T206 Price Guide vs. Reality

[Mountaineer1999]

Hello all... I am new to Net54Baseball and thus this forum. What brought me here was the T206 set. I have been exploring several sites trying to learn as much as I could about the set before handing over real money for fakes and/or vastly over paying for raw and/or graded cards. Through my research, it has come clear to me that book value is out the window on all the cards in the set. I cannot find anyone selling the cards for what is considered "Book". Most of my shopping has been on EBay but I have looked at a view auction sites and individuals web sites.
My first question, am I correct, are these cards all priced above book? And secondly where do the smart collectors get their cards for this set, is it trade shows, ebay, trading with other collectors, auctions? Any and all help would be greatly appreciated so that I can start my journey in the right way.

thanks,
donnie

[Luke]

Yeah, I think you have to throw out any books you're looking at. I've never looked at a price guide for T206 other than auction tracking sites like cardtarget.com or vcp.com, which can be useful. Tracking ebay SOLD listings for awhile is probably your best bet at getting used to what things are worth. Don't pay any attention to what sellers are asking on ebay, only to what cards have actually sold for. Don't rush into any purchases until you feel comfortable. You can feel free to send me a PM if you have a card you're looking at buying and I can probably help you with a general value. I check this site a few times a day. Good luck! It's a fun set.

Luke

[Mountaineer1999]

Thanks for the quick response Luke. The EBay charting of sold history is a good idea. I'll look into that tonight and maybe chart out a couple of the Pittsburg cards I'm looking at as test cases. I thought I would start out slowly and see where it takes me .... I may hit you up once I start getting into things a bit more and maybe even post pics to the group with price paid to see if I went out of bounds! :)

[bbcard1]

There are a lot of guys who use ebay as a museum. From personal reference, and it is considerable in the case of T206s, the BST board here is the best place to buy as a general rule.

A lot depends on what you are looking for. There are PLENTY of t206s out there so long as you are looking for ordinary backs. You will find your balance of grade, price tolerance, etc over time. At first, I was just a "hole filler" and would take any grade so long as the price seemed fair. I ended up liking raw cards that were largely in the range of a "2." They still had nice eye appeal, I could afford them without raiding the kids' college fund, and a little wear on a 100+ year old card gave it a certain charm, though others would disagree. Finished up my 520 set, which I periodically upgrade my earliest follies that are too ugly to live with. If everything works out according to plan I hope to add a Plank someday and possibly a Magie, which is cheaper but not nearly as interesting to me.

I consider the T206 a "relationship" set…something I will work on and with throughout my collecting life. I have a couple of back runs I am working on…one a representative back grouping, the other a run of Davidson in all his back permutations. I also just let myself pick up anything I like…I bought one with a ToyTown stamp recently because the story is kind of interesting.

If I have one real piece of advice, it is to make friends while you are doing it. I have met some fabulous people that I would not have had the opportunity to if I had just simply placed and order on ebay. I have not met all of them in person, but there are several I have conversed with at length though email or phone and learned quite a lot. In many ways, these friendships are the crowning piece to my T206 collection.

[Mountaineer1999]

Thanks Todd. I am totally new to this set and I am still trying to determine the direction I want to take. I have looked at the raw cards and thought about going that direction as I would like to hold and examine the cards. I may take on a mixture of both raw and graded at first and see which I prefer. I'm new to this site but I will follow the b-s-t daily to see the offerings and hopefully jump in on a few of them.
To this point it already feels like a 'relationship' set, as you put it, just from my research. Reading about the cards, how they were made, the art of the cards, the stories of the players ( did you know Ed Abbaticchio is credited with the spiral punt in football?). I'm looking forward to getting started and it appears this website will be a valuable resource in that pursuit.

[mrvster]

you picked the right set! email with any questions....I am obsessed with the set(especially t206 printer's scraps and print freaks)

go to t206resource.com that will explain a lot!

I repeat what Luke said:)

peace

johnny

[the 'stache]

First of all, welcome to the forum, Donnie.

I would agree that you pretty much have to throw out the price guide when it comes to T206 cards. What I generally do is look at recent sales for whatever card or cards I am considering buying. Luke referred to Card Target, and that's a good place to start. Cardtarget.com is an excellent resource. Go to the home page, select price history in the upper-left corner of the site, then select the t206 set. It will give you a list of all the cards alphabetically. Click on whichever card you are inquiring about (or right click on the name, and open it in a new window). On the resulting page, you can select price history. It will give you a list of all the recent sales for that card on Ebay and most major auctions. You can narrow it down by tpg (third party grader), numerical grade, and the card's advertisement back. That will give you a general idea of where the market is at. You can also check vcp (vintage card prices). That's a pay service. You can sign up for 24 hours or a month. It tracks the same information. I don't know if it's more or less thorough than card target. I usually use Card Target unless I'm looking at a high dollar card. Then I might sign up for 24 hour access at vcp and compare the data there against Card Target. Plus, I'll check Ebay's history to see where a particular card or cards have been selling.

I think the best place to look for T206 cards will be the BST here. I generally think you'll find the best prices here. The more active you are on the forum, the more you will get out of it. When you develop friendships here, you are establishing connections. I've found that the people on Net 54 are pretty amazing. Not only have the people I've met here been friendly and incredibly helpful, they also do what they can to police the hobby. We watch out for one another. If a member of the forum sees a card, or an auction that doesn't look right, they'll share that information with everybody else. So, I think this is always going to be the best place to start. Always exercise due diligence, even on the BST. If a member is newer, you might check their history to see if they've bought or sold here before, and how those transactions turned out. You can always send a private message to somebody that has done business with them, too. If it's an established member, you should be ok. But remember. Leon puts "caveat emptor" on the BST for a reason. Ultimately you are responsible for your own actions.

You'd do well to put together a list of trustworthy sellers. There are a lot of people on Net 54 that sell cards here, or on their own site, or on Ebay. Find out who these people are, what their user IDs on EBay are, and what their website urls are. If you are buying from trustworthy sellers, you immediately knock out a lot of bad seeds, and greatly diminish the likelihood that you're involved in a problematic transaction.

I'd also look at some of the auction houses, if you haven't. Watch the main forum. People talk about the different AHs, and you can judge for yourself with whom you'd like to do business.

Finally, if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask. If I have a question, I typically use the search function on the forum, as well as Google, to try and locate an answer to my question first. If I can't find one there, I'll start a topic asking for help, or some feedback. Remember that even the most seasoned collector was starting out once upon a time. You're already moving in the right direction by learning the ins and outs before you put your money in play.

Good luck!

[Bocabirdman]

What are these T206 that everyone persistently speaks of?

[ullmandds]

"book" value is an antiquated term. the only way to accurately gage current card values is to scrutinize past sales results.

[Mountaineer1999]

You guys are a wealth of information! :) Thanks for all the replies and PM's to get me started on this little adventure. I'll keep everyone posted as I start and build this set from absolute scratch. Maybe I should blog the adventure. LOL

thanks again

[ethicsprof]

welcome to the board!!!
go ahead and blog it!
all the best,
barry