Quote Originally Posted by duggie85 View Post
New poster here. Been collecting autographed baseball items last few years and been researching game used items. Really like this site, a lot of great info here!

With that said, I have never sold any of my memorabilia so I've never had to deal with buyers. As a buyer on eBay, I always look up the latest sold items with identical authentications/quality and make my offer based on the average. I hate when sellers respond with the usual "it's worth more than that!" then get aggravated with the reasonable response I give, "No it's not. The last 5 auctions on average sold for 1/2 of what you're asking."
As a buyer, I would love for sellers to be willing to sell at whatever the last auction went for on things I want. As a seller, I realize that's really convoluted thinking.

Here's the problem:

Latest auction result was 28 bids with a high bid of $100. As a buyer, you'd gladly buy the item for $100. That means, in theory, the market value is over $100, since at least two individuals would be willing to pay $100. Since you're glad to pay that price, it's likely that you value the item closer to $150.

The seller realizes this (or some approximation) and thinks of the last ending price as a price floor, whereby a buyer might see it as a price ceiling.

Also, if the last five auctions sold for an average of 50% of the asking price, that might mean one sold for 130% or 150% of the average. So, I don't mind (overly) when sellers ask for 200% of the average selling price with the best offer option. What I hate is when sellers post something that is clearly not what they claim for 1000% of the typical selling price for what the item actually is.

Case in point, someone was selling a replica Griffey signed bat (usually $50-$75) as a game used bat on eBay.