STATUS OF THE MARKETPLACE–ABSOLUTELY A BUYER’S MARKET But there are several caveats to be aware of
Since I am a buyer and a seller, participating in everything Columbiana, I observe all of the activity on the internet. This obviously includes that on ebay, but it also includes auctions and discussions with other sellers and my customers. Saying “it’s a buyer’s market” would usually require a bit of background and explanation. Unfortunately that is unnecessary as anyone spending any time shopping for Columbian items or active selling, the state of the marketplace is obviously stuck in the doldrums as it has been for months. That doesn’t automatically mean prices will suddenly drop across the board.
It is unusual to be so unequivocally “down.” When there have been lulls in selling (and of course they happen occasionally for many reasons) one can usually benefit by shopping more, not less. And when selling is slow, buying is usually better.
If you look at ebay with multiple searches (I’ve found that most collectors have a few specific searches they use all the time), you’ll discover opportunities but along with them, plenty of frustration. Do you have other specific searches that you use that you would like to share, or are you understandably playing it close to the vest since having a unique search (that has proven to find what others may not) can often turn up many items NOT found on ebay with typical searches. Following are just a few pretty obvious searches:
World’s Columbian Expo(sition), Columbian Expo(sition), Chicago 1893, world’s fair 1893, Chicago World’s Fair.
And of course you can save time and perobably do just as well by narrowing your search criteria. If you specialize in medals you can search medals or better, add “medal(s)” to the above searches.
Even using searches that seem quite similar–World’s Columbian vs. Columbian Expo for exammple– I’m continually surprised how different the results can be. Narrow your searches if you only want tickets, for example; if glasses, medals, tokens et al are things you do NOT want, be specific. And refine those specifics. Don’t stop at “Columbian medals,” also search for “Columbian tokens. State specific and use key words that are what YOU collect: Books, medals, tickets, glassware, etc. It is important to remember that slight changes can double (or halve) your results. If you have the time and patience you can expand your search dramatically. If you only search general vs specific key words you will get what you asked for: Probably far more general items than you want. You may also find a surprisingly larger number of listings if you also search with the selling “Colombia(n)!” Assume items you want may well never show up because a seller can’t spell!
I’m hardly perfect in how I search. If you are searching for items as a seller, your success rate is a mere fraction of collectors’. You may find the items but this brings up another subject–and frankly an ugly one! Asking prices.
I have discussed many times the problems one encounters searching on ebay. Overpricing is an epidemic that won’t ever be cured. You must be prepared to find a great number of items of interest that aren’t even close to what you would expect to pay.
This takes me back to my starting point a few paragraphs ago. Yes, it is a buyer’s market. I am not basing this on having wonderful luck buying on ebay or elsewhere. The first problem is that overpricing. And I’m frankly surprised that most sellers are either oblivious to the lower demand or so stubborn that they will absolutely not lower their price. And this doesn’t account for the sellers who know very little about what they’re selling.
I have seen so many incorrect descriptions on ebay…and too many listings with NO decription at all. Far too many sellers simply write exactly what is on the medal, for example, and nothing else…othey just rfepeat their headline and offer absolutely no other information. I’m not taking into consideration the group of sellers who are not professionals. Ebay must have literally millions of sellers (and buyers). Many sellers are “pickers” or folks who are on ebay because they found items they THINK are valuable. I can’t be so arrogant that I complain about that large cadre of sellers who simply found something at a garage sale or in an attic; they find something that says “world’s fair,” or “1893” they think it must be rare. And as an aside, they’ll be likely to look for 1892 rather than 1893. If they know almost nothing about the WCE they won’t know that it was open the year after the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas. Because a book or letter or medal is from the 19th century doesn’t automatically mean it’s worth something.
Much of my frustration using ebay (and I admit that my list of annoyances and frustrations is pretty long and only seems to be growing) surrounds sellers of all types–a coin dealer in business 25 years, an expert in something specific such as ribbons–who do NOT know anything about what they are offering. I can be quite forgiving when an amateur seller simply is taking a stab at what they hope is valuable. But there are untold numbers of sellers who just don’t bother to research what they sell. The easiest way to identify such folks is often (not always) to look at when they joined ebay and their number of feedbacks.
Why BOTH the date and the number? There are sellers with 100 or 200 feedbacks who have been on ebay 10 years! I criticize sellers who are lazy and don’t bother to help themselves by researching, but collectors improve their “luck” in finding something by also doing research.
Forgive the redundancy in repeating that this is a buyer’s market. That doesn’t mean that buyers can automatically find what they want or find it at a reasonable price.
I would guess that about 99.9% of collectors are NOT just frustrated when what they are seeking just isn’t out there, but moreso, when a relatively inexpensive item that sells for say $50-$75 is listed….for $350! I continually have to remind myself not to raise my blood pressure worrying about all of these issues. I think human nature causes us to hate ridiculous repetition–whether it’s a TV commercial you’ve seen 50 times a week or a ludicrous asking price that you see far too often.
So, this really IS a buyer’s market. Collectibles just like houses can suffer the vagaries of economics. When there is a glut of housing in the market, asking prices drop. When the same is true of collectibles, the asking price SHOULD drop. Because of the several issues with sellers noted above, there never is a consistent adjustment in prices. You need to seek out sellers who have lowered their prices. When a seller sees a 50% drop in sales, he or she MAY offer significantly lower prices since they’re in business….and they are in business to sell so they can pay taxes and feed their family.
Granted, we’re hardly in a recession, but on any given day in the news you can hear about business owners worrying about the decline in sales. Tariffs that are somehow supposed to help Americans, but one doesn’t need to be a genius to see how they do the exact opposite. Consumers are all too well aware that buying a refrigerator or new foreign car will cost substantially more when the domino effect of tariffs takes hold.
Far fewer collectible sellers react to having fewer collectors buying. So is it still a buyer’s market? It is, but it isn’t as obvious as it should be. Part time sellers aren’t selling to pay their mortgage. They and a great many sellers who are in business to make a living refuse to adjust, instead they just complain about the lack of buyers; these are the same sellers who under no circumstances will sell something for less than they paid. I’m not suggesting that sellers should instantly drop their price to at or below what they paid; but it is NOT dumb to lower the price in order to take advantage of collectors who are more conservative right now and often have to be coaxed to make a purchase. Yet you probably have seen some listings that have been on ebay for a couple of years….and with no change in the price.
I have discussed this business of selling Columbiana and/or other collectibles many times. I have already pointed out more potential and actual issues than you should expect to encounter. And if you occasionally or often, take advantage of sellers whose listing includes “or offer” you likely have found much of what I’ve said here to be painfully true. If a seller has a “buy it now” price of perhaps $200 and states he is willing to accept offers, logic would dictate that you should/could offer 10% or in some cases, even 20% off the asking price. There are indeed sellers who will accept $175 or even less; and there are sellers who won’t accept an offer of $195!
Every scenario I’ve included here is flexible–some times it happens, some times not. And don’t waste your time trying to figure it out. Perhaps I should have begun with the premise that this SHOULD BE a buyer’s market. The harder you work, research and seek what item(s) you want, the more likely you will be able to find a number of sellers who are willing to lower prices. Just like all of these inconsistencies, buyers can be just as ridiculous as some sellers. It is a good time to make offers; it’s never a good time to make asinine offers. Last week I had an item on ebay listed for $90; I already had reacted to the marketplace and had lowered my price from $115. I did receive an offer–of $30! If this were 1930 and sellers were going bankrupt, workers were unemployed and many families were starving, perhaps the $30 offer might have been realistic. The adage in a depression that “the rich get richer” is very true; when few can afford to pay even a dramtically reduced price there are always folks out there anxious to make a profit on the backs of those who are suffering, whether they are buyers or sellers.
It would be a gross oversimplification to apply many such statements to the situation today. We’re hardly in a depression and it’s not time for fire sales. But when you take all of these facts (which they are rather than my opinions) it is indeed a buyer’s market to the degree that some sellers need to react and therefor do so. Lowering prices today means subtle changes. If you proceed with shopping/buying as you did 12-18 months ago you SHOULD do better. Some percentage of sellers are reacting to many collectors stepping back and worrying about their discretionary spending. Collecting is discretionary spending. No collector absolutely must buy something. I cannot quantify the changes that are occuring; but I can observe the fact that some professional business people who are sellers have reacted to a drop in sales with a willingness to negotiate and ultimately take a lower price.
Economists can NOT tell us exactly what will happen; but they can respond far better than I to all of the economics news in general, and we can all extrapolate and apply it to collecting things from the World’s Columbian Exposition.
And as you might expect, I do have a few personal opinions about all I’ve written here; I try to keep the majority of what I write to reporting on facts, not offering opinions; but once I cite the facts, I feel qualified to share opinions at least as they related to Columbiana.
I firmly believe everything here, but like most of you, perhaps I haven’t yet experienced a sudden change providing opportunities and lower prices–yet. I am a very active buyer as I have to inventory to sell; so I suspect we all have enountered many annoyances with sellers who are ignorant when it comes to the WCE; who refuse to lower prices; who falsely believe their prices reflect value (even if no one is buying their items). Such sellers don’t bother to learn much if anything about what they are listing for sale. Neither do they make a concerted effort to price their material appropriately given the current market. They clutter ebay with ridiculously high prices and will do or say most anything to make a sale….except lower prices so they can do just that.
Of course I continue to be annoyed with sellers who simply don’t care about such things as honesty and integrity. All we can do is avoid them and I would think that more of those with prices 2 or 3 times higher than “value” would get the message when their items don’t sell.
The only people I imagine might succumb to outlandish prices are not Columbian collectors. Those who study and research their collections (and the vast majority of collectors do this to varying degrees)–know their topics well enough not to pay literally $1,000 for a $200 item! If you are doing your buying on ebay, despite the many frustrations, you do have avenues to find important information. If you see a seller whose listings are routinely priced in this manner, it is easy to take just a few moments to search ebay’s archives for prices realized on that specific item. And while I’m criticizing such high prices, I have never understood how some sellers will offer prices 2 or 3 times higher than a listing for the same thing that isn’t an item or two away!
I am certainly one to criticize ebay for its many faults, but I want to acknowledge the positives when they occur. And having access to such enormous archives that show us precisely what has sold and for how much is invaluable. Auction houses vary on the amount of information available; I don’t think any of them offer prices realized as well as Heritage. I have talked to many Columbian collectors who mentioned that theyt have reviewed Heritage’s past auctions. This includes several of my custsomers who have gone to Heritage’s archives for prices realized as well–including looking at my ticket collection Heritage sold in 2008.
If you have the time, use ebay’s archives to check past Columbian auction and sale prices realized. You can get an idea of the price ranges to help you in the future. See if you find any sales by the dealer(s) with those ridiculous prices. You may see prices that are too high but by far the majority of actual sales of Columbiana are in line with the range of amounts you believe are logical.
But yes, it really is a buyer’s market, and you should quantify what that means to you. It is quite apparent that you will not find a large number of items that are now suddenly available at less than previously. But you definitely will find some who are! You just need to be very vigilant and probably devote more time to studying what’s out there than you have in the past. Just steel yourself against all those crazy prices and sellers who will not consider reasonable offers. Just know there are some sellers who have reacted to lower sales volume with lower prices.
I have a friend who sells full-time and primarily on ebay. When he purchased a WCE collection last year, he did his typical due diligence and researched the market at that time before negotiating a price for the collection. He was quite happy with the purchase price and projected likely income of about 50% higher than the acquisition cost. The first signs of declining collectible sales began shortly after he made that purchase.
Instead of sales around 50% gross profit they were taking shape at just the opposite-50% less than he paid for the collection….and also they were much slower to sell. I cannot think of an example that proves the state of the market any better.
He makes his living selling and he couldn’t just sit on the inventory and wait–and hope– that both sales volumes and prices would return to previous levels soon. Smart sellers (who not coincidentally are good business men and women) understand that inventory that doesn’t sell is useless, essentially a burden until it can be turned back into cash. He lowered his prices and began working even harder to sell, including contacting existing customers with incentives to buy now.
I understand how it can be difficult to believe it is a buyer’s market–when you as a buyer are frustrated trying to find decent prices. Most collectors will simply put their buying on hold and not bother to look as often, and that’sall an example of how things snowball…and snowball negatively. I think there is an adage about working harder when conditions have gotten worse. Patience is the byword!
I generally do not have another article in the wings as I complete one and consequently don’t say “next time…..” But next time…I have two intersting articles partially ready as well as a few little “drop ins” that are just an image and a caption. I’ll try to get these ready more quickly than my usual time frame. The articles include an interesting update on my progress with my 3rd Columbian book (focused on ALL tickets and passes from the WC); a brochure that provided retail prices at the fair for a variety of medals; and another look at some crazy asking prices.
How many tickets? More information to come, but I currently have a working index of tickets that is EIGHTEEN pages long. I long thought that there were perhaps 300 WCE tickets I would include in the book. I revised that to 500 as I got more and more into my research. When one considers a ticket that is in 3 colors, or tickets that were issued identical except for a series number or letter, and train tickets. I have a section on “transportation to the fair” which in the 1890s meant trains and ships/boats. I know that one nice thing (among many) with the software for creating this blog is that all subscribers receive an email that there is a new post. I’ve not seen what they send, but I assume you receive just a sentence that I have posted a new article. Look for one of those emails by the first week of September.
