The Price Guide From Fantasyland

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

As most of you know, at the conclusion of the Superbowl,
the winning quarterback and/or the game MVP proudly
announces that now the game is over, he is going
to Disneyland.

His first stop in Disneyland should be Fantasyland
which, in our view, is the only place on Earth, one
could purchase high grade (PSA 7 and above) E cards
at anywhere near the prices published in the SMR price guide.

Let's look at the five most recent auction results for E 93
cards in PSA 7 and compare the price realized with the
SMR price guide price.


Player Auction Price SMR Price Guide

Chance 15,898 1,750
Donovan 8,382 625
Griffith 5650 1,750
Mathewson 10,871 5,750
Plank 11,316 1,900


The question is a simple one. Why does PSA continue to publish a price
guide which has nothing to do with reality and/or actual results?

The only possible explanation is that their marketing team
and auctioneers can create advertisements which promote the
power of PSA, and the fact that a PSA graded card realized 4 or 5
times the published value.

It would be far more useful to everyone if PSA regularly adjusted
its price guide to reflect the reality of the market.

Certainly the SMR guide prices would be a wonderful place
for all of us to do our Christmas shopping. Perhaps, we could
find the dealer who sells high grade E cards at the SMR price guide
price on our next visit to Fantasyland.


Best,

Bruce
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: barrysloate

It's old news that the SMR in no way reflects current prices. Apparently, they don't seem to care. It's silly, since all that current information would be easily accessible to them.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i feel your pain...i have had several conversations with Joe Orlando about this very subject. i collect high-grade T206 cards, and the SMR is far off (to be polite). he stated that they are aware of this, and have been steadily raising the prices each month. he said a sudden jump one month would "jolt" the market...it has been going up slowly over the months, but the prices are still very low...

to your point, i would buy T206 8's @ $750 all day long.

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

It is sort of ironic that SMR prices are in Fantasyworld and Disneyworld
is Orlando...


Bruce

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Posted By: Josh Adams

Bruce,

We agree with you, whilst the SMR is not accurate, we believe ebay is the best baromoter of market price.

Regards,

Josh

Go Go White Sox
2005 World Series Champions!

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Posted By: BcD

this is:
http://www.vintagecardprices.com/search.php

see tem guys on the chat board that interface for reality check on private sales and "bins" that are not included but also helpful in tracking value.



BcD

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Posted By: JimCrandell

I have suggested to Joe that he put a full time person on the price guide to monitor ebay, all the auctions and stay in touch with dealers and major collectors. Joe used to do this before he became pres and the smr was meaningful.

Joe suggests sending in price info to him along with documentation and he will evaluate for changes.

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Posted By: joe Brennan

I can't see how correcting SMR prices in a book would shock the market. Everyone that buys the cards at auctions or on E-bay knows the real going price. The only shock is that the book is so far out of whack. If you are going to publish a monthly book of prices at least do some homework to keep it remotely current.

People said it was a million dollar wound. But the government must keep that money, cause I ain't never seen a penny of it.

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Posted By: Donald Johnson

Maybe we should start an email campaign to barrage Joe Orlando until we see/get results

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Posted By: Cobby33

Forget about the 7's. As the great Gary Radnich says on Bay Area radio, "nobody cares."
The VG's aren't even in-line.
But I don't think anybody relies on their prices. If they do, I'd like to buy their collections.

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Posted By: JimB

I think they publish unreasonably low prices to cover their ass legally. Then if they screw up and have to buy a card back, they can pay only 10% of market value.

Other than the advertising revenue they get from SMR and promotion of their services, why bother to publish a "price guide" that makes absolutely no attempt to reflect market conditions. It is insulting. That publication is obviously NOT about the price guide.

I questioned Joe Orlando about his pricing on E cards at the National two years ago and he said a lot of people have brought this to his attention and that they would be making adjustments. The result: instead of their prices being at about 10% of fair market value, they are now 12%.

JimB

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jim- that's a very good point that they may keep the prices artificially low to protect themselves from damages; but whatever the case, there is no question that it is being done deliberately. They see the same as we do what all these rare high grade cards go for at auction.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Barry,

It is more lack of attention than deliberate.

Rakosi went through 57 Topps Bskbl with Joe and I believe those cards are right on the money except for the low pop commons..

It is really more that nobody is paying attention to the prices.

Joe is a busy guy and there is noone else that does it.

Jim

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Posted By: Cobby33

...they are artificially lowering prices to limit their damages, they're foolish. The other party's damages will be based upon the fair market value (or replacement value), not what PSA "believes" a particular card is worth.

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Posted By: leon

With all due respect that would be a rather lame excuse if that's what Orlando's is. I can't believe he would have that as why it's (SMR pricing) is so poor, but you never know. I have hashed out some market pricing for a guide before and we tried to be very conservative but realistic. We would go for about 30% under market, or so, to be safe......I haven't read the SMR but from what I am hearing it's off by mulitples not fractions....There is no excuse in publishing data that poor in todays information age....

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Posted By: MVSNYC

last year i would send joe emails every now and then with some eBay results of T206 7's & 8's...the SMR never got up to those prices, but i think it was appreciated by joe and the SMR prices started creeping up, shortly thereafter...

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jim- if they are publishing a monthly price guide it seems to me it takes the same amount of time to get it right as it does to get it wrong. If they just took all the prices and doubled or tripled them, they would already have a better price guide with no extra work. If they have no time for it then they shouldn't have one. I say do it right or don't do it at all.

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Posted By: howard

The fact that they claim to be raising the values a little bit each month is proof enough that it is not lack of attention that is the problem. In fact, it indicates that they knowingly are publishing fraudulent information.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

The idea that they are keeping prices artificially low to limit damages is ridiculous.

The fact is if you go through a set and document the prices, Joe will adjust them--not as much as you like but he will adjust them.

Barry--it is more work to change them than to just leave them the same month after month after month.

I am not defending PSA here--I agree their prices are not accurate on a lot of high end cards but it is from inattention.

If you subscribe to vcp you have a big advantage over someone pricing a card off smr if you are bidding on it.

Jim

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Posted By: barrysloate

Fine- then if they have no time to do it accurately why not simply omit it. What if someone who inherited a collection of high grade cards somehow got their hands on one of the guides and unknowingly used it to price their collection to a dealer? Think anything bad could come of that? Extremely low published prices can be very dangerous in certain situations.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Barry--agreed--I have told Joe on several occasions he ought to put more effort into the prices.

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Posted By: Brian H (misunderestimated)

I have always found the SMR sorely lacking in pricing cards from before about 1930 ... I have often thought it might be better if they just stuck to higher volume cards from about 1950 on .. or at least acknowledged that the older and more scarce a card is, the less creedence we should give their prices.
Also, these days the market seems to move much faster because of all of the auctions, eBay etc. which makes the SMR's failings all the more obvious.

Its a nice magazine though... I figure I am getting it free for grading for grading several cards a year with PSA.

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Posted By: Dylan Jasper

Wow, what's lame is actually believing oneself when saying moving the SMR into realistic price ranges would "jolt" anything. No serious collector pays any attention to these printed price guides anymore. If someone were to print a credible price guide maybe we would start paying some attention to them. I monitor sales, real sales via auctions, and thats about it, and i assume most of you do about the same. So when a card sells over and over for a 50% increase in todays auctions that is what jolts the industry, but your priceguide, no sir it would not.