What is a Fair Deal?

SmithAuctionCo

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/collector-sheds-light-on-discovering-huge-cache-of-cards/

I’m not sure why someone would make this story public.

It’s a shame this seller didn’t call BBCE or a qualified auction house. Who makes a deal to give 60% away as commission? The “buyer” only pays $3,000 up front and could make that back on (2) of the 1988/89 Fleer basketball boxes immediately (from the complete case). And the “buyer” has a clause to double his $3,000 first before giving the seller 40% of the remaining sales.

Who in the world makes this deal?! This story make no sense on many levels...

***I edited the title, as it seems some agree that the deal made is fair. Maybe this can be a discussion as to what constitutes a fair deal, and the options available for prospective sellers when they are looking to sell.

Stone193

I'm both amazed and humbled by the size of the collection.

airjoedan

I only quickly skimmed the article, very neat find.

From my cursory review, I wouldn’t be too quick to negatively judge the buyer. If he is really giving the seller 40% of the profits, that is definitely fair. When purchasing a large collection (especially mostly unseen), there are a lot of risks. Sorting the collection, submitting items, scanning items, writing descriptions, keeping tax records - this takes an incredible amount of time if just one person. For anyone who does pay proper taxes on sales, they will certainly understand how a $10,000 profit can quickly sink to half of that. In the end, sometimes you are questioning whether or not it is worth all the time you spent and lost (after all, life is short and for most of us this is a hobby or an extra “side” non-primary income). A find like this is what makes things exciting and honestly, I would say the guy could have just offered him a lump sum and it would have been fine. IF he is really giving back 40%, that’s not a bad deal when the other guy just has to sit back and wait for a check.

Most stories like this end with a risk that didn’t pay off or a decent find. Just because this guy kept finding incredible value doesn’t mean it changes the risk and reward. Sure, a 1988 Fleer case is a quick flip and incredible profit - but if all the guy saw when he bought it was 8 sheds full of cards, it can’t be realistically expected that quick flips would be in there like that. Sure, the seller could have done better - a lot better - a call to BBCE would have netted him a lot more!

Anyways, apologies if I missed something shady in my cursory review of the article. Regardless, great find!

erikthredd

There is more on this story in the football section in the BO forums. The buyer is a pretty well respected member there and has been posting his finds with pics as he comes across them during his search thru all the boxes. Maybe the OP shouldn't be so quick to judge the guy when you don't know the buyer or seller or how they came to their agreement.
Does anyone here think Al Rosen would have offered 40% of final sales after doubling his investment? From all the stories we heard not to long ago I'd say not a chance.

SmithAuctionCo

@airjoedan said:
I only quickly skimmed the article, very neat find.

From my cursory review, I wouldn’t be too quick to negatively judge the buyer. If he is really giving the seller 40% of the profits, that is definitely fair. When purchasing a large collection (especially mostly unseen), there are a lot of risks. Sorting the collection, submitting items, scanning items, writing descriptions, keeping tax records - this takes an incredible amount of time if just one person. For anyone who does pay proper taxes on sales, they will certainly understand how a $10,000 profit can quickly sink to half of that. In the end, sometimes you are questioning whether or not it is worth all the time you spent and lost (after all, life is short and for most of us this is a hobby or an extra “side” non-primary income). A find like this is what makes things exciting and honestly, I would say the guy could have just offered him a lump sum and it would have been fine. IF he is really giving back 40%, that’s not a bad deal when the other guy just has to sit back and wait for a check.

Most stories like this end with a risk that didn’t pay off or a decent find. Just because this guy kept finding incredible value doesn’t mean it changes the risk and reward. Sure, a 1988 Fleer case is a quick flip and incredible profit - but if all the guy saw when he bought it was 8 sheds full of cards, it can’t be realistically expected that quick flips would be in there like that. Sure, the seller could have done better - a lot better - a call to BBCE would have netted him a lot more!

Anyways, apologies if I missed something shady in my cursory review of the article. Regardless, great find!

In this scenario, it appears that the seller did not have a clue about the value of what they had, and asked the buyer to make an offer on the collection.

Any legit or reputable buyer would explain that they would need to take a little bit of time to look through the items to gauge an overall value. Eight storage sheds may sound like a lot to an average collector, but for a dealer or auction house who handles these types of collections regularly, it would only take a few hours to get a general overview of the collection. You begin by weeding out the better items - a 1988 Fleer Basketball case is easy to spot - same with 1986/87 Fleer Jordan, other notable rookies, boxes, sets, etc. Yes, you might miss a few better items in a cursory overview, but you are able to get a general sense of value.

With just a few of the better items weeded out, the value is easily $20,000 to $25,000. Just seeing the 1988/89 case, BBCE would have offered $10,800 to buy that alone.

Most honest dealers and auction houses work on 20% to 40% margins - not doubling their initial investment, then wanting to make another 60% on whatever remains. If the seller had called an auction house, they might have been charged 15% to 25% commission, and maybe a pickup fee, but would have netted much more in the end.

Or if they had called BBCE or another respected buyer, they would have been paid many many multiples of the purchase price quoted in the article.

ReggieCleveland

There's no way anyone is going through 8 storage sheds in a couple of hours. Maybe if each shed was completely organized and had easy access to monster boxes you could weed through the singles on one and go through all the non-wax boxes of stuff and get a rough idea of what one shed has in a couple of hours. That's under ideal situations. But if it's anything like every single storage shed I've ever seen it's a disaster area of just boxes piled and thrown on top of boxes with absolutely no organization put into them. Depending on how big the storage shed is and how many people are working on it (sounds like this was just one guy?), MAYBE you could move enough stuff out so that you could move freely within the shed in a few hours. Nevermind actually going through things to begin to assess value.

Arthur

SmithAuctionCo

@erikthredd said:
There is more on this story in the football section in the BO forums. The buyer is a pretty well respected member there and has been posting his finds with pics as he comes across them during his search thru all the boxes. Maybe the OP shouldn't be so quick to judge the guy when you don't know the buyer or seller or how they came to their agreement.
Does anyone here think Al Rosen would have offered 40% of final sales after doubling his investment? From all the stories we heard not to long ago I'd say not a chance.

True, I do not know the entire story or details of the agreement, but, I can say for certain - NEVER agree to paying a 60% commission. Call any reputable auction house or dealer if you are unsure of what you have, I don't know any auction house that charges a commission over 25% (most you can get to 10% easily, or lower for the better items).

Even not knowing the entire story, seeing that high of commission charged, is a bit crazy.

Not sure what Al Rosen has to do with this, but there is a reason why Al Rosen had (and still has) one of the worst reputations in the Sports card world - he was typically not fair with sellers. There are plenty of dealers in the hobby who are fair though.

I look at this as a warning for anyone else who has a similar situation - just make sure you do your due diligence and contact the right person. Talk to a few different dealers or auction houses and see what they offer. I do not like seeing situations like this where a person could have made a much better deal for themselves if they had contacted the right person.

erikthredd

@SmithAuctionCo said:

@erikthredd said:
There is more on this story in the football section in the BO forums. The buyer is a pretty well respected member there and has been posting his finds with pics as he comes across them during his search thru all the boxes. Maybe the OP shouldn't be so quick to judge the guy when you don't know the buyer or seller or how they came to their agreement.
Does anyone here think Al Rosen would have offered 40% of final sales after doubling his investment? From all the stories we heard not to long ago I'd say not a chance.

True, I do not know the entire story or details of the agreement, but, I can say for certain - NEVER agree to paying a 60% commission. Call any reputable auction house or dealer if you are unsure of what you have, I don't know any auction house that charges a commission over 25% (most you can get to 10% easily, or lower for the better items).

Even not knowing the entire story, seeing that high of commission charged, is a bit crazy.

Not sure what Al Rosen has to do with this, but there is a reason why Al Rosen had (and still has) one of the worst reputations in the Sports card world - he was typically not fair with sellers. There are plenty of dealers in the hobby who are fair though.

I look at this as a warning for anyone else who has a similar situation - just make sure you do your due diligence and contact the right person. Talk to a few different dealers or auction houses and see what they offer. I do not like seeing situations like this where a person could have made a much better deal for themselves if they had contacted the right person.

@SmithAuctionCo said:

@erikthredd said:
There is more on this story in the football section in the BO forums. The buyer is a pretty well respected member there and has been posting his finds with pics as he comes across them during his search thru all the boxes. Maybe the OP shouldn't be so quick to judge the guy when you don't know the buyer or seller or how they came to their agreement.
Does anyone here think Al Rosen would have offered 40% of final sales after doubling his investment? From all the stories we heard not to long ago I'd say not a chance.

True, I do not know the entire story or details of the agreement, but, I can say for certain - NEVER agree to paying a 60% commission. Call any reputable auction house or dealer if you are unsure of what you have, I don't know any auction house that charges a commission over 25% (most you can get to 10% easily, or lower for the better items).

Even not knowing the entire story, seeing that high of commission charged, is a bit crazy.

Not sure what Al Rosen has to do with this, but there is a reason why Al Rosen had (and still has) one of the worst reputations in the Sports card world - he was typically not fair with sellers. There are plenty of dealers in the hobby who are fair though.

I look at this as a warning for anyone else who has a similar situation - just make sure you do your due diligence and contact the right person. Talk to a few different dealers or auction houses and see what they offer. I do not like seeing situations like this where a person could have made a much better deal for themselves if they had contacted the right person.

I don't see what the big problem is here. I get it you're an auction house and this could have been you but you're coming off as bitter. You know nothing outside of the content from that article so judging this buyer because YOU don't like the terms that the seller obviously agreed to doesn't mean this guy is getting ripped off.
First off,the buyer originally agreed to buy the toys not cards,read the article, and the cards were supposedly stacked 4' high & 18' deep. The "search" of the cards if you want to call it that was the buyer pretty much going by the years on the boxes while searching a few,again in the article. All the great finds didn't come till later. There was a very high chance it could have been 99% junk,it just worked out in his favor that it wasn't.
Second,lets not act like the seller was Forrest Gump who happened to have 8 sheds full of cards and didn't know anything about them. He was smart enough to topload all of the best cards from all the pics(Montana,Elway,Sayers,Starr,Unitas,Jordan-86 Fleer) not to mention all of the seller's best cards are currently sitting in a safe deposit box at the bank,again in the article. No one originally spends what it took to amount all of those cards over what was probably a long time without knowing what they have. This agreement screams "I don't want to deal with it" from the seller's perspective so he called this buyer.
Without knowing the buyer,seller,terms or what the buyer eventually ends up with cash-wise in the end I just don't see why you're making such a big deal about it.
Last,You do know there is a link in the article to the actual Blowout forum thread where the buyer has been telling everyone about this find & posting pics,right? If you really feel this vehemently about this buyer,as another famous CU member here likes to say,put your big boy pants on and go tell this guy how you really feel.

larryallen73

@SmithAuctionCo said:

@erikthredd said:
There is more on this story in the football section in the BO forums. The buyer is a pretty well respected member there and has been posting his finds with pics as he comes across them during his search thru all the boxes. Maybe the OP shouldn't be so quick to judge the guy when you don't know the buyer or seller or how they came to their agreement.
Does anyone here think Al Rosen would have offered 40% of final sales after doubling his investment? From all the stories we heard not to long ago I'd say not a chance.

True, I do not know the entire story or details of the agreement, but, I can say for certain - NEVER agree to paying a 60% commission. Call any reputable auction house or dealer if you are unsure of what you have, I don't know any auction house that charges a commission over 25% (most you can get to 10% easily, or lower for the better items).

Even not knowing the entire story, seeing that high of commission charged, is a bit crazy.

Not sure what Al Rosen has to do with this, but there is a reason why Al Rosen had (and still has) one of the worst reputations in the Sports card world - he was typically not fair with sellers. There are plenty of dealers in the hobby who are fair though.

I look at this as a warning for anyone else who has a similar situation - just make sure you do your due diligence and contact the right person. Talk to a few different dealers or auction houses and see what they offer. I do not like seeing situations like this where a person could have made a much better deal for themselves if they had contacted the right person.

Ya, but an auction house isn't going to come over to your house and clean out your storage locker for you and, in particular, not when you tell them you have "a bunch of cards and toys but not sure what exactly I have."

erikthredd

@larryallen73 said:

@SmithAuctionCo said:

@erikthredd said:
There is more on this story in the football section in the BO forums. The buyer is a pretty well respected member there and has been posting his finds with pics as he comes across them during his search thru all the boxes. Maybe the OP shouldn't be so quick to judge the guy when you don't know the buyer or seller or how they came to their agreement.
Does anyone here think Al Rosen would have offered 40% of final sales after doubling his investment? From all the stories we heard not to long ago I'd say not a chance.

True, I do not know the entire story or details of the agreement, but, I can say for certain - NEVER agree to paying a 60% commission. Call any reputable auction house or dealer if you are unsure of what you have, I don't know any auction house that charges a commission over 25% (most you can get to 10% easily, or lower for the better items).

Even not knowing the entire story, seeing that high of commission charged, is a bit crazy.

Not sure what Al Rosen has to do with this, but there is a reason why Al Rosen had (and still has) one of the worst reputations in the Sports card world - he was typically not fair with sellers. There are plenty of dealers in the hobby who are fair though.

I look at this as a warning for anyone else who has a similar situation - just make sure you do your due diligence and contact the right person. Talk to a few different dealers or auction houses and see what they offer. I do not like seeing situations like this where a person could have made a much better deal for themselves if they had contacted the right person.

Ya, but an auction house isn't going to come over to your house and clean out your storage locker for you and, in particular, not when you tell them you have "a bunch of cards and toys but not sure what exactly I have."

Not one locker,eight, that were 20'x8'x8'. Forget the weeks ,poring thru all of the boxes for cards, the removal of all 8 sheds alone must have been a horror show.

@SmithAuctionCo kudos for rewording the title. 2-3 of those 88 Fleer basketball boxes will cover the buyer's investment and it still leaves a ton of product that the seller will get compensation for. I get your AH might have done things differently but if the seller agreed on this deal without contacting another potential buyer or AH,you gotta think he was happy with the terms especially when the buyer is going to do all of the work here.

Stone193

I'm for keeping this discussion light.

I'd have to read the article and go to BO to have an opinion.

In general, "professional" dealers would best be served by maintaining an "ethic" that's fair to anyone who calls and wants to set up a "deal."

Now, a collector, may choose a different way of looking at "buying."

Let's say I go to a yard sale and a guy has a piece of Newcomb pottery that I know is worth a few grand. The sticker price is 5 bucks...

Do I tell the seller what he has and offer him a grand or slap a fin in the guys hand and say thanx!

Kkathyl

its a fair deal if the seller & Buyer agreed to it. The shed picker is doing all the work and he has probable lost on many deals in the past. The seller made the agreement and in no area of the story do I see that the seller is disappointed.

This guy is certainly making out like a bandit, hope he does the right thing and gives the seller more, but a deal is a deal.

mtcards

As long as they both agreed to it, it is always a fair deal. Or you could look at it from another standpoint...you buy a raw Rice RC for $75 and get it graded and it comes back PSA 10. Do you split the profit with the seller? My guess is no. Risk and labor is an underappreciated factor.

airjoedan

@Kkathyl said:
its a fair deal if the seller & Buyer agreed to it.
This guy is certainly making out like a bandit, hope he does the right thing and gives the seller more, but a deal is a deal.

It would always be a “nice” thing to do...giving someone more money after you made more than what you expected, but where does this end? Who can determine how much is truly fair? It also opens up quite a can of worms in some instances as some people will never be happy. I agree with your last statement - a deal is a deal.

I think anything beyond the initial agreed upon deal/terms is not necessary - more power/kudos to anyone who wants to do more but it should never be a knock on someone if they don’t.

@mtcards said:
As long as they both agreed to it, it is always a fair deal. Or you could look at it from another standpoint...you buy a raw Rice RC for $75 and get it graded and it comes back PSA 10. Do you split the profit with the seller? My guess is no. Risk and labor is an underappreciated factor.

Risk and labor, I totally agree. I would say the guy getting $6k for a storage shed is also less likely to pay taxes - whereas the guy doing $100K in sales will lose a substantial amount not just to labor, but to taxes.

stevek

@Stone193 said:
I'm for keeping this discussion light.

I'd have to read the article and go to BO to have an opinion.

In general, "professional" dealers would best be served by maintaining an "ethic" that's fair to anyone who calls and wants to set up a "deal."

Now, a collector, may choose a different way of looking at "buying."

Let's say I go to a yard sale and a guy has a piece of Newcomb pottery that I know is worth a few grand. The sticker price is 5 bucks...

Do I tell the seller what he has and offer him a grand or slap a fin in the guys hand and say thanx!

<<< Do I tell the seller what he has and offer him a grand or slap a fin in the guys hand and say thanx! >>>

I do the latter and ask if he's got any more of this cheap pottery.

stevek

Fair deal? My viewpoint is I don't believe in making profit off of family and friends. Anybody else, I will try to make as much profit as possible. It's known as capitalism.

GoDodgersFan

At the end of the day, both the seller and buyer came to an agreement. The labor involved in this deal is a huge lift.

perkdog

I call laziness on the owner, he should have taken the time and went through it a little bit at a time and referenced the stuff by doing ebay searches ect.. and turned it into a money making project. It amazes me that in today’s day and age someone could just let that stuff sit there and not do the research. But either way both parties made a deal and stuck with it so however it shakes out its a done deal.

Arsenal83

I like the capitalist minds on these boards. I own an online retail business and remember years ago where one of my employees priced an item at $9.99 on my site that wad supposed to be $99.99. We caught it the next morning after selling a couple dozen overnight. We honored every single one of those orders and corrected the price moving forward.

Aside from deceiving someone to do so, I have no problem with someone making money off of others. This isn't socialism.

bobsbbcards

@Stone193 said:

Do I tell the seller what he has and offer him a grand or slap a fin in the guys hand and say thanx!

You tell the seller what he has and then help him research where he might sell it to get the full 5K. If his wife offers you a sandwich for your help, say thank you, eat the sandwich, and pretend it wasn’t dry (she did her best).

stevek

@perkdog said:
I call laziness on the owner, he should have taken the time and went through it a little bit at a time and referenced the stuff by doing ebay searches ect.. and turned it into a money making project. It amazes me that in today’s day and age someone could just let that stuff sit there and not do the research. But either way both parties made a deal and stuck with it so however it shakes out its a done deal.

An old adage in business is never underestimate what the American public will pay for convenience.

brendanb438

From the BO thread the seller knew he had some nice stuff but just wanted to move it all at once. There are also comics and toys involved with the overall lot.

The buyer paid $3K for the whole lot. The buyer Rob said at first it was $3K for everything up front. No mention of $1500 + 40% of profits or anything like that.

Story is going kind of sideways now with the article coming out. Who the hell knows what the real story is, I lean towards $3K for everything since that is the original story before tens of thousands of dollars of product has been revealed from the lot.

brendanb438

To add when I was flipping Magic The Gathering collections through Craigslist adds there was 2 occasions in which I showed up to purchase the collections and both times the person had way more in value than we originally discussed and I gave them all the cash I had on hand both times. The one time that I remember the detailed $$$ amounts was $550 for a collection that I had valued at about $1300 resale (via eBay single says and selling to a couple online stores). The guy shows me everything as discussed and I am getting ready to pay him and he says he also has his brothers binder of rares to throw in. This binder ended up being worth about $1500 in cards and I gave the guy the other $400 in cash I had on hand and made his day.

If I didn't have extra cash on me I wasn't gonna turn down the free cards since he was throwing them in but I was happy to make his day since he made mine.

dontippet

Nice story, but I wouldn't have offered an extra $400. Maybe $100. Not criticizing your generosity, it was definitely more than you needed to do. I probably criticizing my frugalness.

@brendanb438 said:
To add when I was flipping Magic The Gathering collections through Craigslist adds there was 2 occasions in which I showed up to purchase the collections and both times the person had way more in value than we originally discussed and I gave them all the cash I had on hand both times. The one time that I remember the detailed $$$ amounts was $550 for a collection that I had valued at about $1300 resale (via eBay single says and selling to a couple online stores). The guy shows me everything as discussed and I am getting ready to pay him and he says he also has his brothers binder of rares to throw in. This binder ended up being worth about $1500 in cards and I gave the guy the other $400 in cash I had on hand and made his day.

If I didn't have extra cash on me I wasn't gonna turn down the free cards since he was throwing them in but I was happy to make his day since he made mine.

Stone193

@bobsbbcards said:

@Stone193 said:

Do I tell the seller what he has and offer him a grand or slap a fin in the guys hand and say thanx!

You tell the seller what he has and then help him research where he might sell it to get the full 5K. If his wife offers you a sandwich for your help, say thank you, eat the sandwich, and pretend it wasn’t dry (she did her best).

Hiya Bob

You're a good man; not sure what I'd do if confronted with that situation? BTW - my hypothetical was a few grand.

Not only are you honest but managed to get the guy 3K more!!

ReggieCleveland

Ignorance is bliss. You come back and say "hey, thanks again for that deal. Here's a little extra because it WAS SO GOD DAMN LOPSIDED worked out for me" then the seller starts to wonder why. Next thing you know, questions start to get asked, panties get bunched, and bad feelings are created. What was a deal the seller was happy with has now turned into something that this guy is calling local attorneys about. If I've seen it once I've seen it a thousand times.

If there's an opportunity for both parties to walk away from a deal completely happy, leave it at that. You can always anonymously mail him a new microwave later on for Christmas.

Arthur

1951WheatiesPremium

As a general rule of collecting, I do try to make sure that if I got the way better deal that I offer either a tip or pay for the shipping costs after the fact.

It's selfishly done - I feel better about the deal. Can't say it's happened often.

I also know that I'm less inclined to haggle with someone if I got the card for nothing. Margins matter.

And don't forget this - it may sound stupid - but he also got someone to clean out six storage sheds and also pay HIM to do it! I'd love to hire someone to clean my house and leave me 5k when they're finished!

1951WheatiesPremium

And to me, it matters who is on the other end of the deal. I don't know what it's worth precisely to have someone who makes you comfortable and is easy to deal with BUT there is definately a value to it. In every business but especially one like collectibles where every purchase is a frivolity, said by one who love this hobby.