[vintagetoppsguy]

The fact is that VCP is lower than SMR on most cards. Obviously people can give examples of data that conflict my statement, but I am not talking about the 1% of cards that actually sell above SMR. My theory is based on the other 99% of cards that sell below SMR.

SMR was out years before VCP came into existence. And for years people were paying less than SMR with no other pricing data available. Why? My theory is that people just don't want to pay book (SMR) value for cards.

If SMR goes up or down in price, I believe that VCP will go up or down in relation to that, but the VCP will never equal SMR because nobody wants to pay book prices for a card.

If anybody else has a theory why VCP prices are lower than SMR prices I would love to hear it. Maybe it's a combination of factors, but I haven't heard any other theories.

Edited to add: Jeff, I'm not saying it's a legitimate pricing tool. It's not. It just gives us a price point from where we can negotiate down. Again, I use my new car sticker price as an example. Nobody pays that. Sure there are some rare cars that actually sell for more than the sticker, just like there are cards that sell from more than SMR. I'm not talking about those though. Who here has ever paid sticker price for a new car? Probably nobody. Because we know that's just a starting price point in which the dealer is willing to come down. Same thing with SMR.