Sad State of the Hobby

[griffon512]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Your sister, who doesn't know much about baseball cards, tells you she sold a card on ebay for $500. Curious, you ask for the link and when you look at it, at first it looks like a reasonable deal - an ungraded T206 common in very nice shape for $500. But you look a little closer at this Joe Doyle card and notice it has the N.Y. Nat'l designation behind his name.

Does Judge Patrick:
1. Get on the phone immediately and tell his sister not to ship that card, because it is worth something north of a million dollars?
2. Tell his sister she just threw away a million bucks, but what's more important is, she maintained her integrity?

Two people make a verbal agreement on a deal for $1,000, but nothing is written down. Another person hears of the deal before payment is exchanged and offers $50,000 for the same card. The buyer at $50,000 needs confirmation right away that the deal is done. The seller reluctantly says yes, thinking they will pay the original buyer at $1,000 an extra $5,000 to satisfy them despite not getting the card. Upon promising an extra $5,000, the buyer says it is not enough and wants an extra $20,000. The seller says there wasn't written agreement in the first place so the $5,000 is generous. Who is right and who is wrong?

One can think of increasingly unlikely scenarios and debate that question until the end of time. It's not very relevant. The point is, a verbally confirmed deal should be a deal with extremely limited exception, the OP is right to be upset how this went down and shouldn't be vilified for either pursuing a very good deal, or doing a small amount of research to see who screwed him over and lied about it for some extra bucks in a rising market.