Unpopular opinion on VCP an other "comp apps"
 

I would love to hear other opinions, and I am open to being wrong. That said, I think VCP and other comp sites and apps are worthless. I'm not sure how many times I have listed something for sale or tried to buy something on different platforms and have had people send me a screenshot of "comps." Whether higher or lower, I believe they are as obsolete as Beckett, who has 1952 Topps high numbers NM at $300! (Anyone who wants to sell for that, please contact me.)

Those apps track auction and eBay sales, not including the tax and shipping from eBay. What they do not do, and cannot do, is track the vast majority of sales. They don't have data on:

Collector-to-collector sales
Facebook sales
Instagram sales
TikTok sales
WhatNot sales
Card show sales
Net 54 and other forums' sales
Direct from the dealer's website sales

I buy and sell easily 90% of my cards on platforms that are not taken into account by those apps. So why are they like the gospel truth to so many?
Thanks for the discussion

Disagree with you.

VCP reports actual sales. They cannot help it if a card has not traded hands in a few years in a certain grade.

If there are recent comps, then use them. If there are only outdated ones, ignore them.

Obviously, MOST major dealers use VCP when selling as a guide.

Most sophisticated collectors do as well.

The information VCP provides is as accurate as it can be based on sales. No more, no less.

Obviously not all data can be collected by these service.

But they are still a valuable tool. I often just go on REA and Heritage and look at comp histories for those and other high volume auction houses, but I can see how it would be very useful to get a larger breadth of comps.

I have used VCP for one-off sales and purchases, and I think it is a good site.

I think it’s a question of whether you’d rather have some data or no data.

A lot of the sources you listed as not being reflected in the pricing apps are not available for a reason. And unless those sources suddenly decide to self-report data that we have reason to believe is accurate, we’ll get to continue to live without it.

So instead, we get to live with just a subset of transactions where the data is available, and hopefully mostly reliable, barring non-payers at auctions.

Whether it should really be relied upon as much as it is…that’s another question entirely, but tends to be a decision that we each get to make for ourselves.

But maybe this thread can be the beginning of the crusade to get people to rely less on the small slice of data that they do have available.

A majority of the buyers and sellers in those non-public sales likely referenced VCP or similar apps. This is especially true for frequently traded post-war cards.

Thanks for the great discussion. That is what I hoped for!

My contention is that the vast majority of the sales are not reported, yet it is valid that many of those sales have used the recorded sales as a guide.

I have just found that most sales I have experienced, as a buyer and seller, do not reflect what VCP says. Money talks. In my experience, cash at a show on Sunday will get you a long way. I have also sold things for way less than the asking price on eBay and other platforms because I wanted to buy something else.

All that said, I need four more high numbers (reprints of Mickey and Jackie will do for now) and about 6-7 upgrades. I would be happy to send a list.

In the vintage card world it all depends on what the card looks like in grade.

Some 7’s look much better than other 7’s…the one that is centered will always carry a premium over one that is OC in same grade. Vcp is a good reference point for vintage but you have to compare similar looking eye appeal cards as more accurate a comp…it’s very nuanced.

We base all our data on what is verifiable with links and images of the sale....
It is just not possible to do that in FB, Tik Tok, etc...

I have been asked countless times that X sold for Y in a deal. I have no way of verifying anything. So am I just suppose to trust everyone to report it back to me and just post.

What would stop you from saying it cost your $10K and it reality cost you $3K and I post it. Now you have a comp and your willing to selling for 1/2 of VCP average...

Sorry but I would not put much trust in a model like you suggest.

Comps in general, whether you took the time to research them yourself or got them through a service, are a useful tool to get a ballpark idea price points. While I agree it's annoying how some people use them as the final answer without taking into account variability within grades, age of comps, outlier results (high or low), etc - those are all faults in the user, not the tool.

I've used VCP for a long time now and find it very useful. Of course not all sales are recorded and some BIN sales are suspect but it definitely gives you an idea of what particular cards are going for.

IMHO, these days, dealers ignore tools like this at their peril. The days of dealers having all the data are over, and they need to come to grips with it and come up with better answers to pricing questions other than:

"I have more than that into this card"

"I have overhead costs I need to cover"

"My last sale was more than that"

jeff

HI Bobby,

Long time VCP subscriber! Does VCP capture ebay BIN prices? Also any new sources of data in the works you can share?

Yes we do capture BIN and BO sales and you should see them usually with the asking price X'd out and the price it sold for underneath. This take longer to post because mostly due to eBay API system. 1st it will not start our process until the time set by the seller expires. Normal systems will close once the item is sold. Then after this eBay makes getting the final value difficult so we then have to find that out.

In regards to new data sources we are always looking for new AH or others. We do not scrap and try to get live listings to help our members collect. If anyone would like us to get someone we currently do not have please let us know and we will try to connect.

Also since we have the BIN original price and the accepted price that let us create BOOST...you can now look up sellers on VCP and see their acceptance rate. This is a great tool for the buyer in knowing the what they typically accept according to price range.

Vcp has allowed anyone to become a "dealer" overnight. Not to mention the market has just been going up for the most part. I don't think condemning VCP is the answer.

Comps provide insight for both the seller and potential buyers.

They are not absolute.

More information is always a good thing.

It sounds like your problem isn't with the tools that are available, but with how people use (or misuse) them. Having data is useful (the opposite of worthless). It's what you do with that data that matters.

You've been welcome to our data for years.

Hunt Auctions: https://huntauctions.com

Classic Auctions: https://www.classicauctions.net

Can you give me your address I googled Aquarian Sports Cards and get only Net54 posts and other strange things...also can you supply a API feed?

Thanks

Jumping into the comps discussion… I find that people sometimes forget that comps change (higher or lower) over time. “You’re charging over comp…”

Sometimes true - if not true, comp prices would never go up.

As others have said - comps are a good guard rail but they are not absolute (even though they may seem so to some)

(I’ll also add that I find VCP to incredibly valuable both as a seller and collector - keep up the great work)

I mean you could be analyzing NASA data from deep space quasars and there are going to be limitations on the data. That's not a reason to say the data is not useful. Data sets have limitations. You take note of the limitations and use the data with the limitations in mind.

There are plenty of ways of analyzing some of the data on past sales. VCP is the best source that pulls the most info together in one place. And it's very easy to use.

+1

physicist?

My son. I'm not smart enough for that gig.

ah i was close! bet he's a cool guy -- great job to have. outer space and data sets... thats some good stuff

That was mostly the model for price guides back in the day. They collected sales info, but from dealers they trusted. It was common to have at least a month of cards being available before it got into Beckett or any other guide. Then there was the month of complaining how the initial priced were way off.

Stuff like what you do may have flaws, but I think it's more reliable for more expensive cards

its like any other market. the more actionable data you have the better decisions you can make, but you also have to be prepared for seismic market shifts based on changes in real time behaviors/circumstances/environmental factors, et al. its actually quite interesting how well this thread intersects with the other one posted by peter about bid inflation. it directly relates to and exemplifies one aspect of how comps can be inflated and/or deflated by even small scale (or large) market actions by 'good' and 'bad' actors alike.

Comps are stupid and unrealistic. These are collectibles and there is no dedicated material cost or exact number. What someone bought and sold a card for yesterday is irrelevant to what I may buy and sell my card for.

real estate is a strong comparison for what market comps for cards function as. like jeff said, they're guardrails/guide rails. you as an individual can subjectively make the decision to 'list' your card at much higher than the going rate for similar condition sets/houses, or you can make the decision to 'buy' your card at a much lower than the going rate for similar condition sets/houses.

either way, that subjective decision may leave your card on the market for weeks, months, or years; may leave you on the market for a card for weeks, months, or years. that's why successful brokers and agencies use comps to help buyers and sellers advocate and achieve success on the market for properties at all scales. nothing exists in a vacuum; markets of all sizes elucidate this same fundamental truth.

What do you mean by the part I bolded in your comment?

Unpopular opinion on VCP an other "comp apps"
 

So were price guides also stupid and unrealistic when they used to aggregate the comp data for us back in the 1990’s and earlier?

Clearly no buyer or seller can be forced into paying a specific price, and at times other factors / reasoning surely comes into play - but if you don’t use market data to evaluate recent prices, then I’m imagining those who might find your pricing decisions out of line whether buying or selling stands to be a higher number.

VCP is certainly useful; to the OP’s notion that it has no utility at all one would have to generally agree that the prices being paid elsewhere not tracked on VCP (whether that’s Facebook, WhatNot, a discord, the local card shop / show / flea market, garage sale…) are vastly out of line with those reported in VCP. I am only one person with a small postwar vintage collection - but at least in my experience - that’s neither true or close to being true. Some dealers will balk at the fact that a VCP average price represents a longer duration of time than just the last 3 comps that they want to use on their items because they were higher and it’s trending upward.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Great discussion, and I am learning from the posts. I retract my use of the word "worthless." That was too strong of a word and I don't truly believe that to be the case, mainly based on some of the posts on this thread.

My original point was intended to be that people treat it like the be-all end-all, when it can't track most sales. I have had sellers send me screenshots that included prices from 3-4 years ago, or even pandemic pricing.

I do agree that the other sales are likely influenced by VCP, or more so, eBay sales, which people who have never heard of VCP use. That is a great point, and much like the price guides of the early days. Some dealers still use Beckett. Many old-timers at the shows I frequent have Beckett prices listed on their cards, and then they will deal from there.

I love to research; it's fun. If I have cards I want to buy, I will watch and track them on every possible platform for months. I keep meticulous records of the sales, even asking people what they bought things for and what they sold things for. I have great relationships with dozens of dealers and collectors, so I can do that.

I am not so presumptuous as to say that everyone should cancel their subscriptions or anything. I said in the OP that I was willing to be wrong and learn. However, I still believe the vast majority of sales are not and will not ever be reported to them. Thus, a card is still only as valuable as the seller thinks it is and as the buyer's desire to have it.

great observation chris. incomplete data is what keeps us data analysts (ie myself) :D banging our heads against the collective wall.

you are 100% correct. incomplete information regarding sales and the failure to capture all data, all information, incomplete data sets, etc to me fundamentally characterizes the human condition. we have to do the best with what we have; hopefully develop relationships and mutual contextual understanding to build trust with one another and open ourselves up to and respect when people are able to see things that we can't or don't see ourselves.

this is the big issue with markets in my opinion. they operate best in mutual good faith. if the seller wants me to succeed and i want the seller to succeed, we are in prime position to mutually benefit from the transaction. but because of things like obscured market information or data, as well as people who wish to exploit others for their perceived own personal gain, we have a lot of difficulty discerning truth or creating environments of mutual benefit.

if sales are not reported or captured and introduced into data sets, we are working with the best we have. and as we so often see in humanity throughout history, the best we have is often a fair distance from the objective reality or the truth...

How do you determine what a fair price is when you're buying or selling?

I think the term "comps" has a bad reputation. If you walk around a card show and decide to buy a card from the dealer who offers the best price on that card, you've used "comps".

If you have bought 10 T206 commons all in a similar condition over the past month for between $70-80 and you decline to buy another similar T206 today for $120 because you feel it's too much, you're using "comps".

If what you bought a card for influences what you try to sell that card for, you're using a "comp".

VCP is a tool. It is one of many tools to use at your disposal if you choose to and is not worthless. When valuing and evaluating what price to pay for cards you must use many different tools and factors not just one. Comps and previous prices for same/similar grade are a useful guide but nothing is set in stone until buyer and seller agree on final price.

The utility of any tool depends on the purpose of the user.

Objectively rare cards do not transact enough for comps on them to be meaningful. I recently offered a card for sale that had not sold anywhere in any format in several years.

Mainstream postwar cards are common enough that comps are a reference point but eye appeal is more important. A fugly 7 is not worth as much as a blazing 6.

Modern cards are so commoditized that comps are ubiquitous because there are a ton of them and they all basically look the same.

Big VCP fan. It’s a great tool and I’m on it every day!

It's The Collector Connection. We talked a few years back. No problem supplying the API

Bobby hopefully you can add...Would love to see VCP keep adding more AH's until you have all of them.

love to see this kind of collaboration here... clean data drives smart decisions; the more visibility and insight we have as a community and hobby the better it ultimately is for all of us

I've become a big fan of VCP. As others have said, it's a useful tool as an input to buying and selling decisions. It's great to compare past sales. It still needs people to use their judgment.

For example, if i compare 2 sales forna card and one swas a really old slab and another was just graded, I can make an adjustment accordingly.

Having that info is great. Where I've found it surprisingly useful is assessing scarce pre war cards. I've found some cards where there was something like 2 sales and the last one was 2011. That helps me understand how rare a card might be and that there really isn't a comp. So the seller can name their price.

Bobby, a couple of feature requests:
1. Search by serial number.
It would.be good to see how often a specific slab has been sold and at what price
2. Raw cards
I understand why you don't have these (eg the lack of standardization and people are inconsistent in their specification of condition), but it would be an incredible feature to be able to compare the price of a raw card vs it's graded equivalent. Perhaps you could rely on just a handful of raw providers (e.g. gregmorris cards) in the same way that you do with grading companies.

G@ry G01db3rg

You can already enter cert ID and it takes you to that card...if we have that exact one already sold and marked it takes you directly to that sale as well. We have internally discussed if we can make it so all sales for that particular cert ID can show up...something that is on our radar down the line.

Raw data is something we are in the process of doing using our ML tech..something that would just by automated with no pricing averages just a place to see sales and you do your own analytics..

We are close to finishing off a major back end upgrade....

And we are also very close to having an affiliate program. If any of you are interested in promoting VCP and making some money let me know. You can do it online, FB groups, Trade shows, Podcasts, Brick and Mortar, etc..

We will send flyers with your unique sign up code. And you will have a portal to check as well. We will support and help you promote so if you need Banners to hang, etc...

I’d love to see how people priced cards if they had no points of reference to do so.

VCP is very helpful to me. Even tonight, as I perused through the bst section, I inquired as to the cost of several cards listed at a “ discount “ from “last comp,” only to find the actual last comp for one was the card listed for roughly $400 more than it last sold for.
Yeah, not perfect, but I rely fairly heavily on VCP for my purchases.

We were there. It was called the 1970s

Oh, and a defense of Bobby and other price gathering information sources. And I can speak to this first hand as a Beckett pricing person in the 1990s. We spent a lot of time, money and effort doing our best to authenticate pricing of items and remember until about 1997 or so the internet was a minor part of how the card world worked.

I know I was American Airlines Gold from 1991-2002 as a pricing person traveling to shows around the country to get prices and to talk to dealers to build relationships to know whom one could trust and one could take with a grain or two of salt.

One of the "hidden" things I personally did was not get in early to many shows but wait on (in) line with collectors just to hear some conversations and learn what they were thinking. It's amazing what you can learn by listening. (Boy that sounds like a Yogism)

So, hearing the length people such as Bobby, the hard-working folks at Card Ladder and many more do to verify the actual sales is very encouraging to hear. I won't speak for Bobby but I'd wager some of the improvements he's made to VCP over the years has come from suggestions made on this specific board.

Regards
Rich

We were there. It was called the 1970s

Oh, and a defense of Bobby and other price gathering information sources. And I can speak to this first hand as a Beckett pricing person in the 1990s. We spent a lot of time, money and effort doing our best to authenticate pricing of items and remember until about 1997 or so the internet was a minor part of how the card world worked.

I know I was American Airlines Gold from 1991-2002 as a pricing person traveling to shows around the country to get prices and to talk to dealers to build relationships to know whom one could trust and one could take with a grain or two of salt.

One of the "hidden" things I personally did was not get in early to many shows but wait on (in) line with collectors just to hear some conversations and learn what they were thinking. It's amazing what you can learn by listening. (Boy that sounds like a Yogism)

So, hearing the length people such as Bobby, the hard-working folks at Card Ladder and many more do to verify the actual sales is very encouraging to hear. I won't speak for Bobby but I'd wager some of the improvements he's made to VCP over the years has come from suggestions made on this specific board.

Regards
Rich

nobody goes to card shows anymore... its too crowded

VCP is a useful tool, but its not gospel
 

VCP is a good tool to use but it gets frustrating at times because many people use it as gospel and do not look at the differences between individual cards. Not all PSA 6's (or whatever grade) are created equal. It's so funny how everyone say's 'buy the card, not the grade' yet almost nobody really subscribes to that. This is also true when looking at older vs newer slabs. There is this automatic assumption that an old slab is worth less than a new slab meanwhile the card in the old slab could be outstanding yet value suffers just because of when it was graded. Last point, how would card values ever change is everyone just went off of VCP comps? At some point, a buyer or seller has to take a stand.

I can see pricing being useful for cards that are traded often (Topps, Bowman, T206, etc.) but the cards I buy are usually not, so if I see the last sale was 2019, I know that price is essentially irrelevant. Although in some cases, I do find the pricing of recent sales helpful.

But besides pricing I like VCP for two things:

I like having info about my collection stored in one place. I know I can just use a spreadsheet, but the VCP interface is appealing to me.

I like that they image cards (or provide auction links) that were previously sold. Then I can tell if a price might be due to a card being out-of-focus, off-centered, over/under-graded, etc.

And I especially like it when a card in a current auction (the exact same card) is pictured in a previous auction. Because it helps me determine if any issues I am seeing are on the card or on the case, or whether a crease or wrinkle shows up in an earlier scan that is not in the current scan. Different scanners treat scratches/scuffs/wrinkles differently, and photographs of cards can look different to scans of cards.

There was a recent REA card that appeared to have several white spots on it and all of them were due to scuffs on the holder reflecting light. That was evident from an earlier scan of the same card (although I did call REA to check anyway).

There should have been a “no” in there. I fixed it.

I’ve always been curious about how Beckett came up with card prices back in the '90s. It seemed like a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, dealers were using Beckett to set their prices, but Beckett claimed to base their prices on what dealers were charging. So where did the original pricing data actually come from?

I loved those days. Back when we “collected” instead of “invested”.

I rarely sell any of my cards but buying is easy - I determine what the value is to me. I’m not concerned with what someone else valued a similar card at yesterday.

Value of a specific collectible is determined by a buyer and seller at that moment. If I buy a 52 Topps Mantle at a garage sale for 50 cents, the value of that exact card is 50 cents because that’s what I paid in cash for it. If I sell that same card for 1 million dollars, then the value of that specific card is now 1 million dollars because someone paid me that amount in cash.

throwing ethics out the window, you of course are 'allowed' to operate this way as an individual (because our legal system doesn't punish economic exploitation as long as it conforms to a few very basic marketplace regulations) but this isn't how market dynamics work. in accordance with that, you waive your right to be disappointed when your expectations fail to conform with reality in most cases -- which means a failure to get what you want, whether its money for your card, or a card for your money.

this logic model collapses quickly and consistently in a collective marketplace where you are forced to contend with real world factors such as objectively constituted, framed and reframed market valuation as a shifting valuation at a global level over time. it has nothing to do with what you think anything is worth. you are a node in that global market; your behavior is either an outlier (which is buying a mantle for 50 cents, or selling it for 500m$ -- both of which would be taking advantage of someone else's market ignorance), or you conform to the market at large by offering fair going rates and standards for your products and services: again, in conformity to the global market. markets determine value as an ecosystem; market valuation is a reality. just because you are able to buy, lets say, a 30k card for 5 cents at a garage sale from an unaware seller -- or sell it for 1m to an unaware buyer, this is a predatory approach -- created on a case by case basis by a buyer or seller who is dictating terms in a pseudo-vacuum to an unaware buyer or seller. i don't think it needs much explaining why it is predatory to buy a '52 mantle from an elderly woman for 50 cents at a garage sale then turn around and sell it for whatever amount.

you are, in both circumstances, willfully taking advantage of unaware buyers and sellers under the guise of 'the card is worth what its worth to me'. this is why being educated in economics is important in the current climate, because good faith isn't enough. this is why i advise that buyers and sellers of any good or service become educated in the going rates in their respective industries to avoid being taken advantage of. unfortunately, this kind of behavior is and can be quite common.

^^ this post is not meant to be offensive, but to speak directly from a deep economical foundation. i hope none is taken; cheers!

If I buy a 1990 Fleer Jose Uribe for $30,000 that doesn't mean it's worth $30,000, and if I buy a 1952 Mantle for 50 cents that doesn't mean it's worth 50 cents. The value of a specific collectible is its market price - the equilibrium price at which buyers are willing to buy it and sellers are willing to sell it in general.

That's a basic explanation which obviously doesn't work well for rare cards - but for cards like a 1952 Mantle, the market is what determines the price of a card - the general trend of sales, not a single sale.

well said; a 52 mantle is a great example of market determination precisely because it is a prominent, (relatively) widely available [compared to many other very, very scarce cards] and well documented good

As I noted, we spent a LOT of $$$ traveling the country pre-EBay days and a good bit even after EBay really got going circa 1998 so we got prices from sales lists, from seeing what people were asking/selling at shows and stores and as I noted with phone conversations with trusted hobby sources. We knew who would tell us the truth and who would, as the expression goes, blow smoke.

Were we checking on a price of a Sandy Alomar Jr. card from 1997 Topps, well not really unless we knew he might be catching fire. But we wanted to make sure we knew what the best cards and the best players were selling for. That got more important as inserts/autos/relics/parallels took over. But we did want to know which players were very popular. A good clue back in the day was there were always collectors for Mike Mussina and Cris Carter tougher cards as they had a group of collectors. Not all semi-stars were really the same and we tried to differentiate in cases such as that.

I can tell you when I went on show/store trips to an area I did not know I would ask someone (s) I knew to tell who the market makers were and how much I could trust them. You'd be amazed as how truthful some people were on that level. Plus, in the then burgeoning NY/NJ market I knew from before I went to work at Beckett the major dealers and they were very forthright with me

And we had a team of price guide people (18 at the peak) who were similar to me in gathering prices and helping to create the price guide (s)

Regards
Rich

I always imagined them all throwing darts at a board and see where it hit...

This reads like an economics textbook.

If I find a 52 Mantle at a garage sale and the seller wants 50 cents, how am I taking advantage of them? I gave them their asking price. I also collect vintage Pyrex and depression glass. If I buy a Pyrex dish for $1 at a yard sale and I value it at $30, am I taking advantage of anyone? Nope.

If the “fair market value” of a card is $10 and two buyers get into a frenzy and the winner pays $500, is that the FMV now for that card? No, it’s what the winning buyer felt that the value of THAT card was TO HIM at THAT MOMENT in time, otherwise he wouldn’t have paid that amount.

This is how I feel.
When I started this thread, I never imagined a VCP rep or owner (IDK)would be on here. Net 54 is awesome!

This board is great, but my original point still stands, especially for raw cards. They cannot track most sales that occur.
I only collect pure (raw) and have cracked out hundreds. I cracked out a 1952 Mathews two days ago for my permanent collection. That skews all of their data IMO, especially if I ever sell it.

If you buy a 1990 Jose Uribe for $30,000, then the value of that specific card (the one in your hands) to you is $30,000 because that’s what you paid for it in cash. That doesn’t mean that every 1990 Uribe is worth $30,000…just the one you chose to drop 30K on.

we can agree to disagree! my point is about ethics and economic theory at a macro/global scale. each individual entity within said system is allowed to do whatever they want within that context, but it doesn't change that context at large. you may make an impact within that context based on your individual/personal decisions, but by and large one person rarely if ever disturbs the market with outlier behavior.

it becomes a larger question about ethics and conduct within marketplaces + conscious awareness of how your behavior impacts others. markets collapse because of increasing lack of context, macroeconomic awareness, and consciousness of how individual decisions impact the global whole. its well precedented historically; ties, fascinatingly enough, into the history of the rise and fall of global empires. furthermore -- some people place ethics in a religious context, others in an intrapersonal context about good faith. your behavior and your decisions are always your own, i'm just providing the macroeconomic background to the microeconomic stage you're setting with your stance and decision making.

i have a ton of economics background, so i'm not surprised it sounds like something you might read in a textbook or a academic article or published document! hopefully it was helpful, even if you choose not to take any of it with you and proceed as you were. it is ultimately of no consequence to me, as i have no claim to nor desire to control human behavior, perhaps only create the possibility of influencing it for the collective human good!

cheers!
david

David,

You’ve mentioned ethics a few times now, and that troubles me. What is unethical about giving someone their asking price of 50 cents? Caveat venditor applies as equally as caveat emptor.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just buy and sell collectibles at what we felt they were worth instead of what everyone else felt that they were worth or what they read out of a price guide?

you raise a good point; i'm here for it. i think the primary thing we keep bumping up against here is the reality of market value. its something that neither you nor i have any significant influence over. your mantle example is a good point. if i feel that a mickey mantle 52 topps in VG/EX condition is worth 50 cents, and the old woman who is hosting the yard sale also feels the same, we have a theoretical match right?

this is where ethics comes into play. both you and i know that that 52 topps mantle is worth far more than 50 cents. the woman who is hosting the yard sale is 'market unaware', or, in street terms, 'prepared to be taken for a ride'. we both objectively know the real value of a mantle; the reason we know it to be thus is because we live in a market ecosystem of transactions which verify said value.

this is a really interesting point, because it gets us to what constitutes value. i can buy a de kooning right now for hundreds of millions of dollars. insane, right? because objectively to me de kooning paints like absolute shit. but everyone has their opinion. knowing, and having context for this market reality, i can demand my real price that its worth to me, $5. and i may actually in a wild subjective context get that, like a 50 cent 52 mantle at a garage sale.

however -- here's where philosophy of ethics and economics collide -- i am acting in patently bad faith pretending like that de kooning is worth only $5, just as i am pretending that that mantle '52 is only worth 50 cents. it may be worth 50 cents to you because you hate mantle or don't care about baseball cards, but the market does not value it the same way. so you have to ask yourself, in a deep philosophical way, why am i buying this card if its worthless to me?

perhaps, like a rare few, you are simply buying a piece of junk to play with it for awhile then toss it. but if you know that mantle is worth five or even six figures and you buy it from an old woman at a garage sale for 50 cents, you have to ask yourself if you are really standing in good faith. each person is entitled their individual action in a marketplace, including, as we well observe, theft and exploitation which goes unpunished by legal systems around the world. markets survive and thrive because of regular good faith transactions, even among patently exploitative ones, like destroying an ecosystem to prop up a national economy. markets collapse because of regular bad faith transactions -- they erode trust and destroy the concept of collective value -- which philosophically is tied directly to meaning. here, you get to the root of the problem. market value, like meaning in nations and communities -- is collectively constructed. it is a composite of individual beliefs of value. the whole thing, as your question reveals; as i sometimes wish i wasn't so aware of, is constructed entirely of a tapestry of belief -- perceived meaning en masse.

philosophy of ethics and economics -- as above, are intimate bedfellows. to act in 'good faith', here, is to pay the old woman what her mantle is worth -- knowing what we know about the market value of the object itself: even if she doesn't know it; even if we think its only worth 50 cents. otherwise, we're leveraging market knowledge over someone else who is unsuspecting and doesn't know any better. you could call this hoodwinking, exploitation of lack of awareness, et cetera. but it is ultimately the fact that you know the true collectively constructed market value that creates duality here -- this duality being 'good faith' or 'bad faith' transaction. ethics is human conduct with and towards one another. markets are human transactions of goods, services, materials, and knowledge with one another. the two are absolutely, utterly, profoundly inseparable.

i admire your question and willingness to inquire further here. what your question really reveals is the difference between subjective value and objective valuation. its part of why, personally, i enjoy baseball cards so much. that tip top bread 1910 common that everyone passes by is something easily obtainable for me -- because it holds a hotbed of deep historical and philosophical meaning that the market doesn't yet understand or is not yet aware of. is this exploitative? perhaps. and that begs a deeper question about what real value is and how markets understand it and attempt to contextualize it. van gogh sold only a couple paintings in his lifetime; for pennies considering what his work is worth on the global market now. was he swindled out of those paintings (looking back)? definitely. but in and at the time he sold it? they were the bare few paintings he could sell! ethically, without a doubt, all of those transactions would be constituted as in 'good faith'... in fact, they even helped a desperate painter! he lived in a world that thought his paintings were worthless at the time... so much that they couldn't be sold, really, for any amount. if only he could see the way that the collective imagination changed; reconstituted that market value. if i were to buy what i knew to be a van gogh for pennies from an unsuspecting inheritor of one of those paintings he sold in his lifetime... we're in a very different world ethically!

is my 1910 tip top bread common worth more than what the market values it at? i think so -- but this is the depth of questioning into philosophy, ethics, and economics that makes this conversation so provocative and thought-provoking. (i even have to ask myself -- am i imagining that this 1910 tip top bread 1910 common is worth anything at all!! :)

You're certainly welcome to buy and sell at what you think something is worth. The problem is you have to find someone else who agrees with your desired price, which, if you're wildly different from what other similar cards have recently sold for, will probably be difficult to do.

That is very true, and I have accepted that fact. I still only buy at values that I’m comfortable with.

That's true for me as well, and I imagine for most collectors. However, the reality is those values are generally being based on comps to other sales of the same card in similar condition.

this is a noble point -- and it actually really deeply connects back to the issue that was raised in the other thread about shill bidding. markets are regularly inflated by people who are actively manipulating them with false signals; distorting data and driving untrue price inflation -- or deflation -- for perceived personal gain. and a lot of what that thread ended up discussing is what happened to people who thought that this was a viable or ethical or practical way of engaging with the community. these conversations going on seem to be about is how that impacts us as collectors; people who genuinely love baseball cards; seek to act with integrity and consciously; participate in community surrounding our passions -- not merely ruthlessly conquer piles and piles of photos or cards -- regardless of what it does to us or others, what have you. many people in this hobby seem to have met their demise by descending into a total greed to possess what really is nothing more than pieces of cardboard (really cool pieces of cardboard, mind you) at all costs. it reminds me of reading about what happened with type 1 photography in some of those early auction days in jim chapman's book.

there are people who both buy and sell in this hobby with deep reverence for our community and baseball history as a whole; there are people who do the same with the idea to extract every single possible dollar out of a card, meaning be damned. to me its a sort of illness or disease -- the people who do that and live that way. we are here for meaning and the love of the cards. there is another faction which is here to extract monetary value from them. there is no real love there; thus, no real community built around genuine passion and connection with/for them.

our community, which was i think at one point in history more resembled a small group of passionate kids -- has been in many ways 'hijacked' by people leveraging cards as tokens and assets; we've seen the way the hobby as a whole, particularly in modern, has adopted this hyper modern method of pumping and dumping '1/1 super gold supreme' cards like shells. its like the introduction of a stock market to a sandlot -- a cold calculating hand; as you mentioned earlier jim, the juxtaposition of trading with your friends back in the day. there's a warmth to that; a commonality. its much more human. its ultimately a big part of the reason that, for me, baseball cards are such an important thing.

there's so much to be said here, but it ultimately comes back to the integrity and the passion that i think we all have here on the forum for cards and the game and history. and how our community has been turned into a market for stock turnover and pumping inflated values into something which was always about something far deeper than that. however, i think there are still plenty of us out here who still reside at that level of care. and i often see that reflected in the right kind of relationships where i'm buying, trading, selling, communicating -- all of the above.

Guy finds a Mantle at a yardsale for .50. Can't stomach taking advantage of the lady and offers her $1000. She thinks, oh my if he's willing to pay $1000 maybe he's willing to pay $10,000 and instead decides to keep it.

This is 100% what would happen to me if I found a .50 Mantle at a yardsale.

LOL -- ethics gone wrong... or right? :D

Were I to ever run across a cheap, magical find at a garage sale, dealer's booth, etc., I would buy it at the low price, and then (after knowing their address or a way to contact them) send them a 'more proper' amount of money.
Sadly, though, incredible crap like that never happens to me!!

If you offer a 52 Topps Mantle for 50 cents and I accept. ...that's where the story ends. I'm the hero and you are the villain. I'm the good guy and you are the bad guy, not the other way around. Are you serious with all this philosophy stuff? It's baseball cards. What do you want for your Bo Diaz Rook?

you're allowed to do whatever you want! if you read my posts you'll see what i'm saying. what you said in your comment isn't what i'm saying at all -- i'm just giving you the logic that either makes markets function or fail. its simple!

you're allowed to do whatever you want! if you read my posts you'll see what i'm saying. what you said in your comment isn't what i'm saying at all -- i'm just giving you the logic that either makes markets function or fail on a mass scale. its simple! none of it takes away your free will. collective value is an imagination and we either decide to exploit it for personal gain when we perceive windows or openings to take advantage of other people or participate in it respectfully of others, regardless of whether or not they understand it.

now imagine that old woman is your neighbor and she finds out you took her for all she was worth, knowing full well what you were doing. there's the community impact of your decisions in real time!

and accordingly, that creates, fosters -- or erodes and destroys -- social trust. it has nothing to do with heroes and villains. it has to do with whether we wake up tomorrow and our market still exists!

I think there is a spectrum and everyone draws the line at a different place.

There is the "old lady" example where you are taking advantage of someone else's ignorance who has no reason to know better. I wouldn't tell someone what to do in this case, but I think some of us would tell the old lady what the card was worth and that she should auction it off somewhere (or offer her fair market value). But only up to a point. For a '52 Mantle maybe. For a '52 Forrest Main, we would probably just buy the card. Anyway, if this actually happened, the card would probably be a a reprint!

Then there is the example of going to a card or mall show, sifting through a group of 1957 commons, and pulling out an Ashburn because either the seller didn't know he was a HOFer or didn't want to search through a pile of cards looking for the better players. I think most of us would just buy the card at the price offered because the seller "should have" known better.

There is also the case of something being offered at auction as a generic cabinet or postcard and you, as the bidder, knowing or suspecting that a better player was pictured...say Joe McGinnity on a factory team. I think most of us would just bid on the item and not tell the AH to update their listing. Because they and the consignor should have done some research, and because we like the idea that our knowledge/research is going to be put to practical use.

I haven't experienced these, so I can't say what I would do. But I do have a flexible approach to getting too much change. If I am at a farmer's market that I go to regularly, and someone gives me an extra $5 in change and I notice it, I will tell them. But if I am at a McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts, I tend to keep it. My justification is that I am dealing with a big company and I like the idea that I am benefiting because I can do simple math in my head. But whatever the justification, I am stealing their money. Not that anyone still uses cash.

Similarly, if I am at a supermarket and I notice that something rang up at a higher price, I will tell them (sometimes to the annoyance of the people behind me on line). But if I notice that something rang up at a lower price...not so much.

great input here michael. absolutely a spectrum. the old lady mantle example is great because its clearly taking advantage of a massive discrepancy in market value and relative perceived value. its taking advantage of another individual who doesn't know any better for personal benefit. and thats what collapses markets. it helps elucidate the concept quite clearly. as you so astutely stated, corporate 'theft' on behalf of the buyer is so often already corporate theft on behalf of the corporation ;) --- that's a broken exchange from the start!

so much of this, as we're talking about with corporations, already goes on and is well documented and goes un-prosecuted. so people think ethically that its fine, then are surprised (or at least feign surprise) when markets destabilize and collapse -- regionally, nationally, or globally. there are real factors at play in market collapse -- and these include many of which were discussed in the bid shilling post. history consistently tells the tale; as we can see, erosion of trust dictates what happens in stock market stability (or lack thereof) or bank runs. markets run on it; when its gone, so are markets. cue descent into primordial chaos. rapid inflation or deflation of collective value systems by bad actors is the end of the stories we tell ourselves about what is valuable and why. and when those stories go out the window (our implicit and explicit agreements as markets of truth, so to speak), so does a large part of what creates the foundation of our relationships and conduct in the polis. ie -- social contract(s).

as i was saying in the above comments, ethics isnt some abstract thing. it has real consequences when you have enough market literacy to clearly and unequivocally understand and state that they run on trust. silk road, early native american trading posts, debt in the roman empire (and american empire)... human history is rampant with examples of the precarity of trust and destabilization of markets.

well reasoned and level headed input in your comment. nice.