My Policy on Offers

(and some hints about how to make successful offers)
OFFICIAL POLICY: Currently, I do not need to sell my cels but I'm always open to appropriate offers on any cels in my gallery. I make no promises to sell but sometimes it's nice to send a cel to a happy home and to make some unlooked-for money. I do promise that I will respond to you in any case.
I buy my cels carefully and am loathe to part with any of them so I've never had to have a policy about taking offers before. This summer, I found I did need some cash so I put some up for sale and some up for offers.  I was not happy to put cels up for offer because I think "taking offers" is inappropriate for most cels and sellers (and the practice is abused constantly which makes sellers look both greedy and foolish when they put up a ten dollar cel/ B or C level cel up "for offer"). I firmly believe that "taking offers" should be much more rare and is right for these reasons only:

 
1. You aren't sure of market price. Either you bought the cel for cheap years ago and the market has widely fluctuated since or else the cel was expensive and the market has since dropped.

 
2. It is a very rare cel and you've only seen very few, if any, cels from this movie/series, etc. However, rarity in itself doesn't make a cel expensive. For example, my They Were 11 cels are rare and hard to find but definitely not expensive.

 
3. You are looking for an offer to tempt you to sell. That is, you really don't mind if the cel doesn't sell but if you received a high enough offer, you might let it go.

 
In my case, all of these applied. I wanted the cels to go to collectors who really wanted them and so I placed a few on my sale page. I also opened up my gallery for taking offers too. I was surprised and shocked by what I received. Many of the offers were kind and appropriate. Even if I refused the offer, I most often said "I will file your name away in case I sell in the future."

 
Others were downright rude.

 
Here are some guidelines to what would most likely make me sell:

 
1. Do not ask for a price."Taking offers" does not mean that I have a price in mind so to ask for one is not polite.

 
2. Know your market. Please know the prices of cels for a certain character, series, or movie or have a good sense of the range of prices. If you are an avid collector of this character, etc., then you should have a pretty good idea of what you've seen.

 
3. Realize that to make a successful offer you will have to go beyond market price.While I believe I price my sales cels very fairly and think I've given people some good bargains, "taking offers" does not mean I am a shop for bargain cels. Ask either the high end of the market spectrum or much more, if you really want the cel. Even then, I may not accept because I will realize I could sell at no price. A friend of mind often doubles or even triples market price for cels in people's galleries if they aren't especially selling.

 
4. Be polite. I found it astonishing that some would-be buyers threatened me to sell for a certain price. How likely is it, do you think, that I will sell to such a person? You don't have to be a fawning sycophant to flatter a cel out of me, either, but simple, common courtesy goes a long way. I also take people more seriously who use proper grammar and capitalization.


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Last updated: September 21, 2001