What I don't understand about Dealers ...

[Rich Klein]

For the guy with the beat up Musial -- one explanation is... he/she wants to show an old card or two just on that miracle that a vintage collection walks in and with that card in the showcase, someone may show him/her that collection.

I found in my dealing days, that people offered me what I had for sale on my table -- meaning in my "set building" days -- I got offered common/star lots

In my "odd-ball" card days I got offered a wide mix of cards not just basic cards

And every once in a while I would set up with books or periodicals or other types of collectibles and wouldn't you know it,. I'd get offered those type of items at my table

Rich

[savedfrommyspokes]

Having collected for 30+ years, and selling of my duplicates at a pace of 10k+ singles a year on ebay part time, I decided a year ago to do this full time. So far I am on pace to sell almost 75k ungraded cards this year.

The previous point about being a curator and not a seller is 100% correct...if you are not selling cards at a high volume quickly , then there is no profit to be made. 95% of my cards I list are commons and I sell them at the best possible price I can offer them for, and they sell at a point where I sell through my average amount of my inventory 2-3 times per year. Efficiency in listing and shipping is also paramount to selling these commons quickly in order to remain profitable.

The other 5% of inventory I have listed are what I consider lower population cards, such as the 64 Curt Flood card. Price guide shows $6 for a NM card, sells for $75-100 in NM on ebay. These 5% of the cards I have priced to be competitive with the market (not a price guide) and if they do not sell within several months, the best offer feature gets added to the listing and as time passes, the price I will accept is lower. However, I can not count the number of times buyers who bypass the chance to make an offer and have simply purchased the card.