Getting burned out

[Fballguy]

Originally Posted by ooo-ribay

I am getting so burned out on ebay. I check my 80 searches once every six days and find nothing. Meanwhile, people seem to be on it like vultures and if good stuff ever does pop up, it's gone immediately. A pennant I needed went for a steal today, BIN. Recently, some rare PM-10s were gone in a heartbeat (also BIN). A friend lucked into a rare pin, BIN, for about a tenth what I would have paid. It boils down to I'll never win an auction for a rare pin or pennant (there's always that one other guy) and I'm not on ebay constantly in order to steal anything BIN. I used to love collecting but I'm not willing to devote every waking minute to ebay. I'm feeling like I should just be done.

If you don't live on ebay hitting refresh every 30 seconds it will be very hard to get a good pennant. I've actually done that and still been beaten to the pennant. That is what ebay has become in the past 2-3 years. Nothing good will last. If you get there 2 minutes after it's listed, you are too late.

The exception would be extremely over priced pennants that sit in the eBay museum for years and years and auction style listings, which likely won't be a deal, but at least you've got a shot. Of course, you run the risk of watching the auction and having it disappear because someone made the seller an offer they can't refuse. You've got to hustle to win on ebay. Passive comes in last.

It started during Covid and the combo of Covid and good stuff drying up has really made ebay a boring, frustrating challenge for pennant hunters. It's actually lead to my interest in rare 70s and 80s pennants. It's an untapped market. Not a lot of interest (and in most cases value) but some really cool rarities in there if you know what too look for.