General Forum

Has anyone here every used the website Auction Ninja for trading cards?  My wife and I were at a live auction last night and the guy running it mentioned that he uses that site for his online auctions so I was checking it out.  Seems like you would find anywhere in the wild where some stuff is crazy over priced but then I'm finding older cards without any bids at all and it look like they have reserves either.

Several 71 lots currently sit at $0
https://www.auctionninja.com/marketplace-items?keyword=1971+Baseball

I'm curious if this is one of those too good to be true type sites?
FYI, I don't see any 71s I'm missing which is why I'm sharing it out so bid away and don't feel like your stepping on my toes.

One quick glance at one auction in particular has, uh, made me want to run away.

18% buyers premium - that means whatever your final bid is, you'll be tacking on an additional 18% for the auction company. Win that for $20, add on $3.60 premium. Now you're paying at least $23.60, and that doesn't include shipping (marked as "available", who knows for how much?).

Keyword manipulation - the listing I was looking at was a 6-card 1972 Topps baseball lot. Contains cards numbered 270, 272, 447, 474, 500, & 668. Title of listing was fine "1972 TOPPS BASEBALL LOT WITH HIGH NUMBERS", however the item description is as follows:

MLB BASEBALL ROOKIE AUTO upper deck UD NBA basketball rookie FLEER SIGNED packs GRADED PSA BGS GC BBCE CGC PSA 10 Donruss numbered SEALED UNOPENED BBCE NHL AUTHENTIC football card sports memorabilia Trading Card TOPPS collectables vintage packs Sealed NBA NFL HOF toys nascar tshirt antique

Notes: *SEE PHOTOS FOR CONDITION!*

What? Very, very misleading. Not sure if this is the case on all listings, but I don't even want to look any further after seeing that nonsense being tolerated on there.

Guess I was lucky. The link never loaded; just the Spinning Blue Circle of Death.

yeah it does look like there is at least one person listing on there that puts in everything plus the kitchen sink into their description so it gets picked up by nearly any keyword search.

If the auction is low enough priced I don't mind paying the extra 18%.  An extra 18 cents if you can get a lot of 10 early or pre 70s cards for a buck isn't a big deal.

Shipping is what had me wondering (which is mostly why I'm curious if anyone here used the site before).  The auctioneer that pointed me to that site said his stuff can be picked up locally to avoid shipping costs so perhaps I'll just follow his auctions until I learn more about how others work.  I almost get the feeling that it's very subjective based on the seller which could mean they charge more to make up for low selling prices.  Not sure I like that.  Hard to judge what you're willing to spend when you don't know how much shipping will be on top of it.