So... how do you value a card...
 

There is a population 4 1972 Rayfield Wright rookie card in PSA 10 grade on eBay at the moment. eBay link.

In addition, it's a high number card. VCP has no sales history for the previous 3 PSA 10's. A search on Google finds a stale price for one of the previous listings from 4sharpcorners (I was watching that auction and believe it sold on their site in the mid $4k range).

So - title of the thread - how would you value a card like this? Usually I can find some price history even if it's years old. But in this case, no idea what is a fair price...

Thoughts at how to arrive at a price? I purchased this item in PSA 9 grade about 4 months ago for $274.88. So 10x that is what I'm thinking would be the absolute max - that would be $2,748.

Anyone have any experience calling 4sharpcorners and making them an offer? Thanks.

No idea how to value the card, but I do know that 4SC will not negotiate. Their price is their price and if it doesn't sell for a while they'll lower it. But they don't take offers.

Hi Steve,

Welcome to my world! Lots of the stuff I collect I can't find comparable pricing for. Here are some tips for you that might help.

- You already had a good idea. Look at the price of the same card with a different grade and extrapolate.

- The other thing to do is identify "like" cards from the set and see if they have any PSA 10 grades that you can use for comparison.

- You might need to look at similar sets and/or other cards of the player in other sets you believe are somewhat comparable.

Good luck!

jeff

Thanks, that's about what I was expecting to hear...

Thanks for the additional thoughts! I was wondering what other folks used as rough approximations for value. i'll look into other similar cards in the set or close that may give an idea.

I'm on 4SC mailing lists and they do run weekly sales - usually around 10% off and usually on something specific like PSA 10 cards..... Although in this case, it seems like your instinct is this card wouldn't sell at auction for this price, so if you're like me me and you pay a high BIN and then it gets auctioned off later for less, you'll wind up kicking yourself.

Jeff's point was good about finding an analogy if you cannot find price data on the same card in the same grade. Maybe find another HOF lineman PSA 10 from the 70s.... Maybe Gene Upshaw or John Hannah PSA 10 cards?

I don't think using a factor will work - I do that sometimes if say I just missed on a PSA 5 and then a PSA 6 comes up - I may multiply by 1.25 or something, but I think that only works for the section of data that is somewhat "linear". The PSA 10 cards are sometimes off the chart compared to the other grades - Rickey Henderson in baseball comes to mind.

Good point, John. I guess in general I used this to extrapolate down, not up. My basic metric is a 5 is 1/2 of a 7, a 3 is 1/2 of a 5, a 1 is 10% of a 7. Above an 8 it sometimes gets crazy and comparing a player with a like player at the same grade is a better approach. Dealers often bid on cards up to 50/70% of their perceived value. I've noticed that bidding slows considerably thereafter as dealers can't make enough $$$ to continue bidding. There are exceptions, though, like hot cards that are rising fast.

The last idea is to ask other collectors! I often reach out to others to get their opinion about an item as they might have more expierence / knowledge about it than I do.

jeff