Ebay museum day
 

I tried to buy quite a few cards today and every single seller refused to negotiate even at the high end of the actual market, and above. Of course we all run into this frequently, but this may be a consecutive museum record for me. Yeah, everyone's sitting on a gold mine. Right. News flash -- it ain't early 2021 still.

Hopefully you had fun perusing the antiquities!

Yeah a blast.

Hi peter same at shows guy had maravich rookies overpriced second year bobby orrs like they were gold.I went to other tables and found them ,his loss

I've noticed that pretty much everyone with high eye-appeal key vintage cards isn't budging one bit on price. They know what they have and if you want it, it's still going to cost you a significant premium.

Given that the AH hammer prices and online auction sales have soften in many/most categories of cards, it is a bit surprising. I've noticed that same thing: an item that was selling at $300 in late 2021 at the top of the market, has closed in recent sales at around $180-$200. I offer the seller with a $325/BO listing $225, still at least $25 over the last 4 sales. His response? a counter offer at 299.99.

Sellers certainly have a right to charge what they want. But prices change quickly, and if you cling to over the moon prices, you will have your items for a long time...

I am amazed at how some Ebay items have been on there for years, like 5 years or so. It is a museum sometimes.

None of the cards that I am trying to buy are softening in price. I still bid above the previous high sales and lose most of the time. I wouldn't blame sellers for sticking close to asking, eventually most will get their price.

Folks often complain about sellers who have a card they want but will not sell it to them at a price they want to pay. I assume some sellers are willing to sell a card if they get the price they want and if not keep it.

I have some hobby friends that have things for sale that are in their collection. And their prices reflect it!
.

I would expect many collectors would sell parts of their collection if they could get 2-3x the market value. Only difference is the sellers on Ebay are letting folks know what cards they have. Since Ebay essentially doesn't charge to list items, there is very little risk or harm to those collectors to keep items listed year after year.

Bingo.

I guess the only cost is the aggravation that emanates from prospective buyers when the bid/ask spread is too great, so the market doesn't clear.

A loon that has been banned on here multiple times has at least 4 eBay stores under different names and has thousands of items listed at 5 to 20 times what anybody else lists the same stuff for. It must work or he wouldn't have been able to do it for many years.

Same guy that was selling a PSA 9 card but not saying it was a PSA 9 OC? :D

It definitely used to piss me off to high heaven when a seller of the ilk that you identify would list a key item that I needed. Particularly when I could go back and see that the seller had picked it up for a fraction at auction.

And then every once in a while, I would give in.

And then I started to see that this seller is basically providing a service. They buy up impossible to find oddball items at auction when other buyers aren’t in the market, then sit on them and ask museum prices. If I want it today, then I can pay the museum price. And if I’m willing to be patient, then I can wait and hope another one comes along, if it ever does.

If it didn’t work at least from time to time, then eventually that seller’s insolvency would force them to mark their stuff down to more reasonable prices.

Maybe same person, he was several different posters in the stolen 51 Mantle thread.

Not just ebay
 

Myslabs is just as bad if not worse. People looking for 50-100% over recent
prices. I'm willing to pay a bit more for nicer cards but not that much.

Fortunately, this is cards, not insulin: we don't have to buy it at any price just to stay alive. There's no need to get frustrated about some dweebs who overprice their eBay listings. In the end the universe tends to work out as it should. Besides,

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...life%20gif.gif

...it's just baseball cards, damnit!

I see zero signs of the market slowing down. Wait for REA, Mile High and REA to end this week. The good stuff will blow out the lights Selling Super Strong. The US consumer is super strong they don’t care, they’re spending, they’re traveling, check the interstates and airports, jammed. I’ve had several dealers tell me they’ll sit on it until it runs hot again. They made so much money the past two years they're ok with waiting. They can hold it. Are they fools? Who knows, time will tell.

I had something similar recently. I was watching a card in the very low 4 figures on eBay and the seller sent an offer for $25 off. That told me he was not interested in selling the card.

One of the notorious high priced sellers on Ebay accepts my offer of a 17% discount every time I ask, card is still high priced but at least I know where is number is. He does not have the make offer button activated.

Another notorious one increases his BIN when I offer a fair price even though the make offer button is turned on.

Who knows...

It's the end of days! Don't they know?

Desiderata?

Have you checked the price of Brady LeBron Kobe etc. etc. recently? They have cratered. I see a lot of vintage subtly softening as well, though not nearly so dramatically. High end auctions do not define the market.

Not talking about modern just High Quality Centered Blue Chip Vintage :)

Well ok but your comment referenced the "market." What you just described is maybe a tenth of one percent of the market.

It would be nice if buyers had the ability to block ebay sellers. Having those overpriced clowns omitted from search results would make things easier.

See same thing in real estate. In a beach community we spent a lot of time in every fall a bunch of beloved restaurants put up for For Sale signs, I guess hoping they can get some insane purchase prices. And they don't. And every spring they take down the For Sale signs and its business as usual. Hoping to catch lightening in a bottle I guess.

selling price
 

I agree , some sellers refuse to budge on price... Id love to hear a few dealers/ sellers response to this thread ( Im sure many ebay sellers/ card show sellers/etc..are members here)

Would the response be -

" I cant afford to take a loss on this card " or something else ?

Hi steve the beach houses by me lbi sell in like a day no issues .

See with a few restaurants. Every year.

You can create "custom" searches with specific sellers not included

I have several searches that I have created for ebay and "Deans Cards" is omitted from every one of them.

Not to pile on, but I do the exact same thing, omitting that seller (and one other) from searches.

I’m not a dealer, but I do have museum prices on a handful of items on eBay. I certainly don’t represent every seller on eBay who is asking museum prices, but I’m happy to share my perspective.

The answer for why I do it is simple. For a handful of items in my collection that I’m willing to sell, while I’m willing to sell them, I’m not motivated to sell. And if someone wants to pay my asking price, then I’ll sell. And if not, then I’m happy to keep it in my collection. And the fact that I pay nothing to have it listed on eBay means that I can leave it up in perpetuity without having to worry about a cost to keep it listed.

Since I’m not a dealer, it’s not like this is my livelihood. If nothing sells, I don’t have to eat ramen and cat food for the next month. So my economic pressures are different than someone who really is a dealer with rent and overhead to pay to keep the lights on.

You didn’t ask, but I’ll volunteer that from time to time, people will pay my price, or something close to it. So it’s not like the entire exercise is a waste of everyone’s time.

Basketball is cratering and post war vintage softening. But, hey, this year we put a fantastic telescope in deep space and right now a US capsule is winging around the moon. So all is not lost when confronted with tough pricing on baseball cards.

As other have said, this is easy to do. If you've saved a search (i.e. a 'custom search'), you can edit it and add them to an 'exclude list' in your search options - they'll be gone.

Under 'Advanced' (to right of the Search button), scroll down to near the bottom. There's a section for 'Sellers' where you can include/exclude them. Add each one you want to exclude to the input box.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a way with eBay to always exclude sellers from any search that you do, so saved (custom) searches are the way to go.
--
Mike

I miss the option to just see auctions with "bids" takes too long to search now!