Ever have something that seems rare, and then 50 of them show up for sale?
Summary: sin-n-dex discussed encountering a situation where items thought to be rare, specifically banknotes, suddenly flooded the market, impacting potential sale prices. They plan to list these banknotes competitively, despite challenges in selling from Canada and misperceptions about tariffs. grann-4629 and sakic92710 commented on similar challenges with market saturation and pricing strategies, emphasizing the randomness of a product's perceived rarity. bashort advised focusing on personal pricing strategies rather than market asking prices, noting that truly rare items should sell quickly.
So imagine you have sourced something and you do you research, and it seems pretty rare. There's only 1 or 2 of them for sale on the entire eBay site, and the price looks really great, so you list yours along with the others.
Then at some point in the future 50 of them show up for sale... And the person with 50 of them is asking a very low price, maybe less than what you paid for yours (which seemed to be a good deal when you bought it and thought it was rare).
I sourced some "new old stock" of banknotes in the past week, and I'm about to list 50 of a lot of "rare" stuff. One item listed is at $300, it's a set of 1978 Coronation banknotes, 4 issues, same serial number on all. There's only one for sale, and it's the $300 listing. I just got a partial bundle of all four issues, all same serial numbers... I can list about 15-20, and I'm not going to list mine for $300.
From the looks of my inventory, the dealer has been in business since about 1980. Anything that had legal tender value has been liquidated as spending money, but all his new-old stock of outmoded issues in uncirculated condition are things that there are not many of on eBay. Most aren't listed for stupid prices, but a few things I have are.. I price to sell. One bundle I have is listed for $1300 USD. The notes are worth $4-5 each, so 100 notes should be $400-500 retail. Mine will go up for $400. I might sell mine... I doubt the other guy will ever sell his.
I have a little problem making sales (and it was in today's Canadian news). A lot of people don't know the difference between "made in Canada" and "shipped from Canada" and don't realize the tariffs don't apply to goods shipped from Canada that were made elsewhere, so it's an uphill battle. (Plus banknotes and coins that are legal tender or were legal tender have no tariffs anyway...) So while I have all this "great stuff" to list, I'm not sure if even I can sell any of it.
C.
bashort
路3 weeks agoasking prices are not a good way to value anything, I would just list for what I wanted and wait, iy they are rare they should be quickly gone
sin-n-dex
OP3 weeks agoThere's way more listed than sold... I tried to look at sold prices but a lot of what I have hasn't sold recently, so I'm just planning to compete with what's listed (but at a price I want and not worry about how crazy the online prices are). I figure if I have 600 bundles of banknotes, they can't be all that rare.
sakic92710
路3 weeks agoSeveral sellers ask for high prices. Even on items that are not rare. All of the time, I see random sports cards selling for $3-5, but someone will list theirs at $25. Just in the hopes a sucker comes along. If I have something that has no competition & cannot find a price, I might go high simply because I have no idea on the value. If it is old & unique. I will sell for what someone is willing to pay - within reason. 5% of my asking? No! 40%? Most likely.
Selling from Canada was difficult enough before THAT THING got back in the W.H. I posted an item that seems to be a popular seller as 7 have sold in 8 weeks. Mine? Posted with free S/H & zero views. Nice! lol
grann-4629
路3 weeks agoIf your glorious leader hasn't yet, he will soon be adding a tariff to everything. That was the first word he ever spoke and it's the only thing he knows. Get ready and best of luck 馃槑
sakic92710
路3 weeks agoSin-a-dex, along with myself, are Canadian. We can't be blamed for THAT THING in the White House.
sin-n-dex
OP3 weeks agoI'm in Canada, he's not my leader. The being in Canada problem is secondary to the original point in my post.
grann-4629
路3 weeks ago@sin-n-dex Good to hear! When we bought our first Jeep in 1992, there were very few of them around. About a month after we bought it, we saw lots of them ... there must be some kind of rule or law here here, like Murphy's.
sin-n-dex
OP3 weeks agoSounds like you picked up something that became popular around the time you bought it. I did some searching for my inventory online and there's a few sellers that have bundles of banknotes, most are selling modern notes and the dates I have are much older than what's usually here, but a few sellers have some new-old stock issues from the 1980s. I'm figuring $1 a note, so $100 a bundle on average, some may be worth a bit more or less.
grann-4629
路3 weeks ago 路 EditedNice. Hope you are able to sell these and make some bucks.
ETA: I'm looking at a few of your Easter Island fantasy coins ... very cool. Curious why your prices are in US dollars.
sin-n-dex
OP3 weeks agoThis account posts on .com, I ship from NY, I used to have my item location as NY before the tariffs, but due to animosity between Canada and the US with some people, I don't want anyone being upset that I'm on the Canadian side of the border, so I changed my location. My sales went severely downhill when that happened, but I've got a store on the Canadian eBay on another account.