Insane sold items - what is going on?

[luluinportland]

This is an ongoing issue with no explanation that I can find. I went through it a few years ago with Beanies. Even today there are 99 cent beanie babies (that are t even worth that) that show as sold (NOT only best offer - you see this with auctions and with fixed price sales too) for hundreds of thousands of dollars. For every worthless beanie, there are dozens of sales in the multiple tens of thousands. When I was trying to sell Beanies I got so frustrated that I bought a price guide and discovered that the true value of most beanies was a dollar, sometimes as much as five. There’s like six beanies in the history of beanies worth more than $10. I think we can agree that whatever is going on here,  no one is buying a 50 cent beanie for 900k. 

Now I’m back in this nonsense with baseball cards. I know people have issues with using sold prices to inform your listing’s price, but with baseball cards, there’s the stated value that guides show and then there’s what it will actually sell for based on current saturation of the market. I DO need to know this info so I’m not spending time listing cards that will not sell at their value at this time.

There is also a range of prices based on numerous factors, one of which is a valuation that costs $40 per card to obtain -  so it’s important for me to ascertain if it’s worth paying this. This, seeing an accurate range of sold prices is truly necessary if I want to sell baseball cards on eBay. 

that being said - this insane sales price thing is now causing me headaches yet again. A card that I personally own two copies of and which is valued at $17 (but  which currently sells for around $2) shows up as having sold for over 15,000 - not possible. And the cards I have are perfect. They come from newly opened packs, so while condition is a big factor, that is not the case here. There is no version of this card worth 100$ let alone 15k. 

I’ve seen this subject discussed in older posts, but in these threads, seasoned sellers try to rationalize how the item could have actually been sold for the insane price. These sellers also try to claim it isn’t a problem and that eBay should not be involved. 

its not just beanies and baseball cards either. This phenomenon pops up in all types of popular collectibles but - and this is important - you do NOT see this in less popular types of collectibles. For example, I sell water gloves that can sell for as much as $200 and in searching sold prices, I’ve never once seen any price over $200. the price manipulators seem to only be interested in creating these outrageous sales records for items that are sure to 1) get a lot of views in searches, and 2) create confusion for buyers and sellers. And that’s a problem eBay should look into and help us navigate, especially for sellers who rely on these marketing tools. 

What  if this was a stock price for my company and I know shares have a value of $3 but suddenly an online index is manipulating the market to show this stock as having sold for drastically inflated prices?  Something would be wrong and it would be 1) something the price manipulator is doing to profit off price manipulation, and 2) almost certainly illegal. 

Similarly, there is something wrong with what’s going on here and I don’t understand - ebay takes a cut of sales. We have to pay tax on sales. Why would someone purposefully list something at hundreds of thousands of times it’s value and fake a sale? What could the point be? 

And I absolutely think this is a question worth answering. Even if it isn’t a cover for something illegal, eBay should not allow sellers to distort valuable market information that sellers need to inform both pricing and if - indeed - something is even worth listing. 

would love to hear insights that make some sense out of this, and also would appreciate if anyone has ideas for how to disregard these types of sales in searches. I’ve tried limiting the sale type but while these sales often happen in “best offer accepted” transactions, that is by no means always the case. There’s a worthless beanie right now listed as sold at over 300k for a fixed price sale. 

[soh.maryl]

eBay is experimentally rolling this out -- requiring proof of ability to pay.

[luluinportland]

Thanks for that info! Are any of the apps for valuing cards worthwhile? We have looked at a few but were miffed by the difference in the ebay sales and the values listed. You have now cleared that up for us. Thank you! 

My husband's father left behind tons of unopened boxes of cards. We are just in the learning phase now, trying to figure out a sorting method to first eliminate cards under $2. So far, it has been ultra time consuming.

I want to grade the cards because we know they are pristine so likely to be 10s but that requires getting a solid value idea to know if it is worth spending the money.  Then I was thinking just list them all at fixed prices unless there is a reason to think it's better to go with an auction.

[gamersbaystore]

Beanie Babies have always been slow sellers in my experience, though profitable. I used to buy them up at local antique malls for a $1 a piece and resell them for $6 to $10.

They're the easiest items to pack and ship too, I just throw them in a bubble mailer.

The Beanie Buddies sell a lot faster and often bring more money, but they're getting harder to find nowadays.

I've got a giant storage bin full of beanies, just haven't had the time to sort thru it and list it all. Some are Holiday themed, so probably a good time to list them.

[buyselljack2016]

@luluinportland 

providing payment authorization can vary from seller to seller.

You, as a buyer, are entered into that requirement by eBay with no opt out, but sellers have the option to uncheck that "requirement" for their listings, so you may have to preauthorize with one seller for an offer, but not with another seller.

[luluinportland]

I am so embarrassed that I didn't know about this feature! I got the store because I was trying to sell books at a higher volume and then tapered off on it. I kept the store around anyway, thinking I would start back with books, but I havent done it yet - and in the meantime, never explored the sales tools features. Now I know. This forum is so helpful!

[inhawaii]

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@luluinportland wrote:

Speaking of Immediate payment, I made an offer on something last week and it asked me to provide payment authorization, which I was happy to see. But now it's gone again. 

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Seller #1) I want people to have to pay when they make an offer, that way they can't back out.

Seller #2) I don't want people having to pay when they make an offer, it scares away customers.

[chapeau-noir]

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@gamersbaystore wrote:

Welp, its going to be a long night of listing beanie babies for sale I guess, as I have a storage bin full of them. If you can't beat em, join em!

Actually, when it comes to beanie babies with provable one off errors, they are worth a fortune and do often sell for thousands, this has always been the case.

Likewise, the larger beanie buddies often sell for between $18 and $35 a piece.

lol $900,000 starting bid for a princess diana beanie baby! Maybe I should start mine at $100,000?

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What?? You gonna leave all the money on the table?

[12345jamesstamps]

When the market gets flooded with something for sale...the price goes down and down.

Such a different story: A man went around most of the USA post offices in 1930 and purchased as many Zeppelin stamps as possible when they came out. Naturally, at that time only the big cities sold them due to the face values..(.65, 1.30, 2.60) being so high and small post offices wouldn't carry them. They became very rare due to someone hoarding them. Person got caught and in big trouble. But, to this day, they are worth a lot still. 

Has to do with hoarding and then releasing the items on the market to be flooded.

And a different note with China(PRC)...during the 1960's if someone needed postage to mail something that person had to use it as postage and not take it home unused. It was against the law at that period of time to collect recent stamps. You could get arrested and go to jail. Thus...any unused or used stamps from that period of time are now worth more than earlier stamps of China. Plus, now that Chinese have more money to spend....this is like the best country to collect stamps from since the value of Chinese stamps from the 60's always go up in value.

[babyboom_toys]

They are not really selling the item listed. They are selling something else that is probably illegal- guns, drugs, etc.  They tell you to "buy" an item, then they will ship the thing you are really buying. Everything looks legit. shipped out using a tracking number, and they are getting paid.  If you look at the feedback, they will have a few actual buyers of the real item that leave negative or neutral feedback that say "they were out of stock on the item I bought", but then they relisted the same item.  Because the items they list are not really what they are selling. This has been going on for a long time and I am sure E-Bay knows about it. As long as E-Bay gets their cut (final Value fee)  and profits from illegal sales, there is no incentive to stop it.

If you see items selling for outrageous prices, this is what is happening. No one is going to pay  10,000 for an item when there are other listings selling the same thing for 10.00.

[1786davycrockett]

@luluinportland 

"I want to grade the cards because we know they are pristine so likely to be 10s"

Just because a box of trading cards has never been opened does not necessarily make them "pristine" -- there are other factors involved, as well, including centering; sharpness of corners; curling; storage stains and odors; production defects (such as "dust bubbles" from the printing process); and so on.

Additionally -- the sports card market began to implode in the late 1980s and early 1990s -- far too much product, and not enough collectors.  So hopefully your husband's late father had lots of unopened sports card boxes from BEFORE that period -- it seems that nearly every antique store that I visit has multiple tables of unopened sports card boxes from about 1987 to the present, with very few takers.

Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, I was the store manager at one of the suburban sports card stores in the Twin Cities; and the owner used to purchase huge SKIDs of cartons of sports card boxes from the distributor.  They didn't seem too rare too me at the time, and I'm glad that I never invested more than $50.00 in the entire hobby.

Balance your time compared to the possible gain, and see how that works out for you.

Good luck.

[theteamsetguy]

@luluinportland ,

This is coming from a collector for over 40 years. Just because a card came from a unopened box does not mean it will grade a 10. The typical grading company scale is as follows:

10 Gem Mint

9 Mint

8 Near Mint Mint

7 Near Mint

Especially with cards from the 1980's and newer most people unless you are a very experienced collector or dealer CANNOT tell the difference between a 8, 9 or 10. Especially with the naked eye. The reason why 10's are so valuable is less than a couple percent of the cards submitted to the grading companies come back a 10. Keep in mind the grading companies usually only get the cream of the crop.

I'm not talking about cards produced in the last 20 years. The higher percentage of cards graded 10's from the newer cards is because the quality from the factory is so much better today due to better printing and packing technology. The older cards were often damaged by the packing machines or commonly off centered. Its rare to get a new card being off centered card today. 

Even with my experience still get back less 10% of the cards I submit coming back as 10's. I will only submit a card I think will grade at least an 8 because of the grading costs.  

[luluinportland]

Thank you for that info. 

So I'm trying to understand why people think the unopened boxes post 70's are not worth anything. We heard the same thing from our local card shop owner. 

But, just a minute ago, looking at a list of cards from one manufacturer and year, I found 87 cards that sold in the last 90 days (on Terapeak) for over $100 (the highest for $1200). So to me, that means it's worth searching through those boxes. It also is not time consuming because, of those 87 cards, all were from a list of only 26 players. Those 26 names are easy to keep in one's head while doing a speed flip through a box.  

Of course, the likelihood is that you won't find any, but given that the unopened boxes are worthless on their own - or worth less than $10 in most cases - I think it's a reasonable risk vs. reward. Maybe I'm missing something though. 

[luluinportland]

Oh my goodness @babyboom_toys - you answered the question!!!!! I've been pondering this for ages, but what you said makes perfect sense. The seller needs an incentive - selling the illegal item. The buyer needs an incentive - buying it. And ebay needs an incentive to let it continue - the fees. 

That is a wild explanation though. You'd think law enforcement would be on to that as there are addresses and so forth, but I'm sure they figure out a way around it. 

Wow. Thank you so much! 

[downunder-61]

Emu ranches are just fine in the US, here down under we are down to about 6 I think........

[12345jamesstamps]

You guys have had terrible weather lately.

I don't think I could survive your weather....it's usually 50-60 degrees everyday plus rain maybe 3 months out of the winter season where I live...plus your insects and bugs and crawling things are bigger there.