Vintage sells a lot less volume it seems

Market
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I notice that vintage cards seem to be selling less. When searching Ebay a year ago (or less), searching a random vintage card (such as a Fossil first edition PSA 10), there were usually 4 or 5 hits at least. Now, you´re lucky to find 1 hit, and often for a price much higher than market.

Have more noticed this? I wonder if it´s that more people have the card that don´t want to sell, or if there´s something else going on such as anticipation.

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E4 is in denial about the current state of affairs. You see those all-time highs for those PSA 10s? Those are all being sopped up by true collectors, and you couldn’t get these cards back on the market unless you pried them from their cold, dead hands.

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I’ve seen fewer listings on eBay for certain desirable vintage cards. Probably reflective of the ongoing demand and the increase in IG-mediated deals.

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  1. Why sell now when prices for many of these cards seem to keep going up? Even if that means waiting a few years, the floor is pretty set on low pop blue chippers. IMO.
  2. If you bought at $15k, you’re probably not selling at $17k in the short term so hodl for a minute.
  3. Yes, off market once landed into a collector’s hands, or just remaining in collector hands since for many once it’s gone you’re not getting it back.
  4. Investor bros gotta wait for the stonkage. Or filtering into the latest greatest slaborama scheme—mystery packs and such.
  5. Need more time to farm aura.
  6. Shifting sales mediums—if you aren’t looking or able to look in the right places, they don’t exist.
  7. The higher the values go, the more some people don’t want you to know what they bought and for how much. So non platform purchases.
  8. For me personally, I have absolutely death gripped some cards now that my confidence has gone up and I know I won’t get them back AND I can see a vision of what they could be and maybe should be worth. For other cards I have, gains realized, buh bye, I’ll take it in a lower grade or another language.
  9. Waiting for the annual summer slow down to end and get them to market or just wait for peak selling season.

I’m sure there are more and better and more nuanced or informed perspectives, but these are my thoughts as I’ve noticed the same.

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I just responded to someone who made a great offer that might be relevant to this thread, “Your offer is fair, but I’m tired of seeing a once in a lifetime card I sold double or triple next month”.

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Weird, I said something similar to a buyer today. I have seen this sentiment growing as cards jump 10x last year’s prices and 2x, 3x, 5x last month’s prices. Of course, this cannot sustain forever, but greedy hands come with deaf ears.

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I bought this card for $30. Sold it for $7,500 earlier this year. Then I see this. I’m done selling my more expensive cards.

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This has been my response, but for much lower rarity cards. I don’t need to sell, and the price will probably double before I need to sell it.

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ok but imagine being the guy who sold it to you, it could be worse

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one thing u can do is try to sell ur “high cost basis” stuff before ur “low cost basis”… idk if its really the best strat but it would help avoid something like this :rofl:

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Lol I bought it from cardrushinc about 8 years ago. Dude has always had some crazy inventory.

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Agree. There is so little mew grails out there in a 10

I haven’t seen a single japanese 1st ed goldstar on ebay or fanatics in 5 years lol. About 2 or so english ones. A single ued jp

Have more noticed this? I wonder if it´s that more people have the card that don´t want to sell

You wonder right

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To echo others, for so many that have managed to secure them, these are probably lifelong grails that now have a permanent home. Even those who would consider selling are finding it harder to part unless a life circumstance requires liquidating.

Also, not sure if you meant eBay only or online sales/auctions in general, but there is plenty of it on Fanatics and Heritage every week - and setting new sales records all the time. Not to mention the proliferation of card shows and IG private sales means more avenues than ever to move inventory for cold, hard cash.

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Interested in what you mean by 6 here. I mostly looking at cardshows and travel to some of the bigger ones. I assume you’re talking about private Instagram sales?

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Yeah, this has been true for so many years now. The card you sell today (vintage) will be sold for 1k more next week, if not 5.

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I could tell you but then…you know the rest

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If you gotta sell, sell what you can get more of.

For context, and you can read if you want more personal details:

I was hospitalized last year, and even with insurance, the costs wiped out my emergency fund. So, I sold things to quickly recover that fund, and while I sold a few things that I would not sell now (including 2 scream ducks), I consider this: I felt I needed the cash right then, it scared me a little, and didn’t want to call :musical_note: :musical_notes: J.G. Wentworth. :musical_notes:
If you Make choices based on reasoned conclusions, even if reasoned partly incorrectly; Determine what you truly need; What you want/don’t truly want in life; Then Have no regrets.

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@TRUTHNUKE ^

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A Top Seika vintage card set in near-miracle

condition remains unsold on a Japanese auction right now.

I was truly blown away that these cards are kept

in such pristine, top-grade condition without even

being inside any sleeves or protective cases.

-–

日本のオークションには、奇跡に近い状態の

ビンテージカード（トップ製菓）が売れずに残っていますよ。

私は、スリーブやケースに入っていない状態のカードなのに、

状態が最高級で残っていることに、本当にビックリしました。