Vcp instead of beckett?

[zljones]

I have been back to card collecting for 1 year now. I quit collecting as a kid twice during the 1990s and I always bought those Beckett magazines to look up my cards; therefore, when I returned to the hobby I went straight to Beckett online to look cards up. Now I am exploring the Vintage Card Price Guide. I signed up with a free membership plan for now til I explore it more.

Is it best for me to just join this and get the silver package instead of staying with Beckett? Is VCP more accurate? Beckett sometimes seems way off and not totally in touch with how the market REALLY is as far as values. Should I be converting?

[t206hound]

VCP attempts to collect as many actual sale prices of cards from various sites (ebay and auction houses) as possible. So these are "real" sales, not just someones opinion of value. Take that all with a grain of salt, however, because there are always outside forces that have influences on card prices: shill bidding, poor advertising or listing info, etc.

I only collect T206 (and specifically only common backs), so my approach is to get a one day membership every two months and record the values of the various grades (20-60) of each card in the set. This costs me $24/year.

[zljones]

That is what thinking, and even though there are some bad data from pumped up auctions, it still would probably be more accurate than beckett. I am a beater card collector and it really bothers me that beckett always makes the "poor" condition value at an exact 10% of the raw HBV value. An example is my 1939 Playball Ted Williams, beckett says $180 poor condition raw, but in reality getting a decent "poor" condition one for anywhere near $180 is impossible unless it's terribly beaten to hell.
I wonder if VCP takes into account what is called in statitistics "outliers." Those deliberatly spiked up auctions by auction houses should be excluded when piling data for an average value because that is "outlier" data and will mess up the bell curve.

[t206hound]

VCP just collects the data; it's up to the user to interpret that data.

Originally Posted by zljones

I wonder if VCP takes into account what is called in statitistics "outliers." Those deliberatly spiked up auctions by auction houses should be excluded when piling data for an average value because that is "outlier" data and will mess up the bell curve.

[zljones]

Oh I see, it is not averages, that is awesome then, I would much rather average it out myself, thanks for the help for me deciding whom to choose

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by zljones

Oh I see, it is not averages, that is awesome then, I would much rather average it out myself, thanks for the help for me deciding whom to choose

Actually, it gives averages. You can search for a card, pick a grade, and it will list all the sales it locates AND give you an average. If it's a card in your collection, you can indicate as much and also add the price you paid, so you can see what you paid vs average sales price, within each set you collect.