T206 Nap Lajoie opinion!!
 

Hi everyone, I’m about to do a trade but I’m hung up on one card. It’s the T206 Lajoie batting EPDG PSA 3.5 - comps are everywhere and was wondering what you thought it was worth in a trade deal.

Thank you!

Trades are hard but I have done a few - I would suggest using most recent sold values from VCP for bith sides if the trade. Try to reach agreement on which VCP card most closely resembles the cards on each side of the trade.

This may give you a good starting position and then the negotiations start from there…

Others may have a different approach but this has worked for me a few times.

Good luck

Please note - the following is just my opinion:

If I'm not mistaken, the cert # is 53540524. That card sold via Leland's in 2021 for $4,317.

It appears (to me) that the eye appeal is less than stellar. The corners are obtuse/acute; the card wasn't cut perfectly square. The centering is off noticeably side-to-side. There are also several areas on the back which have marks of some sort.That's not to say this isn't a great card. I'm just pointing out that it does't have remarkable eye appeal for the grade.

The sports card market is (obviously) not the same as it was four years ago. However, the Leland's sale is at least one data point. Here's another:

REA sold a PSA 3 in more recent times (August 2023) for $2,760. To my eye, this 3 looks nicer than the 3.5 does. One could possibly attribute the lower hammer price to the state of collectibles in the summer of '23, when things weren't as...optimistic.

Another take on this would be to look at the peak of the market, which was (if I remember correctly) the spring of '21. The 3.5 was probably overpriced at that point. Additionally, in my opinion, the 3 was probably a bit underpriced in the summer of '23.

One other thing to keep in mind: scarce (not rare) backs have cooled a bit over the past few years.

If I had to assign a trade value to this card, I would probably land at somewhere around $3,000 to $3,200.

Thank you so much for the detailed reply! I really appreciate it! And I agree with the assessment. Probably around 3k for sure

Well said Eric.