BIN- Buy It Now or Buy It Never?

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Posted By: Bruce Dorskind

A number of Board Members have noted that E Bay has migrated from its
roots as an auction site to a site where dealers attempt to sell fixed price items on line.

Whilst this model may work in a plethora of different categories, it makes little or no
sense for pre-war graded baseball cards.

Nearly 70% of all listings in the pre- 1930 baseball category are Buy It Now.

Limiting our discussion to graded cards so that we can compare BIN prices with
the prices published on the highly respected web site, Vintage Card Prices.com,
we found that more than 65% of the cards we researched were listed at 50% above
the most recent two prices realized published on Vintage Card Prices.

A number of dealers were regularly looking to sell their "rare" items at 200-400% above
the Vintage Card Prices most recent sales average.

Given the gloomy economic picture, one where "Cash is King", and the likelihood that the economic
climate will become far, far more difficult over the next 36 months, we do not understand the
logic of those dealers who are listing their items at such crazy prices.

Whilst we have not tracked all the cards listed over $1000 for the past year, more than 85% of cards
we have tracked did not sell.

One major dealer has had three 1933 Sports Kings Carl Hubbel cards in PSA 8 for more than a year.
He has not moved $1.00 on his price (about 40%) over the last recorded Vintage Card price sale..
and won't know take an offer which was 15% more than he paid.

Why do dealers continue to list the same cards week in and week out at prices which are way out of line
with reality?

In our opinion these sellers are either hoping for a miracle and/or they are so out of touch
with reality that they are in a state of total denial.

What do you think?



Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List