Pricing

[Cozumeleno]

Hope someone can help with this since I believe I saw it mentioned here (even somewhat recently). My search attempts haven't yielded the post I was looking for, though.

What other vintage card pricing resources are available (websites) other than VCP? I thought I saw a free one mentioned that was supposed to be pretty decent but didn't have the most up-to-date auction results.

Any help? Thanks!

[bn2cardz]

http://www.cardtarget.com/

[Cozumeleno]

That's it - much appreciated.

[mybuddyinc]

For "basic" stuff (i.e PSA 3 T206 commons and such), just do a "sold" search on eaby, and you'll find quite accurate info (for the most part )

[Jobu]

Here was my recent advice from the thread I think you were looking for:

I don't look at SMR as I think it can be inaccurate. The free sources I use for price info, in no particular order, are:

1) Ebay (search the card and then check the completed listings box on the left)

2) www.pricerealized.com (free without a user name going back 18 months, free for 36 months if you create a log in)

3) www.cardtarget.com (free, though doesn't have the most recent sales - a nice way to look at older Ebay data)

4) Google (search the card, grade if necessary, and add the word auction)

5) Search the appropriate BST section on Net54 (often not much use because people tend to delete prices when an item sells)

VCP does a nice job of providing a price history but isn't a free service.

[BobbyVCP]

Yes VCP is a pay site and for a good reason it is a lot of work keeping these prices updated. I see that cardtarget has not updated their pricing in almost a year. We have 5 full time employees working on the site. If there was a way to make it a free site and generate the income needed I would be all ears to any suggestions. Yes we have advertising and EPN income but that is about a quarter of the dollars generated. Membership fees now are the reason why we can stay in business and provide the most up to date and accurate price guide available.

[T206Collector]

Bobby,

Can I just ask you a few questions about the list of numbers on your homepage. I'm sure it lines up, but I am really just curious about the data:

Number of Cards: 346,304
Cards with Stock Images: 66,015
Number of Sets: 5,872
Sets with Pricing: 5,758
Total Auctions: 7,221,596
Auctions with Images: 7,249,818
New Auctions Today: 58
New Auctions in Past Week: 12,101
LIVE Auctions in Queue: 84,540


1. Does "Number of Cards" mean that you have pricing data on 346,304 different cards? Or would a T205 Ty Cobb PSA 5 and a T205 Ty Cobb PSA 6 qualify as two cards in this calculus?

2. What is the difference between "Number of Sets" and "Sets With Pricing"? Do the numbers above mean that there are 114 sets that you theoretically track even though there is no pricing for them?

3. How can there be nearly 30,000 more "Auctions With Images" than "Total Auctions"?

4. What does the 58 "New Auctions Today" represent in light of the 12,101 "New Auctions in Past Week"? Does nobody list on Thursdays?

5. What is a "LIVE Auction in Queue" -- an auction that will come online soon, but isn't there yet?

Thanks for the details. Again, I'm really just curious about the macro-level data.

[Cozumeleno]

Thanks, Jobu - that was the post but for some reason I couldn't find it.

Agree, Scott - some of the things I was looking for today had very little info out there...I'm branching out a little from my T206s into some new stuff, so I'll be on the lookout for you on the B/S/T again

[BobbyVCP]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

Bobby,

Can I just ask you a few questions about the list of numbers on your homepage. I'm sure it lines up, but I am really just curious about the data:

Number of Cards: 346,304
Cards with Stock Images: 66,015
Number of Sets: 5,872
Sets with Pricing: 5,758
Total Auctions: 7,221,596
Auctions with Images: 7,249,818
New Auctions Today: 58
New Auctions in Past Week: 12,101
LIVE Auctions in Queue: 84,540


1. Does "Number of Cards" mean that you have pricing data on 346,304 different cards? Or would a T205 Ty Cobb PSA 5 and a T205 Ty Cobb PSA 6 qualify as two cards in this calculus? This is the number of individual cards listed in our database. Has no reference to the grades. There are 90 different possible grades listed on our site for each individual card.

2. What is the difference between "Number of Sets" and "Sets With Pricing"? Do the numbers above mean that there are 114 sets that you theoretically track even though there is no pricing for them? Yes there are some sets listed on the site that has no history of sales of individual cards in a auction format.

3. How can there be nearly 30,000 more "Auctions With Images" than "Total Auctions"? We started grabbing the images a few years after we launched. The numbers seem strange but you need to take in consideration that a lot of sellers post more then 1 image. I have seen up to 7 images posted and of course we grab all of them,

4. What does the 58 "New Auctions Today" represent in light of the 12,101 "New Auctions in Past Week"? Does nobody list on Thursdays? That is the number of auctions that has currently ended and posted for today. It is still very early in the day and most auctions end later tonight so that number will increase dramatically.

5. What is a "LIVE Auction in Queue" -- an auction that will come online soon, but isn't there yet? Live Auctions are currently live and listed on the site waiting to end and post to the site. This is so when people search the site for a card price they can see if there is a current auction happening. Also it is used for notifying members that have created a Want List. Once a card they want is available they get a email notice with links to the auction.

Thanks for the details. Again, I'm really just curious about the macro-level data.

Hope this answered you questions...

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by BobbyVCP

Hope this answered you questions...

Yes, thank you very much. It's great that you track that kind of data.

[Jobu]

I didn't mean to imply that VCP ought to be free as you certainly appear to provide an excellent service. I think it is hard to justify a subscription for collectors that are on limited budgets because there wouldn't be a ton left for cards.

Have you ever considered selling pricing data by issue? For example, I could purchase pricing for only T206 data for $4/month instead of paying 3 or 4 times that for all of your data?

[BobbyVCP]

Originally Posted by Jobu

I didn't mean to imply that VCP ought to be free as you certainly appear to provide an excellent service. I think it is hard to justify a subscription for collectors that are on limited budgets because there wouldn't be a ton left for cards.

Have you ever considered selling pricing data by issue? For example, I could purchase pricing for only T206 data for $4/month instead of paying 3 or 4 times that for all of your data?

We feel and believe that knowing the current values of cards you are selling or buying will save you more then enough money to pay for a membership.

There is also a 24 Hour membership available for $3.99

I believe Beckett has a block type membership where you can just get baseball or football, etc... we did not set up this way and to make that change now is just not doable.

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

Bobby is there a way to look at individual card prices by date sold. So for instance if I wanted to see all the sales for a 1914 Cracker Jack Joe Jackson, could I get a list of all sales listed by date (regardless of grade)?

[BobbyVCP]

Originally Posted by ajjohnsonsoxfan

Bobby is there a way to look at individual card prices by date sold. So for instance if I wanted to see all the sales for a 1914 Cracker Jack Joe Jackson, could I get a list of all sales listed by date (regardless of grade)?

No we do not have that feature but it is a good idea that we can try to implement later.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by BobbyVCP

Yes VCP is a pay site and for a good reason it is a lot of work keeping these prices updated. I see that cardtarget has not updated their pricing in almost a year. We have 5 full time employees working on the site. If there was a way to make it a free site and generate the income needed I would be all ears to any suggestions. Yes we have advertising and EPN income but that is about a quarter of the dollars generated. Membership fees now are the reason why we can stay in business and provide the most up to date and accurate price guide available.

Cardtarget was able to work by having volunteers (I did it for a while), but when it was sold it was hard to get a hold of the new owners and didn't seem responsive when I told them I would be interested in expanding what sets I would sift through for them.

They are also really only good for people that are only interested a few popular sets and not every possible set out there.

To be as thorough as VCP you really can't do that for free, and it makes sense for paid membership.

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

Bobby please consider adding that functionality asap as it's currently time consuming to click on each individual grade to see the latest sales. Thanks!

[GasHouseGang]

Bobby, I am a current subscriber to VCP. I was wondering if it might be possible to save a picture of the cards that have sold and give us a link to that, rather than trying to link to the closed ebay auction. Often, the information is too old and has been removed by ebay. I may be the only member that would be interested in this info, but I'll propose it anyway. Thanks for all your hard work to keep the site updated.

[BobbyVCP]

Originally Posted by GasHouseGang

Bobby, I am a current subscriber to VCP. I was wondering if it might be possible to save a picture of the cards that have sold and give us a link to that, rather than trying to link to the closed ebay auction. Often, the information is too old and has been removed by ebay. I may be the only member that would be interested in this info, but I'll propose it anyway. Thanks for all your hard work to keep the site updated.

You must be a Silver level member, when you are a GOLD you get to see the image.

[jefferyepayne]

I've been a VCP member for years and years now and can validate that the cost of this service is FAR outweighed by the savings you get from being able to see real pricing data. The value of this service is immeasurable in my book.

Is it perfect? Of course not, but has often helped me save big $$$ when bidding on things and also when negotiating with sellers.

Unless you're someone spending less than $500 on cards per year, I personally think you will save $$$$ using this service.

jeff

[asoriano]

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

I've been a VCP member for years and years now and can validate that the cost of this service is FAR outweighed by the savings you get from being able to see real pricing data. The value of this service is immeasurable in my book.

Is it perfect? Of course not, but has often helped me save big $$$ when bidding on things and also when negotiating with sellers.

Unless you're someone spending less than $500 on cards per year, I personally think you will save $$$$ using this service.

jeff

+1

[GasHouseGang]

Originally Posted by BobbyVCP

You must be a Silver level member, when you are a GOLD you get to see the image.

Thanks for the response. I did not know that!

[t206fix]

Is Cardtarget dead? I know the site is up and running. I also used to classify for them. But it seems that site is just online now with no one behind the scenes. No current auction updates. Do the new owners have a plan, or is it just going to fade out?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Cozumeleno

Hope someone can help with this since I believe I saw it mentioned here (even somewhat recently). My search attempts haven't yielded the post I was looking for, though.

What other vintage card pricing resources are available (websites) other than VCP? I thought I saw a free one mentioned that was supposed to be pretty decent but didn't have the most up-to-date auction results.

Any help? Thanks!

I use Google to price check and it works great.

[Exhibitman]

I have been a VCP subscriber for a while now and it is very useful.