Auction Houses-Going, Going..Gone?

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Posted By: marshall barkman

Bruce....we are in a different era now so throw out the full blown depression talk. The problem right now is most folks are preaching doom and gloom so how can folks feel any confidence? America was on a roll bigtime but just like at a craps table when a hot hand holds the dice when the 7 finally hits there is a ton of money on the table and lost. My personal opinion is there is just to much competition in all aspects of business so only the strong will survie.


In my area there are 20 Ford dealerships within a 40 mile driving distance. Are you kidding me? It is no wonder the automobile industry is in trouble. There is also 7 pizza shops in my town which is ridiculous. The point i am trying to make is their are to many baseball card auction houses.

Here is a prime example of how to use common sense and research and take control of a situation and not rely on others during this economic downswing. I recently graded 48 cello pack pulled American Beauties that i found months ago, even though i was successful sending some of my tobacco cards to a major auction house i decided now is not the time to have other folks responsible for selling or paying me anything. I researched the Beauties and found Robert Edwards auction sold 7 PSA 9's for 2,000 and a couple of those cards were the first ever 9's found.

I listed three PSA 8's on E-bay and the prices are 430.00 330.00 150.00, i also sold two PSA 8's offline 350.00 and 325.00. So on 5 cards by selling the cards myself the total is 1580.00 and i never had to worry about getting paid or dealing with drama. I'm quite sure that if i sent those cards to a major auction house there is no way they would have pulled that. Alot of folks do not even try to buy cards from Mastro's or any of the big boys because they just wait for cards to hit E-bay and most of the time that is where they end up.

America is the land of the free and if you work hard success is right around the corner but folks have to become smarter in understanding competition in business. A friend of mine called me a month ago and asked me what i thought about building a storage shed unit in my area and i almost lost it, there are 10 facilites in my town already which is to many so i asked him if he did any due diligence to understand the demographics or market he was trying to reach. His reply was no but i have to put money somewhere and storage shed units are a safe bet. My advice to him was buy silver because it is going to go up and at the time it was 10.93 currently it is at 13.03 and will continue to rise. Silver will be at 30.00 a ounce by 2010 book it.

People need to start thinking outside the box and become more creative in their investing instead of just opening restaurants,car dealerships,coffe shops, buying real estate, and so on. While businesses continue to close down like Circuit City and others it should be a example of what not to do and that their is to much competition to make any serious money. The baseball card auction houses are next and when some of them fold up shop it is to be expected because of the amount of them.