Posted By:
Corey R. ShanusI agree with Ryan's point about the inaccuracy of the values price guides put on some of these really rare cards. I've always felt that for cards of that nature, and the Toleteros Gibson with 12-15 or so known examples certainly falls into that category, it is useless and misleading for a guide to attempt to put a value on the card. Instead, what they should do is limit their information about value to reporting known transactions (price, condition and date of transaction) and let the reader form his/her own opinion. I realize that the guides will say they in fact to this when arriving at their values, but given the values they put on some of these cards, I have my doubts how diligent they are in compiling this information. I'd love to see a guide that limits its content to say, the pre-WWII period, provides a checklist of the various cards/issues and lists reported sales of the cards within, say, the last five years. To make the task more practical, if a card is defined as a common, then the value listed could be for commons as a group and could be an auction average for each of the past five years in each of the condition categories. If a card in an issue had no reported transactions during the 5-year period, then the value for the card would be left out. Needless to say, the effort to compile such a guide would be momumental, but if someone was ever to do it, now that would be a guide with worth having!