A interesting read (Sharing SCI article on Hockey and prices of rookies, goaltenders, and more

[doniceage]

https://www.sportscardforum.com/thre...the-NHL-Season

As I have stated in the past their pricing is way better than Beckett imo. If any of you use Beckett lmk your thoughts.

Amazing to see actual prices of McDavid stuff dropping big time while Makar heats up.

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@30ranfordfan

Would like get your thoughts on this kind of pricing and software for tracking cards?

Don

[30ranfordfan]

@doniceage

It's interesting. Depending on where (and how) they get their data, it's going to blow the socks off of beckett 10 times out of 10. Those prices looked to be for PSA 10s. I assume they could run a report for the same card in PSA 7-10, BGS 7-10, and RAW.

I assume they're getting most of the sales data from eBay. Maybe a site like COMC ? What other sites out there have high volume sports card sales, where the price could be tracked (if the site will give up the info).

I have not read a Beckett or looked at their pricing for years. I was really sour on them for a time, but after a while I did come to the belief that Beckett wasn't really that bad. The problem was people could never read it right.

When I did pay attention to their values, it was obvious to me that they were using a formula, not real sales data. Their formula was really good. 95% of the time, they were very accurate. I suspect they still do that. Players have some kind of rating, sets have some kind of rating, and it's just a case of multiplying the two.

The problem is that if you see a card listed as $50 LO, and $100 HI - and it regularly sells for $60 on eBay, people would lose their minds that Beckett's prices were junk, since this card only sells for 60% of the value. Fact is that Beckett has NEVER said that a particular card is worth $X. They say it's worth in a range. I'm sure we can all quickly find cards that sell outside of their ranges, but IMO the overall formula they used was pretty good.

You see in FB groups today, everyone wants to buy and sell based on "comps". Of course that doesn't always work... because that card you just pulled that's serial #ed /10 doesn't have any confirmed sales - so what's it worth? Beckett would never price something like that (at least they used to not price under $25) but for some reason people have a hard time looking at similar cards of the same player, or even similar card of similar players. Even if there are confirmed sales of something - if you're just going off of what something sold for on eBay, there's plenty of bogus transactions (designed to increase those comps).

I'm still a little grumpy over an auction from a couple of years ago. I was bidding on a BTP letter. Is the card a 1/1 or a /7 - call it whatever you like. I would agree with anyone that whatever the 'A' in Ranford is worth, the 'N' is probably worth the same.

So, there's one on eBay. I get outbid at the last second. I really did use my "max" bid. I bid WAY higher than I expected it would sell for... but hey, someone wanted it more. Good for them.

Less than a week later, someone has a Ranford from the same set on eBay. He will sell it to me, his ask is what the one on eBay just sold for. I totally agree with that line of thinking.

I'll make up some numbers. I lost the first one for $120 (and change), so I end up buying the second one for $120 - because the bar was set, and that's what it's worth..... but if that other bidder had never come along, and I won the first card for $60.... does that mean the guy selling the second one should have asked for half of what he did?


I'm just kind of rambling here.... getting back to the site: I think something like this can definitely do a better job a pinning down a price than Beckett ever did - but I do think the ranges that Becket showed were a lot more accurate than people gave them credit for.

[doniceage]

@30ranfordfan

If you look they even give all places they get their data from. I think it was around 8 or 12 ballpark. Ebay, myslabs, and a ton of the bigger auction houses etc. As I wrote when I promote them they definitely have a lot of the hot card and big movers for those who like to sell and flip. Guys like us who collect ITG stuff will not be seeing them for a while as they are slowly adding everything. The cool thing is once a card sells and they track the data it will be there forever to be reference which I do like.

DON