Deadlord36 wrote:I could use long-term numbers for everything from gasoline to bread. 4 years ago gas was around $1.20, now it's $2.00+. Is it worth $2.00+? No, market manipulation and stock speculators have combined to drive up prices as usual. What is gas worth? From a retail point of view, it should be $1.30 or so.
myalbinogorilla wrote:I actually find Mike's site to be inconsistent in todays market. That was why I developed my own price tracking chart. (I kept getting outbid on 2nd Edition stuff and losing $ or barely profitting on 1st edition stuff at resale)On Mike's list, most of the 1st edition items are valued too high (especially Ardor and Umbar) whereas almost all of the 2nd Edition things are way too low. This is probably due to the fact that the 2nd edition items hadn't been out as long as they have been now and people may not have realized how rare some of them were at the time. 2nd edition books like The Shire, Dol Guldur, Lake-town, Hands of the Healer, Northern Waste, Angmar and Mirkwood rarely come up for auction and usually go way over Mike's pricing index.As far as my pricing goes, for bidding, I use Mike's site for most of my 1st edition estimates and round down to the nearest $5 increment (with the exception of Ardor, Umbar, Grey Mountains and Gorgoroth, whose prices are out of whack in my experience trying to sell them) I sold Frank a huge lot a few months back that was exclusively 1st edition stuff and that was how we agreed to come to our final price. When selling I usually start my bidding at an even lower price point sometimes rounding down to the nearest $10 or $15 increment. I also lower my starting prices when I relist things that didn't sell the first time. For 2nd Edition stuff I only use my chart as his numbers are too wacky.
Deadlord36 wrote:Ah, but eBay is NOT a single source. It is Thousands of collectors and resellers defining a market price thru bidding. No one individual determines the price, it is determined collectively thru multiple sales.Was my .
Deadlord36 wrote:AGAIN, Mike's info is years out of date. If it wasn't, it would be a collection of recent eBay auctions, and would be a perfectly good guideline.What you're saying is akin to saying that Pokemon cards should sell for huge money, since they did three years ago. Right now they are worth less than a U.N. resolution.
jagd wrote:Dude I don't know anything about MERP or about morgansurname or your history with Frank but just my 2 cents worth.a) Reporting 19hand to ebay was pretty low.b) Don't apologise for reselling. If there is a market for it out there then go for it. Yeah sure some people will be bitter but I'm sure you have happy customers too. It seems a lot of effort for not very much profit but if it makes you happy then go for it. As long as you keep your practices honest and fair then I don't think anyone has cause to complain.
JonOakes wrote:Hey, welcome...I just wanted to say, as an avowed FreeMarketeer, I don't think reselling is evil. However, as a member of the community of collectors I don't think its very responsible.So you have to ask yourself (and apparently you have); "Do I want to make a few bucks at the expense of being reviled by a community I consider myself proud to be a part of?"Everyone who collects, most likely, resells... it's a question of degree and to which you leverage your position in the market.Feel free to continue cornering the market on certain items and driving up prices... it's a free market and a free country... just don't be surprised if people hold you in the contempt that they hold OPEC and Microsoft as well. If it's worth it to you, great!Okay, but you've said you want out and want to rejoin the ranks of the good and noble hobbyist collectors. Cool. But you're gonna have to prove it.Lastly, incidents between individuals need to be worked out with those individuals. I don't care to sit in judgement of what happened between you and 19hand. Seems naughty to me.. but, as a third party I'll never know the whole story.Finally (err. really...Finally),WELCOME. As for me, you have a clean slate. I will only judge you by what you say and do from this point forward and we welcome any insight or knowledge you can share about the art of collecting items for this silly game.
Deadlord36 wrote:You can average the months, use some intelligence and discount idiot bidders, etc., and find a decent average. In this case it would still be $10. It really isn't that difficult to understand. Use a 6 month period. Works just fine.
Deadlord36 wrote:Morgan, what with the sky-high prices and most of your auctions going unsold, how do you make any money after listing and eBay fees?
PurpleDragon wrote:Well, if you really want to establish what these books go for on ebay, you will have to:1. gather a time stamped source for every auction involving that item every month.2. maintain that list until you have at least 60 instances (minimum is usually 30, but you invariably lose anywhere from 25-50% under validity tests, which is in step 3).3. remove any instances of the item where it has been included with other items in an auction lot; or was placed in an unusual location within ebay (listed under books or magazines, etc).4. perform a Dixon's test for outliers. This will remove instances that are far out of the range of a normal curve (such as some new ebayer paying $200 for something that is only worth $20 or a $200 item that slips through the cracks and sells for $20, the sword cuts both ways).5. Take your final sample population and derive simple statistics on it (mode, median, and mean, standard deviation, etc). You can then get into trends an so on.However, it may take some time to actually get the 60 instances that you can work with because you will have to establish a minimum level of item quality (mint, excellent, good, etc; and you will have to have a decent enough auction picture to make that judgement. Naturally, the higher the quality accepted the more accurate the final valuations.Of course, all of the above only applies if you are really going to try to establish an accurate value assessment for any collectible item. If we are just going to do an "I go by this and you go by that and mine is more valid" then you are as likely to be just as accurate if you put a bunch of prices in a hat and then pick one.
