Unpopular opinion on VCP an other "comp apps"
 

I would love to hear other opinions, and I am open to being wrong. That said, I think VCP and other comp sites and apps are worthless. I'm not sure how many times I have listed something for sale or tried to buy something on different platforms and have had people send me a screenshot of "comps." Whether higher or lower, I believe they are as obsolete as Beckett, who has 1952 Topps high numbers NM at $300! (Anyone who wants to sell for that, please contact me.)

Those apps track auction and eBay sales, not including the tax and shipping from eBay. What they do not do, and cannot do, is track the vast majority of sales. They don't have data on:

Collector-to-collector sales
Facebook sales
Instagram sales
TikTok sales
WhatNot sales
Card show sales
Net 54 and other forums' sales
Direct from the dealer's website sales

I buy and sell easily 90% of my cards on platforms that are not taken into account by those apps. So why are they like the gospel truth to so many?
Thanks for the discussion

Disagree with you.

VCP reports actual sales. They cannot help it if a card has not traded hands in a few years in a certain grade.

If there are recent comps, then use them. If there are only outdated ones, ignore them.

Obviously, MOST major dealers use VCP when selling as a guide.

Most sophisticated collectors do as well.

The information VCP provides is as accurate as it can be based on sales. No more, no less.

Obviously not all data can be collected by these service.

But they are still a valuable tool. I often just go on REA and Heritage and look at comp histories for those and other high volume auction houses, but I can see how it would be very useful to get a larger breadth of comps.

I have used VCP for one-off sales and purchases, and I think it is a good site.

I think it’s a question of whether you’d rather have some data or no data.

A lot of the sources you listed as not being reflected in the pricing apps are not available for a reason. And unless those sources suddenly decide to self-report data that we have reason to believe is accurate, we’ll get to continue to live without it.

So instead, we get to live with just a subset of transactions where the data is available, and hopefully mostly reliable, barring non-payers at auctions.

Whether it should really be relied upon as much as it is…that’s another question entirely, but tends to be a decision that we each get to make for ourselves.

But maybe this thread can be the beginning of the crusade to get people to rely less on the small slice of data that they do have available.

A majority of the buyers and sellers in those non-public sales likely referenced VCP or similar apps. This is especially true for frequently traded post-war cards.

Thanks for the great discussion. That is what I hoped for!

My contention is that the vast majority of the sales are not reported, yet it is valid that many of those sales have used the recorded sales as a guide.

I have just found that most sales I have experienced, as a buyer and seller, do not reflect what VCP says. Money talks. In my experience, cash at a show on Sunday will get you a long way. I have also sold things for way less than the asking price on eBay and other platforms because I wanted to buy something else.

All that said, I need four more high numbers (reprints of Mickey and Jackie will do for now) and about 6-7 upgrades. I would be happy to send a list.

In the vintage card world it all depends on what the card looks like in grade.

Some 7’s look much better than other 7’s…the one that is centered will always carry a premium over one that is OC in same grade. Vcp is a good reference point for vintage but you have to compare similar looking eye appeal cards as more accurate a comp…it’s very nuanced.

We base all our data on what is verifiable with links and images of the sale....
It is just not possible to do that in FB, Tik Tok, etc...

I have been asked countless times that X sold for Y in a deal. I have no way of verifying anything. So am I just suppose to trust everyone to report it back to me and just post.

What would stop you from saying it cost your $10K and it reality cost you $3K and I post it. Now you have a comp and your willing to selling for 1/2 of VCP average...

Sorry but I would not put much trust in a model like you suggest.

Comps in general, whether you took the time to research them yourself or got them through a service, are a useful tool to get a ballpark idea price points. While I agree it's annoying how some people use them as the final answer without taking into account variability within grades, age of comps, outlier results (high or low), etc - those are all faults in the user, not the tool.

I've used VCP for a long time now and find it very useful. Of course not all sales are recorded and some BIN sales are suspect but it definitely gives you an idea of what particular cards are going for.

IMHO, these days, dealers ignore tools like this at their peril. The days of dealers having all the data are over, and they need to come to grips with it and come up with better answers to pricing questions other than:

"I have more than that into this card"

"I have overhead costs I need to cover"

"My last sale was more than that"

jeff

HI Bobby,

Long time VCP subscriber! Does VCP capture ebay BIN prices? Also any new sources of data in the works you can share?

Yes we do capture BIN and BO sales and you should see them usually with the asking price X'd out and the price it sold for underneath. This take longer to post because mostly due to eBay API system. 1st it will not start our process until the time set by the seller expires. Normal systems will close once the item is sold. Then after this eBay makes getting the final value difficult so we then have to find that out.

In regards to new data sources we are always looking for new AH or others. We do not scrap and try to get live listings to help our members collect. If anyone would like us to get someone we currently do not have please let us know and we will try to connect.

Also since we have the BIN original price and the accepted price that let us create BOOST...you can now look up sellers on VCP and see their acceptance rate. This is a great tool for the buyer in knowing the what they typically accept according to price range.

Vcp has allowed anyone to become a "dealer" overnight. Not to mention the market has just been going up for the most part. I don't think condemning VCP is the answer.

Comps provide insight for both the seller and potential buyers.

They are not absolute.

More information is always a good thing.

It sounds like your problem isn't with the tools that are available, but with how people use (or misuse) them. Having data is useful (the opposite of worthless). It's what you do with that data that matters.

You've been welcome to our data for years.

Hunt Auctions: https://huntauctions.com

Classic Auctions: https://www.classicauctions.net

Can you give me your address I googled Aquarian Sports Cards and get only Net54 posts and other strange things...also can you supply a API feed?

Thanks

Jumping into the comps discussion… I find that people sometimes forget that comps change (higher or lower) over time. “You’re charging over comp…”

Sometimes true - if not true, comp prices would never go up.

As others have said - comps are a good guard rail but they are not absolute (even though they may seem so to some)

(I’ll also add that I find VCP to incredibly valuable both as a seller and collector - keep up the great work)

I mean you could be analyzing NASA data from deep space quasars and there are going to be limitations on the data. That's not a reason to say the data is not useful. Data sets have limitations. You take note of the limitations and use the data with the limitations in mind.

There are plenty of ways of analyzing some of the data on past sales. VCP is the best source that pulls the most info together in one place. And it's very easy to use.

+1

physicist?

My son. I'm not smart enough for that gig.

ah i was close! bet he's a cool guy -- great job to have. outer space and data sets... thats some good stuff

That was mostly the model for price guides back in the day. They collected sales info, but from dealers they trusted. It was common to have at least a month of cards being available before it got into Beckett or any other guide. Then there was the month of complaining how the initial priced were way off.

Stuff like what you do may have flaws, but I think it's more reliable for more expensive cards

its like any other market. the more actionable data you have the better decisions you can make, but you also have to be prepared for seismic market shifts based on changes in real time behaviors/circumstances/environmental factors, et al. its actually quite interesting how well this thread intersects with the other one posted by peter about bid inflation. it directly relates to and exemplifies one aspect of how comps can be inflated and/or deflated by even small scale (or large) market actions by 'good' and 'bad' actors alike.

Comps are stupid and unrealistic. These are collectibles and there is no dedicated material cost or exact number. What someone bought and sold a card for yesterday is irrelevant to what I may buy and sell my card for.

real estate is a strong comparison for what market comps for cards function as. like jeff said, they're guardrails/guide rails. you as an individual can subjectively make the decision to 'list' your card at much higher than the going rate for similar condition sets/houses, or you can make the decision to 'buy' your card at a much lower than the going rate for similar condition sets/houses.

either way, that subjective decision may leave your card on the market for weeks, months, or years; may leave you on the market for a card for weeks, months, or years. that's why successful brokers and agencies use comps to help buyers and sellers advocate and achieve success on the market for properties at all scales. nothing exists in a vacuum; markets of all sizes elucidate this same fundamental truth.

What do you mean by the part I bolded in your comment?

Unpopular opinion on VCP an other "comp apps"
 

So were price guides also stupid and unrealistic when they used to aggregate the comp data for us back in the 1990’s and earlier?

Clearly no buyer or seller can be forced into paying a specific price, and at times other factors / reasoning surely comes into play - but if you don’t use market data to evaluate recent prices, then I’m imagining those who might find your pricing decisions out of line whether buying or selling stands to be a higher number.

VCP is certainly useful; to the OP’s notion that it has no utility at all one would have to generally agree that the prices being paid elsewhere not tracked on VCP (whether that’s Facebook, WhatNot, a discord, the local card shop / show / flea market, garage sale…) are vastly out of line with those reported in VCP. I am only one person with a small postwar vintage collection - but at least in my experience - that’s neither true or close to being true. Some dealers will balk at the fact that a VCP average price represents a longer duration of time than just the last 3 comps that they want to use on their items because they were higher and it’s trending upward.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Great discussion, and I am learning from the posts. I retract my use of the word "worthless." That was too strong of a word and I don't truly believe that to be the case, mainly based on some of the posts on this thread.

My original point was intended to be that people treat it like the be-all end-all, when it can't track most sales. I have had sellers send me screenshots that included prices from 3-4 years ago, or even pandemic pricing.

I do agree that the other sales are likely influenced by VCP, or more so, eBay sales, which people who have never heard of VCP use. That is a great point, and much like the price guides of the early days. Some dealers still use Beckett. Many old-timers at the shows I frequent have Beckett prices listed on their cards, and then they will deal from there.

I love to research; it's fun. If I have cards I want to buy, I will watch and track them on every possible platform for months. I keep meticulous records of the sales, even asking people what they bought things for and what they sold things for. I have great relationships with dozens of dealers and collectors, so I can do that.

I am not so presumptuous as to say that everyone should cancel their subscriptions or anything. I said in the OP that I was willing to be wrong and learn. However, I still believe the vast majority of sales are not and will not ever be reported to them. Thus, a card is still only as valuable as the seller thinks it is and as the buyer's desire to have it.

great observation chris. incomplete data is what keeps us data analysts (ie myself) :D banging our heads against the collective wall.

you are 100% correct. incomplete information regarding sales and the failure to capture all data, all information, incomplete data sets, etc to me fundamentally characterizes the human condition. we have to do the best with what we have; hopefully develop relationships and mutual contextual understanding to build trust with one another and open ourselves up to and respect when people are able to see things that we can't or don't see ourselves.

this is the big issue with markets in my opinion. they operate best in mutual good faith. if the seller wants me to succeed and i want the seller to succeed, we are in prime position to mutually benefit from the transaction. but because of things like obscured market information or data, as well as people who wish to exploit others for their perceived own personal gain, we have a lot of difficulty discerning truth or creating environments of mutual benefit.

if sales are not reported or captured and introduced into data sets, we are working with the best we have. and as we so often see in humanity throughout history, the best we have is often a fair distance from the objective reality or the truth...

How do you determine what a fair price is when you're buying or selling?

I think the term "comps" has a bad reputation. If you walk around a card show and decide to buy a card from the dealer who offers the best price on that card, you've used "comps".

If you have bought 10 T206 commons all in a similar condition over the past month for between $70-80 and you decline to buy another similar T206 today for $120 because you feel it's too much, you're using "comps".

If what you bought a card for influences what you try to sell that card for, you're using a "comp".

VCP is a tool. It is one of many tools to use at your disposal if you choose to and is not worthless. When valuing and evaluating what price to pay for cards you must use many different tools and factors not just one. Comps and previous prices for same/similar grade are a useful guide but nothing is set in stone until buyer and seller agree on final price.

The utility of any tool depends on the purpose of the user.

Objectively rare cards do not transact enough for comps on them to be meaningful. I recently offered a card for sale that had not sold anywhere in any format in several years.

Mainstream postwar cards are common enough that comps are a reference point but eye appeal is more important. A fugly 7 is not worth as much as a blazing 6.

Modern cards are so commoditized that comps are ubiquitous because there are a ton of them and they all basically look the same.

Big VCP fan. It’s a great tool and I’m on it every day!

It's The Collector Connection. We talked a few years back. No problem supplying the API

Bobby hopefully you can add...Would love to see VCP keep adding more AH's until you have all of them.

love to see this kind of collaboration here... clean data drives smart decisions; the more visibility and insight we have as a community and hobby the better it ultimately is for all of us

I've become a big fan of VCP. As others have said, it's a useful tool as an input to buying and selling decisions. It's great to compare past sales. It still needs people to use their judgment.

For example, if i compare 2 sales forna card and one swas a really old slab and another was just graded, I can make an adjustment accordingly.

Having that info is great. Where I've found it surprisingly useful is assessing scarce pre war cards. I've found some cards where there was something like 2 sales and the last one was 2011. That helps me understand how rare a card might be and that there really isn't a comp. So the seller can name their price.

Bobby, a couple of feature requests:
1. Search by serial number.
It would.be good to see how often a specific slab has been sold and at what price
2. Raw cards
I understand why you don't have these (eg the lack of standardization and people are inconsistent in their specification of condition), but it would be an incredible feature to be able to compare the price of a raw card vs it's graded equivalent. Perhaps you could rely on just a handful of raw providers (e.g. gregmorris cards) in the same way that you do with grading companies.

G@ry G01db3rg

You can already enter cert ID and it takes you to that card...if we have that exact one already sold and marked it takes you directly to that sale as well. We have internally discussed if we can make it so all sales for that particular cert ID can show up...something that is on our radar down the line.

Raw data is something we are in the process of doing using our ML tech..something that would just by automated with no pricing averages just a place to see sales and you do your own analytics..

We are close to finishing off a major back end upgrade....

And we are also very close to having an affiliate program. If any of you are interested in promoting VCP and making some money let me know. You can do it online, FB groups, Trade shows, Podcasts, Brick and Mortar, etc..

We will send flyers with your unique sign up code. And you will have a portal to check as well. We will support and help you promote so if you need Banners to hang, etc...

I’d love to see how people priced cards if they had no points of reference to do so.

VCP is very helpful to me. Even tonight, as I perused through the bst section, I inquired as to the cost of several cards listed at a “ discount “ from “last comp,” only to find the actual last comp for one was the card listed for roughly $400 more than it last sold for.
Yeah, not perfect, but I rely fairly heavily on VCP for my purchases.

We were there. It was called the 1970s

Oh, and a defense of Bobby and other price gathering information sources. And I can speak to this first hand as a Beckett pricing person in the 1990s. We spent a lot of time, money and effort doing our best to authenticate pricing of items and remember until about 1997 or so the internet was a minor part of how the card world worked.

I know I was American Airlines Gold from 1991-2002 as a pricing person traveling to shows around the country to get prices and to talk to dealers to build relationships to know whom one could trust and one could take with a grain or two of salt.

One of the "hidden" things I personally did was not get in early to many shows but wait on (in) line with collectors just to hear some conversations and learn what they were thinking. It's amazing what you can learn by listening. (Boy that sounds like a Yogism)

So, hearing the length people such as Bobby, the hard-working folks at Card Ladder and many more do to verify the actual sales is very encouraging to hear. I won't speak for Bobby but I'd wager some of the improvements he's made to VCP over the years has come from suggestions made on this specific board.

Regards
Rich

We were there. It was called the 1970s

Oh, and a defense of Bobby and other price gathering information sources. And I can speak to this first hand as a Beckett pricing person in the 1990s. We spent a lot of time, money and effort doing our best to authenticate pricing of items and remember until about 1997 or so the internet was a minor part of how the card world worked.

I know I was American Airlines Gold from 1991-2002 as a pricing person traveling to shows around the country to get prices and to talk to dealers to build relationships to know whom one could trust and one could take with a grain or two of salt.

One of the "hidden" things I personally did was not get in early to many shows but wait on (in) line with collectors just to hear some conversations and learn what they were thinking. It's amazing what you can learn by listening. (Boy that sounds like a Yogism)

So, hearing the length people such as Bobby, the hard-working folks at Card Ladder and many more do to verify the actual sales is very encouraging to hear. I won't speak for Bobby but I'd wager some of the improvements he's made to VCP over the years has come from suggestions made on this specific board.

Regards
Rich

nobody goes to card shows anymore... its too crowded

VCP is a useful tool, but its not gospel
 

VCP is a good tool to use but it gets frustrating at times because many people use it as gospel and do not look at the differences between individual cards. Not all PSA 6's (or whatever grade) are created equal. It's so funny how everyone say's 'buy the card, not the grade' yet almost nobody really subscribes to that. This is also true when looking at older vs newer slabs. There is this automatic assumption that an old slab is worth less than a new slab meanwhile the card in the old slab could be outstanding yet value suffers just because of when it was graded. Last point, how would card values ever change is everyone just went off of VCP comps? At some point, a buyer or seller has to take a stand.

I can see pricing being useful for cards that are traded often (Topps, Bowman, T206, etc.) but the cards I buy are usually not, so if I see the last sale was 2019, I know that price is essentially irrelevant. Although in some cases, I do find the pricing of recent sales helpful.

But besides pricing I like VCP for two things:

I like having info about my collection stored in one place. I know I can just use a spreadsheet, but the VCP interface is appealing to me.

I like that they image cards (or provide auction links) that were previously sold. Then I can tell if a price might be due to a card being out-of-focus, off-centered, over/under-graded, etc.

And I especially like it when a card in a current auction (the exact same card) is pictured in a previous auction. Because it helps me determine if any issues I am seeing are on the card or on the case, or whether a crease or wrinkle shows up in an earlier scan that is not in the current scan. Different scanners treat scratches/scuffs/wrinkles differently, and photographs of cards can look different to scans of cards.

There was a recent REA card that appeared to have several white spots on it and all of them were due to scuffs on the holder reflecting light. That was evident from an earlier scan of the same card (although I did call REA to check anyway).

There should have been a “no” in there. I fixed it.

I’ve always been curious about how Beckett came up with card prices back in the '90s. It seemed like a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, dealers were using Beckett to set their prices, but Beckett claimed to base their prices on what dealers were charging. So where did the original pricing data actually come from?