Beckett Hockey disappointment

[Rraincock]

I agree with the OP: that is a lazy and uninformed response from Beckett. This is mot some random collector or magazine - people pay for their knowledge and info about cards. Another strike against Beckett in my opinion.


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[subban7677]

Beckett? That one word is both the joke and the punchline.

[ac4760]

Always enjoyed Beckett back in the 90's when I was more active in collecting as they were a good source for card information prior to the current situation where almost anything can be found in seconds on the computer. Most dealers I dealt with used them pretty much as their pricing source before places like eBay or forums like this.
Anyway, has anyone ever tried a TTM auto request and succeeded? If so, maybe along with the auto request, ask him if he remembers if he signed them or not. Seems like the best source for the answer as anyone associated with Pro-Set would be tough to find even if they knew the answer. Just a thought.

[RGM81]

^^^
Kirk's a local guy that I've met a number of times. Always shows up for hockey-related events in the community, has helped the CBC/Sportsnet guys doing signings during Hometown Hockey, etc. In the event we ever get to do things with people again, I'll try to remember and ask him about the card.

[billcollector]

Thank you all for your responses. I usually don't get involved in threads with an open forum like this because it gets pretty wild and before you know it we will all be arguing about who is too far-left and who is too far-right lol.

But I will attempt to give some more of my personal feelings about Beckett as well as shed some light on the "Mystery of the Kirk McLean auto."

I do hold Beckett to a higher standard and nobody can convince me there is any reason why I shouldn't. I have been buying Beckett magazines since 1989. They were the industry standard.
In fact, when people talk about any online service that provides player checklists and set information, odds are whenever those sites were formed, they were done so using information compiled by Beckett as a source.
Beckett set the coarse for everything. Whatever they said from that point up until the internet age, was LAW.
Recently, I have been an online subscriber for at least 10 years. God knows how much money I have given them. And I have emailed in a question twice in all that time. So I feel a decent response would have been called for. I know they do a lot of other stuff with grading and authentication, but CARDS are still the lifeblood of the Hobby.

Even if they don't know the answer, responding with the advice of calling a company that has been out of business for 25 years is "point your finger and laugh" embarrassing.

This is clearly a case of somebody not caring or wanting to answer a question, period.

Some people have said it is not reasonable to ask a question about a card that old. Again I would respectfully disagree with that. Beckett has always celebrated itself as the number one source for information on the history of card collecting. They have always had a column where customers write in questions and those questions are answered. To me, if you are going to publish information about
something that happened in 1991, or 1951 for that matter, you better be ready to field questions about it.

And just to take that a step further, I don't consider this to be anything close to an obscure card. Does anybody know how many pack inserted (by a major brand) certified autos there were in the market pre-1994 (the inception of Be A Player)? Without looking it up, it has to be less than 10 cards TOTAL.
I don't think keeping track of a handful of cards over the entire history of the hockey Hobby is that tough to do. Pro Set was a major manufacturer and these cards would have been GOLD in the market at the time of release. Somebody around there must know something about these cards.

Like another reader said, this person might not have even been born when this card was released and I get the impression whoever answered this question has never opened a pack of cards. I could be wrong on this and I don't want to pile on this customer service rep. But how about maybe referring the question to somebody with more experience? Sending the question to somebody from the hockey department? Or, even looking it up on their own company database which DOES list the card and DOES give info about it?
Any of that would have been better than what I got.

My whole point once again is, "is this the best Beckett can do?" And if it is, then that is sad since this company basically brought card collecting out of the dark ages and put it on paper.

And I know this is getting lengthy, but if anybody really takes the time to look at their pricing, there are so many errors. I wonder who is monitoring this? Again I am a 90s collector for the most part so I can't speak to the newer stuff. But at one time they had an entire parallel set priced as the regular base, and the base priced higher than the parallel. I did write in to see if they wanted to fix that and I'm not sure if they ever did.

How is a base card from 90 OPC 60 cents but 90 UD (higher quality) 30 cents? Why is that 90 UD base card 30 cents and the French (more rare) 15 cents? I'm not sure what sense any of that makes.
Maybe they are going downhill as somebody suggested?

Now, getting on to the case of the Mystery of Kirk McLean, this card has been listed in Beckett from day one. All of the info that has been shared above can pretty much be confirmed. It seems there were 500 produced for the American boxes while Patrick Roy was in Canadian/French.

Yes it is rare. A 500 print run card from that era is like being limited to 20 today.
But still, there are no confirmed sales to be found anywhere, and that is very strange. Most other similarly rare cards from that era at least have documented sales. I use COMC which keep sold cards on file much longer than eBay does, and there is nothing there either.

So the final verdict seems to be that the card exists but it is very strange there are no confirmed sales.
(By the way, Beckett routinely monitors online sales to help determine card values or at least that is what they have told the public forever. So, I was hoping my question would generate some info along those lines which as we know didn't happen).

We think the card exists but people are just holding on to them right now. I do find, people who have a Patrick Roy let's say, see a big payday coming. So they are more apt to try and sell those cards than a lesser name like a Kirk McLean. So those semistars tend to be offered for sale more infrequently and that could be part of this equation as well.

So there is more of the backstory on why I was actually pretty surprised at the answer that I got.

Thanks
Bill

[billcollector]

Also, Beckett provides "Market Data," as another pay service. Knowing this, I was hoping they could shed some light on what "market data" they had for this card.
I don't subscribe to this but there was a time that I did and I know they track online sales, card show sales and other indicators.

The value of this card has changed over the years. So if the card doesn't exist and has not had any sales, how on earth can the book value change?

Again, they have this info in their database and I just feel that if I didn't know the answer I would forward the question to somebody who could help.

[Rraincock]

I still remember how the 90-91 Pro Set Chris Chelios ‘no trade stripe’ error was listed in Beckett mag for YEARS AND YEARS. Does not exist. Had a price. The price would fluctuate.

I am not a lawyer, but is this fraud? Wouldn’t this end in a class action lawsuit?

[cygnusx1]

I still remember how the 90-91 Pro Set Chris Chelios ‘no trade stripe’ error was listed in Beckett mag for YEARS AND YEARS. Does not exist. Had a price. The price would fluctuate.

I am not a lawyer, but is this fraud? Wouldn’t this end in a class action lawsuit?

What would the basis of that lawsuit be? How would a non-existent card negatively impact someone's life?

As for the OP, I think you are placing some pretty huge expectations on a company that hasn't done any meaningful work in at least a decade, if not longer.

[OscarsCards]

Well I wouldn't relate on the pictures to question cards existence. For example I questioned these cards existence - 2008-09 Be A Player Player's Club #255 Martins Karsums /10, /100 for a lot of years, could be as much as 10. I don't want to lie but as I remember some of the set cards were redemption sensitive, I searched for these for years, there weren't any pictures, no info, no nothing but now I own 2 copies and I will have some more.

[30ranfordfan]

I'll say it again.... Beckett does not use market data. They have not, they do not. It's a myth (that they've claimed for decades).

They've used market data to create a formula, and a pretty good one (their pricing IS accurate, if you consider the range, and not just the HI column). That formula fails sometimes though, and it's blatently obvious they're not using real sales to set those prices.

That's what this McLean is in Beckett. They priced it to roughly what it should have been worth 30 years ago, Pro Set did advertise that it was available... but considering you can find zero copies on the internet, I don't believe their pricing ever came from a real sale.

Can anyone find an image of this card? Can you find anyone who ever owned this card? It doesn't exist. Rare stuff from that era is hard to find, but it's out there.