What are your best hobby tricks and tips?

[gracecollector]

1) Player collectors, try fatfingers.com to find listings of your player with misspellings.
2) Never buy from an open box at a retail store that has a small rip on the front of the box. Some pack searchers make a small rip in the carton so they know the box has already been searched. In fact, pretty bad idea to buy loose packs from retail stores.
3) Don't store cards in screwdowns if the card touches both sides of it. Cards with gloss or foil can stick to the sides after some time, and will be damaged when you go to take them out. Toploaders and penny sleeves are safer.
4) There is absolutely no better way to win auctions at the lowest price than by using a snipe program and only bidding at the last few seconds. Don't bid early and tip others off that you want the item. Don't get in bidding wars. Just use a snipe program, put in the highest you'll go on the item, and let it ride. The only instance when it is a good idea to bid early is when there is a BIN (say $20) with a very low reserve price (say 99 cents), and you place the minimum bid to knock off the BIN, and then use snipe for the final amount.
5) Always bid on eBay in a price one or two cents above the standard dollar amount (bid $5.01 on a card you would go $5). You'd be amazed how many auctions you might win by 1 cent more than the runner-up using a snipe program.

 

[vwnut13]

www.paypal.com/shipnow is what I use for shipping.

 

[hive17]

You can find what Best Offer was accepted in a number of ways. My prefered way is, on an iOS device, search for something that would pull up the card in question. As long as your target isn't the first card listed in the results, it will show the BO price. Once you click on the actual item, or if it is the first item in the results, it'll go back to the listed, crossed-out price.

One of the ways I've been doing it (and this only works if there are multiple listings, like, dozens) is to sort by price. I have a pretty good idea of what a $149.99 BIN/BO went for, if, when I sort all completed listings by price, that "crossed out $149.99" falls between 2 cards that sold for $87 and $90. It doesn't always work, and the spread can be larger, but it's pretty quick.

 

[mudflap02]

www.gixen.com

 

[SINFULONE]

1) Player collectors, try fatfingers.com to find listings of your player with misspellings.
2) Never buy from an open box at a retail store that has a small rip on the front of the box. Some pack searchers make a small rip in the carton so they know the box has already been searched. In fact, pretty bad idea to buy loose packs from retail stores.
3) Don't store cards in screwdowns if the card touches both sides of it. Cards with gloss or foil can stick to the sides after some time, and will be damaged when you go to take them out. Toploaders and penny sleeves are safer.
4) There is absolutely no better way to win auctions at the lowest price than by using a snipe program and only bidding at the last few seconds. Don't bid early and tip others off that you want the item. Don't get in bidding wars. Just use a snipe program, put in the highest you'll go on the item, and let it ride. The only instance when it is a good idea to bid early is when there is a BIN (say $20) with a very low reserve price (say 99 cents), and you place the minimum bid to knock off the BIN, and then use snipe for the final amount.
5) Always bid on eBay in a price one or two cents above the standard dollar amount (bid $5.01 on a card you would go $5). You'd be amazed how many auctions you might win by 1 cent more than the runner-up using a snipe program.

I completely agree on #5 , been using that tactic forever.

#3 is good advice too.I heard somewhere someone pulled a Fleer Jordan rookie, stored it in a screwdown for a long time.Went to take out card one day, and the surface peeled off and ruined the card, or something to that extent.Then again, I kept a UD Griffey rookie in one for years (when there weren't anything better), and it was fine when I took it out.