Buying a collection from an uneducated seller

Market
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Is anyone else having this problem?

every time I meet with a seller that is not very educated in the Pokémon cards market, I Always have trouble negotiating a deal.

People that stumble upon a collection, or find one at a garage sale or thrift store tend to never do the research about variations or condition. They look up psa 10 prices and think that’s what their card is worth.

One guy had a bunch of heavily played holos and was trying to get top dollar psa 10 prices for each.

This is very frustrating when it happens multiple times back to back.

Has anyone else had any similar experiences?

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Tell them your price then walk away. They reach back out to you when they figure it out,

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@elvisoak I haven’t had this happen myself but could see that being a common issue. I mean, it kind of falls along the same lines as people who see a headline of some bogus news article and then start spouting it off as being fact without researching further.

Best to just make the attempt as kindly as possible to educate them a little and show exactly how prices are dictated and how theirs fit into the equation of it all. Some might be receptive to it, some might not be, but at the end of the day if it doesnt work out id just move forward. Let them try to sell at those prices somewhere else and see how far they get before they come back to your offer.

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I’ve had a few friends think this. They see the PSA 10 charizard price and think they have a gold mine. The worst offender is the 1st edition machamp that came in every starter deck. People think it’s worth a ton. Even the shadowless one isn’t worth much at all. My buddy wanted to sell me his so bad I’m like dude I have one in my cart already for $5 I don’t even need your machamp. He thought it was worth a few thousand haha

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You mean like this ? I messaged him told him it’s worth like $100. He cursed me out and blocked me.

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lol yes that’s exactly the type of sellers I am talking about

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Exactly, the amount of times I’ve had to explain to people that this card is not rare and not that valuable is unbelievable.

I wish people took the time to do some proper research before asking thousands of dollars for something that can be easily acquired for just a few bucks.

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I feel ya… all you can do is give them a fair price and they can take it or leave it. Maybe mention you have a lot experience in the hobby if your not already.

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I do this every time and it works maybe 50% of the time

The frustrating part is the amount of people that think you are just trying to pull a fast one on them

They think they have a gold mine and you are trying to rip them off

The part that bothers me the most is their lack of knowledge about the condition of the cards

People show me cards with creases and whitening on the back and call them “mint” condition lol

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Why bother with these types of “sellers”? There are plenty of people selling the same cards at reasonable prices.

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You can also get the opposite which is where I pick up most of my best deals… Someone knows the their cards have value but they are unsure how much and do not want to put in the time so they simply let it go for a decent amount of money. That was my last purchase of 1200 bucks. Got a couple stacks of base set first edition non holos and a whole bunch of unlimited holos. It was a good deal for both of us.

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Or how about how they think every old unlimited card is 1st edition. Why do you think so many eBay listings have title saying 1st edition but it’s not. And the same reason I received so many unlimited cards that were supposed to be 1st edition on tcgplayer. (Tcgplayer doesn’t include pics)

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I agree, I tend to stay away from these type of sellers

I just had this happen again very recently so I was Curious to see if anyone else has had this problem when buying a collection and how often it occurs for them

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I think you’ll find that most people on here are long past the point of bothering with these types of people. If you’re looking for cards your best bet is either eBay or making an E4 buy thread

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That’s another pet peeve of mine

They think any card they recognize from their childhood is “first edition” lol

I know it’s better to ignore these sellers but it’s just really annoying when someone tries to sell something as first edition or shadowless when it’s just a regular unlimited card

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Yea I’m just ranting at this point

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there’s a couple psa 10 sales of the 1st edition shadowless machamp on ebay that were ~1k or higher. i think they printed those in the theme deck initially, not sure when they switched to adding a shadow.

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If a seller is asking 13,000.00 for a 100.00 lot of cards then don’t waste your time. They won’t be happy.
Secondly, 99% of the time a seller writes, “I know what my collection is worth”…they don’t.

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9/10 times “I know exactly how much collection is worth” translates to “I haven’t got a clue what my collection is worth, but I’m trying to get as much money as I can!”

I avoid sellers who put that in their eBay listings. Not worth the hassle.

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“No rush to sell” Lol, and no one is in any rush to buy it. Honestly if I see a collection or card with a price many times higher than market I don’t even try, just leave them be, it’s not worth the time.

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