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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ewomack, post: 2228931, member: 15588&quot;]Ebay just makes me nervous in general unless I already have done business with a dealer displaying wares there. One example of just what can happen when new instances of Ebay Tulipmania break out is the 2012 Skip Schumacher &quot;Rally Squirrel&quot; baseball card that featured a limited edition alternate photo.</p><p><br /></p><p>I watched the first card posted to Ebay rise from $0 to over $600 overnight (I do admit that I wanted one because I&#039;m partial to squirrels). It went for an extremely exorbitant sum that I&#039;m sure the buyer regretted - unless someone was waiting in the wings to buy it for more and now <i>that</i> person regrets it. In any case, someone somewhere <i>must</i> regret that auction. The seller sure doesn&#039;t. Given the rapid and frenzied bidding it looked like people were completely caught up in the moment and just kept bidding higher and higher amounts to &quot;win.&quot; Fueling that speculation was also the uncertainty at the time of just how many &quot;Rally Squirrel&quot; cards actually existed. What looked like irrational bidding ensued and it definitely made the card seem far more valuable than it actually turned out to be, because over the next week or two &quot;Rally Squirrel&quot; card auctions were ending at $200, then $150 and three years later they hover between $50 to $100. If they ever fall to $20 I&#039;ll buy one.</p><p><br /></p><p>Impulsive and frenetic events such as that one, though admittedly rare, though not as rare as they should be, make me cautious of using Ebay as a price guide, at least all by itself. So perhaps an &quot;educated buyer&quot; is someone who wouldn&#039;t succumb to such crazed speculation and allow the market to calm down before buying? I don&#039;t know. Of course none of this would apply if it turned out that Topps had only minted a single &quot;Rally Squirrel&quot; card, but that&#039;s sometimes how the roulette wheel of the collector&#039;s market goes. People who invested heavily in Barry Bonds&#039; rookie cards probably feel similarly.</p><p><br /></p><p>Regardless, if someone wanted to buy a &quot;Rally Squirrel&quot; card during that first auction and used Ebay as a guide they ran a serious risk of grossly overpaying for it. That&#039;s why Ebay sometimes - often - makes me nervous.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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