Whats the point of the SMR?

[novakjr]

Propaganda intended to make people think their cards will be more valuable if they get them graded by PSA.. Personally, I'll read the SMR magazine for the articles, but never once looked at the prices.

[glchen]

I use price guides like SMR, Beckett, etc, more for comparative pricing rather than absolute since as you said VCP and actual auction data is much better. For example, you may forget about minor HOFers like Joe Gordon, Elmer Flick, and Billy Southworth until you look at the price guides and see that they are worth slightly more than commons. Similarly you may not realize a certain card is short print until you are reminded of it by the price guide.

[HRBAKER]

It's an advertising vehicle masquerading as a price guide.

[Fred]

Originally Posted by novakjr

Personally, I'll read the SMR magazine for the articles, but never once looked at the prices.

Sounds like the same thing a lot of guys said about Playboy magazines...

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by Fred

Sounds like the same thing a lot of guys said about Playboy magazines...

Honestly. Although, I'll admit that my opinion is a bit skewed because I'm not really a graded card type guy. Sure I've got some, but it's more by coincidence, because a graded card just happened to catch my eye when it fell into my price range..

I will admit that I did get sucked into the whole set registry at one point, and put together about a quarter of the 77-78 topps baseketball set in 8 or higher before realizing that it really wasn't what I wanted to do. I didn't use the SMR once during that time, I did use the poop-report alot though... I gotta get around to getting rid of those one of these days..