do with the types of d-bags you inevitably run into on that site. So many wanaabee big shots who are just jerks of the highest order to deal with. It's a lot easier in my mind to deal with a nice auction house, both selling and buying.