General card valuation question
 

Hi. I have been looking up prior auction results to gauge value of an item and I am wondering what others do…. Do you use the hammer price or the hammer price plus fees (final price) to gauge value? Some auction houses only report the hammer price while others report both numbers. Obviously you can figure out the final price but it’s just not visually posted. Thanks.

Hammer plus BP.

If it's in person at a show, I find the eBay sold price then always tack on taxes and an estimate of shipping to arrive at the 'real cost' of the card I'm researching/evaluating.

Realistically, add another 15-20% premium for the dealer. They need to cover their show and operating costs. Also, you are at that point the only person in the market for the card so the burden is on you as buyer to acquire the card, they’ll sell to the next person otherwise. So just buy it if you want it and can never find it elsewhere.

Sorry for the confusion but I am not referencing buying an item at a show or in person. Just a general question on what others use to value or price an item when using old auction houses listings for comps. Hammer price or hammer plus fees.

Hammer price plus buyers premium. That’s the cost Everyone pays and that’s the final sales price.

Taxes, shipping, etc vary by buyer, item, auction house, etc. Ignore that.

Agree with others. When it comes to major auctions I consider the sale price to be the ending cost with BP included.

That question becomes a lot more nuanced with your explanation.

For example, say you buy a card (completely made up amounts) for $500 and the BP is another $100, your total 'valuation' then obviously becomes $600. That's how it would be entered into a ledger (I'm not an accountant, just speaking colloquially).

However (this is a big HOWEVER), if you're using that same information to decide whether or not the price of a card is reasonable or 'worth it,' then that approach is no longer accurate.

Because if you decide to buy a card at that $600 valuation/hammer price, you're still going to have to add the additional BP of (say) $125 to the total. So you've now paid $725 for what you've determined to be a $600 card.
In that scenario, you mustn't include the BP in your valuation, just the original hammer price, so you would end up paying the 'right' total amount.

I guess what I am saying is it's very situational and highly dependent on whether your focus here is that of a buyer or only as a record keeper.

I am not aware of a single auction house that only lists the hammer price without the BP as the "sold price". I could be wrong, but I would be surprised to learn that any auction house is doing that.

When using auction prices to comp cards being sold outside of an auction I definitely take the transaction fees into account. If something sold for a reported $1000 but they included a 20% buyer's premium and a 15% seller's fee so that the seller only received $708, I'm looking at that as the basis for the comp. The money the auction house kept has no bearing on a person to person sale. Usually I'll end up somewhere in the middle where the buyer pays less than the recorded comp and the seller gets more money in their pocket. When doing this it's important to understand the fee structure of the specific platform the sale comes from.

I do this both when I buy and the rarer times I sell. I can tell you I've had zero issues when selling this way. Sometimes people disagree when I'm buying. That's fine. I just move on.

General card valuation question
 

Do you really have success with this approach?

In general, yes. Like I said, I usually end up somewhere in the middle. Seems like buying at 80% of comps is in favor these days, which basically knocks of the BP anyway. Say comp is $1k, offer is $800, settle at $850. Seller nets more than they would have at auction and buyer pays less.

I do find this approach works best with relatively common cards with a decent amount of comps. If it's something rarer than that's a different deal. It also works well if I sell something to the person first using this method too.

Just an FYI that the hammer is 83.33% of the final price, not 80%.

For example, the hammer is $100, meaning the 20% BP is $20, and the final price (or real comp per the OP’s question) is $120. $100/$120 is 83.33%.

Another example…. Hammer is $8,600, meaning the 20% BP is $1,720, and the final price is $10,320. $8,600/$10,320 = 83.33%

So you do add 20% to the hammer, but the hammer ends up being 83.33% of the final price. The example above barely nets the seller what they hammer was, which would have been $833.33, in order to yield a $1000 final price.

Also, nobody pays a seller fee in sports auctions anymore.

Otherwise, I agree that when doing a private deal, somewhere between the “final price” comp and 83.33% thereof is fair and creates a double win, where the seller gets more than hammer and the buyer pays less than final price

Thanks for adding the detail!

I was being a little too loose with the numbers to get the idea across 😀

Yes it does. Sometimes I even add a sales tax to it because what I buy I pay tax on, one way or the other. So that is my cost basis. But to each their own, whatever works for you.
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I would too, simply because the hammer price isn't what was actually paid.

Nobody in your rent district Ryan, but I can't sell $50 cards individually with no commission.

This probably won’t help you too much, but here it goes….

I don’t believe in book values or comps. These are collectibles. There is no manufacturing cost or materials that you’re buying and every single person has a different threshold of what they feel is an appropriate price for something. I determine value to me. That value may be completely different to the next person and I may be high or low.

Let’s say for example, that the current trend is for a particular card to be valued in the $50 neighborhood. If I see that card and I like the card and I ask someone what they want for it and they say $50 I determine do I like the card more than I like a $50 bill in my pocket. If the card only appeals to me to a $20 level then I’m probably going to pass on the card. It means nothing to me what 100 other people paid on eBay for a card or what someone tells me the card is worth to them. That’s them, not me. Conversely, Someone may tell me that the card is $50 and in my mind I think it’s worth $100 so I will probably buy it because I think I’m getting a good deal because of what I was willing to pay for the card.

It’s the same thing when selling something. Would I sell something for $10??? Maybe. Would I sell it for $1000? Maybe. I have to find the number that I’m comfortable with somewhere in between.

Told ya it wouldn’t be helpful.

I’ll mostly agree with Jim here.

I do think that if you want a card badly enough, then your only choice is to pay what the market demands.

But in a case where you’re not nearly so motivated, then you have every right to pass if you’re not willing to pay the going rate. Along those lines, particularly for rare stuff that almost never trades, sometimes you have to be willing to lose out on stuff to learn what the market really is. Otherwise, you end up buying everything and always wondering if you’re just setting the market yourself, with no one else being willing to pay anywhere close to that amount.

Understood. But that’s why many AHs have a minimum BP. I guess it’s 6 in one hand, 1/2 dozen in the other, but I would think a minimum BP takes care of the issue.

I can agree with that. Again, it comes down to if you like the card someone says is worth $50 more than the $50 bill in your pocket. Only the buyer can make that decision.

I’m with you there.

I think the point that I’m trying to make is that we’re often a lot less cold and calculating. Instead, we often get emotional and irrational, particularly in an auction format. We start out with a max price of $1,000, and the next thing you know, the price is at $3,000, there’s 30 seconds left on the clock in extended bidding, and we’re trying to decide if we can justify going up one more bid increment.

Anyone that has collected long enough has done this multiple times. I have done it frequently.

Glad to hear I'm not alone!

Don't get me wrong...some of my most cherished pieces have come from irrational bidding behavior. So there can definitely be a silver lining, even if we feel a little out of control in the moment.

Hunt Auctions

I have stuff that I have no idea why I bought it. Eventually, I come to my senses and sell it usually taking a small loss in those instances.

Back to topic. Ebay and auction house previous sales are great ways to find card valuations. I was unaware that Hunt doesn't add the BP into their completed sales prices.
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