Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew H
I'm not sure why this information is so important. Most fixed price listings are overpriced anyway and are purchased by those who don't want to be patient and wait for an auction.
If the card is so rare that there is no information on VCP, Then I don't know how one fixed price sale can help determine the market value.
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It's not one fixed-price sale. It's lots of fixed-price sales. And it doesn't really matter why someone BIN'd an overpriced sale - impatience or whatever. That's as totally legitimate a data point as when someone that patiently shops, snipes, and wins classic ebay auctions.
Omitting fixed-price sales definitely skew the numbers. Many hobbyists are using online pricing services to draw a line in the sand and say "not a penny more" when they buy cards. This affects the market by putting a damper on prices because many subscribers believe that online pricing numbers reflect "true market". The more true market transactions left out, the less "true market" the numbers become. But people mistakenly rely on them.
I'm curious too as to where the line is drawn in price reporting. I had always understood that it was auction only and used that info as part of my overall thinking in a transaction. But I think somewhere Bobby said/mentioned that they now include fixed-price sales, so I also am interested if this has changed.
To me, if it's a reliable number, it should be reported if the electronic gathering process is reasonable as to burden (on VCP, cardpricer, etc) and reliability (not subject to widespread manipulation by parties to the reported transactions).
Joann
PS - Rich Klein's post above about the difference between SMR and online price guides is completely awesome. What a great distillation of the issue. I wish more people would take the "sophisticated collector" audience of the online guides to heart, understand the responsibility to interpret the reports, and not take the numbers as hard fast gospel on exact value. Nice post Rich!