Buy/Sell/Trade Forum

Are some of you veterans tired of answering the same old questions from all of the newbies?  As someone who discovered this site the day after Christmas, this is a very welcoming community from what I have seen.  It’s been almost 30 years since I collected and back then, all we had was friends and traveling cards shows to do buying and selling and trading.  I started in the early 70’s buying wax packs from gas stations and small grocery stores.  Back then, wax stains and gum stains were the norm.  I have 10’s of thousands of cards in storage that I recently decided to rediscover.  I had hundreds pages of legal pad paper that contained my inventory.  Finding this database made me want to dig out my buried treasure and document all of my cards.  The trading aspect of this site is amazing. Comparing want lists with trade lists makes things very easy.  My early evaluation is that many do not have accurate or complete lists, including me.  I am working at getting everything listed.

My big issue now is how to ship cards.  Everyone seems to want to do it on the cheap, including me.  My first two transactions, I used bubble envelopes for protection.  This cost’s from 3-4 dollars. What I received was cards in a regular envelope for less than a dollar. This time they seemed to make it to me without any damage.  Should I ship the same way?  What do you all do when you receive damaged cards from the postal service?  My guess is nothing, you are just screwed.  Do you hold the shipper responsible?  

Talk to your trading partner as to watch and how to ship. I do alot of PWE's and as long as cards have protection there shouldn't be problems, I have over 350 trades and probably 75% are those and never had a problem. as for damage, Talk to partner and most will send replacements. Biggest thing is communicate

find yourself a Dollar Tree and purchase your bubble mailers there. they are they same as the 4 dollar walmart ones for only a dollar. next, if you plan on mailing various packages, i would look into a stamps.com kinda place as it gives you a scale to weigh your mailings and access to discounted postage depending on the volume of shipping... think of it as like and EZPass on a hwy costing less everytime you go through a toll VS stopping to pay money each time. 

and  I would suggest searching the forums for shipping tips from past forum posts.

I ship in plain white envelope, bubble mailers, and boxes inside of bubble mailers, depeinding on size and value

you will get the hang of it after seeing the diffferent ways your partner ships

mark

I am also new (or, renewed) into the hobby, after many years out of it. I've done a few purchases/trades/sales for the first time a few months ago (though not through here yet, I messed up and didn't track my inventory well, so I'm working on that), and here's my non-comprehensive list of shipping tips:

1) Shipping is (or should be) part of any deal, so treat it as such. The value of what either party receives can quickly go to zero with shoddy shipping. Both parties don't have to ship the exact same way - just that it should be known and stated up front.

2) in general, if I'm sending a higher value card or cards, or if the cards plus protection is more than 1 ounce (max weight for a regular stamp), I'll go for a padded envelope with tracking. If it is a lot of cards, but less than 16 ounces with packaging and cards, I'll use a box and ship that way since it can sometimes be cheaper than a flat rate box. All others I ship in flat rate boxes.

3) when shipping a small number of cards, put the card in a penny sleeve, then in a toploader, then use a small piece of painter's tape (not Scotch tape!) to close the top and keep the card from accidentally falling out. For a larger number of cards, put them in a team bag, with cardboard squares that are slightly bigger than the cards taped to the top and bottom to ship.

4) Since I don't want to end up with a bad name/reputation, I tend to over-protect, even if it makes the package weigh more than the shipping I want to do. 

5) Consider buying additional insurance when shipping items over the insurance that is included by the post office. A trade isn't truly "complete" until the package you shipped is in the hands of the other party, and they say all is well. I'd hate to have to refund/lose money or anything like that, especially if it is damaged in transit.

Just my new, two cents

I've had good success with very lightweight cardboard lining the envelope with the cards inside protected by individual sleeves, top loaders where reasonable, or even 9 card sleeves trimmed to a single row, or folded over with all cards in the middle row. Painters tape is clutch. And when I have time I take it in and request nonmachinable. It usual costs 15 cents more that way. 

Thanks all.  The bubble mailers are cheap.  I bought 50 6" x 9" on Amazon for $15 (30 cents a piece).  I went to the post office and asked for the cheapest way to ship it.  They said First-Class mail would be the cheapest.  It weighed 2.6 ounces and cost $4.20.  I shipped 20 cards.  I put each card in a penny sleeve.  I found 10,000 new penny sleeves in my storage. I have no memory of buying them or why I bought so many.  I put 10 cards in between 2 cardboard squares and put a small piece of scotch tape on all 4 sides to hold them in place.  The place I work at throws away these 4" x 4" cardboard squares so that doesn't cost me anything.  I would love to receive all of my cards with this kind kind of protection, but I know that will not happen.  Maybe I am going overboard here.  I really do not want to spend $4 for every shipment as I plan on doing many, many trades as I am trying to complete sets with non-stars and "commons" as we used to call them.  Larger trades would require flat rate boxes which would be $8 to $16.  These costs usually end up being more than the cards are worth, unless you are dealing with high value cards.  But hey, hobbies are not cheap.  As I read on here the other day, one day I hope my collection will be worth half of what I paid for it.

Do what you feel you need to do, but if you live on a fixed retirement income like I do, as you stated, I not only don't want to spend $4.00 on each 20-card trade, but I cannot afford that. 

Read the USPS guidelines on first class mail, which includes small letter to large business envelopes, and you can get by much more economically.

I have mailed the majority of my trades without tracking and never have had any complaints. There are ways to secure cards without going overboard. This month I've received and sent more than two dozen trades with at least 18 cards in them and have spent anywhere from $0.70-$0.85 on postage with each. 

And unless you're doing mass trades monthly you don't need to subscribe to any service that charges you a fee to use for postage. Buy Forever stamps and the Extra Ounce stamps and mail without interacting with the postal workers. Also, buy yourself a small digital scale for about $15.00, and you'll be able to make many trades without going over budget. 

What is PWE?

Plain White Envelope.