[drmondobueno]

Keith here. When I began expanding my (non) existent collection last year I became acutely aware of my inability to do a decent job of seeing true card quality. I quickly became aware of the ebay habit of misrepresentation through poor photo quality, omitting backs, poor lighting, tilted photos, and scans that mislead. In fact, I found I am terrible with a scanner when attempting to get true representations of my cards I wanted to post to the SGC Registry. Besides blurring (I use a lower end HP) I found creases had a tendency to disappear. My lack of confidence and unwillingness to mislead has actually stopped me from selling cards, for both the reason of possibly misleading someone and also limiting the potential sale price of a particular card. As to my ability to properly price a card, well..unh.. that's the rub, I guess.

Another thought. Last year I made an offer on a BIN, and after several back and forths, we came within fifty bucks on a 1600 card. The last time I looked the card as listed at the same BIN, has to be over 7 months now. Seems to me the seller could have turned over the money and reinvested in another piece of profitable merchandise. Guess this was my first taste of a seller with a different level of motivation than myself, or quite possibly a better undersanding of the card's value.

As for misleading and fraudulent sellers, scans of graded cards are just that; scans of graded cards. Any verbiage from the seller is just words. But what do I know, it can be scary buying a higher end t201 or t206. These particular examples leading into this thread are out of my league, so I sit, watch, listen, think. Keep it coming, guys, much appreciated.