Consigner question

calicrippler · February 17, 2012 12:45PM

Let's say I wanted to consign a high grade set of mine on the set registry. I've seen some posts about who's the best to use on the forums before. Tonight I saw one of the big guys(who shall remain nameless) has a set break going on ebay for a really nice set. Not only did this guy set all the auctions to end at the exact same time, he set them to end around midnight eastern on Monday and Tuesday. Is it just me or is this a potential loss of thousands of dollars by making bad auction setting choices?? Everyone says his auctions bring the best prices, but I seriously would have to think twice before consigning my set to him if this is how his program works.

With that being said, who else could I use? Thanks for your help

CDsNuts · February 17, 2012 12:59PM

Yeah, that's pretty much the worst strategy ever.

I've recently sold off collections from board members and they were pleased with the results. Shoot me an email at raiseraise2003 at yahoo.com and I'll give you the run down of what I can offer. I'm not a consignor by trade but it's something I'm willing to do if it makes sense for both parties.

Lee

Treetop · February 17, 2012 1:41PM

Calicrippler – I do consignments at times, mainly selling for a semi-retired National Dealer. Have references if interested. For single cards (50 card minimum) my fees are 5% of hammer price with a $3.00 minimum and $50.00 cap per card and all auctions end in one minute intervals. I prefer to do no more than 120 cards per night. You can contact me at jjtmmw@aol.com if interested and my ebay identification is MKWSportscards.

Thank you,
Mark Wingard

calicrippler · February 17, 2012 1:45PM

Thanks for the help guys.

MCMLVTopps · February 17, 2012 9:45PM

My 2 cents.

This past November I consigned my 55 Topps set to Steve Novella to sell for me. I requested 10 day listings beginning on a Friday. If memory serves, the set began to end around 9:30PM, and proceeded from there. Remember the West coast is 3 hours behind. I was extremely pleased with Steve and did pretty well over all. All 206 ended on the same night.

One caveat NOT to pass up...before I turned loose of my set (which was ranked 14th on the Registry, with an almost straight PSA 8 rating), I sent in the entire set (yes, all 206 cards) to PSA for the half-point review. At first I sent in about 1/2 of the set, those were cards that had been graded prior to the half-point change, then decided to send in the other half. I got back 19 half-point bumps, one of which came back bumped to a PSA 9...this I never dreamnt could happen. I substantially enhanced my net sales by jumping through this hoop. All gradings came back within 2 weeks...money well spent, as I got a few stars to bump and some pretty tough high numbers to bump. One of the cards that came back with the higher grade was a 1 of 1, non higher and sold nicely.

I simply called Joe Orlando and worked out a deal. Don't know the number of cards in your set, but it would be worth your effort to make the call and see what you can come up with to have your set reviewed.

Don't leave money on the table!!

BTW, extremely pleased with Steve Novella !!

GL

Bigjohn69 · February 17, 2012 9:58PM

<< <i> For single cards (50 card minimum) my fees are 5% of hammer price with a $3.00 minimum and $50.00 cap per >>

wow, there has got to be additional fee's, im sorry ive sold on ebay and at auction houses alike and they charge between 12% and 25%,, is your fee's beyond them fee's?,,, just asking,, very good price you have there,, j

mealeworm · February 17, 2012 10:01PM

I snipe, so I dont care when said auctions end. But I am a BUYER. If I was selling you bet I would care. Many of the decent buys are off time endings. There are alot of folks that still do not snipe and there is no doubt that money can be left on the table ending auctions too close, or at odd ball times.

Good Luck

jay0791 · February 17, 2012 10:20PM

There are still quite a few buyer who do not snipe.

I alweays wondered what the advantage was to end a larger set in one night. As a buyer I spend 'extra' money after the bills are paid.
I cannot afford to buy many items/$ at one time. If a set were broken up over a few weeks (they can end in a day) then more people could afford to buy at maybe higher prices.
but thats just me.

btw.....I have bought some lots from steve Novella. He is easy to work with in many ways.
He rcently emailed me on a set break he knew I was interested in. He doesn't just list...he tries to market the cards.

I rate him and Rick Probstein very high as far as professionalism.

CDsNuts · February 17, 2012 10:31PM

If you need money quick, then a set break auction is the way to go. But that's never something I recommend unless it's a super rare set and multiple bidding wars are likely to break out. A better option is a BIN set break where you set your prices high and gradually decrease them every month or so. It might take 3 months to sell the entire set but you're looking at a much higher yield. If there are a couple cards that might incite a bidding war you can always auction those off a la carte.

bobbyw8469 · February 17, 2012 10:48PM

Who was the seller?

Bunker · February 17, 2012 11:12PM

I don't like when all the cards end at the same time either and if I was consigning I would ask that they don't do it that way.

As a buyer I may only have $500 bucks to spend and if I get beat out on half my bids, I walk away with money that I was willing to spend and the seller walks away with less. If the seller would end the auctions at least a minute apart that would allow bidders to bid again.

I was watching a set break the other night and the first 250 cards or so went off pretty well, the back half of the set went for lower than they should have. I assumed that was because the bidders were focusing on the first half more than the second half. (There were probably 550 cards that ended within 2-3 minutes)

As a buyer it is almost impossible to bid on that many cards at one time, unless you don't care about centering and other issues and since some sellers don't list qualifiers in the title you have to look at every image. I personally don't have time to open up and read 500 plus auctions that all end at the same time.

I also have never understood why people end auctions at 2 or 3 in the morning, although as a buyer, some of my better deals have been with those auctions.

Probstein123 · February 18, 2012 8:12AM

Who was the seller?
==> probstein123

1975 Topps MINI Set Break

cards651 · February 18, 2012 8:43AM

If this is the Steve N. 1969 set break, I think he did very well. I put in reasonable bids on about 100 cards and won 4. As a set builder, the key for me is not the auction ending time but the number of cards available. He had all 664 cards from the set. I assume other bidders found this helpful as well. - Kevin

cardbender · February 18, 2012 9:12AM

Ideally I would think it best to run auctions ending at around 10pm eastern in order
to hit all the time zones without it getting too late at night.

I also don't like set breaks all ending at exactly the same time frame
for reasons already stated. I sometimes snipe but I do it manually.
Sometimes I'll throw down a nominal bid early to watch an item and
come back later to place my max bid. Other times I'll place my max
bid right up front. If I get outbid, so be it. I'm not worried about shills
since I bid to the maximum I want to pay and rarely do I feel I overpay.

With items spaced out at say one minute intervals and manually bidding,
if I get outbid on several items early, I may bid more on items ending later,
not wanting to come away empty handed on sets I'm building.

Not calling out Rick Probstein here as being the consignor possibly being referred to
above, but I'd like to hear your reasoning for your decision to end most of your listings
at the same time? Is it done on purpose or for some strategic business reason?

I guess at first glance the reason would be that by ending every item at
the exact same time, your listings are all grouped together and it might
be easier for potential buyers to bid that way or find your other items.

But maybe there's more to it than that....?

Probstein123 · February 18, 2012 9:35AM

hi, we end high end set breaks at the same time because it will yield the most money for our consignors...
here is our thought process....

there are 3 types of buyers on ebay...

1) SNIPERS : ending auctions at the same time is a non issue for them
2) EARLY BIDDERS: also a non issue as they bid early and often on the cards they need
3) LAST MINUTE BIDDERS: ok, lets say someone needs 50 cards of the 600 for the set...
normally , they wait until the last moment and bid and then look for more as the auctions end...all their bids are ideally last second from their perspective...
HOWEVER, lets say they all end the same time....now they have a dilemma, do I bid early on the cards I need ? or do I not bid on them at all...
the majority will bid early and as a result, more bids are placed early which leads to strong overall results for our consignors...last minute bidders will not let cards they truly need escape...

if you do a study of our past sales, you'll see that we have many VCP record sales when auctions end at the same time...
great scans, proper keyword descriptions, reasonable shipping, and great customer service will all be difference makers in the end....

thanks,
rick

hookem · February 18, 2012 1:52PM

Rick is my guy. I will always send my stuff to Probstein as I am happy with the prices but love the service. Hell, I wonder if he gets stiffed by buyers sometimes as he pays so fast!

Dpeck100 · February 18, 2012 2:23PM

The bottom line is the market determines price! If you have any card that multiple buyers want you will realize the top price as long as it is well represented in the auction.

The notion that some how last minute bidding changes the picture is crazy when it comes to rare cards. If you think a card is worth a $1,000 and you bid with 5 days to go vs. 7 seconds to go changes nothing.

In theory could you have won the card for cheaper perhaps but if one other person thinks it is worth a $1,000 you can't.

I find it so amusing that people think the Snipe is the silver bullet. Snipers pay top dollar because if there bid triggers on a hotly contested item it is much higher then the current price.

Rick in this case has proven to move items at strong prices so the idea that some how he layered items at the wrong time is really stupid. If you are a set collector as mentioned and find cards you need in an auction you will bid accordingly.

Consign with whomever you like but lets face it Rick gets much higher prices then most of us on the cards he sells. He is not the only game in town but clearly is a good one.

handyman · February 18, 2012 3:07PM

I think he loses the spontaneous bids is what hes saying. Which could account for a loss in bids. But ebay has so much junk its hard to find anything now a days.

CDsNuts · February 18, 2012 6:22PM

Rick,
While I agree that ending at the same time is generally not the worst thing in the world, I think ending on Mon and Tues night is a mistake. It's fairly well-documented that hammer prices are strongest for auctions that end Sunday night and weakest on Tues-Wed. nights. Although with your following and reputation it likely doesn't make much of a difference.

Lee

Probstein123 · February 18, 2012 6:34PM

I think ending on Mon and Tues night is a mistake
==> we ran these auctions for 10 days...this will help them get extra visibility and they will be live thru 2 weekends..
we've have never noticed a dip in prices based on day of the week....sunday night thru thursday night have all yielded similar results...

cardbender · February 19, 2012 7:40AM

<< <i>hi, we end high end set breaks at the same time because it will yield the most money for our consignors...
here is our thought process....

there are 3 types of buyers on ebay...

1) SNIPERS : ending auctions at the same time is a non issue for them
2) EARLY BIDDERS: also a non issue as they bid early and often on the cards they need
3) LAST MINUTE BIDDERS: ok, lets say someone needs 50 cards of the 600 for the set...
normally , they wait until the last moment and bid and then look for more as the auctions end...all their bids are ideally last second from their perspective...
HOWEVER, lets say they all end the same time....now they have a dilemma, do I bid early on the cards I need ? or do I not bid on them at all...
the majority will bid early and as a result, more bids are placed early which leads to strong overall results for our consignors...last minute bidders will not let cards they truly need escape...

if you do a study of our past sales, you'll see that we have many VCP record sales when auctions end at the same time...
great scans, proper keyword descriptions, reasonable shipping, and great customer service will all be difference makers in the end....

thanks,
rick >>

Rick, this makes sense to me now. Especially your reasoning behind # 3.

Also I don't agree that ending stuff on Monday or Tuesday will result in lower
prices realized. For years BBcexhange ended auctions on Monday night, evening during the Football
season, which I thought was a big mistake, but he always got great results. Although the strong
results could be more of a strong following by his customers more than an ending day of the week thing.
The same could be true for Probstein's results.

Honestly I don't think the night anything ends has anything to do with the results.
If you have quality stuff listed, with good scans, and with a large following of happy
previous buyers to rely on, those bidders will find your listings no matter what day or time they end.

Consigner question

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