Of course, this was in the days before hobby vs. retail, jersey patch cards, autograph inserts and serial numbered cards. In fact, when he started getting in the 1990 Upper Deck, and packs went up to $1 apiece, is when I started to lose interest in collecting (the first time).  I probably hung on a bit for a year or so after that, but it was never quite the same.

Fast forward about 20 years, and while I still think owning a card shop would be cool, I don't have the same passion for the industry I once did.  In fact, I don't believe I've bought a pack in at least two years, which goes a long way to explaining why I hardly ever post anything here anymore. I still stop into my local card shop somewhat frequently, but mostly because I've become friends with the owner, and I've done some business with him (selling cards and building websites).

While the concept of running a card shop still appeals to me, I also seriously doubt that the hobby could support many more stores in our market--there are at least four physical stores in the Twin Cities (although one focuses on vintage stuff), fairly spread out--even if I were to want to look at opening one, the best markets would be considerably out of the way for me.

However, being a bit of a web geek, the idea of starting an online shop has also always been in the back of my mind.  The main reasons for not doing so are that, while I am a web geek, I'm not really a technical web geek, so coding a shop (even starting with an open source platform) would have been a time consuming challenge, and the payment gateways that allow you to take credit cards typically charge fees that would discourage somebody from dabbling in running a store.

However, a couple months back, I came across an article in a magazine about a service called Goodsie, which was an online ecommerce platform designed to make it easy for not-so-technically savvy people to put up a ecommerce store. I filed it away, but then came across another article a few weeks ago talking about it, and took it to be a sign that I should at least check it out.

So I started playing around with it, and found it fairly interesting--setup was a breeze, design wasn't too hard (not that I've pushed the envelope there), and product entry was relatively painless.  It's not perfect, but I've had a positive enough experience that I thought I would open it up to the public and see what happens.

So, if you have a few minutes, please check out www.TheSportsCardMarket.com and let me know what you think.

A couple of things--there's only about 20-30 cards on there right now (all football right now), and I never expect to be a super high volume seller--more just selling off some of the stuff from my collection that I think people might be most interested in, at prices that I think are reasonable. If you'd like to find out if I have more cards of a player, or haggle on a price, in most cases I'll be open to it--think of it as an eBay store that is more open to communicating and with fewer fees for me as a seller.

So let me know what you think!

Check out my other football related blog, atZoneBlitz.com

Starting a New Venture

I'm sure I'm not the first to have the thought--in fact, I've discussed it before at my local card shop.  But I've not seen a lot of press about it online (very possible I've just missed it--I just really started getting into the hobby blogosphere recently--if you have an article on your blog about it, please send me the link, and I'll link to it).

Just think about it:

• Beckett sets the value for cards across the hobby (with a great deal of research, I'm sure, although I tend to think some of that is hogwash, just based on some common values, and the consistency of some cards, but that's a whole 'nother topic that may deserve its own post). 
• Beckett also grades cards.  In and of itself, that should be fine, even with the fear that I know some of my fellow collectors have about Beckett possibly not returning the same cards that were sent in.
• However, Beckett also has an online marketplace, which I'm assuming they make money on, whether it's a percentage of sale like eBay, or just a listing payment from sellers (I wasn't easily able to figure that out on their site--a whole 'nother topic, and likely a whole 'nother post).
• Finally, from the T206 article, Beckett is also now (or has been for awhile?) putting on their own auctions, through the Beckett Select Auctions division of Beckett Media.

So, how is this a conflict of interest?

Well, might there be any pressure to grade some of those T206 cards as 3's rather than as 2.5's, so that the auction price goes up a little more, thereby raising their commissions?  Similarly, might there be some encouragement to to make sure that other cards are graded a little higher, or that non-graded prices are kept higher, so that their marketplace (and even the overall market) keeps going strong?

Of course, if that's the case, we're all sitting on a time bomb of a hobby.  Although personally, I'm assuming that Beckett has some safety systems in place to ensure that one hand isn't influencing the other--although it would be nice to hear more about them.  And anyway, I'm guessing that one little old blogger, writing his 6th post for his site, isn't likely to change the world.  At least not overnight.

Check out my other football related blog, atZoneBlitz.com

Beckett: Case Study for Conflict of Interest?