Hard to come by sets....posted in groups for sale on eBay
 

Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>Maybe its just me...but every once in a while I'll see a group of cards from some seller...one that sticks out a few weeks ago was a group of individually listed E106's (just an example)....cards that aren't really scarce...but you don't see everyday...then all the sudden some seller lists 15-20 for sale that all end at the same time (roughly). My question...why do this??? It seems most of them end up going for a little cheaper..maybe because there are so many all the sudden and people go after a few each..and some fall through the cracks...its great if your buying..but if you see an issue that your actually thinking of selling in the next few weeks, then all the sudden its "great, that will bring the prices down within auction result searches". Because of a seller putting all of them up at once...your E105 for example that would have went for $500 now will sell for $300 based on the ending prices of a whole slew of them at once...just bugs me I guess after finding a small group like this again today on eBay...great if your buying...but horrible if you have one to sell soon <img src="/images/sad.gif" height=14 width=14>

Hard to come by sets....posted in groups for sale on eBay
 

Posted By: <b>Jeff Prillaman</b><p>I don't know how it works on scarcer issues, but whenever I can run big groups all from the same year (I'm thinking Goudeys and up through the 50's and 60's), normally I get more on the cards. <br /><br />My thinking was always that people realize they can save on shipping costs and deal with one dealer and hence they are willing to pay a little extra for the convenience. <br /><br />Jeff

Hard to come by sets....posted in groups for sale on eBay
 

Posted By: <b>Matt</b><p>"great, that will bring the prices down within auction result searches"<br /><br />If you're using the auction results so precisely that this makes a big difference there are other problems. What about auctions that end at 3 in the morning? What about listings that the buyer paid extra to have bolded or displayed more prominently? What about listing where the pictures are blurry? What about listings where the under bidder fell asleep at the end and would have bid the item higher?<br /><br />All of these things will have an effect on price (higher and lower), which is why the auction results should be used as a <b>guide</b> for pricing, but it would be silly to use them as gospel.

Hard to come by sets....posted in groups for sale on eBay
 

Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>Matt-<br /><br />I agree to a point...but its apples and oranges if we're talking about regular ol T206's that have numerous price results and E103 that come up very few times a year for sale. And i'm just picking numbers out of the air here...but if there were three recorded sales last year of SGC 40 E103's going for $600, $650 and $600...and then someone puts 20 E103's up for sale on ebay today and two that are graded SGC 40's go for $300 and $335...it does make a difference to people buying in the future. <br /><br />I know many on this board that will only pay what the last couple sales went for with some of these harder to come by issues...thats just the way it is IMO.

Hard to come by sets....posted in groups for sale on eBay
 

Posted By: <b>Brian McQueen</b><p>I've seen a bit of this as well. The past 2-3 months, I've seen abnormal groups of c46s, e90-1s, t207s, e106s and e90-3s all on Ebay at once, all by the same seller and each card ending within a minute or two of the previous one. These consisted of near-sets in some cases and some of the cards listed were scarce ones of of their respective issues as well.<br /><br />As a seller, I can think of a few examples of why it's beneficial to split lots up and auction them individually like this -<br /><br />1. you make the cards available to all bidders, not just those that can afford the entire lot. This increases competition on individual cards and leads to some of those really insane prices that you see prewar cards get on occasion.<br /><br />2. There's a common line of thinking that it's better to buy in bulk as the cards come cheaper that way. If you sell the cards individually, each card goes for it's full market value since more people will be bidding on it.<br /><br />3. You attract new bidders to the set as a whole. You never know when a bidder will simply decide to start the set that night and try to go after all the cards to see how far he can get on the whole thing in one sitting. I did this with a large group of 87 c46s that were auctioned off individually. I started off just winning the first couple of cards and before I knew it, I had been sitting at my desk an hour and a half trying to win all the cards I could. I ended up with 65/87 cards doing it this way and still have all of those even to this day <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />Of course, there's drawbacks to doing it this way too - the postage and Ebay fees are a killer for this many items. Plus, you all of a sudden have to worry about a couple (few dozen??) transactions instead of just one. I guess the seller has to decide whether the benefits outweight the costs of auctioning their cards off individually this way. You're right however, when other people then decide to sell off THEIR own e106s, e90-3s, etc...then the market becomes overly saturated with the cards. In this case we actually have a scenario where the supply overtakes the demand and then prices fall. The big collectors who really need the specific card already have it by the time the third, fourth and fifth example surfaces on Ebay within a few weeks/months of each other. Prices then end up dropping due to the reduced amount of interest.<br /><br />I'm noticing this with e90-3s right now....last week when I checked, there were 22 e90-3s on Ebay all at the same time. This is supposedly a really tough set but you wouldn't have known it just by looking at all the cards that have been available the past few months. I've noticed that Ebay has been swarmed with these ever since April/May so sooner or later, those market prices for the individual cards will really start to take a hit as I know they've been struggling already (except for maybe the Gandil). <br /><br />

Hard to come by sets....posted in groups for sale on eBay
 

Posted By: <b>David Smith</b><p>If scarce cards are coming up in large groups and they are selling for less than you think they should, why not buy them and hold them for a couple of months, then, list the cards yourself??<br /><br />If scarce cards are going for $335 when they normally go for $600 or more, it makes sense to buy them for a little more than half price and then sell later. If I had the money and experience, I would do this, especially if the cards were DOUBLES of things I already owned.<br /><br />David