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Starrpower Inner circle 4070 Posts |
... but The Magic Café won't let me. So I could use some help.
Allow me to explain. I am neither a collector nor a dealer. I am just a guy who has some stuff and I don't know what it's value is. But somehow, asking someone to make an offer on an item is viewed by The Café as "an auction." This makes no sense to me, but it doesn't really matter; I am not here so dispute their policies (although I read the criteria on the "For Sale" page and I see nothing about asking for an offer.) I am more than willing to abide by what they dictate. So here is my question: Something is only as valuable as someone else is willing to pay. How can I go about placing a price on something? I have some weird stuff, and some old stuff. For example, I have an old trick called "Pink Elephants and Purple Cows" which has instructions by Tommy Windsor. I have something called "Choo Choo Charlie" by Supreme, and "Save Our Planet" by Edwin. Not being a collector, I don't want to research all this stuff -- I just wanna give someone a fair deal. The obvious answer is to ask someone what they wanna give me, but that is not an option here. Surely others must be in this situation. Aside from posting them on eBay .... any suggestions? |
Michael Baker Eternal Order Near a river in the Midwest 11172 Posts |
Unless you choose to do the research hoping to find price ranges for the items you have, the only other option is to just put a price on it and see what happens. If you price it too low, it may sell very fast, and you get far less than what it is worth. Call that justice for not doing your homework. The guy who is better informed and prepared usually gets the better deal, or at least doesn't get taken to the cleaners.
If you set a price, and it does not sell, it could be priced too high. Someone may even tell you what other similar items are selling for, and possibly cite examples. There is usually not a shortage of whistleblowers here. You can always back down your price... even repeatedly hoping to get a bite.
~michael baker
The Magic Company |
thorndyke Regular user Canada 147 Posts |
Why not just describe them and ask for information about them in general? And if anyone is able to explain what they are and what the rarity is like then you can make a better decision.
The only other thing I can think of is to sit down and think hard about what you could live with for a selling price and list them on ebay. Or the lets make a deal section here and see what people contact you to get a price feel. |
Stevethomas Inner circle Southern U.S.A. 3728 Posts |
There are numerous people here who are quite knowledgable with Supreme items and values. Just ask Bill Palmer and he could probably give you a starting place. Once you find a value, post them for sale.
Steve |
mcsgadgets_magic New user 12 Posts |
Send me a PM as to what you have and I'll offer you a price ;>
Pick a card any card.
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Starrpower Inner circle 4070 Posts |
Quote:
On 2010-06-07 11:42, thorndyke wrote: Well, that's part of the problem. I did that, and I was told that unless I list a price it's an "auction." |
Dale Houck Veteran user Dakota J Magic at Saint Cloud, FL 343 Posts |
This would cost you a bit to do, but, you could put it on ebay with a starting price of .99 cents, but with a reserve high enough it won't actually sell. Then you might have an idea of the value. Then you could sell it on the Café at whatever price you set. This would cost you about $3 or so for listing fee and reserve auction fee.
Magic is where you find it.....
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Starrpower Inner circle 4070 Posts |
I wonder if writing "O.B.O." ("or best offer") would also be perceived as an auction?
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Stevethomas Inner circle Southern U.S.A. 3728 Posts |
If you say O.B.O. (since the first O is for OR), you would have to list a price initially.
Steve |
Rennie Inner circle I think I have about 1826 Posts |
Quote:
On 2010-06-08 18:38, dhouck wrote: Totally unfair to anyone bidding on Ebay to purchase the item. If this person would just tell us what he has, I am sure everyone on the Café could come up with a value. I for one, DO NOT bid if anyone lists a reserve price. I feel, ask what you want for the item, instead of us (the bidders)playing this little game!
The effect is the important thing, how you achieve it is not.......
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insight Inner circle 3095 Posts |
Using ebay, is the seller able to know how much each buyer is willing to pay? The reason why I ask is, what stops the seller from then contacting each buyer individually and selling the item (assuming there is enough supply) at their "willingness to pay" price? This would maximize profit for the seller, right---instead of selling just one item at the highest bid price, correct? Now, I'm not advocating this, just asking...thanks.
Regards, Mike |
mtoth2008 Regular user 115 Posts |
Ebay uses proxy bidding......the seller in almost every case never knows what a buyer is WILLING to pay. Example.....an item listed at $20 with one person who bids that amount. If a second bidder is willing to pay $100 and bids that amount....the actual bid appearing on Ebay and to the seller will be $21 as the bid increments are one dollar at that price level. The bid increments go up to $2.50 at the $100 bid level, $5 at $250 and so on.
Ebay discourages email interaction between buyers and sellers where the result of such interaction could lead to the seller selling a duplicate item directly to a non-winning bidder directly thus costing Ebay their fees. Ebay will suspend sellers for violations like these if the sellers are caught. The MOST IMPORTANT thing to consider about Ebay bidding is that in many cases items receive more and much higher bids during the last 5 seconds of an auction than during the whole week prior to the auctions end. Experienced Ebay bidders will wait until the very end of an auction to "snipe" so that they do not tip their hand as to what they are willing to pay. I subscribe to a "sniper" program called bidnapper which bids automatically for me 4 seconds prior to an auctions end. Due to this bidding "culture" that has evolved on Ebay the indentity of the winning and most serious bidders would not be known to a seller until the auction is over. At that point a seller owning more than one of the same item can make a "second chance offer" to other bidders who bid but did not win the item. Ebay can be a great reference. If you are an Ebay member you can search through "completed listings" to see what items are selling for. My fiancee and myself usually are involved in approximately 150 Ebay transactions a month as both buyers and sellers so feel free to ask additional questions and I will be glad to answer them. Mike |
ljgrant New user 72 Posts |
Rather than running many test auctions, you might might try getting more past auction information than is readily available.
There was a Market Research program run by eBay, but now it is Terapeak. eBay used to give what? a month of pricing data from past sales. Now maybe it's a week. So there's a need for more past sales info and Terapeak provides it, along with trends, what's selling best, etc. Of course, I have no connection with them, but I have used them in the past. You can subscribe for a short time and track which of your magic effects have been sold on eBay and what they're worth. Just a thought. |
Rennie Inner circle I think I have about 1826 Posts |
Starrpower,
In your initial post you stated "Not being a collector, I don't want to research all this stuff" If that is true do as others have requested, list what you have and what it might be worth and move on. Rennie
The effect is the important thing, how you achieve it is not.......
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