What's your take on PSA's Sports Market Report?
 

So, after spending the last few years focusing on autographs I've decided to shift gears a bit and gather low grade examples of higher end cards... In my recent quest for a 1939 pb williams I was viewing the smr guide and was surprised to find their market data well below recent buy and sell prices...

Looked at their market data on low grade cobb t206's (1's) and once again found them to be 20-30% below market...

In any case, just wanted to get some opinions out there as to wether this info is accurate? or if there is a better resource out there that I should be referencing?

Many Thanks!
Dave

you can try CardTarget. Its one of my best option or use VCP (vintagecardprices)--subscribe

SMR is a vehicle for selling ad space. Worthless as a price guide.
VCP not only gives you realized prices but often specific scans, so you can gauge the quality of the card vs. price yourself.

Agreed that SMR is useless as a price guide. As an example, check the prices for 1914 Cracker Jack cards. The prices reflected in SMR are not even close. As previously mentioned, look at Cardtarget, check the various auction houses and the prices likely fall around those two sources. For scarce and those " one of a kind " items, there is a wealth of knowledge on the Net54 board. Reach out to the members and you will get the answers.

Good as a mag. As a priceguide, it's a rag.

I don't really like it as either a price guide or magazine (articles). Incredibly self-promoting with little, true hobby insight. It's whatever Joe Blow wants to print to CYA.

Like some others have already said, SMR doesn't always seem realistic with what I actually see cards being sold for.

I much prefer Card Target...

ALWAYS keep in mind that VCP and card target data can easily be manipulated. All it takes is two guys selling a card back and forth to each other to create phantom data points that others will use as a benchmark for their spending.

Make sure you only validate anomalous sales in which the card scan shows a card with equally anomalous eye appeal.

If a PSA 6 has ten sales in an historic range, and a weak PSA 6 suddenly sells for 2X that range, trust your gut.

Makes a great coaster so I don't stain the solid wood cocktail table. If you have a glass-top table, I guess you don't have to worry about that though.

mag
 

Its fish paper I tell ya..fish paper !