Trading at card shows

Welcome to the Sports Card Lessons podcast with your host, Big Ken. A retired teacher bringing you lessons each week. He's learned in the hobby by taking you behind the table and inside the mind of a dealer and a collector. Sit back and relax. There won't be a test. The only thing being graded here is the cards. Welcome to the Sports Card Lessons podcast. Your host, Big Ken. Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on a streaming service, please, like, subscribe. Hit that notification bell so you'll be notified whenever I drop any new content. What is going on? Thanks for being here. Happy Sunday. Only one show this weekend, but definitely one of my favorites. And not because it's an easy drive with. That definitely helps. I was set up with one half of Bill and Billy sports cards yesterday. Billy made the trip with me. We set up together. Billy just graduated high school, so congrats to you. He'll be off to college in August, so I'm gonna miss him. I'm gonna miss him at the shows. The Causeway show, presented by Card Vault by Tom Brady in Boston. That's a mouthful. This show always seems to have the right mix of dealers, attendees, people buying, people selling, and there always seems to be enough to go around for everyone, a ton of liquid inventory. This is a show, you know, you're going to show up to and just see some amazing cards and find cards you're going to want to buy regardless of who's in your PC. Right. You know, a lot of times we go to shows and you'll see people have one or two this, that in their case. But this is one of those shows just go in and people really bring out some, some heavy ammunition for the show. It's. I love to get that, get up there, set up early and just go walk around. I mean, I don't buy any, some of the these big cards, but I definitely like to walk around and check them out. I'm not gonna lie, I was a little nervous about this June show because I know last year's June show was their slower show of the year. They did one in August last year, too, which was also slow. But this year they've switched it up so there's no August show. It'll be September now, which is. Which I'm happy to see. But been talking about this all along, right? This is the time of year you start to see a little slowdown on foot traffic. And although this show wasn't as busy as it usually is, It wasn't as slow as I expected it to be. There was definitely some Good amount of foot traffic in that room. Lots of buyers and it was just steady all day. It was one of those just steady stream of people all day long. Lots of buyers, lots of sellers and. And shout out a couple shout outs. I did a couple deals early. First, first shout out is to my guys at AR underscore 15. First deal of the day. Before the show even started, I got set up and I walked around. You know, I'm going to Chicago in July. Super excited to pick this card up. It's a 24, 2024 select. Caleb Williams TRI Color Prism PSA10 numbered to 149. If you're on YouTube, I'm holding that card up again. Super excited to have that to bring to Chicago. And also 2022 mosaic Patrick Mahomes Honeycomb PSA 10 also gonna hold that up. So shout out to you guys for the early deal of the day. Another, another deal I want to shout out is my girl at Kate Underscore Floridia. We did a trade. She pulled some cards out of my bo. Able to trade for this Asia Wilson Auto. It's the Panini Instant. I'm just going to hold that up and it is numbered to 10. So excited to have that too. I think probably very underrated player right now. Asia Wilson, I have to say. So that was a trade and I have to say I don't do much trading and not because I don't want to, but the opportunity doesn't happen that often for me. Usually I'm either buying, I'm selling, we're making a deal. But very rarely do I do. I do straight up trades or, you know, take cards. And I used to trade. If you go back on the podcast, I used to do a lot of leveling up. I used to like to try trade up, like trade, you know, two, three, four, five cards up to one card, like work, working that way. Got away from that a little bit. But as a dealer, I don't really see trade opportunities showing up to my table that often. I talked about getting this new banner that I've. I set up now, you know, over the, over my table and this is my third show setting up at. And on the banner it says buy, sell, trade. And this show, my third show with the banner, people actually reading it. I had a number of people coming up and they're like, oh great, you trade. And we're initiating more trade deals. So, you know, I set up all the time. I have a buying sign I just put on my table. So obviously people know I'm Buying. I never would have really thought to put a trade sign up there, but I guess it's important, right? I had the, that Otani I talked about last week that I picked up at the Hamden card show. In fact, all those cards I picked up last week that I talked about having cards in my case to actually sell this week I sold every single one of those cards. Happy to do it. That was the plan. The plan worked perfectly. The Otani card that I picked up, I had a guy come up to the table, said, oh, I see you trade, pointing at my sign. He was interested in that Otani card and he had a Bo Jackson card. And I'll just, I'll put this card up. It's the 88 tops. Raiders team, Bo Jackson all, all alone, PSA 10. So. Bo Jackson, that Bo Jackson. The Last sale was $118. My Otani last sold for $110. So we're $8 apart. So I offered him, I said, look, I'll do a straight up trade card for card. And he said, okay, do you have like a ten dollar card you want to throw in? I didn't have any ten dollar cards, but I said no, why would I throw a ten dollar card in? He said, well, how about you just give me $10, we'll do, you know, you're, you give me $10 in the trade. And I said no. I said, I think these two, there were $8 apart on these two cards. I mean, I think we could just, I think it's a pretty fair, fair trade card for card. He said, well, you want to give me $8? I said, no, I, I don't, I just, let's just make the trade. I mean, why, why are we worried about $8 on these two cards? Well, do you have something else you can throw in? I said, a handshake. I don't know know what you're looking for. We're only $8 apart and if we go back probably 3, 4 sales on both cards, we're probably dead even on that because we're just looking at the last sale on the cards. The very last sale on the cards, cards. So he was thinking about it. So I asked him like, and, and I don't know, maybe this comes off the wrong way as a dealer. Maybe I'm gonna get beat up in the, in the comments. But you know, what's the value of me being here, set up at this show, being able to offer you this opportunity? You know, I mean, it's $8. He thought I was Being funny, but I, I just think there's some more seriousness in there than that. When, when, when we're within $8, I think that that's probably a home run. I, I don't know many deals I do that I'm within $8 away, and I've lost tons of deals for $5. Because people, you know, it's not about the money at that point. It's about winning. It's about winning. Winning the, winning the deal. And I understand people want to get as much for their cards as they possibly can, but I think sometimes that, you know, people at card shows, they forget about the dealers on the other side. I mean, we paid more than an entrance fee to be here. And, and somewhere along the line, you know, they, they have to understand it's not about winning or losing, right? It's, it's, it becomes a little bit more than that. I'm not saying I'm passing my, my expenses, my dealer expenses off to all the attendees that come in, but it's, it's part of a business plan, right? I mean, it has to work. If I'm showing up and I can't recoup any money for the. What. Why am I doing it? Right? So sometimes I just think we lose sight when negotiating, you know, that, that people feel we're on even playing ground, you know, playing equal, you know, playing field. So if you, they, you know, an attendee comes in and now we're here negotiating, I, I think they feel like we're standing outside doing this. Not like I' showed up to a show. You've put all these expenses out for it to be a dealer, right? And, and I'm, I am not going to take that into consideration at all. And I don't expect, like, when I'm doing a deal, I don't expect an attendee to think of, think that. But they should think that we're here to make money, right? I mean, you have to understand that that's just, and saying that doesn't make it any better or any worse. You have to understand we're here to make money. I mean, if we're not, we're not making money here, then what are we doing? And I know doing this long enough. I know the attendees think we're all killing it. Like we're all making a fortune doing this. And I know people look at me sometimes, they're like, oh, you know, can you, you can't give me a better deal than that. I mean, you're crushing it over, like, what, Wait, what it's a lot of work to be crushing it. And, and Big Ken's not crushing it all the time. I can't tell you how many times people walk up to my table, I buy a card from them and they already have a set price in mind. They're like, oh, you're gonna make a hundred dollars on that. Ah, you're gonna make 200 on that car. I hope so. I always, I, I always tell them, I wish it was that easy. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I mean, every car is diff. Card is different. Every, every, you know, negotiation is different. Every transaction is different. You, the people coming, you have collectors that just come up and buy cards and you have flippers that come up and it's, you know, they, it's all about the percentages and, and you know how they're, they're walking up to the table saying, what, how much can I make if I buy that card? How much can I make? So on my end of the table, why, why it shouldn't be any different for me on, on the other side of the table, but at the end of the day, right, we're there to buy some really cool cards and, oh, yes, make some money. We ended up getting the deal done. And maybe this is why I don't trade that much. Like, I, My viewpoint of that, that transaction, I thought to myself, that was probably 15, 10 to 15 minutes longer than it, than it should have been. I mean, that d. That should have been. We looked, we looked. You had a. I want your card, you want my card? There, Just make the deal. You hand me yours, I'll hand you mine, we'll shake hands and we can move on. But we did this whole dance is 10 to 15 minute dance. And, and it was really to a point where he just knew that I wasn't gonna budge. So if he really wanted that card, we were going to do it. That he wanted my card more than I wanted his card at that point. When I started setting up as a dealer, I watched and observed all the people. Like I, I would find people who I felt were successful around me and I'd watch how they did business, right? I'd listen to what they say, watch what they did, how they did it, and try to emulate and just take from it what I thought I could be successful with. With. And at that time, it was the norm that when trading, the dealer always took a premium. You know, some people agreed and some people didn't. I always thought if someone was trading up, they should pay a little Premium. I'm always happy and I was always happy to pay a premium to trade up in cards. But if it's an even trade, personally what I think, and, and you know how I view it as a dealer, if we're within 10 of that, it's probably just a pretty fair trade because you know, when you're looking at comps on, on, you know what cards have sold for, I mean they're not all selling at exactly the same price. They're, they're up and down both. I, I don't care what card. They're all within a few dollars here and a few dollars there and a few dollars. So I mean if you go back and you went back 3 and averaged or 5 and averaged or 10 and average, I bet you're, you're pretty close, almost dead even on, on those cards. Unless one card is spiked way up or way down recently, it's probably a pretty fair trade. And, and in this instant with, with him, if the role was reversed, I wouldn't have been asking him for $8. I wouldn't say oh, oh it's you need to give me $10 on top of it or $8 on top. I wouldn't been asking him for the difference. I'm still fine to make that deal within 10% as long as it's a card that I wanted. But now that I have this trade posted on my banner, I'm gonna have to sharpen up my, my trading skills. Another quick story. About three years ago, my, my guy Zip from the hobby shop came to my house. I had a box of soccer cards. I'd been ripping a bunch of soccer back in 2020, ripping everything back in 2020, 2021, UFC, soccer, baseball, football. So I had a box of soccer cards and I knew Zip was a soccer guy. So I said, hey, while you're here, can you go through this box? Just let me know if there's anything in anything of decent value. And it was a five row box. So he pulled a bunch of cards out. But you know, one of the cards, long story short, one of the cards he pulled out was a 2021 prism, silver prism, flow, Baligan, Baligan. See, I practice this and then I, I gotta practice these names. So the U S. Soccer player. So I sent, I sent to, I sent it out to PSA, came back at 10. At that time the price was way down. I put it in my box. I, I, he was just a fresh name at that time, obviously a rookie card. Fast forward to Friday night, the opening game for U s Men's World cup soccer. He scores two goals in the opening game Friday night. So see, if this happened, I go look for this card because I know I have it. Go run back to the office because I've already got the car packed up, ready to go. So I go back, I get this card, I, I look up the prices. So within the first hour, you know, of, of what I saw was like $174 sale. You know when, when of that night? Friday night. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna throw it in. I'll price it, I'll price it at 300. I thought because I don't want, I don't know where the other sales are going to go. I put it in my case. Saturday morning, within the first hour of the show, someone walked up, saw the car and said, can I see that? Yep, took the card, said, all right, just paid me 300 for it. I was excited, but then I was like, oh crap, did I sell that card too cheap? Should I have rechecked comps this morning on that card? So as he walked away, I was like, oh no. I pull out my phone and I see the 174 sale. But after I went to, went to bed, there were three more sales at 215, 227, 230. So I, I did fine. And I was thinking, oh my God, I crushed that. Like I, I, I absolutely crushed that car. I'm glad I put 300 on it, right? And the person bought it. No negotiation, nothing. Just. And that was, that's what made me nervous. I'm like, oh, that, that never happens. There was, there was another sales early Saturday morning. That was the card with, they were asking 350, but it was a best offer accepted. And I didn't actually go back to see what that best off offer was, but. Nothing to worry about. I did just find on that card. And that card may go up even more from there, right? It may. But from where I got it, when I got it, how long I've had it, that that was an absolute perfect story and a happy ending for that card. My other pickups this week up there. And I always get really cool pickups at this show and that's, I always say what I love about this show because I think it's probably one of the better buying shows that so many cards come up to the table. So many Brady. I mean, if you're a Tom Brady guy and you love, I mean some of those cards are just not within reach or, or people are very high on the prices. But if you like to see some cool Tom Brady cards, that is the place. I mean so many Brady cards come through that room. More in that room than I've seen at any other show. Speaking of Tom here, one of his nemeses, right Peyton Manning. This QB QB Bling auto number to 41 Peyton Manning. If you're on YouTube I'm holding that up. Another really cool card. Jamir Gibbs rookie Panini Black rookie rookie dual patch. It's a RPA to 99. And then a couple cards you probably wouldn't expect me to have picked up. But I did pick up a 1976 tops. Terry Bradshaw PSA6, a 1955 Bowman, Lou Graza PSA8. And a 1954 Bowman. Frank Gifford PSA 7 and I share these with you. I've been picking up this old any of these older football cards that come to my table that are PSA graded and the price is right. I just think on a lot of these cards the prices are right right now. So I've just been picking them up. No, no future plans to do anything with them. Just like I said, if the price is right I'm picking them up because I I don't know a lot of people that are buying those cards out there. So sometimes when people are trying to sell them and there's not many people in the room buying, you can get good deals on these cards. Next week EC3 con at Mohegan Sun. That's a two day show next weekend. So that's where I will be next weekend. Thursday night with zip and the Hobby Chop. If he's feeling better he had he called out sick last Thursday. Hopefully he'll be back and I will be back next Sunday with a brand new episode. Until next time, take care of yourselves and everyone around you. It.