the trouble with cards that don't often come to market
 

I may have to sell or trade some of my collection in the near future. My collection is by no means extensive or particularly valuable. But of the few cards I have, some are somewhat rare. And by rare I mean that I can find almost no recent sales on ebay of them, or of anything resembling them. And as someone who does not buy or sell very often, and never in auctions outside of ebay, I do not know my way around the "adult table." There have been several times lately when I've made a move to sell or trade and been paralyzed about what to do in terms of value. I don't want to overvalue, yet I can't afford to undervalue. I also don't sell on ebay, so I am afraid to put something there and not have bidders because of having no sales history to inspire confidence in bidders.

One example is the !936 Goudey Type 3 (borderless) Premiums. There are almost no sales listed on ebay for any of these cards. The PSA population is extremely low. I happen to have a few that are in surprisingly good condition. They are not graded, but would likely grade at or above the top in the pop. Two are HOFers and the other is nearly so. I imagine there aren't too many collectors out there clamoring for this set, but I would like to find them. And if I had to sell one of the HOFers in particular, I am sure there would be player collectors interested in it.

Another one (low-value category) is a low-condition MP&co 3-card strip with 2 HOFERs on it. MP&Cos were inexpensive, but are on the rise. I have seen several multi-card strips before, so I know they are not particularly rare, but there is no ebay sales history to draw from.

And there are others.

So my questions are these...

What do y'all do to establish a good market value for these kinds of cards when trying to price them fairly for both buyer and seller?

If I sell or trade them here, how do people generally consider sales listings with listed price "or best offer"? Have sellers had success with that method? Do buyers make offers?

Lastly, I have a Churman's Ruth, but it is ungraded. I hate to get it graded, though I don't mind the look of the SGC slabs. I suppose if I had to sell that one, graded would be necessary? or not? I guess an add-on to this question would be should I get the Goudey Type 3s graded if I am selling or trading? And is there a line where grading doesn't matter for sales, or it is better to not grade (I have a Harrington's ice cream card in lower-condition, for example)?

Thank you for your help!

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VCP has the limited pricing for graded cards in the 1936 Goudey Borderless set. I see that a Jimmie Foxx in a 6 sold for $1100 or so in 2022.

You did not say which HOFers you have but there are only 5 in the set and Foxx is by far the best.

As you stated, it is difficult to price cards like this. True auctions generally garner the best results but they would need to be in a major auction to bring in the most potential bidders and sometimes even rare items fall through the cracks.

You can always throw up a price you would be happy with on here and see if there is any interest.

To be honest, the vast majority of items for sale here do not sell because of high pricing.

I know because I list a few items here from time to time and rarely sell anything even though I think I price reasonably. That is because I am the seller. I tend to overvalue my own items and undervalue everyone else's items. Human nature! Ha.Ha.

If you ever undervalue an item, it sells immediately on here but that does not happen all that often.

I have probably listed 25 or so items over the last year and sold a couple of them. Needless to say, someone thought they were priced fairly in those instances but not in the vast majority of cases.

My advise would be to post clear scans and an asking price you can live with and see if you get any nibbles. If not, no harm.

Just be sure the price you list is one you can live with if someone is willing to pay it on here.

I am so impressed by your self awareness and honesty!

You could consign them to online auction, and set a minimum that you would accept. This way, the market will determine the value and price accordingly, but you can also predetermine what you would effectively purchase for at the min if you were the buyer.

A few random thoughts
 

I would posit that there are two types of rare items:

1) stuff that everyone knows and wants
2) stuff that is obscure with thin demand

I suppose there will always be stuff that falls between these two poles as well, which means you get to guess about which approach will yield the better result.

An example of #1 is the 1914 Baltimore News Ruth. Or the T206 Wagner.

An example of #2 might be a Venezuelan topps issue. Or maybe Bazooka complete boxes. Among many others, of course.

For group #1, an auction is almost always going to be a brilliant approach, particularly when the market is strong and everyone seems determined to go nuts paying astronomical prices for these items. List it, get out of the way, and watch the price go to the moon.

For group #2, my experience is that auctions are often a poor way to sell. Often the buyer is either someone who just happens to be in the market at that time for that precise item, or an opportunistic buyer who knows that they can get it for a steal now and then wait patiently for the right buyer to come along who will pay a king’s ransom to buy it and avoid having to wait years or decades for another one to come onto the market. Unfortunately, when it comes to the auction format, you need multiple highly motivated bidders who all can’t live without your item. The odds of that happening for items in group #2 tend to be very much hit or miss.

Naturally, if you’re going to sell an item from group #2 outside of an auction setting, then you will probably need to pack your patience, as you might need to be willing to wait months or years before someone comes along who is willing to pay a price that you think is fair. Of course, selling through an auction assures that you sell on a specific timeline, but might easily result in the item selling for a relative bargain.

That’s the trade-off, and unfortunately when you’re selling items from group #2, your options are often to go fast and take your chances with the auction results, or go slow with more control, but a much longer timeframe outside of an auction.

The part I made bold above is spot on in my 35+ years of experience. I have several hundred cards that are only known or less than 5 known. I have found they usually sell for peanuts when auctioned or for decent money when you find the right buyer. Problem is that right buyer might take many many years to find.

So if needing to sell I would list on here first at your best price. Then move them to eBay at your best BIN price. Then list on eBay as a 10 day auction starting on a Thursday night starting at the min you would take. Then as last resort send to an AH.

Just bought 3 1952 coca cola tips cards im not selling them ,,and i never see them for sale ,,im happy

Yes, this is my fear. I don’t need to squeeze maximum value out of these cards, but I also don’t want to take a bath on them either. I’ve been burned trying to auction rare cards of category 2 variety to the wrong audience before. I’ve also benefited being on the other side. I tried to auction two cards here one time and got no bids. In the right time and place, they could have gone for 4x the opening bud. I ended up selling or trading them, but still for much lower than they would have gone in the proper setting.

Thanks for all of the advice so far, everyone, This is helpful.

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You're dead to me :D

Seriously though there's obviously a lot of safety in spending the time searching for the right buyer. That being said, we've handled some incredibly rare (some even previously unknown) pre war items in the last couple years and have done very well with them.

https://thecollectorconnection.com/i...89_1_48691.jpg

The only known (and newly discovered at the time) 1909 Rose Post Card of Cy Young. Only 3 known total, this one and two 1908 versions.

https://thecollectorconnection.com/i...34_1_48770.jpg

A whole slew of 1921 W-UNC Self-Developing Strip Cards. We actually added a pile of these to the known checklist and even of the known examples many of these were the first to ever come to auction. With guys like Marranville and Sisler going for over $1000 not just the Cobb, Mathewson, Johnson and Ruth!

So there's definitely more risk in going the auction route, but there can be big rewards. Give me a shout if you want to talk more.

I will gladly take those off your hands

Little late lol. They were in November 2021 auction if I remember right.

You are such a Tease :D :D

A few answers
 

To answer some of your original questions, when I sell on eBay using buy it now but accepting offers, I almost always get offers. Usually I will set a minimum offer price, just so the lowball jokers are automatically rejected.

And when I sell on eBay using buy it now but no offers, I tend to get offers too. They just use the “ask a question” feature and make me an offer.

To somewhat refute my earlier remarks, I will also say that sometimes auctions bring out the animal spirits in buyers. They get into the action. The competition drives them. They get competitive with the other hoser bidding against them, and refuse to lose to that other tosser. Through the process, they get emotionally attached to the item. They get drunk the night of the auction. Next thing they know, they wake up in the morning and they’ve spent twice what you would have accepted with buy it now.

Similarly, you might post the same item with buy it now, and it will just sit. A few people will think about it. But there’s no urgency. There’s no competition. So it just sits, until someone decides to pull the trigger. For whatever reason, some buyers even eliminate buy it now items from their eBay searches, so they never even see your rare items.

By way of example, back in 2021, an item I really wanted came up for $3k on eBay using buy it now. It was a retail price but not crazy. I tried to get cute by making an offer at $2.5k. It was only pop 2 at that grade, with none higher. My offer caused the seller to do a little more research on the item, the seller realized how rare it was, and took it off the market. A couple months later it went up to auction. I got it, but ended up paying $9k for it.

If I was selling rare but not very popular items, I would not auction them. If I consigned my stuff to an auction I would likely net far less. You have to be patient and find the right buyer who is passionate about that set and wants to complete it. People posting a truly rare card I am after on eBay auction is usually a blessing for me, I generally win it for significantly less than I could have been taken for in a private deal. Set a high ask and see what you can get, or ID and reach out to specific individuals known to be collecting a rare set.

Reasonably priced cards typically sell within a few days. However, high-priced cards do not, and the seller’s thread typically contains several “bump” or “ttt” posts. Surprisingly, the seller sometimes won’t even lower the price even after the fourth bump or ttt post. How did Einstein define insanity?

eBay’s fees are right around 15%. It’s has millions of eyes viewing items. Net54 may have several hundred eyes viewing a card. So, if the average eBay sale price is $100.00, list the card at $85.00 or $90.00. It’s a win-win. The seller nets more than an eBay sale, and the buyer saves money.

It’s not rocket science. Unless it’s a rare item or has extremely high eye-appeal, I’ll never pay eBay prices for a card listed on this site. Why would anyone?

To realize best prices, time of year also matters. Selling in March & April always seem to be strong sales months.

eBay will have the most eyes looking at your items. For rare stuff, all it may take is a few extra eyes looking/bidding to help get a nice price.

A reputable (supposedly) ebay dealer who often offers old vintage/Pre-War cards may be a smart way to go. They also can take hassles out of your hands and make selling the easiest on you. And the speed at which you get paid may be fast this way as well. I may be wrong, but consigning to an eBay seller may cost you no more in fees than doing it yourself.

At one time, eBay had a section allowing people to basically post their want lists. COMC has promised before to do that. But it doesn't look like there's any buy-sell site that really offers anything like that at the moment. Frustrating, because plenty of both buyers and sellers would benefit from that.

rare back
 

Just picked up this rare back and quite frankly the guy who sold it to me was a bit of a hard ass...Jerry

Sorry you feel that way Jerry, but it's a pretty rare card and was hard to let go. FWIW, I thought you were easy to deal with. :rolleyes:

Congrats Jerry, the Hustler back will be a nice addition to your magazine collection.

Sorry
 

Thanks Phil...sorry Andy...was blowing off steam after the Arkansas-Kentucky game...it was a fair price...Jerry

rare
 

Yea, type 2 is the one to have...come time you sell...you know you will have more interested buyers

I have 3 Topps dice game cards that I got many years ago free in a sack of many other vintage cards. Zero chance I will sell them. I have other obscure cards. That's the occasional beauty of this hobby, for me anyhow.

I think I have seen that Rose Co Young before….

Just reading through this thread. Nice analysis.

The trouble distills to being patient to find the right buyer who desperately wants i
 

From my limited experience, the trouble with cards that don't often come to market, ASSUMING they are scarce, rare, and desirable, distills to forcing yourself to be patient finding the right buyer who desperately wants the item.

Quoting from NEVER CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, page 428:

"Bill Mastro said something that's appropriate here - "It's like so many things in the hobby; maybe 99 percent isn't worth a lot of money, but the 1 percent that is, is overlooked. ... And people need to understand how to find the 1 percent." (6) As I intimated , much of the material I shared is not generally known, even if bits of it have appeared in auction catalogs. Adding these vital pieces of the puzzle [through reading Never Cheaper By the Dozen] now provides you with a much clearer picture of the lure and magic of these once 'free prizes'. Had you not know anything about regionals, nor understood the undercurrent fascination behind them, you'd be apt to overlook them, or ignorantly relegate them as oddball or much less important than mainstream issues."

Just some food for thought.;) Cheers. --- Brian Powell

I may be off on this...as I am not a big auction guy either....but I agree with this statement on #2...If it is semi-rare/rare and not well known...only a select group will be interetsed....depending on the era of the card a lot of PCers don't even use auction houses...but I seem to think that almost everyone checks eBay...except may for the few extreme high $ collectors. I think IMO my point is ...on average...that if you list on eBay you will miss fewer potential buyers than if you go with an auction house....plus there is only one eBay and there are dozens of AH.

I think the issue with eBay is not eyeballs as much as timing for your auction needing to coincide with demand from multiple parties for the specific obscure and relatively unknown item. For a lot of really obscure pieces, there might only be 1 or 2 people in the market for it at any one time.

For the price to get above the starting bid, you need at least two bidders. And to get a really nice price they need to both be very motivated. If your item is on eBay in an auction for 7 or 10 days, for a really obscure item, the odds are low that you’ll get that kind of action, unless you’ve got a few buyers who have been looking for it for a long time, are desperate to buy now, and are paying attention during the 7-10 day window when your auction is running.

Sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle, the stars align, and your piece gets a good price. But my experience is that is really the exception rather than the rule for items like this, even on eBay.

Obviously you can start the initial bid on eBay at a high price. But a lot of those aren’t really auctions - they’re more like buy it nows masquerading as an auction in the hopes that more than one bidder will be interested and might bid it up some more.

Doesn't Ebay still have it where you can save searches and get notified via email when certain items you're interested in are listed? Makes it so that people interested in such rare items that rarely come up for sale do get notified of them, and don't miss the chance to go after them.

Meanwhile, in regards to all the different AHs out there, has anyone come up with an app or anything else that monitors all the different card auctions, and that people can then save their want lists to, and thus get notified when a card or item they are interested in does come up for sale? That can also then let them know which AH is going to have it for sale so they can get a chance to register for it, if they aren't already, and then bid on those cards/items they really want and not miss out? I'm not aware of one, but would think that such an app or site could be a great item for people in the hobby, and something that AHs, and/or large independent sellers that aren't on Ebay, would possibly really want to participate in as well.

Ebay does have the saved searches function, which is great. But what it doesn't have is a way for would-be buyers to let potential sellers know of their wants. That might draw out some of the really hard-to-find items.

What you say in your second paragraph is a great idea as well.

Absolutely agree with your point, but was just commenting on the thread topic of how rare and obscure items that get put up for sale often may suffer due to potential interested buyers not being aware of those items put up for sale. Like others said, it can be a timing or lack of knowledge issue where not enough potential buyers know of a particular item being sold, and thus don't get a chance to bid on it, and as a result the seller may not then realize an item's true market value from its sale.

Your suggestion of a sort of reverse function to let sellers know what people are looking for, so they can then put those items up for sale, makes great sense also. The trick is to try and match up all the sellers and buyers, so the marketplace offers everything that someone wants, and there are enough people that want said item so that a seller realizes its true market value from the sale. Unfortunately, the system does not always work as efficiently as buyers and sellers would like.

However, your idea to draw out some of the really hard to find items may not be so easily or effectively done if there was some way for buyers to let others know what they are looking for. Just look at all the members here on Net54 that talk about and share images of their very rare and desirable items, and who also say they are not for sale. The definition of a collector is that of someone who acquires and then holds onto items, not sells them. Sellers and dealers in the business of selling will most likely put all of their inventory up for sale at some time or another, and the trick for them is then letting the public know when the items they may want are being put up for sale, and where they are being put up. I like your idea, but think the market works more efficiently when it is the buyers getting informed of what is for sale, not the other way around. Even if a seller finds out that a bunch of buyers want something they have, where do they go to sell it then so that ALL the potentially interested buyers will also know where to look and be able to bid on it? If a seller sees there are 5 people on Ebay looking for something they have to sell, and another 5 that don't go on Ebay and cruise the AH sales, where does that seller decide to put his item up for sale? He/she has no way of knowing if the more interested potential buyers would be on Ebay or at some AH, nor which one(s) had the deepest pockets. That's why having an app/site/whatever that alerts and attracts as many people as possible to a seller's particular venue and item may work best in the long run.

What would be really nice is to have both kinds of apps/sites functioning together for dealers/sellers and buyers, at the same time.

Going to go all BobC on BobC with a long(ish) post full of as many questions as answers. ;)

I think part of the problem often is defining your search terms. As a buyer when questing for an item, if I use very specific search terms, then what are the odds that the seller will actually know what they have, and will use the right terms when they list the item?

On the other hand, if I cast a very wide net, then I end up getting emails every second of the day.

A couple of examples of this phenomenon come to mind. You will recall a little while back we had a bit of a kerfuffle over an auction being outed. Which one, you may ask? There was a Babe Ruth item, where the seller didn't know what they had - they just listed it as a Babe Ruth baseball card.

Here is the thread: https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...e+ruth+auction

Or you can also think of the seller who listed 4 Topps Dice Game cards on eBay for $4.99, not knowing what he had, and so not referring to them as Dice Game cards.

Here is the thread: https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...ight=dice+game

The point being that saved eBay searches only really function well when the seller actually knows what they have, and correctly lists it. Barring that, your quest for a particular rare item requires that you wade through a tremendous mountain of eBay listings to find that needle in the haystack.

The other element that comes into play is that sometimes the one thing you really want is buried in a larger lot. Someone might just list "Big bag of old baseball cards", with a few pictures. And the one piece you've been questing to find for the last 20 years is buried in there. If you're lucky, they include some pictures, which might help you to find it, but only if you're willing to spend the time looking at a lot of listings and staring at a lot of pictures.

In terms of searches across auction sites, the closest you might get is some sort of a google search that pings you when new web pages come online that include your defined terms. It's been a while since I last attempted it, but if you're looking for something really specific, it seems like this might work for auction sites.

Here's a webpage that describes how to do it: https://support.google.com/websearch.../4815696?hl=en

Might not be perfect, but it might be the best we're going to get until someone a lot more tech savvy comes along and creates a tool to search across different auction sites.

good information and very helpful

Absolutely right. Never said the Ebay function worked perfectly, but it is certainly better than nothing. Not sure you could ever develop a really great such app or site that allows both buyers and sellers to know who wants exactly what, and then allows everyone to know exactly when and where it is coming up for sale. The biggest obstacle I think would be the need to have all selling sites, auction houses, independent dealer sites, and so on, agree and cooperate to allow whoever is setting up and operating such an app or site full and complete access to them and their sites and info. I can immediately see Ebay not wanting to potentially share information that could actually end up helping other sellers and sites. In fact, I could see a lot of dealers/sellers/auction houses not want to take part in such a venture as it could possibly steer customers away from them, just as easily as it may steer customers to them.