General Forum

I've read the explanation more than once, but I don't understand port sales on COMC.  Do you just make an offer on the whole group, or can you buy individual cards?  Can you offer on the whole lot, but then someone else buy some of the singles, and you don't end up with all the cards you expect to get if you buy the lot?  Is it a situation where the seller is obliged to accept any offer?

I don't know these answers either and I'm very curious to see what they are! I tried to figure that out before. That would be terrible to make an offer on the whole port, knowing there's one REALLY great card you want and then having the offer accepted only to find out that one card sold before the deal went through.

i made a offer a few months ago on a COMC port and you get all of the cards listed in that "Port".  note that i have seen sellers listing multiple ports for sale covering different cards (i.e. all baseball in one port and all football in another, or baseball 1970-1980, etc).  we didnt come to agreement on a final price, but i think just like with individual cards if you offer the asking price it it automatically accepted.  if you read the offers section you can "offer" such a percent of the asking price and/or a certain percent of the SRP.  hope this helps.

According to the link below it seems that port sales or buying a "portfolio" is buying the entire inventory someone has listed. It seems to be primarily for folks who like to flip or add a huge amount of cards to their PCs. Then again it varies depending on how many cards the person has and how much of a discount off of the Beckett SRP they are offering (or will accept as an offer).

http://www.sportscardradio.com/buying-portfolios-on-check-out-my-cards/

ive bought a port before.. you can go to the invidual cards and make an offer or purchase- it maybe at the orginal price or what the dealer wants for it. but if you make an offer on the "port" you're making an offer on the whole port (all the cards there)

Scenario:

User123 has a port for sale - 1,000 cards

vrooomed makes an offer based on 1,000 cards

tonym buys the most valuable card in the port

User123 accepts vrooomed's offer

Does vrooomed get all 1,000 cards?  Or does vrooomed get robbed of the most valuable card? I think that is what David was going after.

gotcha... if i remember- "i think" he gets robbed of that card and the overall port sale decreaes that amount of what the card went for.

i wll say, their customer service is pretty good at answering the phone and questions on the spot. also pretty consistant with returning emails ---at least based on my experience with them.

Dan asks a good question and i am not sure what the correct answer is, but i do want to also issue the buyer beware warning and do your research before buying a port.  one example right now is someone who has a port for sale for $44 dollars for a bunch of basketball cards.  i thought i would take a look at what he was selling and he has 5 cards of one player who he has an asking price of $35 dollars each.  when you click on those cards he his selling them individually at a discount for $5.50 each, but when you search for other sellers of this card you can buy one without a discount for under $2.  the same held true for a few other cards i clicked on, so he is artificially inflating his asking price of cards to make it seem like the port sale is a great deal when it is not. 

Several of the ports I looked at today were like that (I was looking for ones with baseball).

I see. In that scenario it would bee succky timing if the other buyer completed the purchasing between the time the offer was made to when the offer was accepted.

There probably should be a temporary freeze put in place at time of offerthen is lifted when the seller accepts or rejects the offer. However, there probably isn't any "freeze" put in place when an offer is made, since it is not a firm commitment just an inquiriy. Just as when you are just "watching" items, or have just placed items in your shopping basket but haven't checked out.