2009 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards-WTF?

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

OK, I finally sat down to look over the new big book and right away there is a glaring problem. I turned to the Topps section in front and it appears that from 1948 through 1969 not one price has changed from the 2007 edition, on either the regular or oddball sets. I stopped looking after 1969 but the set, common and stars I spot checked had no changes in the past two years. Even the '68 3-D's, featured in a huge Olbermann SCD article earlier this year, reflected none of the information in said article.

Either old figures were used or SCD did not bother to look at any transactions over a two year period. For the price charged for this book and given the competition online, SCD has to do a better job. I could have saved forty bucks and just used my 2007 edition.

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Posted By: larry

you are correct
no price changes on any of the test issues
except they LOWERED the price on 68 mantle plak insane

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Posted By: Bob

They lowered the price on the '68 Mantle Plak!! Yay! Now I can afford one.

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Posted By: larry

like they say the book is a guide
they have reflected the prices of esskays and briggs etc
but the topps test issues no

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Posted By: Donny Muth

Please... anyone who has the new 2009 SCD guide... if you could check the 1965 Topps set listing and let me know if the entire set is in there this time or not? In my 2008 SCD guide the last portion of the '65 Topps set was missing which is quite annoying when you're trying to complete a set and can't find info on all the critical high number cards!!!

Thanks!

---Donny

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

65 Topps goes to #598.

Still very disappointed in the Topps section this year-poorly done. Hope they get it right next year or in '10.

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Posted By: Dan

The prices did not change at all for the sets I collect either. In some ways it is good because the prices are so ridiculously low I pray I can find someone willing to sell at the listed prices. I realize it has to be challenging to put this guide out but a simple scan of ebay would get you in the right zip code as far as prices are concerned. The DVD is excellent and helps justify the $40.00 plus cost.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

Let me state that it may be physically impossible to price every set in any of the catalogs at this point for just one person.
Back in the day, I had these priorities for the Beckett Almanac

1) Keep getting new checklists into the DB and the Book

2) Get Photos for new checklists (and for older sets I might not have had pictures for)

3) Get the Prices right.

Both the Beckett Almanac and the Standard Catalog are only as good as the people who help them -- and it may now be a real full-time job to keep prices current on these books because of the sheer volume of the cards. Don you have my empathy on trying do this job mainly by yourself (except for whatever the F&W Staff prices and whatever help you get from the experts out in the field

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: CLAUDE

But in TWO years time you would think the price of EVERYTHING has changed either up or down??? Dave was comparing the 2007 guide to the 2009 guide...kida makes you wonder if spending the $$ on the new guide is worth it. But having it on CD does sound nice.

-Claude

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Posted By: Rich Klein

If you complain about no pricing changing; and don't volunteer to help -- don't post on the subject. I know that Don would like help with the Standard Catalog and my old comrade at Beckett, Brian Flesicher (BFleischer@Beckett.com) would also appreciate any and all help for the Beckett Almanac.

Remember that 2 years ago, Don walked into the book just about as Bob was finishing the book and just had to guide the book to the end result. And trust me, as one of about 7 people who have ever edited a book like this -- it just gets more difficult every year. So, I'm willing to accept this year for Don as a transition year to learn how to do the book.

And for everyone out there, I'm sure both Brian and Don would appreciate help so feel free to email them and volunteer your help. The only way to make these books better is for everyone who can help in the collecting world to do so

Regards
Rich Klein

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Posted By: JimCrandell

I disagree with the notion that somehow it is the responsibility of the customer to make the prices right.

You put out a book that you are attempting to sell to the public then do the work to make it accurate. Sort of like my buddy Joe Orlando--send in the prices that they sell for and we will consider changes.

VCP gets it right and people love it.

If SCD puts out all this stale info the they deserve to have lower sales as a result.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

Jim:

One of the hardest issues to comprehend is just how much data there is for anyone to get through. There are more than 25,000 sets (granted some are parallelso of modern sets) now in existence and you are asking someone to be as much as an expert on pre-1900 material as they are in 2008 prospecting.
VCP has had to grow exponentially and IIRC one of Bobby's posts correctly, at one point they had 18,000 EBay lines to parse through at any given time. And remember they are ONLY dealing with graded cards, not with everything from the 1880's Old Judges to 2008 Mets Team Sets. I guarantee you that none of the 2008 Mets Team Issued Postcards will ever be graded so no matter how good Bobby and his crew are, so that item would never be catalogued unless someone noticed it and notified a person doing the cataloguing.
In reality, the ONLY way for comprehensive price guides to survive is to have help from all of those in the field. I stand by what I said, if you want to comment -- HELP -- otherwise don't comment on this subject.

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: larry

i think the biggest problem is they cant make the decision to split the book in to 2 separate entities
1980 and above for $19.99
and pre 80 for 24.99...with 2 separate people doing the books which would allow the editor a lot more time to study the past years auction prices and incorporate them into the guide...lets not forget either that some of the tough stuff doesnt trade hands in a year so the price has to remain the same

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Posted By: Glen V

So, how can we help? Don can see Ebay and all the auction sites, so flooding him with e-mails of auction results would only make things worse. What information would really be valuable to him?

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Posted By: John

I just received my copy from Amazon yesterday. I did not buy it for the pricing/value details. More importantly, it is my encyclopedia of baseball cards. I needed to know what was out there and a bit of history and specs of each card issue. Is there an alternative that documents such? If so, that's what I needed. Much better than lugging around this 3-4" block of paper.

In my opinion, updating prices in this book is a ridiculously huge, almost impossible task.

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

I buy one every two years, first time I can recall such stagnation. I can relate if Don F. is given no resources by corporate. I have loads of non ebay (raw) pricing data on inserts, I should probably try to organize it.

Kind of surprised SCD didn't move to a VCP format-would have been a natural. I do like the DVD though, so it's not all bad.