2013 Panini Prizm base card of Travis Kelce...
Beckett pricing - less than $3
COMC seller - original price of $75 on sale for $49...yikes!
I realize that there are greedy sellers on every website, but these kinds of discrepancies are quite common. During a garage sale I had two boxes of toploader cards valued between $8-$50 per Beckett. When someone asked what I would be willing to take for everything, I told him 40% of Beckett. He immediately opened eBay on his phone and proceeded to tell me the 'going prices' for the same cards, which were about 25% of Beckett pricing for the majority.
Although I would never try to sell something at 100% of Beckett HI, I would expect the Becket Low price to be similar to what others pay on the open market, which is usually 40% of the HI price. (Beckett Marketplace sellers ask for 60%-100% of Beckett pricing)
So, who is out of touch? Beckett or COMC/eBay sellers, or both? And don't give me the "arms length" speech about whatever a person is willing to pay is the reasonable price.
COMC takes some of the risk out of getting a card that you think might be NM+
but your going to pay more
Definitely beckett. They have guys who are selling for pennies at premium prices on here. Thanks to Beckett, people seem to think the one year Johnathan Franklin running back plates are worth more or the same as Marshawn Lynch...I don't think so! I've started using eBay as my comp of choice as that is what Beckett is supposed to be monitoring anyways. COMC has some amazing deals, but there are some people who are obviously out to make a killing on a card that isn't actually worth it. One of the many broken services Beckett has yet to address. eBay is the definite current market value in my mind.
EBay usually runs a third of Beckett high, unless the card is new or super hot.
If that helps.
I would say that ebay would be the most reliable for current value. It doesn't matter if beckett values a card at $5...if that same card is selling for $30-$40 on ebay, then the current market value of that card is $30-$40 as dictated by the market. If someone wants to sell that card for $5 because beckett says its value is $5, there's no problem in that...however they are underselling tremendously based on the current market landscape.
(11-29-2018, 03:40 PM)jwlawrence06@gmail.co Wrote: [ -> ]I would say that ebay would be the most reliable for current value. It doesn't matter if beckett values a card at $5...if that same card is selling for $30-$40 on ebay, then the current market value of that card is $30-$40 as dictated by the market. If someone wants to sell that card for $5 because beckett says its value is $5, there's no problem in that...however they are underselling tremendously based on the current market landscape.
It's been my experience that most people that live and die by eBay sales generally only use it when it's to their advantage.
I have asked for PC cards of players that are no longer hot or popular ... i.e., ice cold on eBay, no bids, dismal completed sales ... and often the response is, "no way, man, that's a $30 card right there."
When I make trades I always take into consideration the "caliber" of what I am trying to acquire versus what I am willing to deal.
Like, I won't try to trade $30 worth of of a dozen old, cold Trent Dilfer rookie cards for a $30 Saquon Barkley card (unless it's something the other member specifically requested).
Same with autos versus regular cards ... I will always sweeten the deal to make it worthwhile on the other person's end.
I think some of this depends on the scarcity of cards in real nice condition. I agree high Beckett is usually double the ebay selling price for most cards. However checkout 1970 Kellogg's football . I usually have to pay double high book for problem free cards with no cracking. So scarcity and condition make cards sell for more on ebay. then high Beckett.This shows ebay is a way more accurate way to value cards.
I sell on COMC and price at 30%-40% of Beckett HI, and most of the time I am the lowest selling price for any particular card. Which is not my issue, by the way. It is $3 vs $50, or $20 vs $150...these large differences between asking price and what a Beckett trader would expect in return. On the flip side, I have a card priced by Beckett at $50 that I cannot sell for $17 (very surprising to me).
Comc has sam badford plates for 50 bucks a piece on feebay. Food for thought. I've gotten a half a dozen plates for under ten a piece on auctions
This is one of my favorite topics to discuss...
eBay is a great way to check the value of a hot card. eBay is also a good way to gauge the desirability of a card (i.e. how often the card is actually sold on eBay). However eBay does a horrible job at gauging the value for a lot of cards. For example if a seller lists a card on eBay for $0.99 with $3 for shipping and it doesn't sell, that doesn't mean it's not worth that much. It simply means that there weren't any active bidders during the time that auction was live. I have seen way too many times when a card doesn't sell for $0.99 and then 2 weeks later the same card sells for $10+. There are a lot of factors that determine a final sale price on eBay: auction end time, cost of shipping, sellers other items (for combined shipping), title, description, pictures, number of other sellers with the same card, etc.
The last item might be the most hard to realize. There are numerous sellers on eBay who will try to undercut each other in order to sell a card; thus driving the price down on a card. This then leads to a new lower eBay market price for that card. If sellers continue to undercut each other, the card's value can continue to decrease. Buyers than start quoting the new low price and expect to pay no more than that. This trend can kill the value of some cards. As for the trend to reverse it usually takes either the card drying up on eBay or the player/card getting hot.
However eBay isn't even close to the only place that cards are bought and sold, and a lot of those other places use Beckett or other methods for determining prices. For example, a Derek Jeter card might only sell for $5 on eBay, but in NYC that same card might easily sell for $10-$20. The location that a card is sold, can easily factor into it's sales value. Plus, there are plenty of people who will pay a premium for a card that they can physically hold and own instantly, rather than waiting for shipment and hoping that the card is in the condition they expect. It also might surprise some people, that there are still some people who don't use eBay at all. There are even some people (typically older generations) that won't buy cards online and only buy them in person. For them, using Beckett is key to getting a value for the card.
I look at eBay, like I look at card shows. There are $1 bins with lots of incredible bargains, it's not to say that the $1 bin cards are only worth $1 each, it's that the seller just wants to get rid of some and is willing to take $1 a piece to do so. Again, for hot cards eBay is a great way to get the instant value as Beckett is usually behind with updating pricing on hot cards (after all they base their pricing off completed sales, so they cannot simply increase a cards value until after that card has sustained sales at that increased value).
As for Beckett, it's values require sustained sales (both on eBay and other places). So hot cards can take some time before their Beckett values are increased. A recent example would be the 2011 Topps Update JD Martinez cards, as his base RC was listed in Beckett for $2.50 before jumping 10x in price. So for the people only looking at Beckett prices would've been way undervaluing the card. Also, some ultra-rare inserts from the 90s can have significant jumps in value without Beckett catching on (as I mentioned they want to see sustained sales, so a single sale doesn't necessarily cause the value to jump).
In summary, while eBay is a good tool to help judge values (especially for hot cards or young prospects), it should not be considered the only place to get value and in many cases the values you do get can be very misleading. Also, simply using Beckett without considering that a card may be hot can be just as misleading.