Posted By:
barrysloateI was one of the major price contributors for the 2008 catalog, and supplied information solely for the vintage cards. A few points about how I made my contribution:
While I handle many vintage cards in the course of a year, I haven't sold every card from every issue. Much of my input was intuitive; I know which sets are a little hotter than others, and generally how much the market has appreciated over the course of the year. Likewise, I know the extremely rare issues that were grossly underpriced in the catalog. But most of the numbers were clearly estimated values, and for a typical entry I might offer "mark commons 10% higher, but Hall of Famers should be 20% higher." The point is the Standard Catalog is no more than a guide. None of the numbers are precise, but all should give a sense of a fair market value, and a relative price between one issue and another. If the catalog says such and such a card is worth $35 it might trade for anywhere between $25 and $50 in the real marketplace, but there is only so much precision you can have in a yearly guide.