Readers Write; I Respond

My column on show etiquette drew an interesting response to my point about not interfering with a dealer’s transactions.  One reader wrote as follows:

“Ok... I understand your comments.  But mine - counter to ' don't interfere with business'.  I walked into a show with some high-end cards.  I just wanted to find out if they were worth slabbing and how to go about that mystical process.  2 dealers, once word had spread about what I had, ran up and offered $1000 a card and pressed their business cards in my hand.  No local dealer could help me.  But they did recommend I go to the show.  I needed help.

When I got to the grading folks' table the buzz hit higher levels and they graciously helped me.  One guy asked if I had been offered $1/2000 each yet! I Said yes - he immediately stated - make note of who they are and stay away.  They are attempting to rip you off!  These are high value.

Two weeks later I get a call.  Your cards are worth over $75,000.  A few others are the highest graded.  So, ... I understand everyone needs to eat.  But don't be a greedy bastard - I will definitely be passing around those business cards.  But, not for the reason the dealers expected.

 I loved seeing the cards, displays, etc. at the show.  But the experience sure left a sour taste in my mouth.”

This really isn’t counter to what I wrote.  He passed on the dealers’ offers and was told later by someone either standing by or working at a grading booth that those dealers were low-balling him.  I see nothing wrong with that discussion, and I applaud the protagonist for not selling something he does not fully understand, which is a practice I preach.  That said, the comment does perhaps show me a lack of precision in what I wrote, so I will clarify.  My point was not that it is ALWAYS impolite to tell people not to do business with a dealer, but that it is a serious breach of card show etiquette to tell people not to do business with a dealer WHILE YOU ARE STANDING AT HIS TABLE.  Inserting yourself into a deal in progress at a table is like standing inside a Taco Bell and telling the people waiting to order lunch that Taco Bell sucks and they should go to Del Taco instead.  It is both presumptuous of the speaker (my mother used to say: “who made you the hall monitor?”) and just plain rude to the owner and employees of the restaurant. 

I do have a bone to pick about the “greedy bastard” comment, though.  At this stage in our hyper-capitalist society being a “greedy bastard” is a synonym for being an “American”.  It’s as American as apple pie. Economically speaking, someone is going to make money on the cards; who does so is irrelevant because dealer and owner are the flip sides of the same coin.  The dealers who offered to buy the cards were just living the values that our society has chosen to elevate.  One of my favorite movies says a lot about this aspect of the American psyche, Boiler Room.  It is the story about the sleazy side of the securities market, where telephone operations solicit the public to buy stock in dodgy start-ups.  I actually did buy a turd of a stock once from a boiler room, at the start of my law career, and I learned the hard way that anyone who cold-calls you to offer you stock is offering you garbage: if it was any good, they would be buying on their own account instead of selling it to you.  Take that bit of advice to the bank.  My point about the film is that the protagonist in Boiler Room has a very specific reason for going into stocks in the first place:

“I didn't want to be an innovator anymore, I just wanted to make the quick and easy buck, I just wanted in. … Nobody wants to work for it anymore. There's no honor in taking that after school job at Mickey D's, honor's in the dollar, kid.”

This is a perfect encapsulation of the mindset of much of the hobby.  We are all looking for a way into the money, and there is no reason for us to pretend that we are any purer of spirit than anyone else. 

Big confession here: I am a greedy bastard.  I want to make as much money as I can as fast as I can.  A lowball offer I make isn’t a ‘rip off’; it is common sense. I want to buy every deal as low as I can.  It is the responsibility of the person who owns the cards to both understand what he is offering me and push back and negotiate the price with me, not respond emotionally and get offended by an offer.  There is no crying in baseball and no emotions in commerce. If you don’t like an offer either decline it and move on or negotiate, but don’t get your knickers in a twist. 

Speaking of negotiating, when I trained with the American Arbitration Association as a mediator, one thing I learned was that for many people negotiating is unnerving to the point of acute anxiety, which is a reason why they need a mediator to act as a go-between.  In my view, the main reason that some people get offended by lowball offers is that those people really dislike negotiating and may not understand a low offer is an opening offer to negotiate.  Whether that is because they don’t know how to negotiate, because they are taught that negotiation is disreputable, or because they are shy, that I cannot say.  But it is a characteristic that many Americans share and is one that they need to get past if they are going to thrive in today’s hobby.  I will give you an example.  There is one dealer I buy from at wholesale who inherited a massive inventory and basically lives off it.  He hates to negotiate, so of course, I pick large bundles of stuff from his inventory and make him negotiate over every deal.  I always get the items well below my ceiling because he doesn’t have the minerals to go at it for multiple rounds of haggling.  He offers his price, I gasp in pain and lowball, and he usually comes way down to avoid more than a round or two of back and forth.  Another dealer I also buy from at wholesale is the opposite.  He is a picker from Eastern Europe and is shameless about overpricing, but that is because he will (he expects to) haggle over his price and we only reach a pricing accord after grinding it out for several rounds.  I appreciate each perspective, but the second guy is a lot more effective at grinding out a good price. 

So yeah, I have zero sympathy for people who claim to have been ripped off but were not defrauded in the legal sense, and a philosophical bias in favor of people who shamelessly try to get the best prices they can.  Am I a greedy bastard?  You betcha.  But that just makes me a red-blooded all-American capitalist.  Hate the game, not players.

Keep the comments coming, folks, I love a good intellectual challenge to my well-considered (hah!) arguments.