What Should A Dealer Do?

[ibuysportsephemera]

For those posting that they think that the dealer has an obligation to inform...I call BS. If you are "stupid" enough to take a card that you know nothing about to a card show and sell it to the first dealer you approach, you deserve to be low balled.

Sorry to be so "rude" about this, but in today's age of information (on your phone, computer, tv, etc.) there is no excuse other than laziness for not being informed.

Jeff

[travrosty]

That's not true.

[Laxcat]

Jeff- that sounds like projection.
That makes all dealers sound like crooks. That has been the general view on all collectible dealers since the dawn of time. I take offense to it. I watched my father do honest business for over 25 years. I mimic what I saw.

I recently started setting up at shows by myself. I had a great conversation with someone that I just met about postwar errors, blank backs, off register cards and the such. He browsed my table for some Twins stuff and found a quite tough modern era error that I had priced at $1. He informed of the rarity and told me to be sure not to sell it for $1.

This stuff happens. We just all need to do it. I think it would do wonders for our reputation(s) and perhaps bring more people to the collecting world.

Steve- I agree with everything you said.

[ibuysportsephemera]

Originally Posted by Laxcat

Jeff- that sounds like projection.
That makes all dealers sound like crooks. That has been the general view on all collectible dealers since the dawn of time. I take offense to it. I watched my father do honest business for over 25 years. I mimic what I saw.

I recently started setting up at shows by myself. I had a great conversation with someone that I just met about postwar errors, blank backs, off register cards and the such. He browsed my table for some Twins stuff and found a quite tough modern era error that I had priced at $1. He informed of the rarity and told me to be sure not to sell it for $1.

This stuff happens. We just all need to do it. I think it would do wonders for our reputation(s) and perhaps bring more people to the collecting world.

Steve- I agree with everything you said.

Matt...I am not advocating ripping someone off at all. Under the scenario that is presented, isn't it the buyers obligation to shop around with many dealers to get the best offer? Assuming that all the dealers are not standing together, some will be helpful and others not so much. If the buyer does his due diligence, the not so honest dealer will never have a shot at the card because there will be someone else who treats the seller of the card more fairly and probably still gets a heck of a deal.

Jeff

[Kevin.Shenker]

Originally Posted by ibuysportsephemera

For those posting that they think that the dealer has an obligation to inform...I call BS. If you are "stupid" enough to take a card that you know nothing about to a card show and sell it to the first dealer you approach, you deserve to be low balled.

Sorry to be so "rude" about this, but in today's age of information (on your phone, computer, tv, etc.) there is no excuse other than laziness for not being informed.

Jeff

If you wear a skirt into an alley way you deserve to be raped? Pretty much the same thing you just said. They were asking for it for sure.

[ibuysportsephemera]

Originally Posted by Kevin.Shenker

If you wear a skirt into an alley way you deserve to be raped? Pretty much the same thing you just said. They were asking for it for sure.

Not even close.

Jeff

[larrie804]

Many years ago (15 or so) I ask my sister in law to watch my tables at a small mall show while I went to listen to Cal Ripken, Jr speak at a public forum. The next morning, at the show, I found a note from my sister in law saying she had had a very slow evening....only one $5.00 sale! About 3 PM a lady came to my table and said she just couldn't do it. I asked her what she meant. She handed me the very nice 1954 Ted Williams card she had purchased from my sister in law the previous evening for $5.00! I was very surprised to discover what the $5.00 sale had been. I told the lady I was impressed with her honesty and gave her $50.00. The card had been marked $500.00.

Larrie Dean

[kilo]

a few years ago i was dealing heavily in vintage bmx bikes and parts. someof you know what i'm talikng about, some dont of course, but please bear with me here....

one day a friend calls me up (a competative dealer/collector friend i might add) and asks me what i think a chrome hutch windstyle frame might be worth. i inform him that no windstyler frames were ever issued in chrome, (which is quite true), so if it really is what he says that it had to be an aftermarket job. he tells me that he just bought one for $50 earlier in the day and says he will bring it up to the house for me to see (showing off pretty much). when he shows up i do get a chance to have a thorough look at it. i tell him it is most deffinitally NOT a windstyler frame, although it IS of high-quality based on the welds/chrome job/dropouts/etc, although i do not know what it is. i decided to make him what i thought was a fair offer based on what little info i had (which was pretty much nothing). i offered to triple his money, figuring it might leave me with around $50 or so of profit margin to work with, (keep in mind, this is only based on the quality of craftsmanship i can see in the frame, and still know nothing of who made it). he takes the offer and is quite happy. he just tripled his money in less than 12hrs, and is quite happy make sure i know this. i spend roughly the next 4 months sifting through information, emailing pics with other dealers, and talking on the phone with high-end collectors about this frame. finally some credible information comes through! turns out that said frame is an excedingly rare revcore freestyler of which roughly only 75 or so were made, and i get an approximate value of what it should retail at: around $500-600. ok, now i am informed! i list it on the bay with a bin of $450 (leaving someone else room for their own profit margin of course) and lasts all of about 10 minutes. a few days go by and the "friend" asks me if i had any luck on finding out what that frame that he tripled his money on. so i give tell him everything i found out and that it had sold (and, yes, for how much -we were friends after all-). all of the sudden he gets PISSED!
edited to add: i should add that he was pissed off at me. saying how i had ripped him off. and that now i owe him money.

anybody wanna tell me why he is not my friend anymore?



--mike kilo.

[PolarBear]

I don't think you did anything wrong in the bike frame transaction. You took a chance on something that was unidentified and spent time and effort doing your own research to add value to it.

Nothing wrong with that. Too bad your "friend" didn't see it that way.

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by ibuysportsephemera

For those posting that they think that the dealer has an obligation to inform...I call BS. If you are "stupid" enough to take a card that you know nothing about to a card show and sell it to the first dealer you approach, you deserve to be low balled.

Sorry to be so "rude" about this, but in today's age of information (on your phone, computer, tv, etc.) there is no excuse other than laziness for not being informed.

Jeff

I don't think it is "laziness" or "stupid" not to find information on a print freak like shown in this thread. Obviously, someone posting on a vintage baseball card site will know that such print freaks have been in demand in recent years. The card shown in the original post is a lot different from, say, a Cracker Jack Joe Jackson or a T206 Plank, where the value will instantly pop up with any number of search terms.

I could easily see how someone would try to research the value of the card shown in the original post and still not have any idea of the value. Putting terms like "John McGraw baseball card" or "John McGraw T206" into Google generates result after result that give no indication of the value of the card shown. The "no excuse" for not being informed on something obscure like a print freak seems really off the mark, IMO.

Some of the posts in this thread just seem like a rationalization to fleece someone.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by Bored5000

The "no excuse" for not being informed on something obscure like a print freak seems really off the mark, IMO.

Exactly, which is why I chose it for the poll. This card looks like a mess and is not easy to find with Google unless you already know what you're looking for.

[pokerplyr80]

My thought is it would depend on the situation. Is this some old lady trying to sell her husband's collection? Did the person ask what the dealer feels the card is worth or what is a fair price?

If someone walked up and said I'm trying to get $50 bucks for this card are you interested, I don't necessarily see a problem with paying the asking price. If someone is asking for help because they don't know what they have the right thing to do would be to offer a fair price that leaves the dealer to make a fair profit.

[Rich Klein]

And some peopel don't want to know or care.

This is a real life situation which came up. One of the dealer4s at the show I run also runs a local show. He wanted to buy all pre-1980 non basebal cards and I offered him a very fair price (and would have kicked in some other stuff as well; the post-1980 non BB cards I carry)


One of the cards I had (and tried to explain to him just how well he'd do with the deal was a slate 1948B Arnie Risen card. Tried to explain what it was and how much was it worth. His answer to me was something to the effect he did not really want the education to have to explain that to a customer.

Long story short, friend of mine comes to my show about 2 months later. Looks at that card, buys it immediately (Gave him a very deep discount since he has helped me get guests for our show AND went to the same college I did AND sends out promotions for our show)

He was beaming with his purchase and I said we're probably hte only 1 pwoplw whol knew what that card really was

Sometimes the customer does not care. Just because "WE" know the card is expensive does not mean the average collector might think its anything more than a messed up flluke.

Me, if something like that came in, I'd call LEON and tell him to get his butt down to my show - as I've seen him do for other collectors

Rich