Alright y’all, I’m going through learning to deal with my first “boom” since I got super-serious with the hobby around late 2021. I’ve spent most of my few years collecting in the relative calm of 2022-2024 so I’m seeing some crazy things I’m not used to. One of them is auctions going way higher, in some cases significantly higher, than buy-it-nows. Now don’t get me wrong, I can understand if maybe the auction card is a particularly nice copy, maybe it has a swirl, etc etc… but I’m seeing this happen ALLL the time now.
Auction cards on eBay and Fanatics are going for wayyyy more than BIN’s on eBay. Several cards I’ve been eyeballing on Fanatics are already a lot higher than I could just buy them for on eBay and the night is young.
I know gambling addition is a real thing and I wonder how much the “thrill” of the auction is influencing this. Or shilling. Or inexperienced buyers. Maybe all of the above? Just kind of thinking/rambling out loud. Are y’all noticing a lot of this too?
Shilling and the reality that many buyers dont check bins before bidding. Could be other factors like cleaner or better centered copies or newer/older certs.
I think the main thing is people dont check bins 100% of the time, especially across multiple platforms
I think the biggest reason is that many people simply see something they want and pursue it without shopping around. It’s something you see at conventions too. I constantly see people purchasing cards in person for more than BINs or even more than a vendor a couple tables away.
On multiple occasions I’ve tried getting vendors to match an active BIN price and they wouldn’t budge because they know most people won’t take the time to cross shop as long as there price is reasonable.
On the flip side I have also sold cards I didn’t really want to then immediately purchased it in the same grade for a lower price off of eBay and pocketed the difference.
+1 to what others have said. One other rational reason I’d add is to make sure to compare like-for-like sellers.
It makes sense to me that sellers like Fanatics or the direct from PSA Vault auctions (and many other high-rep eBay sellers) sometimes get a bit of a premium because there’s a higher trust factor that the product is there and will get shipped (not always a guarantee on eBay…), already “authenticated” (if in the Fanatics/PSA vault already, so no extra round of “authentication guarantee” shipping if the listing has it), and you know there’s a relatively reliable seller behind it.
I dont think it’s sad.
You get authenticity guarantee if it’s US
Just last week I reported a sale of a certain 4 cert psa10 gold star japanese charizard. The cert has been deactivated because scammers use that cert. The real owner of the card has a full collection of gold stars and this one is included in his set registry which is public with image. The one for sale was clearly a different card. Despite being a deactivated cert Ebay seemingly didnt care and lets the sale proceed. someone ends up getting scammed in the end
I always prefer US sellers
Yeah fine let’s take the assumption that all the cards are authentic, it’s still very consistent behavior that sales end higher in the US than the same card outside the US