[crolsky]

Hi all,

I have collected cards for a very long time and now am going through my collections in hopes of pricing things. Question, how do you go about best pricing a card that is #'d to 10 for example? Can't find it online, beckett won't list, and has not been through eBay.

Thanks!!

-C

[jplarson]

Usually what I'll do to get an idea is find out how it scales with the rest of the parallels. For example:

Base - 1.00
Unnumbered parallel - 1.50
#499 - 2.50
#299 - 4.00
#199 - 5.00
#99 - 8.00
#49 - 10.00
#25 - 15.00
#10 - ???
#5 - ???
#1 - ???

What I kind of figure for the #10 is 20.00 and #5 is 25.00. It's not a hard and fast rule but helps give me a ballpark on what I think book value (aka retail value) might be. Whether the player is a listed star, unlisted star, semi-star, or minor star also helps guide me. Looking at my progression above, maybe a Tom Brady from a lesser set will ramp up to #10 @ 25.00 and #5 @ 40.00 whereas a Brandon Marshall from a more premium set is #10 @25.00 and #5 @ 30.00.

Sell value of course will be whatever someone will pay for it. There's cards from a set I chase where two commons might book for 30.00 but one will consistently sell for 5.00 and the other for 50.00. I hope this helps!

[crolsky]

Usually what I'll do to get an idea is find out how it scales with the rest of the parallels. For example:

Base - 1.00
Unnumbered parallel - 1.50
#499 - 2.50
#299 - 4.00
#199 - 5.00
#99 - 8.00
#49 - 10.00
#25 - 15.00
#10 - ???
#5 - ???
#1 - ???

What I kind of figure for the #10 is 20.00 and #5 is 25.00. It's not a hard and fast rule but helps give me a ballpark on what I think book value (aka retail value) might be. Whether the player is a listed star, unlisted star, semi-star, or minor star also helps guide me. Looking at my progression above, maybe a Tom Brady from a lesser set will ramp up to #10 @ 25.00 and #5 @ 40.00 whereas a Brandon Marshall from a more premium set is #10 @25.00 and #5 @ 30.00.

Sell value of course will be whatever someone will pay for it. There's cards from a set I chase where two commons might book for 30.00 but one will consistently sell for 5.00 and the other for 50.00. I hope this helps!

This is super helpful, thanks very much! I never really know how to price items like that consistently so this is a great approach for quantifying them.

I pulled a Michael Irvin jersey auto /10 from Playbook and it was hard to figure out what an acceptable price for it may be. Most of the time i throw cards on eBay starting at $0.99 and hoping it goes up significantly but with cards like this, it's hard to figure out what I should hope to get for it.

Thanks again!

[savagenate]

I'll look for other comparable players in the same sets, see what they are selling for. I also have a hard rule about how much I would value a 1/1 from some of the guys I collect, and price down accordingly. If there's no comps, I never price anything above what I personally would pay for the card, unless I add an OBO for it. Not a great way to get rich, but I'm more worried about keeping the hobby affordable for everyone.

[kerryandbeth]

I'll look for other comparable players in the same sets, see what they are selling for. I also have a hard rule about how much I would value a 1/1 from some of the guys I collect, and price down accordingly. If there's no comps, I never price anything above what I personally would pay for the card, unless I add an OBO for it. Not a great way to get rich, but I'm more worried about keeping the hobby affordable for everyone.

I like this approach. I recently traded for a 1/1 prospect auto and gave up a 5/5 that would fetch $150-$200 on eBay. I wanted the card, so a fair trade for me!

[crolsky]

That all makes a lot of sense, thanks for the input! Those are solid strategies for pricing, definitely going to consider that here on out.