ebay vs guides
 

do you think that auctions from ebay or others along the true prices of what the prewar cards are worth or do you think that price guides are the real prices? i want to hear what you think of this

Mr. Beckett might well have a few Ph.D's in his back pocket and I'm sure he is real good with numbers. But good old American supply and demand economics will always reign supreme. Translation............ebay wins!

Lovely Day...

Actually, I think this article will serve as a valuable supply and demand lesson (not that I ever would consider hijacking your thread)..

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101007/..._gate_crashers

Lovely Day...

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I use VCP to help determine a card's value, but there's more to it than that. VCP uses auction results only. They don't take Buy It Now's or dealer sales into account, which are almost always higher that auction results. VCP also doesn't tell you how many days the auction ran for, what day/time the auction ended, etc. All of these things can influence the price. The other thing, and probably most important, is the scarcity of the card. For a T206 Rube Kisinger with a Piedmont back that's graded SGC 30, you can pretty well count on VCP to be very accurate. The card comes up for auction often enough that people aren't going to over extend for it. For a card that hasn't been up for auction in any grade in three years, the price could be all over the place. There is no real valuation tool for a card like this. The longer a person looks for a card, the more they're willing to pay.

Each card has to be evaluated individually for value with a lot of different things considered. This is too much to ask of a "Price Guide". In my opinion this is why a Price Guide could never be printed accurately. They're a waste of ink. But ebay auctions don't tell the whole story either. Hope this helps

If you're using eBay as your price guide, which of these two auctions do you go with? They closed within a couple days of each other. They were in the same category, and both were properly described.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Bill

Hmmm, let me see. Bidding goes bonkers on the first postcard, with the seller discreetly putting some gotcha search words in the description, and also including a subliminal message about the postcards value. Second auction is setup nicely, but no subliminal message nor gotcha keywords and bidding is non-existent.

CONCLUSION: Supply and demand is very complex and is subject to variances. Thus, eBay bidding should not be used as a price guide without sufficient data (especially, when it relates to postcards). Next!

Lovely Day...

I entirely agree. A long time pet peeve of mine--as a card guide author--is the theoretical pricing of cards inherent in creating a price guide as to any issue other than a very common card in very common condition. How can I possibly set a near mint, ex and vg price for every card in existence with any hope of accuracy? I'd much rather see a list of actual sales results than a fictional "guide" of prices. Kind of reminds me of Trading Places:

Louis Winthorpe III: This is a Rouchefoucauld. The thinnest water-resistant watch in the world. Singularly unique, sculptured in design, hand-crafted in Switzerland, and water resistant to three atmospheres. This is *the* sports watch of the '80s. Six thousand, nine hundred and fifty five dollars retail!
Pawnbroker: You got a receipt?
Louis Winthorpe III: Look, it tells time simultaneously in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome, and Gstaad.
Pawnbroker: In Philadelphia, it's worth 50 bucks.

The seller and venue matter a lot as well.

The appraisers on antiques roadshow are among the very few people that can actually get the sort of prices they appraise things for. The furniture guys wouldn't be able to get the prices on toys and the toy guy wouldn't be able to get close to the furniture prices for furniture.

Same thing for different levels of dealer. The flea market guys are sometimes cheap because that's all they can get for what they have at that flea market. A guy with a shop might be able to get a bit more, but couldn't move a big box of newish commons. And a big auction house will usually do better than a small one. They have better connections to collectors with more money than the little places. (Or well connected startups)

Even on Ebay this can matter. I've sometimes helped my film collecting friend do some selling. I had one film that was in fantastic condition, with good actors and a famous story. tried $25, tried $10 nothing. Gave it back to him and it got a bid in minutes at $25. But I've sold some pretty crummy stuff he had that he thought wasn't saleable. Why? Because people trust his opinion of condition more than mine. He does just film, I do pretty much anything I think I can make a few bucks on.

I saw a local auction of a Wagner a few years back, then watched it travel through several auction houses over the next year or so. Each larger auction house was able to get more for it than the previous one. It went from $30K when I saw it to 120K a year later.
Local ad and small hobby ad 30K sale
small scd ad small auction 60K minimum
quarter page scd ad 90K minimum
full page scd ad 120K minimum

I lost track of it after that.

Steve B

I believe you are incorrect that VCP doesnt use BIN data. In fact, I would say you are egregiously wrong.

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This is the thread that I was referencing:

http://net54baseball.com/showthread....hlight=VCP+BIN

I should have been more clear in stating that VCP does not record ALL BIN data (as I understand it).