Cels Forum

As a newbie to cel collecting, I have never really had
something to say till now! In two years on eBay I
see patterns in collectable prices that I can relate to cel collecting. 
When a bidding frenzy causes people to pay "too much" it hurts 
everyone. The big rule is..if you describe an item as rare...it better be! 
If you sell a common item with no reserve and no pretense, you are in good
shape in most cases. But, as was recently the case, buyers can go nuts!
When one item sells for far more than the real value, it leads 
other sellers to put up similar items very quickly. Not that you
can blame them! BUT, a huge chunk of buyers shy away at that 
point and the sales plummet. It is a common cycle on eBay, in
all forms of collecting. 
 I think that if you dealers have another outlet to sell your cels,
you are better off not going to ebay too often. Selling a few cheap
cels or a very rare and fantastic cel now and then will not cause
problems, but to sell consistantly on eBay may turn out to be a negative in the
long run. If the prices/volume we see now continue, the sales of cels will go way down
within a few months.  I love eBay, don't get me wrong.
BUT, I firmly believe that to garner real long term customers, you have 
to sell outside of an auction format for the most part. And
overexposure WILL hurt sales for everyone if sellers decide to cash in
on this this temporary upswing in eBay sales. The prices I see there 
don't suprise me, I actually predicted it! The same thing happened in
vintage dolls and pin-ups, and right now you can only sell most items 
(except ultra-rare) for about 1/4 of the prices of six months ago! Ouch!
Sorry, this was long. I have been too quiet for too long!
It's not my nature! ;-D
Kathleen