I'm already getting fed up

[10-4 collector]

I don’t trade as I used too on here also. I tried trading YG's that I needed from various years. I have a ton of them for trade. People would always ask for my higher-end yg's for 10 of their lower-end yg's. This happened from at least 10-15 different members. I gave up on here on that.

[jackpot]

well, not the point at all. The point is actually rocket science

Edit : i have 296 feedback on this site, more on HI and had a lot of a QC site that doesn't exist anymore, even though I took a 5 years break. Yes, I know how it works but if you read the OP, I have noticed a significant drop in efficiency and that's what this thread is about, just a discussion

You need to realize that your OP was for venting, not to ask or offer solutions or anything, you had to let something out of your chest because you were angry some deals didn't go your way. And that's ok, nothing wrong with venting.

[jackpot]

Yes, I know how it works but if you read the OP

You say "I have a lot of experience, I know how it works" yet in the OP you ask for tips to make trades.

Doesn't compute.

[scottkoz20]

sorry for the delay in the reply - busy weekend with the minion and her cheerleading squad.... capped off with a game yesterday (and I had to be on the chain-gang).

I'm going to give a lengthier reply but in a video format. There are some items that I think would be better to demo as opposed to doing screenshots of.

[scottkoz20]

[Xspyrit]

wow nice Scott, great video

Yes the inventory manager is the solution, looks like it evolved a lot since the last time I used it. I had plenty of stuff there like 10 years ago but I eventually stopped updating it because there was not enough members using it and it took a lot of management time to set up. Funny, I just noticed that I still have 306 cards there, but probably don't own any of them today lol. Good thing, I have 156 PC cards, and some are still PC

If everybody was using it and updating it as much as possible, then yes trading would become easier again and then more fun. I know I will, putting that in priority list right now (which is pretty long unfortunately)

I didn't know you could see a global inventory, which I was talking about in this thread, looks like it's already there. I see that you can separate PC, Wants, Traders but can you say "please no lowball offer"? lol

Thanks a lot and we should keep the discussion going, always trying to improve things.

you can create a want list here, and then check all other public inventories for the cards on your list. You have to actually reach out to the member that has the cards you want but still pretty simple.............i check the inventories for my want list daily and have made several trades this way

Thanks a lot, I need to check into that. But can you check a global inventory or you have to check member per member? Because if that's the case, that would be a time consuming problem and then, not much different than what it is now.

In my experience, it's harder to trade now that it was 15 years ago, when I started dealing online. On my side, I prefer selling now that picking extra trade bait, my trade list is already so long. But for the more common stuff, I'm pretty realistic in my asking prices, lower-end stuff is much less collected than before and harder to move.

But, there are still good people around, and it's still possible to make good trades for both sides.

That's a good point : lower-end stuff is much less collected than before and harder to move.

It seems that a big portion of people in the hobby are hunting for big cards and cards who might take value. That's part of my problem because I collect all kind of stuff and from the rookies I collect, some lower end, same from the Autos and YGs. But it seems that many want the best cards possible for your low end wants. Since they're "only" helping another collector, they want to win in value as much as possible.

I have been hiding my higher end traders as much as possible because don't want to receive too many ridiculous low ball offers, like if was going to accept trading a card that sells over 50$ for several cards that you have trouble selling more than 0.99$.

I have plenty of quality traders but I don't put many in my trade list because of that reason, and that's a reason I often get "sorry nothing from that list, going to pass, etc"

I don’t trade as I used too on here also. I tried trading YG's that I needed from various years. I have a ton of them for trade. People would always ask for my higher-end yg's for 10 of their lower-end yg's. This happened from at least 10-15 different members. I gave up on here on that.

Same, many who try to "catch a fish", hoping that you will be a noob that has no idea what he is doing. It's even surprising because the number of feedback should give you an idea that the member has experience.

That being said, from time to time I accept to lose significant value in a thread based on the number/quality of PC cards I am getting. But still, some go way too far with what they expect.

[scottkoz20]

one of the items that we found was that it was desktop ready, but painful to use on mobile. @CoolHandLuke spent a TON of hours getting the Inventory Manager (and Trade Manager and TTM Manager and other tools) mobile responsive. With this, I am hopefully that this can be a resource that can be used at home, at shows, at shops trying to fill sets (for you set builders).

I am hoping that the mobile browser responsiveness to SCF is something that will allow members (and people lurking in the weeds) to be more active in using the tools.

[Xspyrit]

You need to realize that your OP was for venting, not to ask or offer solutions or anything, you had to let something out of your chest because you were angry some deals didn't go your way. And that's ok, nothing wrong with venting.

Yes my OP was (partly) venting, but sometimes criticism can lead to solutions. If you think my intentions was only venting, then you probably didn't read much of this thread. And I don't know if you read the OP entirely (I admit it was long) but if you think I was angry because "some deals didn't go my way", then you probably didn't get it. It's actually the opposite that I am talking about, too many traders need deals to go their way or no deal.

You say "I have a lot of experience, I know how it works" yet in the OP you ask for tips to make trades.

Doesn't compute.

If you took away that I was a novice from the OP and my other posts in this thread, I don't know what to tell you. Heck, you can even see under my avatar that I have 296 feedback + 182 more transferred (which in total, is more that you have on SCF), I talked about it in this thread. I also have more than 2000+ feedback on Ebay (this I didn't mention)


When I say "I have a lot of experience, I know how it works", it was in response of this :

"it's not rocket science:

1- you post what you're looking for
2- you post what you have for trade"

You say this like if I was some kind of pure beginner. If it was a simple as that, this thread wouldn't exist. So you probably just missed the point. You can use remarks like "it's not rocket science" or "doesn't compute" all you want, but if you're missing the point, maybe you shouldn't use them?

[30ranfordfan]

I'd say this:

I do think trades are much harder to do now, than when I joined SCF.... which was more than 10 years ago. There's a few factors:

1. Costs of shipping has gone up a lot since then. Much harder to justify small trades.

2. The number of people building sets has diminished quite a bit. More and more releases are geared towards "hits" for group breaks. There's a bigger percentage of collectors that that would rather own one or two "nice cards" than complete sets of anything. Set builders were the EASY group of collectors to make trades with.

3. The entire hobby has made a HARD SHIFT to whatever the flavor of the week is. That always existed somewhat, but I think it's much stronger now than it was even 5 years ago. Last year's sets don't hold their value up very well. That's fine if you're trading for older stuff too... but when people have the new/hot thing - they only want the new/hot thing in return.

(Yes, I'm generalizing, this doesn't fit for everyone).

I know that I'm personally a pain in the butt to trade with. I can buy and sell easy enough.... but fact is: There isn't a whole lot of cards out there I'm looking to get. I've got some cards for my all-time Oilers project I'm looking for, at any given time, Ranford cards that I don't always own.... and the last few inserts I'm looking for from 94-95 Score, and 11-12 BTP. That's about it. I have some stuff that I would consider "nice traders" - and certainly to a degree I'm okay making a swap that helps out someone else.... *IF* it's not diminishing my traders.

[Leafsman]

@Xspyrit I feel your pain.

I have a wantlist ranging from 1910-11 (I know I'll never get those) to present (from 2018-19 forward, I'm only collecting rookies of Leafs, Golden Knights, and Seattle when they enter). My list is so long because I'm hoping it would generate more offers.

The BV vs. SV thing is no big deal for me. I usually look at the max BV and the average SV and meet in the middle. @canucksfan007 and I are a good example of how well a BV guy and an SV guy can work together to get things done.

I've made a few trades lately but I'm nowhere near as active as I want to be. I face three massive issues in this hobby.

First is my financial situation. I have cerebral palsy and other health problems. Despite earning a college diploma in 2001, employers won't hire me because they say that my health problems would cause their insurance costs to skyrocket. Because of this, I'm on a government-funded fixed income. Government pays me by direct deposit and sends me a form every year to make sure I still qualify for income. Part of that form is a consent to view my banking activity over the past year. If they see any transaction other than the money they send me and when I pay my bills/groceries, I am questioned. PayPal, credit cards, or electronic money transfers are out of the question. If government sees that, I could be disqualified from the only income I have.

Second is my location. I live in rural Newfoundland, Canada. The nearest hobby shop to me is three hours away in the capital city of St. John's.

Third is the cost of packs/boxes/cases. Making a three-hour trip to buy hockey cards is not financially feasible.

As a result of those three issues, my traders are not great. It seems that if you don't have recent cards (within the last three years or so), you are irrelevant in the hobby. The only way I can freshen up my traders is to trade for them.

Despite my situation, I have been able to build what I consider to be a nice personal collection. I collect rookie cards of key players around the NHL. I have rookie cards of over 1,200 players from 1954-55 (Johnny Bower Parkhurst RC) to 2018-19 (a YG of Golden Knights player Zach Whitecloud).

Half of my PC consists of SP Authentic rookie cards. Unfortunately, I still need over 100 and many of those are big names, like Sidney Crosby, Auston Matthews, Alexander Ovechkin, Patrik Laine, David Pastrnak, and Connor McDavid, among others. Unless I win the lottery, I'll never afford those FWAs.

It's truly depressing.