On any given day, there are over 400,000 sports cards available on eBay. The hobby has grown alongside the online auction Web site since its inception in 1995. There is no question that buyers and sellers now have an expanded market to deal with, creating a new way for collectors to obtain items.
Chris Barr, 29, of Las Vegas is an avid hockey card collector who said he spends between two and six hours searching eBay each day.
"It's become easier for collectors to obtain rare and hard-to-find cards they want, but it has also decreased the values of cards because they're easily attainable," he said.
Recently, eBay has affected card values more and more. Before the site, the only way collectors could measure a card's worth would be through a price guide such as Beckett.
"Basically, eBay is a card's value," said Keven Green, who runs the Tennessee Cards and Comics shop in Bartlett. "The Beckett prices are not wrong, but eBay prices are more truthful on most occasions."
Barr feels the same way.
"At times it can serve as a far better guide to gauge prices than a monthly magazine like Beckett, he said. "It gives you current prices collectors are willing to pay and how much demand some cards have more than others."
But since eBay became a dominant force in the hobby, many card shops have been forced to close down, Green added.
"If stores can adapt, though, they can survive," he said. "They have to use eBay as a tool rather than see it as competition. One of the things we can provide in a store is customer service and instant gratification along with an expanded product line."
Online auctions are not always better than buying in person. Many horror stories from eBay are often told, and it seems everyone knows someone who got ripped off.
Barr listed fraudulent sellers and bidders and non-payers as some of the biggest problems when buying online. But eBay has not sat by idly and let chaos reign.
In the February 2004 issue of Beckett Hockey Collector, Jeff Jordan, senior vice president of eBay, talked about how his site affects the card industry.
In addition to mentioning that sports items on eBay are a billion dollar business, he is quoted as saying, "the reality on eBay is fraud is really small."
Jordan said that there are more security features available now to protect both buyers and sellers along with the ever-important feedback forum, which rates a user's cooperation during a transaction.
While there are a few negative aspects to buying on eBay, collectors have no doubt warmed up to the idea of paying lower prices for needed cards along with creating their own system of supply and demand.
