Klein’s Korner: The Importance of Research in The Hobby – I knew the month of September was going to be a fun-filled month with lots of commitments and that presumption has been correct. My schedule has been overly busy and the month has been quite the experience. As a person who is not always the most technologically adept when things hit me, sometimes I get very frustrated. In the last two days, I have had three experiences of messing up how to do things. Fortunately all three things have been solved but they all are good examples of what not to do. For those of you who are great with modern technology, I tip my cap to you.
The first instance came when I was trying to send out my mailer for the next Plano, TX show. Somehow I got stuck on mailchimp. I was so frustrated I contacted my brother in law who owns a technology company and he had some simple advice: Did you search the help column? Once I found the help section I was able to fix the issue and send out the email.
A few minutes later I went through a brain freeze and forgot my VPN sign-in for COMC. Yes, with the week I had I was gong to work Saturday but I had a total blank as to that password. Although I did not sign in until the next day, I did remember the sign-in after I took my weekend “geezer” nap and then woke up and remembered the password. In addition to my memory I now have the password saved on both my personal email address and my COMC email address. That way I will always be able to check my email in case that brain cleansing occurs again.
And the third issue came when I was unable to open any text messages on my phone. I went to Best Buy where I purchased my phone and the nice sales associate figured out by doing research on his smart phone the solution was: Turn your phone on and off once a week. He Googled the issue and found the answer. Now that’s easy to turn the phone off for a few minutes each week and I will do that going forward. I went to Best Buy because we had purchased my phone there and when they looked at our account they were able to save us $100 a month with a simple change. Nothing like spending money to save money.
Do you notice that all three of these situations all involve a word titled research? And in our card business, how many times have you met someone who is an instant expert in any field. Yeah, me too. Back in the day one had to learn, as I did, by making various mistakes in buying and selling cards. You eventually figured out if certain people came to your table at a show or to your store they knew more than you did and paying attention to what they asked for was important. I still remember way back in 1988, when one dealer sold a bunch of Roberto Alomar Donruss rookie cards the Sunday after he was called up on Friday. Now I do get that was before the internet, but one should have been buying local newspapers and reading the transactions on the sports page just to ensure they knew what was happening in their sport. In the long run, the card value has not really changed but said dealer lost an opportunity to make extra money on his inventory.
Now, I get today so much research is instantly available through sites as Ebay where you can track completed sales over the past 90 days and COMC with their history points available. There are other ways as well and many buying/selling venues are different so not every site is the best for a specific card.
The other aspect is if you are not super hobby savvy and see cards you might not normally see or try to sell a collection you might have inherited or even been able to purchase at a reasonable price. When I was with Beckett back in the day and my technical job title was Book Price Guide editor I was always shocked we did not sell more books than we did. Now. for all those store owners of the time, having an annual guide was in my opinion a mandatory item so one had a frame of reference for anything 
“oddball” which might walk into their store. For dealers those books were small outlays for tons of information.
And I recently saw my good friend Roger Neufeldt get offered a nice bunch of 1955 Topps All-American football cards. There was a Jim Thorpe in the collection as well as a nice group of commons. Roger even said, no matter what you do, sell all the cards at once. Needless to say, one dealer was able to purchase the Thorpe card separately and Roger told the collector that he was not really interested in the bulk commons as the immediate sellable card had been sold. The point for a dealer such as Roger is to buy a big lot, get a star or two which pays for the lot and then make his profit on the bulk. That was always our ways of purchasing older cards back in the day. Whatever we could get for the key cards was what we offered for a lot and the rest became the profit.
In this situation the seller did not do complete research as to how to sell the whole lot and thought they knew more about how to sell then the dealers did. Well, I can assure you almost every dealer at a show would be thrilled to just purchase the key card(s) from a lot and leave the rest to everyone else.
I know, as with everything else, there have been situations where one gets lucky without doing research but for the most part, the more knowledge you have on a subject the better off you are.
So, I know it’s difficult when you are doing the day to day aspects or running a business or just dealing with life but remembering the more research and knowledge you have the better off you are in this, or any other business.
Rich Klein can be reached at Sabrgeek@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @sabrgeek.
Klein’s Korner: The Importance of Research in The Hobby
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