Where is everyone?

[jsokol1626]

Since I very rarely chase high $ cards, discussing sales value in trades is usually not necessary. Frankly, I find that many SV people try to manipulate selling statistics to their benefit and that really bugs me. I'm savvy enough to know that BV doesn't always work either, so I try to be flexible. I cite my desire to use BV in my sig as a warning that I have no desire to enter into protracted negotiations of the sales values of cheap stuff. When people want to drag their feet on a trade because the sales value of my lot is $10 while theirs is $12 you're wasting my time and yours. Yet, I find that situation ocurring more and more. Recently a trader insisted I surrender two Young Guns (BV $45) for a Dumba FW ($10) because "the Dumba is undervalued". I bought the Dumba the next day for $2.50 on the Bay. I would have preferred to trade.

[piper1]

Since I very rarely chase high $ cards, discussing sales value in trades is usually not necessary. Frankly, I find that many SV people try to manipulate selling statistics to their benefit and that really bugs me. I'm savvy enough to know that BV doesn't always work either, so I try to be flexible. I cite my desire to use BV in my sig as a warning that I have no desire to enter into protracted negotiations of the sales values of cheap stuff. When people want to drag their feet on a trade because the sales value of my lot is $10 while theirs is $12 you're wasting my time and yours. Yet, I find that situation ocurring more and more. Recently a trader insisted I surrender two Young Guns (BV $45) for a Dumba FW ($10) because "the Dumba is undervalued". I bought the Dumba the next day for $2.50 on the Bay. I would have preferred to trade.

Obviously hobby time isn't important to some of these individuals, who will gladly waste your time in their pursuit of making a buck (at your expense). I had one member who was interested in some of my older SPGU and Trilogy RCs. Of course he informed me that he would only give me $1 in trade for each of them because that it what they sell for on his favourite site. But of course he wanted full value for all of his cards. I am at least grateful that this site has a member ignore feature.

[Captain Habtastic]

When people want to drag their feet on a trade because the sales value of my lot is $10 while theirs is $12 you're wasting my time and yours. Yet, I find that situation ocurring more and more. Recently a trader insisted I surrender two Young Guns (BV $45) for a Dumba FW ($10) because "the Dumba is undervalued". I bought the Dumba the next day for $2.50 on the Bay. I would have preferred to trade.

Had a situation awhile ago, trader was interested in about 5 of my auto's, nothing high end but the beckett value was around the 75-80 mark. He offered me a selection of junk from the early 2000's (inserts). And while I love making deals for older Habs inserts, I thought this was alittle absurd. So I looked through his bucket and found something I liked, an older Lemieux jersey which booked around 30-40. When I countered with that card, my cards all of a sudden became common junk while this jersey card belonged to the "greatest player of all time", his words not mine.

Looking at the main trade page, everybody has pretty specific wants now, there don't seem to be alot of people who are just looking to trade, whether it's for a pc card, or just tradebait. Which is too bad, I think I've made about 3 deals in the last 3 months, the trades I do make now are with guys I've traded with a dozen times each.

[Crosby 87]

huskies

I'll be around long after you leave this hobby - trust me on that one.

That's some hyperbole right there now.

[RGM81]

It's interesting - the past couple of weeks I've had a minor flurry of trading activity. I've got 4 deals made here actually in the last week - none are "major" deals the likes you'd see out of the high-end forum but they're the kind of trade that has been pretty elusive of late: the what-should-be-simple here's some cards you like for some cards I like type of deal.

I've recently started collecting Leon Draisaitl as a result of his amazing half-season with the Rockets and being able to grab a few of his autos is pretty nice. Habs trading has been especially difficult in recent months due to the team's success (especially that of a particular goalie) so that's mostly been confined to buying stuff in other venues.

I do check the trading forum on a regular basis but there's only so many times I can bump my WTTF threads with no responses, y'know?

[Crosby 87]

It's interesting - the past couple of weeks I've had a minor flurry of trading activity. I've got 4 deals made here actually in the last week - none are "major" deals the likes you'd see out of the high-end forum but they're the kind of trade that has been pretty elusive of late: the what-should-be-simple here's some cards you like for some cards I like type of deal.

I've recently started collecting Leon Draisaitl as a result of his amazing half-season with the Rockets and being able to grab a few of his autos is pretty nice. Habs trading has been especially difficult in recent months due to the team's success (especially that of a particular goalie) so that's mostly been confined to buying stuff in other venues.

I do check the trading forum on a regular basis but there's only so many times I can bump my WTTF threads with no responses, y'know?

Rich,

Ebay & here seems to go in spurts for me. Ill go weeks without a sale or trade and then have several.

I usually stop bumping my WTTF threads after 75-100 total responses and start a new one. This is helpful as some people may have the show me only new threads option checked.

[LoQtus]

Common courtesy is one thing that is lacking when attempting trades. Heck, a good majority of the time I can't even get a response to a PM on SCF, and that's before any type of offer has been attempted. How can trades occur w/out dialogue? Communication, discussion, open mindedness and a general willingness to help a fellow hobbyist.......that's how trades are made.
...... I, for one, enjoy helping fellow collectors.

I'm strictly a low end trader / set builder in three sports and the most common problem is the lack of responses. For every trade I manage to make, there are usually two or three posts that I reply to stating that I have cards the poster is looking for, and I get no response at all. I can understand if the post was made last year, but a lot of them are people that have been on the site for a while, with at least double digit feedbacks or more, who have just simply vanished after just posting last month. Hey, life changes and everything, but it's frustrating when you pull a pile of cards for someone and they don't answer.

The other thing I run in to is that I'll get an offer for a variety of base cards and/or inserts from someone. When I ask them for their wants, the response is "anything in my sig" or names of superstar players.
The sig usually says something about high end autos, gamers or very low numbered cards of some top 5 superstar "that I (the poster) don't have". None of these are going to be anything I ever come across, much less have available to trade. And not many people are going to make a deal for super high end stuff for base and inserts anyway. And of course, there's no list of what they have or still need anywhere - I'd have to come up with a list that he can say yes or no to. So what am I supposed to do? I could go to ebay for my singles, but there will only be auctions for each card individually and they're all priced over a dollar apeice plus shipping (for 10 to 25 cent cards). You'll never see auctions for lots from the same set, or if you do there will be extra cards I don't need.
So basically this guy has the cards I want but I can't get them because all he wants are high end mojo hits that I'll never have. How did he get the base singles in the first place if all he deals with are high end?

I don't usually worry about book values etc. when trading. If I'm getting a good number of cards I want, and am sending you the same, it's a win-win. You try to match types - inserts for inserts, etc. but sometimes it's just a matter of matching four of your nickel commons from the 90's to my quarter commons from 2003, or a handful of vintage for your half starter of a 1999 set. I'll even trade you a gamer or two for a stack of base singles if they're going to help me complete a set and you collect the team or guy on the gamers. I wouldn't trade you an Ovechkin because he's my hometown guy, but I'll let Penguins go because they're icky or Blues or Ducks because I just don't follow them. The value of the player is less relevant because I want the set cards more than I want the GU in my collection. It's all about the relative value for YOU.

[Sharky94]

Quite frankly, there are a lot of people here that wont even talk to you if you don't have a bunch of 3-color RPAs of the hottest rookies or 1-of-1s of Crosby and Toews. I have tried making trades with people who say, I only collect players X, Y, and C. So I tell them, I have a bunch of those players' cards and they are in my bucket under their teams (I organize my bucket by teams, instead of by card/year). But since I don't have all my "high-end" cards in the same folder, they wont even bother looking through the two or three teams' folders to find their favorite player.

Then we have the "Bucket v. List" fight all the time. There are certain people that refuse to look at buckets and certain people that refuse to look at lists. I wont get into the pros and cons of that, but some people just have to learn to adjust. I had one guy say he was looking for all kinds of inserts of a certain player. I told him that I have over 70 cards of that player in his team album in my bucket (and even provided him the link to team album, so he could save that one click of going into my bucket, and then to the team.) He asked me if I had a list of that player, and I said no, but they are all together in the bucket. He refused to even look. He actually wanted my to create a special list of just that player's cards (ie, looking up 70+ cards and writing down what they were) and send it to him so he could save the 5 minutes of looking through my bucket. Needless to say, that trade never happened...

[Yzerfan]

Quite frankly, there are a lot of people here that wont even talk to you if you don't have a bunch of 3-color RPAs of the hottest rookies or 1-of-1s of Crosby and Toews. I have tried making trades with people who say, I only collect players X, Y, and C. So I tell them, I have a bunch of those players' cards and they are in my bucket under their teams (I organize my bucket by teams, instead of by card/year). But since I don't have all my "high-end" cards in the same folder, they wont even bother looking through the two or three teams' folders to find their favorite player.

Then we have the "Bucket v. List" fight all the time. There are certain people that refuse to look at buckets and certain people that refuse to look at lists. I wont get into the pros and cons of that, but some people just have to learn to adjust. I had one guy say he was looking for all kinds of inserts of a certain player. I told him that I have over 70 cards of that player in his team album in my bucket (and even provided him the link to team album, so he could save that one click of going into my bucket, and then to the team.) He asked me if I had a list of that player, and I said no, but they are all together in the bucket. He refused to even look. He actually wanted my to create a special list of just that player's cards (ie, looking up 70+ cards and writing down what they were) and send it to him so he could save the 5 minutes of looking through my bucket. Needless to say, that trade never happened...

I understand people who don't want to look through unorganized buckets, as I am one of them. But if the bucket is clearly organized and will take me a minimal amount of time to look through it then I have no problem with it. And I think maybe people who don't like tradelists don't know about the ctrl+f command. If you use that command you can look through a tradelist in under a minute.

[Sharky94]

I understand people who don't want to look through unorganized buckets, as I am one of them. But if the bucket is clearly organized and will take me a minimal amount of time to look through it then I have no problem with it. And I think maybe people who don't like tradelists don't know about the ctrl+f command. If you use that command you can look through a tradelist in under a minute.

I agree that people should keep their buckets/lists organized in some way. If it is unorganized, you are only hurting yourself because fewer people will take the time to look at your cards.

There are a lot of people that just scan in cards to their bucket and don't update. And there are just as many people that make lists without organizing those too. I see guys with huge lists that look like the cards were picked at random, with years, types, players all mixed up. I wont waste my time on those either.

I personally think its easier to scan through a bucket than a list, but that may be because I only look for Caps and Sharks cards. I don't care about any others, and its pretty easy just to look for two different types of uniforms than it is to scan a list having to figure out what each card is. But others collect differently and are looking for different players, so I understand that.

The one thing I rarely concede on, however, is I almost never start a conversation if someone doesn't already have a bucket or list in their signature. I have pretty limited wants, so I prefer to see if that person actually has something I want before I look to see if I can help them with their wants. Too many times when I first joined did I find a bunch of cards a guy was looking for, then he'd ask who I collected, and I would get a list of every Caps/Sharks card the guy had. 99.99% of the time, it was either stuff I had or didn't collect, or cards of players I don't care about (Jagr, Semin, Belfour, etc). So that is just wasted time for both of us. Put in a little effort initially to create a list or bucket, and you'll save everyone a lot of time later. You might actually get inquiries about cards you didn't know people wanted!