Feces Flinging Chimps

No, not politicians.

George Carlin would have been right at home on eBay. He once said: “Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.” I’ve had some particularly interesting encounters with nitwits, halfwits and dimwits on eBay, with one connecting thread between them: an absolute, shameless confidence that they are 100% right.

The latest one was a doozy. I sold a lot of 100+ year old postcards with scans front and back at a buck each. Evidently, the buyer expected something else, because this is what I woke up to one morning:

"Hello, These cards are trash. Some things aren't worth selling. This one is on me. Best way to lose a customer. If I can't leave good feedback I won't leave any. The End!"

Lose a customer who bitches about the condition of dollar cards that were shown in high-res scans? Well…Bye. I am going to leave it alone so I don't have to deal with retaliatory feedback but what I wanted to respond with was: "That was a bit over the top, wouldn't you say, over ten bucks? Don’t you people have lives?"

People bitch all the time about the lack of true auctions on eBay. Well, if they had to deal with the bottom-feeders who buy cheap cards, they might understand. I got a laugh out of this one. I started a bunch of 1950s-1960s baseball cards at $0.99 each with a $1.01 shipping cost. A guy won two of them for the opening and asked for a combined shipping discount. On two bucks! What kind of person spends time on that??? Answer: the kind who bid on dollar lots on eBay. Another one won a few lots and sent me a demand that I ship them all for one shipping fee even as the increased weight pushed up the shipping cost. I can’t hit the “block bidder” function fast enough.

I have a simple request and project for collectors and dealers: please stop lying. This hobby is in an epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing, and I don’t mean just the big scams, robberies and burglaries that seem to plague every show and make the news. Lying has become part of the everyday dealings between collectors and dealers and amongst collectors to an extent I have never seen before. At shows, I have a continual stream of people misrepresenting facts about the cards they want, like trying to convince me that the valuable short print in a small regional set is just a common or would-be sellers lying about what they are selling. Outside the show context I receive waves of inquiries about buying my stuff with all manner of bullshit reasons and falsehoods. People swear it is for their personal collection, and the item is on eBay minutes after it is delivered. Auctioneers play fast and loose with contract terms, leaving a wake of unhappy consignors. No one wants to step up and deal with the inevitable mistakes and losses. An expensive card never reaches the person it was sent to and somehow it is the fault of the recipient, who is told to make an insurance claim, or to wait for a dealer’s insurance claim. I had a rare racing postcard listed at $20. Someone watched it so I offered a 10% discount. Here is the PM I received:

“Thanks so much for the offer but would you consider taking any less for it? Like maybe $12? I would love to get this for my Dad for his birthday! Fireball Roberts was his favorite driver and I know that he would love this! My Dad was actually at the race in Charlotte when Fireball crashed and died. I promise that I’m not trying to lowball you or anything, I just have 6 kids and money is always an issue, so I’m just trying to make it affordable to be able to get it for him, thanks.”

Now, I don’t do sob story discounts, but I was curious, so I checked feedback. This buyer posing as a neophyte trying to get Dad a present has hundreds of transactions in cards and sports memorabilia as a purchaser with dozens just in the last month referencing family members’ various birthdays and favorite athletes as the excuse for the purchase.

I get the temptation when there is a lot of money at stake, but this everyone trying to rip off everyone else all the time has to end. Never mind that it is terrible for the hobby, it is boring and unimaginative.

And last, let me fling some feces at us vintage collectors. You’ve probably read the press on the most expensive card ever, which is not a T206 Wagner or a 1952 Topps Mantle. It is a modern “logoman” card hard signed by Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Now, before I commence the poo tossing, let me just throw out there that as a fan and collector, I think any card signed by two of the greatest scorers in history is a pretty damned cool card. But for over $12 million? Not even if I had billions to play with. There are over 100 hard-signed MJ/Kobe cards out there; one of those would be just fine. The Logoman card also just doesn’t interest me that much; I don’t care for manufactured memorabilia. I’d far prefer a signed RC of each, together with signed RCs of Chamberlain, Russell, Erving, Bird, Magic, LeBron, Kareem…and a beach house. But that’s my idiosyncratic taste, not finance. Besides the fact that we need to tax the rich a hell of a lot more than we are, the interesting thing about the sale is how the buyers (Kevin O’Leary, Matt Allen and Paul Warshaw), who fessed up shortly after the sale, characterized it. O’Leary compared the purchase to a fine art purchase:

“I've kind of looked at the research back in contemporary art and modern art. The majority of the capital gains accrue to the rarest (Jackson) Pollocks or, you know, Warhol pieces that are extraordinarily priced. You think and then you wait a decade and look at them again and see you get extraordinary capital gains. It's a very thin market, but as an alternative asset class, I'm all in."

A disclaimer: I am not related to one of the buyers (Paul Warshaw) as far as I know.

The vitriol and contempt from us vintage collectors that came pouring out after this sale was a sad commentary on us. The fact that cards are moving from a passion of weirdos in church basements to an actual asset class that investors consider as seriously as fine art should be grounds for celebration, especially for those of us with substantial collections and a need for an exit strategy as we age. Treating cards just like any other element of a hard asset class in a portfolio is something that a lot of us do (even if we sometimes don’t admit it) and that I have been struggling to get others to see for quite some time, ever since I somewhat shamefully came out to my then-girlfriend as a card collector some 30+ years ago.

Lemme cynically throw this out there: We vintage guys are tossing doody at the Logoman sale not because an investor group gambled on it but because these investors are padding their portfolio with stuff that isn't what we own and will need to sell. If these guys had paid twelve million bucks for a rare vintage Babe Ruth card, I know I'd be (1) thrilled and (2) trying to offer them my rare vintage Babe Ruth cards.

My hope is that investors like this help further the case for treating cards as an asset class worthy of investment and that the effect spreads to vintage cards too. Cards selling for record prices and making the national news is a net positive for all of us collector/investors, even if the buyers aren’t into our specific part of the hobby. So put down the poop.