Problems with VCP and the Hobby

[Snapolit1]

As far as I can tell the "buying group" is a coordinated cabal of know nothing billionaire bankers from New York City who have gotten done manipulating all sorts of markets (real estate, art, pork bellies, orange juice futures) and have now moved on to modern Topps rookie issues from the 1960s. Just a guess though.

[ksabet]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

As far as I can tell the "buying group" is a coordinated cabal of know nothing billionaire bankers from New York City who have gotten done manipulating all sorts of markets (real estate, art, pork bellies, orange juice futures) and have now moved on to modern Topps rookie issues from the 1960s. Just a guess though.

LOL +1

We should have Beeks look into it

[ezez420]

My point of this entire topic was to attempt to fix an ongoing issue. And yes I appreciate Bobby chiming as it provides some info. No auction house has chimed in yet to see how they handle it. I am curious on the % of non payers or data that could be inaccurate. Here is the point.

A) if you are allowing your data to be taken for public use (IE VCP) and people rely on this data it has got to be accurate or pretty close to accurate to a point
B) Auction houses providing knowingly false information to the public will cause mistrust and people dropping out of hobby. Yes this is what it is but you see it within the show circuit past couple of months.
C) Whether it be a fake labeled card being sold through an auction house or a card that someone won and did not pay for. For example were these $130-$150K Rose PSA 9 Rookies really paid for (just picked a card that is so out of whack, not picking on anyone). If the information provided to VCP is KNOWINGLY incorrect then they are misleading the public. The auction house can say and play dumb however they want but it actually is their obligation. I am sure the Lawyers out there could chime in. Nobody else aside from a shiller, non payer and the auction house know whether a card is paid for or not.
D) VCP is a PAY site and therefore information should be accurate otherwise they should not be using the auction houses data to produce in.

The point is some houses know they are providing false information on some cards and care more about lining pockets then providing a true accurate source.

[buymycards]

Ed, I understand your point about auction houses, but for many years we have been using Beckett as a price guide, even though Beckett is completely out of touch with reality. The pricing is provided by dealers input, and the dealers are trying to keep prices high.

We have the same issue with the SMR. It seems that SMR pricing is just a wild guess and their pricing does not reflect the prices that being paid at shows and on eBay.

At least VCP is using actual sales data for their pricing. Yes, some of it is incorrect, but my guess is that 95% of the sales data is right on the mark.

Rick

[Exhibitman]

I don't think anyone looks at single prices as market prices. VCP provides trending information that guides buyers. That's all. There are no fraud issues there. An AH granting gratuitous access to its data isn't attempting to induce anyone to do anything with it. VCP by its own design is merely a database and also isn't trying to induce its members to act. And if it is 90% accurate it is still way better than anything else in terms of both real time and accuracy.

As for my buys, yup I have taken some brutal losses all around. All sports and nonsports too. That's what you get when you spent a lot on cards in 2005-2008. That's not VCP's fault; all me. And the cabal of billionaires...

[jstef]

I look at the card image, if available, on VCP to see if it had been sold more than once. An example would be the 1971 Brooks Robinson in SGC 88. On VCP, there is an instance where a dealer had several transactions involving the card. By looking at the image,you can see each transaction involved the same card, which would indicate the possibility that the dealer had several non-pays.