(03-11-2015, 08:12 AM)joe callahan13 Wrote: Uhhhh no. I would pay more at a brick and mortar store, and do. I will buy on Ebay as a last resort. I don't like the risk I take that I will be scammed by an Ebay seller and I ESPECIALLY don't like buying a card sight unseen. Some people are more comfortable with that, but I would rather know what I am getting and I am fine with paying a little more for that luxury. You can get cards for lower prices on Ebay specifically BECAUSE it is sight unseen. That's like Kelley Blue Book stating that the market value of a used car is what it sells for at a dealer auction. That is not an accurate reflection, it is a subset.
I'm not sure how eBay is "sight unseen". Other than dealers who use Beckett's stock photo emporium, most sellers provide an image of the actual card you are going to purchase. And it's not like it was 10 years ago. Unless the person posts a blurry or grainy picture (I avoid these because, what are they trying to hide?), those images are pretty clear. A little attention to detail goes a long way. And as I posted earlier. if you are getting scammed so often that you are paranoid about it, then you have some horrible luck, poor decision making abilities, or both. I have been using eBay since 1996-'97, and I can count the number of times I have been done wrong on one hand. And I buy everything from clothes to car parts.
Concerning how much you pay at the LCS...if you are willing to pay more there, then you are unusual in that regard. Why do you think so many LCS's have gone out of business over the years? Because the MAJORITY of people out there are just not willing to pay LCS prices when they can go on eBay or COMC and get it for way less. But heck...I will overpay on eBay for certain items in my PC, so WHERE you buy it probably does not carry as much weight as HOW BADLY you want it.
Now, to compare this to an auto dealer's auction & Kelley Blue Book is, as you say in a later post, apples to oranges. The most immediate and glaring difference is that most people buying on eBay are not dealers, rather, they are collector's. If they were all dealers the sports card category would dry up overnight. The second is that eBay is not a wholesale site, it is a retail site. There are no special privileges for dealers making purchases; no discounts. You can open a storefront and get listing fee discounts, but the last I checked dealers pay in full for purchases just like everyone else.
No...winningsforthebirds is correct. The proper value of a card is what the PUBLIC is willing to pay...regardless of what they intend to do with the item they purchase. That is business 101...literally...I learned that in the first business course I ever took.