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DavidBruce, I understand your point, and beleive that, while not to be confused with a charity (especially if they're payint $1,000 rent for their store front and have full time staff), a dealer should not take undue advantage of the ignorant.
However, before taking their bag of goodies to a local dealer, the collector can at the very least check out eBay and get some idea of value. I simularly check out eBay and I bet everyone else on the board does too. My advice to anyone considering buying at Shop at Home is to, before you call that 1800 #, simply do a search on eBay and see what comparative items are going for. That's all I ask. If you think the prices are comparative, fantastic. But my guess is that anyone who bought for $1,000 Ken Godin's Jerry Rice Rookie (probably a Portaguese stamp issued in 1991), did not follow my advice.
And you don't even have to own a computer. My retired parents took a cross country RV trip to the motherland (UP Michigan). Even though they didn't have a computer with them, my 63 year old mother, and her traveling case of medicines, nasel sprays and 1/2 off Perkins coupons, would stop by the small town libraries and send emails to my family at least twice a week.
In otherwords, if my mom has the ability to double check the prevailing price on a 2001 International Rookie Michael Jordan handkercheif Ken Goldin is offering for $2,000, there's no excuse for anyone else if they didn't do their homework.