Fuzzy auction logic/math

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Fred

Card was a 19th century cabinet. The seller doesn't appear to sell "older" cards as part of their inventory. Just seems odd.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/40320280570...rdt=true&rt=nc

Maybe he bought it thinking it was going to be a standard-sized baseball card and then when it showed up much larger than he anticipated he decided he didn't want it anymore? lol

[buymycards]

Not only did the seller lose $ on the actual price, but his eBay fees will be $108 for this sale.

[Leon]

Very recently I took a loss on a card because I wanted the money to buy another card. It happens, and my guess is, fairly often. I also paid a lot more for a card I recently bought than it was auctioned for just a few months ago. Collecting isn't always rational.
.

[iwantitiwinit]

Wild guess here was this sellers name Adrian by any chance?

[egri]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

Wild guess here was this sellers name Adrian by any chance?

[Yoda]

Or possibly, because there were no bids until the last second, he may have asked a pal to bid on it, subject, of course, to full reimbursement, so as to save himself the embarrassment of having it go unsold. Then figure out a new strategy to unload the card.

[25801wv]

Sounds like something I do. I collect for fun and when I no longer enjoy the card I will sell it for an equal or lower price just to get what I want. I sort of rent cards and don’t really own most of them.

[FrankWakefield]

What Leon said... think about stocks, do you always hold a stock until you can sell it for a profit? No, sometimes you sell a stock to free up cash to buy something else. I think baseball card collectors do that to some extent, to free up money to get another card; and ball card speculators are all the time selling cards to get money to buy more cards to sell.

I'm glad ball card collectors sell cards, that puts cards out there on the market for me to have a chance at buying. Card speculators churning around in the ball card market does annoy me a bit, probably for no good reason.

One more aspect... how certain are you the the guy selling for a loss is the same guy that won the card at auction 2 months previously? There could have been an intervening transaction.

I've sold a few E90-1s at a slight loss. I didn't buy them in the first place with the intent of making money on them, I was looking at putting a set together. Back in the day, the Mitchell card was the really tough card. But what it took to buy one was eclipsed by a few of the HOFers eventually. I think this was because there were more buyers (not just collectors) buying pre war HOFers. Look at the cost of the Mitchell (among the E90-1's I sold) back in 1990 compared to the cost of an E90-1 Cy Young, then look at the cost today... a collector eventually wants Mitchell to fill the set; a HOFer speculator has no need for a Mitchell. Compare the 1990 cost of a T206 green Cobb, to the 1990 cost of the Polar Bear Demmitt's and O'Hara's; compare that to the differential in their 2021 costs. Demmitt and O'Hara are less plentiful, yet Cobb costs much more and the cost has increased at a greater rate. I sold those few E90-1's because I had realized that I wasn't going to pay what I deemed high prices for the HOFers in the set that I lacked... Not a bit of that thought process is in the head of a speculator in old ballcards (they may think of themselves as investors, speculator seems the proper label to me).

An afterthought, maybe that 2 month later bidder was a shill bidder.