Haven't Had a Good Beckett Rant for a while...OPC Platinum

[RGM81]

I know, I know, it's just a guide, just a resource, not the be-all, end-all arbiters of values.

But Beckett's pricing on OPC Platinum is obscene. Like completely out of whack with reality obscene.

As some of you have seen I've put together most of the Carey Price rainbow from this year's release, and I think in all I'm pretty close to $100 into it for the nine cards I've added so far: Base, Rainbow, Traxx, White Ice, Red Prism, Black Ice, Blue Cubes, Seismic Gold, and Purple.

So imagine my amusement when seeing the pricing of those cards, combined, is $44. The guy who outbid me on eBay paid that much for the Purple /25 alone. I snagged my copy from a friend for $35.

Apparently we are both gigantic suckers, sayeth the wise hockey card gurus deep in the heart of Texas.

This is the type of thing that Beckett occasionally does that kills the market for cards worse than e-Pack has done for Series 1 & Series 2. I remember when they did it for 2009-10 Series 1 YG's, and I've never really trusted them since then. I know that it's impossible to expect them to oversee every card sale value to get 100% accurate reporting, but I've always been of the opinion that their role is to reflect the market, not set it. If Carey's Black Ice /99 has five sales on eBay all more than $20US, why does the card "book" for less than 20% of that??? I managed to pick up an extra copy because I wasn't tracking properly, when I realized that fact I listed it for actual sale range and I can't get an offer or even a sniff...and now I see why!! I look like a darn fool posting a hard to find Carey Price parallel for $40CAD OBO when it books for the same amount as a one-game wonder YG instead of a hard-to-find Carey Price parallel. LOL

And it goes much beyond just Carey. I got a Blue Rainbow autograph of Pavel Bure. Was pretty excited about that, as his autos always sell well and have a strong market. Initial sales of the card are all above $40US, pretty solid for a sticker auto yeah? Books the same as a Louis Leblanc SP Authentic Future Watch auto. I mean, I get that neither of them are in the NHL anymore... LOL But I would imagine, and guys like @notoriousrob101 and @hang time can probably verify, that is probably the lowest BV Pavel Bure auto ever.

I tell myself again, it's just a guide. But that's a terrible reference piece if you're a seller.

I would literally buy the entire print run of any of the Price parallels under /100 at standard half-Beckett pricing because they're so pretty.

Anyways, I know this is a dead horse for a lot of folks, and we've all had many discussions about it, but this one irks me a lot. If you've got any other recent examples, let's chat about them.

[Trishlp]

I agree with you totally. I have been trying to do the Ryan Miller rainbow from this set and cards are selling pretty well. Then when I opened my boxes and looked up the bv's I couldn't believe it. The bv is definitely not realistic value for what a lot of the cards have been selling for.

[hugehitter31]

I noticed this after my box. I got a Gold Weber and almost crapped when it booked at 6. none of my "hits" (except my price auto) booked over 6. They really goofed up on these this year

[UltimateHockeyFan]

This goes beyond OPC Platinum pricing. If you look at the 07-08 rookie materials for example, check how high they are compared to any recent rookie materials. The value range on the 07-08's compared to the current ones is ridiculous. I know a lot of users like using their values and I did as well until I realized how 90% of them make no sense at all. I also know ebay doesn't give a legit accurate price of how much things are worth but its far more accurate than book values.

[adamslogik]

there is, of course, s simple solution. CANCEL your subscriptions, online or otherwise. When they see their profits start to drop, they will investigate, they will start trying to find out why, and maybe something can be done about it. If not, they may actually lose enough cash that they are forced to close the doors, which would be the best case scenario, because then we could let the market REALLY decide the value of our cards.

That being said, I understand that the majority of collectors are slaves to the price guide, even if you don't use it to determine card values, you still pay for a subscription and check it, if you really don't think they are accurate, or care what beckett says, then why give them your money?

[Sharky94]

As a collector, you should be happy! The only people that should be upset are the sellers.

[RGM81]

@Sharky94 Yes and no. If I post up that Bure auto for trade, and guys who are strict BV traders send me an offer, they're going to end up disappointed that they've taken the time to put together a list of their finest $25BV cards to offer me. There's no way I'm letting that card go for less than a $40 auto of an equal caliber player. Same goes for any of those hard to hit parallels--nobody in their right mind is going to trade an /25 Purple for a common YG even if Beckett says that they're an equal value.

Stuff like this gums up the works for everybody who has some skin in the game, whether looking to recoup box costs or make some trades. And that sucks for everybody.
@adamslogik I cancelled mine years ago. But every so often for cards of guys that I don't know real well (ie. Bure) I will get a couple sources and go from there. When my friend told me of that value I scoffed mightily.

We we know from past experiences that Beckett will edit their values on products if pressure is brought to bear on them, but these types of gross mis-valuations have been happening for years now. There's no real reason to believe that they will ever change things of their own accord.

[G0SHARKSG0]

I agree and have seen a lot of weirdly low values this year mostly. If you look at contours, a Jonathan Toews base card has BV 4$ and then a Matt Puempel jersey auto rookie /199 has the same BV 4$. How in the world could anybody think that looks right?

[RGM81]

@G0SHARKSG0 As the proud owner of a Puempel RC from Contours I find that offensive. LOL

[sedinfan]

Just for fun I looked up the Sedins in the esteemed price guide, and apparently their Seismic Gold x/50's are worth a buck more than the Rainbow Purple x/25's. Actually, looks to be across the board, seems all the Seismic Golds are "worth" more than the Rainbow Purples for every player - at best they accidentally swapped those two entire sets, or maybe they're just completely out to lunch.

It's pretty obvious they just do a survey of a few cards from each set to establish a rough baseline and then apply some multipliers based on a hierarchy of players to come up with their values, there's no way they have the capacity to take into account the millions of card transactions that occur. In a lot of cases they actually get the values somewhat right, but man do they swing and miss on other occasions.

Looking at the Sedins, I love how this card...
2010-11 The Cup Trios Jerseys #C3VAN Roberto Luongo/Henrik Sedin/Daniel Sedin x/25

is apparently "worth" twice as much as this card...
2011-12 The Cup Trios Jerseys #C3VAN Roberto Luongo/Daniel Sedin/Henrik Sedin x/25

... but this one from not nearly as high-end a set is worth more than both the above combined...
2009-10 SP Game Used Authentic Fabrics Triples #AF3SSK Henrik Sedin/Daniel Sedin/Ryan Kesler x/25

... and apparently the patch variation is behind only a handful of booklets for their most valuable memorabilia card.
2009-10 SP Game Used Authentic Fabrics Triples Patches #AF3SSK Henrik Sedin/Daniel Sedin/Ryan Kesler x/15

To give credit where it's due, I'm working on the 08-09 Masterpieces set (brown parallel, jerseys, and autos), and their pricing is really solid there. It feels like there are sets they prioritize accuracy on, and others they just mail it in.