Question for card shop owners/employees

[wabashvalley]

I'm curious how other LCS's handle this situation that I often run into

Guy comes in with 3 shoeboxes full of cards from the 70's-90's asking which cards are worth getting graded. They have no idea of values other than a basic ebay search, followed up with "I seen this one did $25,000 as a PSA 10!!"

Typically these guys just want all the cards comped for them and don't have any interest in selling, at least at a reasonable price. I don't want to come off as a dick and say do the research yourself, but my employees and I don't have time to sit and look up 130pt prices for no compensation.

The two larger shops in our state will tell customers "we're only interested in cards valued at $20 and up and you have to do the research yourself" and only buy during private appointments. I want to be more available than this, but not be expected to be a human Beckett price guide for every customer who walks in.

[Stifle]

I know a shop owner that has a employee that comes in at a designated time a few hours before closing that deals in all cards that are walked through the door. I hear the store owner telling people who call or walk ins to come in after 4. He has been in business over 20 years and does very well.

[longhornjunkie]

One of the shops here does pre-submission exams for $4 per card.

Another shop years ago would look at a few cards pretty closely at no charge assuming you would be using them for the bulk submission.

If you run bulk submissions maybe offer one of those options or just say you'll hold the cards and if they grade it's no charge but if not it's an examination fee. Otherwise maybe tell them your store doesn't have the time or infrastructure to do high volume research.

[checkoutmydeals]

You could offer consultations for an hourly fee, with some initial period free. For example, $60 or $120 per hour, with the first 5 or 10 minutes free. Possibly by appointment or at a designated time. Maybe let some or all of this be refundable if they buy something from the shop, or if they wind up selling something to you.

Even with 3 shoeboxes, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to give it a cursory glance and pull out a few cards which are worth further scrutiny, or to determine that the lot isn't really worth further scrutiny.

[bigdog2003]

I was in a shop during my vacation trip after Thanksgiving and a guy walked in with a "collection" he wanted to sell. The owner was super nice, told him he would look it over but could only do a quick scan for 5 minutes and base it off of that. After the 5 minutes he explained to the guy how the condition and years of the cards didn't help with the value and how he couldn't use them in his shop, but he gave him the contact info for a guy that did buy stuff like that for his flea market booth.