Channing, for what it's worth and of course speaking for myself, I had no Internet service all day yesterday. Otherwise you can bet I would have bid on that card. I know many collectors of Golden Age musicals, Astaire and/or Hayworth (and they're NOT all old fogies), any one of whom would be happy to own that lobby.
Also, for the record, I DID bid on that Hustler lobby you had last week which you also started at .99 and finally sold for $266, which is a very respectable result. So if I were you I wouldn't throw up my hands just yet. Besides the vagaries and inconsistencies of eBay, July and August are also slow selling months. People are on vacation, at the cottage, whatever. Fewer of them are sitting in front of computers looking for posters to buy. Because of this, I usually end up doing more buying than selling during the summer (less competition from other bidders). The up side is I also usually end up with some amazing stuff to kick off the Fall selling season! Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: channinglylethomson To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 12:52 AM Subject: [MOPO] Is there something wrong with this hobby? Is there something wrong with this hobby? I ask this for the following reason. Today, I had an auction closing on EBAY for an original 1941 lobby card -- a beautiful linen-paper portrait card of Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire in a tuxedo from YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER that I've had for years. I started this auction low because I was conducting a sort of test. I wanted to see if a card like this would reach its real value at auction on EBAY or not. Well, unfortunately, the lobby card sold for a closing amount of $11.50. 15 years ago this card would have sold for between $125. and $200. You probably could have made a phone call and sold it for that. Now it sells for $11.50. I posted the auction announcement on various sites including two separate ones on MOPO. It ended up selling to a man in NYC for $11.50. Now as you may imagine, I was disturbed that it sold for so little. In the future, I will probably only start one of these low opening bid, Bruce Hershenson-style auctions if the piece is something like a lobby card or poster for a major 1950s science fiction film or a classic movie or obviously collectible poster or card. I think a lobby card like this one is still of value despite changing tastes. Maybe I'm wrong but I think there are still people who know who Rita Hayworth is and who Fred Astaire is and admire their work and their films. However, since no one in MOPO found this worth bidding on, even if they could have gotten the card for as little as $12.50, maybe I'm all wrong. Thoughts please? Channing Thomson P.S. One other consideration -- I live in a major American city (San Francisco) where I routinely see elderly Chinese people digging through trash cans all over downtown trying to find cans or plastic bottles for recycling. Sometimes they carry big plastic bags of these balanced on bamboo polls over their shoulders. These are men and women who are often as old as 70 or 80. You really can't go more than a block without seeing them digging through the trash. Nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with this here but it disturbs me and makes me think we may actually be in a depression rather than just one the typical recessions. The economy definitely BLOWS! Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
