Beckett values are often way off the mark

[Maggot]

I know there are a lot of big fans of their price guide here, and I'm sure this has been discussed here before. Trading by Beckett value can be very frustrating at times. It seems that autographs and some GU are sorely undervalued in Beckett while common inserts and rookies are overvalued. Current year products are also undervalued, IMO, compared to past year stuff. I'm not saying I could do a better job, but this is their bread and butter. It seems like there's systemic problems.
Here's some examples:

Would you trade 99-00 UD Century Legends Signatures Johnny Bucyk $20 for either of these cards that would likely sit in a dealer's $1 bin for years?
97-98 Donruss Studio Hard Hats Insert Forsberg /3000 $20
03-04 Upper Deck Shooting Stars Insert Spezza $20

Or maybe you'd want to trade 14-15 Trilogy Triptychs Malkin Jsy /400 $12 for these?
97-98 Donruss Priority Direct Deposit Insert Sakic /3000 $12
03-04 MVP Souvenirs Ville Niemenen Jsy $12

There's a million of these examples. As the years pass and COMC continues to gather sales data I'm looking forward to the time where we can trade by actual sales values and not by imaginary numbers that likely have not been updated in years. In the meantime, I just like trading, so I'll work with anyone and conform to the way they like to trade.
What do you guys think?

[pwskelly]

I find it helpful to look at eBay completed sales. They are the only proof of what the market is willing to pay. Lots of people list cards on COMC and eBay for ridiculous prices which proves nothing and yes, Beckett is way, way behind the times in terms of pricing.

[Sharky94]

Trading by Beckett value can be very frustrating at times.

Once Beckett started selling cards, they lost all legitimacy as a price guide. I stopped using them years ago.

But if you are just trading, it should not matter what price guide you use, as long as both parties use the same guide. The prices may be 5x lower on EBay, but both of your cards are 5x lower, so instead of a $25 trade, you have a $5 trade. The relative values are all that matters.

[Inferno]

Beckett has been obsolete for years. With the rise of eBay and
COMC and the sheer volume of sales that take place they can't possibly keep up with pricing, and markets for players fluctuate so quickly that a card could go from $10 to $20 to $100 and back to $50 before Beckett even has a chance to react.

They had a place in the hobby in the past but not any more. I can track sales of a card on my own in realtime now without having to open a Beckett just to see that a card that sold for $50 on eBay two dozen times is still "booked" as a $100 card.

[ReimerFan]

Beckett price guide is blockbuster. They just keep trucking along doing the same thing expecting the same results. I never trade by beckett value. Those trades can easily be manipulated to give one person an advantage as in Maggots examples above. Even COMC is a bit of a micro economy. With the flood of certain cards (specifically epack) they can have skewed prices too. Ebay sold items is the way to go. Take an average of the last x amount of items and you have your trade value price. No speculations but actual recent prices of what people are willing to pay on any particular item.

[creasecollector]

I use eBay as well, as i feel it can be a more accurate way of determining current card value.

[Maggot]

But if you are just trading, it should not matter what price guide you use, as long as both parties use the same guide. The prices may be 5x lower on EBay, but both of your cards are 5x lower, so instead of a $25 trade, you have a $5 trade. The relative values are all that matters.

Are the relative values even accurate, though? Check out the examples I posted in the OP.

[pwaldo]

I'm not saying I could do a better job, but this is their bread and butter.

Unfortunately their bread and butter is grading. Without it they would be out of business like Tuff Stuff and the rest. If they never started a grading company they would have gone out of business years ao. So basically the book value aspect of the company is just for show now.

[dornhoffer]

this is this exact reason we have the select group of " I ONLY trade by BV " They always want to trade their Spezza insert for the Bucyk auto...........NEVER the other way aroundG

get rid of beckett and we get rid of these grifters

[Leafsman]

Are the relative values even accurate, though? Check out the examples I posted in the OP.

I use BV, always have, always will. I don't give a flying fadoo what a card "goes for" on ebay, COMC, or any other marketplace.

Why? Because my reason for collecting is not generally financial. Sure, everyone loves a deal when buying, but I am mainly a trader. Trading by sale value is bass ackwards. Let's use your cards listed as an example.

For me, if the BV is equal for both sides, that's my goal. Sure, you can get them on the marketplace for cheap, but if the BV is $20 I can trade it for a $20 card (or two $10 cards).

I trade by BV and sell using a combination of BV and SV (usually a number that falls between the high BV and the average sale price). I don't sell very often so I don't use that very much.

Part of the reason why I don't use sale value when trading is that BV is usually higher regarding the cards I collect. I collect SP Authentic rookies mainly. If the BV of a card is $20, why trade it at the sale value of, say, a dollar? That makes ZERO sense to me. If the card sells for a dollar but has a BV of $20, I take the BV.

The other part of the reason I have, and will continue to, use BV when trading is because I don't have PayPal. Trying to acquire a card that sells for a dollar is difficult without a PayPal account and sending a dollar by hidden cash isn't worth the cost of postage.