VCP and auction houses

[smtjoy]

I just saw on the VCP forums that 3 auctions houses (Memory Lane, Goodwin and Mile High) are no longer providing their data to VCP.

I am not sure what to make of this but as a buyer I dont like it. It rings to me like either some of the things Jeff is always saying about unreal prices is having an effect and they want no part of that or they just cant stand showing downward price trends.

One of the posters over their mentioned some Red Man in a recent auction selling at all time lows and he felt they were pulling them because of these kind of instances.

I can understand wanting your prices recorded when cards are bringing all time highs just bothers me when they get pulled for lows (With this economy we have, it was bound to happen). For some reason this made me think about Beckett years ago when the market tanked and they did not show the prices going down.

How does everyone else see this? Good bad indifferent?

[Jay Wolt]

Areb't the final selling prices public information?
Does Bobby even need their permission?

[thekingofclout]

but can't VCP gather the info for themselves and post their findings on their website? I understand that it will entail more work for them but they do charge a fee for their services.

I wish I had someone doing my legwork for me, free of charge, but unfortunately, life rarely works that way.

[wonkaticket]

Originally Posted by thekingofclout

but can't VCP gather the info for themselves and post their findings on their website? I understand that it will entail more work for them but they do charge a fee for their services.

I wish I had someone doing my legwork for me, free of charge, but unfortunately, life rarely works that way.

Bingo...my thoughts too.

[Jim VB]

Doesn't seem to matter what they do tonight. They are always logged on for me, but tonight, they signed me out and won't allow me to log back in.

There are alot of cards that never make it to VCP. Pricing has to be half you and half them to stay on top of what it really is. Cards that I know for a fact that have sold many times show 08 and 07 as last dates sold. They are auctions and auction houses selling not private and store sales.

[thekingofclout]

Originally Posted by Pup6913

There are alot of cards that never make it to VCP. Pricing has to be half you and half them to stay on top of what it really is.

If that's the case, why in the hell would anyone pay for their services?!

If paying customers are expected to report all/any of their buys and sells, seems to me that there should only be a nominal fee, if any fee at all.

I don't buy into that argument at all. For example, let's say that there are three auctions a month from the top dozen auction houses with 60-70% of the lots being slabbed cards. I would think that there are plenty of students looking for a part time gig where they could do all of the work at home or in their dorm room. Not that big of deal for them to harvest all of the needed info pertaining to the card sales. Also, I would think that some young go-getter could write some software that could do the bulk of the work.

On the other hand, many auction houses are usually running on a skeleton crew as it is, and to expect them to dedicate X amount of man hours to provide VCP is certainly not reasonable in my opinion.

I want to be clear that I am not saying that this is what VCP is asking from the auction houses in any way, shape, or form, as I have no idea. I'm simply responding to the comments made in this thread.

Sincerely, Jimmy

[Bosox Blair]

If they will not provide sales data to VCP, I will not place any bid in their auctions. Simple as that. They are just trying to hide market realities from buyers and I won't stand for it.

Cheers,
Blair

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by smtjoy

I just saw on the VCP forums that 3 auctions houses (Memory Lane, Goodwin and Mile High) are no longer providing their data to VCP.

I hate to be Captain Obvious, but did anyone notice the three auction houses which have decided not to make their prices available to VCP? What do they have in common? And why aren't REA, H & S and Heritage in this list?

Suffice it to say that it will be much tougher for me to show the board a sale of a card in an auction that "sold" for 47K in May in a Goodwin/Memory Lane/Mile High auction and then sold for 6K in September in an REA/H & S/Heritage auction. And that's exactly how the first group wants it.

[Matt]

Thanks Jeff - this just confirms we need to add you to the list of those who are ruining the hobby.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Captain Hubris.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Matt

Thanks Jeff - this just confirms we need to add you to the list of those who are ruining the hobby.

And, therefore, humanity as well.

Perhaps Mike O'Keeffe will write a book about me?

[calvindog]

Captain Big Puss

[4815162342]

With some good software development (parsing auction results web pages, e.g. Google) you could scrape the data that way couldn't you? Would there be any legal problems in doing this?