m116 price jump in the 2007 SCD

[Archive]

Posted By: bigfish

I noticed a huge jump in m116 prices in the 2007 SCD. Some doubled in price and a few might have tripled. Anyone have an idea why there was such a spike in prices? Ebay sales don't reflect these prices so I am wondering where they came from? I know they were underpriced, but a a blue back Wagner is 22k in NM? Any thoughts?

[Archive]

Posted By: Dan Kravitz

I never paid any attention to the prices when they were low and I won't pay any attention if they're now high. IMO - A good reference book, but the pricing is not accurate and obsolete the day it hits the shelf.

[Archive]

Posted By: bigfish

I agree with you Dan. I am just wondering what influenced the huge price jump? That book is like any other guide with this stuff. The cards are worth what someone will pay for them.

Nice win the other day on the e94

[Archive]

Posted By: andy becker

funny, i was reading thru the new scd last night and thought the exact same thing.....where are the new prices coming from?

from what i've noticed the m116's are the biggest % increased set. why?

great question toby.

[Archive]

Posted By: Rob NYC

Just how big of an increase?

[Archive]

Posted By: paulstratton

I haven't scored the new book yet. Can someone give some examples?

[Archive]

Posted By: andy becker

from memory, i think toby's estimates of 2x-3x are accurate.
i cannot give solid emamples because my 06 scd was lost in a basement flood.....but when i looked at the new. prices, i was certainly surprised.

[Archive]

Posted By: bigfish

The prices in the book went up 2 - 3 times for most cards. Like Dan said earlier, the book is just a reference guide. Doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. I just was wondering why such a jump?

[Archive]

Posted By: Buddy

I think the undervalued m116's are just finally getting a little respect and soon will NOT be overlooked for their overpriced step-sisters ..the T206.
By the way...I know where you can find some..if interested.

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob

I agree with Buddy. The Sporting Life cards were waaaay underpriced and underappreciated and many are darn right scarce as hell. Keep an eye on them, remember the way the caramel cards took off when no one was shoing them any love 7-8 years ago.

[Archive]

Posted By: Rob NYC

Anyone know the price of the Duffy?

[Archive]

Posted By: mark

I would love to see a scan of the M116 page if anyone has it.....

http://www.amazon.com/Standard-Catalog-Baseball-Cards-2007/dp/0896893723

[Archive]

Posted By: Rob NYC

An EX Duffy went from 195.00 to 800.00. How many EX Duffys were sold to average that price?

[Archive]

Posted By: jP

Can someone scan the page of the prices. i am curious to see what the hype is all about and the increases. thanks

my collection: http://s102.photobucket.com/albums/m95/obaks/

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob

Although I wasn't a contributing submitter this year, I do know I had to pay through the teeth for my Duffy. For some reason they have dried up. A HOFer with a suit instead of a unie, but not in the scarce series. Maybe non-set collectors are stocking up on the HOFers in the set?
Now that I have completed 99% of the set, I can tell you that there are varying degrees of scarcity among the tough 300 back series cards and some are unbelievably tough, even if you have the money. Covaleskie and "the other" Donovan, no not Wild Bill who has a pastel and a blue background card, but Patsy, are killers, along with Dessau, Sailor Stroud, Erwin, etc.
By the way, I sent Patsy in to SGC and carefully spelled out it was Patsy (in his suit also) and of course it came back Bill Donovan. GRRRRRRR.

[Archive]

Posted By: ockday

I think some of the prices especially blue backgrounds are VERY high..for example:

Honus Wagner blue NM 22,000 EX 11,000, VG 6,600
Mathewson blue NM 10,00 EX 5,000, VG 3,000

Alan

[Archive]

Posted By: leon

When I saw that blue Matty price I almost fainted. I don't think it would go for half of that and most likely quite a bit less than half....still a great looking card and one of my types from the set.....

[Archive]

Posted By: fkw

The main misprint is the Cobb Pastel listed at $18,000 - $9,000 - $5,400.

I just picked up a PSA-4 for slightly under a grand.

[Archive]

Posted By: ockday

Great pick-up on the Cobb PSA 4 for under a grand.
A few weeks ago a PSA 4 Cobb went for $2225 on Ebay.
So who did they ask to come up with these crazy prices

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

perhaps 7/11 did the pricing?

I've had my pastel PSA 3 Matty for sale at 2/3 of the book price for a while; no takers.

[Archive]

Posted By: fkw

It was a good deal because it is a PSA-4 MK 3 small ink initials on top of back. There is a Young on now, and I think a Wagner might come around soon from same collection with same mark.

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob

I wondered why the last two people who answered my BST request for a Wagner pastel had huge prices attached. The new SCD, hmmmm, I haven't bought a copy yet. Glad I bought a nice blue Wagner from Scott B. in Chicago instead of trying to buy one now...

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

In my November auction a blue background Cobb graded GAI 3.5 sold for $1850. I don't have the new book but I'll guess the VG price is quite a bit higher than that.

[Archive]

Posted By: ockday

Wagner pastel is listed at $4000- $2000- $1200...seems much closer to reality

[Archive]

Posted By: ockday

Barry..Cobb blue is listed at $6000- $3000-$1800
right on target

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Alan- why is the blue Cobb a fraction of the blue Matty and Wagner? Is it a rarity factor, or a typo?

[Archive]

Posted By: mark

a scan or a pic would do, thanks.

[Archive]

Posted By: bigfish

There seems to be an error in pricing on the Cobb's. The Blue should be 18k nm, 9k ex, and 5400 in vg. These prices are listed for the pastel Cobb but I think they are wrong. I assume the prices for the Cobb's are flip flopped but who knows?

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Toby- if you are right then the book is triple the price I realized. Either the book is too high or someone got a good deal.

[Archive]

Posted By: bigfish

Just looked at the pop report. There are over 40 pastel Cobbs graded and under 20 blues graded. That is a typo.

[Archive]

Posted By: fkw

Mark,
Book values on most cards.

Commons $360, $180, $110
Scarcer or blue Commons $1000, $500, $300
HOF blue $2400, $1200, $720
HOF pastel $1600, $800, $480

[Archive]

Posted By: paulstratton

How are those prices even possible when none of the cards have EVER sold for those prices? Maybe they should, but they don't. Finally a pre-war set you can buy at half book(or less) all day long.

[Archive]

Posted By: mark

Can you check on Ramly T204 prices, thanks.

[Archive]

Posted By: ockday

Prices are definitely screwed up...Blues always commanded a premium over pastels.
Where is Bob Lemke when you need him

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob Lemke

Using some down time while visiting my daughter to catch up on the Forum. I'll try to shed what light I can on the pricing for M116 that appears in the 2007 Standard Catalog. Let me make it real clear, that I was solely responsible for the prices that appear (as well as for all other vintage card pricing in the book). I can tell you that Sporting Life was one of many popualr vintage sets that were "targeted" for especially extensive price reviews for the 2007 book. That means, the ay after the 2006 went to press, I began to record actual sales prices for every M116 that appeared in major (and minor) hobby auctions and legitimate eBay transactions of cards certified by PSA, SGC and GAI in conditions of VG, EX and NM. For many star cards this translated over the course of a year to dozens of verified sales. When it came time to set prices for the 2007 book, those sales figures were used to arrive at new "book" prices.

Somewhere at Krause there probably still exists the greenbar computer printout on which the sales were hand-recorded month after month. It would be interesting if it could be made available in some fashion to see how current specialists working this set would have analyzed the same data. I do specifically remember thinking long and hard about the Cbob/pastel versus Cobb/blue cards. I didn't make up the prices, I just tried to interpret the market data. Actual sales showed that the pastel card was consistently sold for more than the blue-background in the same condition(s). If I had to guess (as I did then), I'd attribute it to the demand side of the equation. That is, many (most?) Sporting Life set collectors are working on a one-per-player basis rather than a master set of all variations, thus the pastel card that was historically presumed to have been the more common, received more action at auctions. To my way of thinking, those who bought the blue-backgrounds during that time got bargain prices that may well have already adjusted in the real-world market.

I can also tell you that M116 may have been the set in the 2007 book that received the greatest "market-timing" adjustment. I always recognized that a printed price guide was obsolete by the time ink hit paper, so based on my experience in the field, there was often some sort of "lead" built into pricing. Especially for sets that were newly becoming hot, as, I recall, was the case with M116 at the 2007 book's deadline. I also recognized that I wouldn't be around to price the 2008 book, and that vintage cards might not receive the same attention that had been the case in the past, so that prices in the 2007 edition might have to remain "current" for more than one year, so the "margin for growth" was expanded beyond normal.

I know Don Fluckinger has been on the Forum seeking pricing input from individual set specialsts, and I'd like to encourage your participation in that work if the Standard Catalog is to continue to maintain its worth to the vintage collector. In terms of discoveries, checklist additions and corrections, this Forum was my No. 1 source day in and day out. can only hope my successors are paying as much attention to your collective expertise.

[Archive]

Posted By: paulstratton

Thanks for the explanation Bob.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Hi Bob- thanks for coming on the board and hope you are feeling well. That is interesting about the blue vs. pastel Cobb. When I concluded my November auction I recall thinking the one card whose results I was really disappointed with was my blue Cobb graded GAI-3.5. But from what you are saying, I shouldn't have expected a higher price on it. However, while a HOF collector might be happy with just one Cobb, a set collector would want both. It's hard to imagine any market scenario where a more common variation outperforms a rarer one, so is it possible the blues just aren't as tough as originally thought?

[Archive]

Posted By: cmoking

can you elaborate exactly what this means?

"I also recognized that I wouldn't be around to price the 2008 book, and that vintage cards might not receive the same attention that had been the case in the past, so that prices in the 2007 edition might have to remain "current" for more than one year, so the "margin for growth" was expanded beyond normal."

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob Lemke

Again, this was a factor of the lag time between compilation of prices, publication and use by the consumer. I tried to use past performance and experience to judge whether a genre, set, player, individual card, etc., would be trending up, down or flat, both in and of itself and relative to the card market as a whole.

[Archive]

Posted By: cmoking

Bob, thanks for the reply. I don't agree with this practice, but I thank you for replying with your thoughts. To me, a price guide is supposed to publish a guide for prices at the moment, not for the future or predict any trends. That job is for the buyers and sellers to do, not the reporter of the prices.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

King- but the Krause guide is meant to last a year, and the moment is fleeting. So what Bob is saying is he is walking a tightope when it comes to pricing. If the market weren't so volatile, yearly price guides would be more relevant.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

I don't have to guesstimate the market; I present the real data and let the readers decide where it is supposed to go after that.

[Archive]

Posted By: paulstratton

Barry,
What figure did you have in mind for the Cobb prior to your auction? Did the fact that GAI graded it have anything to do with the lower price?

What do you guys think a similarly conditioned Honus Wagner blue background would sell for? Double? I guess if I had to pick one Wagner(as a substitution for a real one) for my t206 set then this would be it.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

I was thinking the Cobb would be good for at least $2500, if not closer to 3K. It went for $1850 and the whole final night I kept wondering why nobody bid higher. It may simply not be that rare a card. And while Cobbs traditionally sell for more than Wagners, I think the old Dutchman may be catching up.

[Archive]

Posted By: Richard

Since I follow the Cobb and Wagner in the M116 pretty well, I think that I can confidently say the following:

1) The Blue Cobb consistently sells for more than the Pastel Cobb
2) The Blue Wagner consistently sells for more than the Pastel Wagner
3) The Blue Wagner consistently sells for more than the Blue Cobb
4) The Pastel Wagner consistently sells for more than the Pastel Cobb

I don't think anyone who follows these two cards would contradict any of these statements.

As for the GAI 3.5 Blue Cobb in Barry's auction, $1850 was a steal. $2500 is about right and $3000 would be too high.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

So Richard- how do you explain a scarce Cobb slipping under the radar, when everything else for the most part did really well?

[Archive]

Posted By: paulstratton

I think Richard has it right. It was a fluke. I think a GAI 3.5 Wagner would bring at least $3,000.

[Archive]

Posted By: Richard

The gods were smiling favorably on me that night?

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

It was a nice card at that, don't you think ?

[Archive]

Posted By: leon

If I remember correctly there were approximately 4 major auctions going right around, and during, the time of yours. Sometimes I think the quantity of material on the market at the same time keeps some prices back a little. The M116 Cobb and Wagner can be found again so maybe folks that would have bid more bought something more scarce that they might not see as soon again? Just a guess...but a viable one. regards