Pricing

[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...

[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!