Posted By:
peter chaoGuys,
Here's what I do to try to stay within my budget. I designate a portion of my collection as trade bait. What I find fun about our hobby is that the retailers can't buy our cards retail, they have to buy from us or another retailer. So I go through my collection and come up with cards that I could live without.
Out of my 200,000 or so cards I've come up with about 150. I consider these my trade bait cards. Their good cards but I can live without them. Among these cards I have a Marichal rookie, a '54 Duke Snider etc. So everytime I see a card I have to have but can't afford, I take my trade bait cards with me when I go to the card store.
You can't take it personally when they don't want your card. The may want it next time when their inventory changes. I offer the store owner a dozen trade bait cards and some money in exchange for a must have card. It works almost everytime.
Peter