[CobbSpikedMe]

Originally Posted by G1911

Are people really using BST asking prices as a tool to evaluate value? I love the BST and have got a fair number of cards from it, but you can't really pull data effectively from it's records to view sold listings of a card, there is a small volume of listings, and almost all deals are closed over the phone/email/DM's so you basically never know what it closed at, and often if it closed at all. I don't see how this is effective except for perhaps an edge case of a card that doesn't come to market with any frequency, and there is nothing else to go off of.

Yes, I look at the asking price and if it says sold I expect to pay something similar if I find a comparable example. The cards I'm looking at are low dollar transactions so the negotiation of a lower price will not be very material to be honest. Most of the cards I'm looking at buying are going to sell between $20 - $200 at the most so there isn't a ton of wiggle room really. I'm not looking at sales data when the asking price is in the thousands. When I see those asking prices I assume there is some negotiation and the actual sale price could be considerably lower than the posted price on the BST. I always assume there was a deal made, especially if the card has been sitting on the BST for a long time and then suddenly sells. But to answer your question, yes, I use asking prices as a barometer for what I expect to buy a card for in my price range.