Honest Question: Trading - BV or SV?

[adamslogik]

Are you sure it has to do with the BV coming out on the new products or that the first wave of crazed buyers has passed thus dropping the values. I do not think BV is what drops the value. The first week after release prices will always be the highest as there are the most buyers bidding for the cards. After the first week, two things factor into the decrease in sales. 1.) There are more of the cards available - spreading out bids and consequently lowering sale price. 2.) There are less buyers because people have already purchased what they need - less buyers = less bids = lower sale prices.

100% agree with you.

As far as beckett throwing darts at a board (previous poster) you just keep on thinking that. They assign a high and low value by factoring in alot more than just what the last handfull of sales on ebay were (like show sales, reported LCS sales, historical value of similar cards and historical trends (i.e: Every year the top YG rc starts out by selling for $120-$150 and is down to $75 by the end of the season). The problem is that most people just jump to the high BV of the card and say "Wow, becket are out of their minds, this card is selling on ebay for 1/3 of that", whereas if you were to take second and check the low value, it is probably not too far off of ebay sales (which, as I said, are the lowest ones, thus the LOW BV).

With so many sets coming out every year (I think this year by the end of the year, there will be over 30 sets between UD, Panini and ITG) that is alot of pricing to keep up with, and THAT is why the prices do not get updated in the guide after the first year of release and can sometimes get outdated. I'm sure beckett would love to keep a more updated price guide, and as long as you guys are prepared to pay $50 an issue to compensate them for the extra man hours it would take to research all of the ever-changing prices, then I am sure it can be arranged.

Reminds me of what is wrong with the hobby, people expect to get the Moon, but pay pennies for it.

[30ranfordfan]

'Common Sense' is the thing to go buy. Most of the time I will neither look the value of cards up in a book, or check eBay, if the deal seems fair to me. Only when I've got something that I think may actually be fairly valuable, would I bother checking out info like that. If I swap my $5 UD Game Jersey, for your $3 Black Diamond jersey, does it really matter.... so long as we're both getting a card we want?

I think you're crazy if you place all your faith in a book, rather than looking to see what the cards actually sell for.

While I agree that eBay sales should not be treated as a price guide either - the examples given really speak volums to how much publications can be out.

At the same time.... there are a lot of people out there who ignore the fact that most eBay sales havea shipping charge of $2-$4 on them. When you see "3 for $10" bins at a card show.... and tell the guy selling them that you can get those cards for $1 on eBay.... truthfully you can not, becuase even if you got them for a buck, you'd be paying shipping (yes, combined shipping can lower those costs, I realize).

Like was already mentioned though: No way a $300 BV card, that sells for $250, should be traded for a $300 BV card that sells for $150. Why would you make that swap?

[htram9]

Are you sure it has to do with the BV coming out on the new products or that the first wave of crazed buyers has passed thus dropping the values. I do not think BV is what drops the value. The first week after release prices will always be the highest as there are the most buyers bidding for the cards. After the first week, two things factor into the decrease in sales. 1.) There are more of the cards available - spreading out bids and consequently lowering sale price. 2.) There are less buyers because people have already purchased what they need - less buyers = less bids = lower sale prices.

A lot has to do with the fresh mentality (which I don't get either) but some has to do with BV coming out. Two products may come out before BV comes out, sales are fine, small drop as time goes on. Then boom, BV comes out and sales drop a lot more. It happens a lot with Young Guns. The moment BV came out for 2010/11, my Hall and Eberle got offers a lot lower then the previous couple days. Even some mentioned the new BV prices. So I've seen it happen first hand.

[centrehice]

Some players cards are over-hyped, while some players themselves are. That is why you will find discrepancies.

Felix Potvin rare parallels sell for a Premium and often get 50% of Book Value. Martin Brodeur and Patrick Roy rare parallels actually sell less than many Potvins, yet are sometimes triple in Book Value.

That's just one example.

[Fred Bear]

eBay is also the biggest market for cards and it isn't even close, hence why people use it. It is a lot more fair then me saying, "Well my shop sold a Carey Price YG for $75.. so I want $75" Beckett doesn't really have a system on how they price cards. It has gotten better, and beckett online is better, but how come this happens on a regular basis that a new product comes out, sales are great and then the BV comes out and it is so low that sales die. I know many people who try to sell anything they break before BV comes out, because it just drops sales sometimes greatly. How is that determining the market value? I'll still always believe (as many do) that beckett throws darts at a price board and there is the price.

Regardless, using common sense should come first, then whatever system suits people and hopefully an agreement.

You're forgetting a couple pretty important caveats. It's the biggest market online. And it's the biggest market for some cards.

I have made a number of people upset through the years because I turn down a 'reasonable' online offer (in-line with eBay sales information) for a local sale at a higher price. The fact of the matter is, it happens. More card sales occur off-line or in an 'unreported' state than eBay registers. As dictated to us by the nature of us being online, we tend to want to believe that 'most' sales occur there so that we feel better about it, but it's simply not true. Many, many cards never get listed online. This makes eBay an 'indicator' of value, not necessarily the rule.

The second important thing is that eBay is a bad place to sell 'low-end' cards, especially base and common inserts. The 'eBay' difference between a common insert and 90% of the 'garbage' game-used and autographs is shipping cost. I can find sold listings for base at the same $0.99 as many game-used and autos. Are base equivalent to autographs? No. eBay is a good 'indicator' for items with relatively 'high' print runs or 'good' cards. A card with 15 sales at $0.99 may be worth a $1, but a card with 1 sale at $0.99 and 14 unsold listings may not be. You have to apply 'common sense'.

You can also attach a laundry list of other influences to final eBay pricing - listing, end time, in- or out-of-season, sellers shipping discount, sellers track record, etc.

'Common Sense' is the thing to go buy. Most of the time I will neither look the value of cards up in a book, or check eBay, if the deal seems fair to me. Only when I've got something that I think may actually be fairly valuable, would I bother checking out info like that. If I swap my $5 UD Game Jersey, for your $3 Black Diamond jersey, does it really matter.... so long as we're both getting a card we want?

I think you're crazy if you place all your faith in a book, rather than looking to see what the cards actually sell for.

While I agree that eBay sales should not be treated as a price guide either - the examples given really speak volums to how much publications can be out.

At the same time.... there are a lot of people out there who ignore the fact that most eBay sales havea shipping charge of $2-$4 on them. When you see "3 for $10" bins at a card show.... and tell the guy selling them that you can get those cards for $1 on eBay.... truthfully you can not, becuase even if you got them for a buck, you'd be paying shipping (yes, combined shipping can lower those costs, I realize).

Like was already mentioned though: No way a $300 BV card, that sells for $250, should be traded for a $300 BV card that sells for $150. Why would you make that swap?

+1 on this.

Common sense is the most important thing. Like I said, you have to apply common sense to what you are seeing. I've seen cards with misspellings in the title sell for 1/3 of their normal sale price, does that devalue my version of that card? No. I've seen cards get shilled to 3x their typical sale value, does that increase the value of my version of a card? No.

If your trading partner is unwilling to talk in common sense terms [we've all been there], you'll have a problem whichever approach you try and use. It's the nature of the beast to shade in your own favor and we each need to learn how to handle it for ourselves (i.e. learn and be willing to negotiate).

[htram9]

Well BV shouldn't be use for trading base cards. That is my biggest pet-peeve with BV, the fact people use it in trading base. I can't get big lots of 50 Lidstrom base (I offer to pay for shipping too) in a trade because people want 125 BV back and it has to be GU/auto's. No joke, someone wouldn't trade me about 15 Lidstrom base cards unless he got a 40BV card back.. just one card for 15 base cards.

We can agree to disagree on this subject all day, but we can all agree that using common sense is the number one rule.