I'm already getting fed up

[Xspyrit]

Sorry, I looked and had no idea where to post this. I need to rant a little and would like to get the opinions from veterans in the hobby.

I completely stopped trading/buying/selling in 2014 and made a comeback in April this year

I love hockey, I love hockey cards, I have fun trading or even buying and selling but there is a problem with trading. Does anyone else think it has gotten a lot harder and headache inducing to make trades? I mean, compared to 5 years ago. I have been making many trades already since coming back but there has been so many failures too. And since I am results oriented person and don't like time to be totally unproductive, I am getting fed up already.

It seems like many are so close to their cards, it's crazy, like they were scared to lose 5$ in value. I mean, how much do they think 1 hour of my time is worth lol? There's a guy I trade with that I give multiple top loaders/GU/Autos/RCs as extras everytime we deal, what difference does it makes in the end? Will it stop me from being able to pay my mortgage and do the groceries or buy what my family needs? I mean, every responsible adult shouldn't spend money that they can't spend in the hobby, it's like with investment, don't invest money that you can't afford to lose.

I have noticed that many traders don't "get out of their way" to help another collector, even though I did it so many times, take random traders to help out someone else with their collection. No they absolutely need cards from their wantlist, and that's even when we are already shipping so there's already a deal.

But it's not really the problem, it's more with how and why the deals don't work. I have a recent example

I had a deal worked out with a new member (0 feedback) about 100$ BV each side, 5 GU (some numbered) vs 12 YGs (no big names). There was another 36 common YGs (234$ BV) I wanted to get so I said lmk some cards in my tradelist that you'd take back, except all the high end and a few valuable cards that I listed... The guy still came back with :

Subban/kadri/Cowan 10-11 triple auto /25 BV $250

Or

Hedman auto patch /15 $100 BV
Steve shutt auto jersey BV $100 (it's a The Cup Auto 3 CL Patch /50)
And 1 other card BV $50

I explained him politely that I already said those cards were not available for common YGs. I asked him, would he do that trade if the roles were reversed and this is the answer I got :

"I would have taken the deal.

Anyhow I am going to pass on the trades since i told you I wanted a few cards. Did you expect me to pick 3 20$ cards for 36 young guns BV 200+$"

I never said he could only take 3 x 20$ cards, he was going to get over 200$ BV of autos/GU... It's the perfect example that demonstrates the way some deals I have worked on have fell apart. I get the "I will pass" a lot and I'm tried to read that sentence already. It seems that many times if you don't let them bend you over, they will "pass".

If they are here to "make money", then they are purely wasting time. Sure some sellers end up succeeding (like PWCC) but very few in % are able to do so. The money you can make vs the time you have to invest is really not worth it, unless you don't mind working for peanuts.

Another thing that annoys me : sale threads. Not all the threads, but why so many times I see a card for sale at a significantly higher price than what it sells for on Ebay? I mean, it should be at least 10% (fees) less on websites vs Ebay...

Another thing, people who want to buy, I once made a lot with Tarasenko YG, 11 more YGs (Pietrangelo, Parayko, Edmunson YGs, etc), plus Joe Mullen RC and a Fabbri 3 colors Patch /25. The guy was not offering more than 33$ shipped to the US... I was asking for a reasonable 48$ delivered. I mean, it's not very hard to get 30$+ just for the Tarasenko

I would probably have more but let's start with this.

I'm thinking of completely stop trading (except with people I traded with before) and jut go buy/sell. It's more fun and a lot less headaches in the end.

I love trading, heck I paid 83$ in shipping to trade with Reborn a few months ago. I don't care, it,s money I can afford to burn. I am doing this for fun but the fun is starting to fade away, ALREADY.

Thoughts? Anyone have a trick to make simple/smooth trades?

[Braves93]

I don't mess with hockey, but I have had some of the same issues with baseball. People either want A LOT for nothing or nothing at all. I have seen posts with people being so demanding on what they want and they have even said "I want to trade in my favor only." I personally don't get it, but I will just say that I have seen a difference. I use to trade a lot in the early 2000's and have recently gotten back into the collecting world and I have seen a difference, for sure.

[kurri17]

I certainly understand your frustrations. Between all the sites I have been on I am probably over 400 trades, and have greatly enjoyed the process the majority of the time. I don't trade nearly as much anymore since I stopped buying new product about ten years ago, now staying pretty much strictly with my vintage and Jari Kurri collections. I must say my positive experiences far outweigh my negative ones. I have had many generous traders, and really enjoy when I spot a card I have on someones list and can dig it up for them. But, over time it does seem to have become much more 'Ebay value' based. I used the price guides, but I was always much more concerned about getting what I wanted that I'm sure by now I am well in hole value-wise as I cared more about getting the cards I liked that matching values. I'm sure several traders have really felt they have gotten over on me, but no, I just didn't care. It's freakin' hockey cards for goodness sake.

I hope you have a run of good fortune in the traders you interact with, because it really can be such an enjoyable part of the hobby.

[Canadian Kid]

I stopped dealing in BV trades ... sure I've done a couple with some people I have done trades with in the past. I don't need Beckett to tell me what a card is worth ... who pays 100% of that anyways. I have some nice Cody Hodgson cards you can trade with me then ... What does a $6 BV mean on a Young Guns when it sells for 50 cents? Don't think it works??? ... well check out the leaderboard for trades in August ... then send me a PM. I will show you the two threads I used and I really didn't work hard at it. Just give fair value and people deal.

Keep your chin up ... remember it is a Hobby. Why do it if it isn't fun.
Kid

[canucksfan007]

Trades are for sure harder to make now as opposed to 5 - 10 - 15 years ago

A few reasons why:

1 - Some people still think the Beckett is the "good book" in the hobby. It is one of the most out dated tools to use today.

2 - People are unreasonable today with trade requests, everybody expects something for nothing .... or to get the big "sexy" card in the deal. It is quite easy when youre trading similar range cards for other similar range cards, but it gets much trickier when someone wants something big from you, but only has mid - low end today

3 - The hobby is much more expensive than it was 5 - 10 - 15 years ago. The average collector busts a lot less today than we used to, therefor most peoples trade list is a lot smaller.

4 - PCs seem to be a lot tighter and with so many more mid - higher end products released each year, there are a lot of nice autos / patches with somewhat low print runs for you to chase of you guy or team. As a player or team collector, I can be more specific / picky on what I want to add to my collection.

5 - Most people will say, I will trade for " X / Y / Z players for their PC .... or Crosby / McDavid / Mattews / Gretzky / insert hot new rookie here " Unfortunately, because less of us bust, we dont have "new hot rookie" and im sure most of us dont have rookies or autos of the players listed before readily available

6 - Shipping cost. Simply put, its more expensive to trade, especially crossing the border when you need to add tracking.


The way I see the trade you posted

His cards:
- 36 common Young Guns - $0.50 - $1.00 each
- 12 YG no big names - $3.00 - $8.00 each
- 5 jerseys - $2.00 - $10.00 ( of course this can vary depending on set / name )
TOTAL VALUE - maybe $100

Your cards:
Subban/kadri/Cowan 10-11 triple auto /25 BV $250 - ( maybe $50 - $70 )

Or

Hedman auto patch /15 $100 BV - ( maybe $25-$40 depending on set )
Steve shutt auto jersey BV $100 (it's a The Cup Auto 3 CL Patch /50) - maybe $40
And 1 other card BV $50 - 50BV cards are generally $20 - $30 cards


While I too would have problem with moving better cards for low end cards, I usually ask for more value coming my way depending on how many cards I am taking back. I usually only deal with mid - higher end, but if I have a $100 card, I specify I want 1-2 cards back, and if you are offering more I expect more than the $100 value.

If he is offering about 50+ cards, at roughly $2.00 average a piece ....... I would expect to trade a lot of cards in return ..... or get much more value for the higher end cards im moving

[jackpot]

People are unreasonable today with trade requests, everybody expects something for nothing .... or to get the big "sexy" card in the deal.

In the last 2 weeks I've made 10 trades with 10 different person and every deal went smoothly and everyone was very reasonable with their demands.

But of course not everyone is a good trader though but there is an ignore feature for that. It's not that big of a deal if someone waste your time, it's part of the game, it's gonna happen from time to time, we can't expect everything to go perfectly.

[scottkoz20]

[Therealmahoney]

Hahaha ^ scottkoz20 lol

ive been in the hobby since the late 90’s, left for a bit, then got back into it. Up until some point last year when I found this site, I never really had anyone to trade with because of the remoteness of where I lived, so always had to buy packs and boxes when I visited an area with a card shop.

ive noticed how tricky trading can be. I personally don’t care who gets the better end of the deal, as long as both parties are getting what they need/want. I’ve had deals fall apart because of bv, and deals fall apart because of sell value. As a general rule, I use bv just because it’s a static number to work with, when sale value can really be all over the board depending on when a listing finishes and who might be on at that time to get those final bids in. But at the end of the day, if it’s a card that I want, and I have a card that someone wants, I try to make it work.

ive been hosed on a few deals (I collect Sens rookies, generally aren’t high end rookies, but still have high bv in some cases), but they were Cards I wanted, so didn’t care.

ive noticed that there are some really good traders on here that will make stuff work for the same reasons (Opulent Jupiter for example), but there are a lot of other traders that can be a bit harder to work with.

its def trickier than it should be, and can be more time consuming than it should be, but even if I’m able to make 1-2 trades a month happen, and move some cards that I don’t need (and take up space) for cards that I want, then it’s worth it.

keep your chin up bud, just have a look through your pc and you’ll see why it’s worth the headaches some times.

[parco10]

2 years ago I stopped collecting all together (happiest year of my wife's life) but I found I missed it too much (been collecting since I was a kid over 40 years now) for the very same reasons, I loved online trading but it became too hard to work out trades. So when I started back up last year I decided I would buy what I needed for my sets (I'm much happier and my wife is on Prozac, win win).

Moral of the story I cut out the headaches and frustrations and have started loving one of my dearest hobbies again. I truly hope trading picks back up again, the one thing I miss is helping other collectors (not investors) with their collections.

[piper1]

I used to have a much more extensive want list and collection but I am semi-retired now so I have to be a little more selective in my trading habits than I was ten years ago. It doesn't help that I now also have to spend close to a thousand dollars a year on postage alone, which means that I also don't buy the number of boxes I used to. Those who get frustrated need to try and adjust their expectations as there will always be change over time and most certainly not all of it will be good.