eBay Question

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Posted By: Jason Smith

Does anyone know of a service (free or pay) within the vintage card collecting ranks which tracks specific prices for ebay items?

Of course everyone probably knows that the records only stay on ebay for a couple of weeks and then they're gone. Seeing as how PSA is behind in their pricing (in my opinion), it would be helpful to know that a specific card went for $XX amount. It would take a little bit of work, but I've been thinking about keeping a record of the cards I collect. All one would have to do is copy the prices from the completed items every week or so and transfer them to another website. For me, it would be PSA 4 and up T206, and for others it might be something different, but it would be a nice tool to check the range of prices. It's just a little too much work to keep up for me as I will get busy at the end of the summer.

Any of you guys keep records that well?
Jason

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Posted By: jay behrens

I think most of track prices in things were are really interested, whether on paper, or mentally. My brother keeps really detailed records on t202s.

Jay

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Posted By: Julie

mentioning them in my feedback (hope the sellers don't mind), and the prices for the more expensive items are permnently engraved in my noggin.

i THINK.

Jay, what'd I pay for that PSA 4 Old Judge Kelly, common pose? First thing I bought under this name...Jay Miller, that is.

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Posted By: David Seaborn

Jason-

About three years ago, I had the same idea you just mentioned. I copy and paste the completed items about every 10 days and now have thousands of individaul transactions recorded. This is for EVERY graded card (SGC,PSA, or GAI) from the 19th century to 1915. I also do the same thing for all major auction houses. It takes lots of work, but give me a far more accurate representation of what is going on than do the popular 'guides' (e.g. SCD Catalog's price of $2200 for the 1914 Cracker Jack Mathewson...wha da?) . I've often thought this would be of value to the collecting public. This labor of love has certainly helped me out quite a bit.

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Posted By: bcornell

This service (http://www.andale.com/research/res_quickstart.jsp) gets recent eBay price results for a keyword like "t206". It isn't free, but you can run a few searches as a trial.

Personally, I'd question the usefulness of old results (greater than 6 months) as a guideline for most prices, given the volatility of collectibles sales.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I set up watch lists on the cards I want to watch then copy the page when the items close. It doesn't take very long, especially if you are looking at ebay for different items all the time, like I do, and watching them anyway.

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Posted By: Jason Smith

Thanks for the info! I didn't know about Andale, and it pretty much covers what I was thinking. Man, David, that is a lot of work! I admire you for having that kind of discipline. And, yes I do think you could make a little money on it, if you think it would outweigh the advantage you may have "all to yourself" in knowing whether to bid high or to just wait for another card to come along.
For me, it's basically, "Hey, I haven't seen that card in awhile." and I am more apt to bid on it. Then I check the pop report and sure enough if it's lower pop then I'm even more likely. But I have a tendency to be a streaky collector. If I'm busy at work or doing other things, I'll go awhile without even checking ebay for cards, much less bid, so it would be great to be able to check back on what I may have missed.
As we discussed before, it seems like the PSA commons are going up (due to people like me building a registry set, I'm sure), and having access to that info would help prove or disprove the feeling.
Is it a searchable database? If so, I think you could market it if you wanted to. Maybe info from 2+ years ago isn't exactly what you'd need to derive a price for today, but it definitely would help me in this situation:
WIFE: "Are those things really making money?"
ME: "Well, a PSA 6 Gravvy Cavath sold 2 years ago for XXX and now it's worth XXX."
WIFE: "Oh, in that case honey, forget about our 401K! Just buy more cards!"
HA HA!
Jason

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Posted By: jay behrens

I'll say the same thing to you I said to everyone in the 80s that thought they were gonna get rich off baseball cards, buy the cards becuase you love them, not becuase you think you will get rich. Save the investing for more tradiational investments like stocks, bonds and real estate. Once you have your traditional incvestments taken care of then, then you can think about treating cards and other collectibles as investments. Even Mr Mint got sucked into the supposed great investment of Star Wars action figures in the mid to late 90s and took a beating. Something I took great joy in watching

Jay

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Posted By: tbob

Seeing Mr. Mint taking a financial bath with Star Wars action figures? Priceless...

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Posted By: David Seaborn

I certainly shed no tears for Mr. Mint. Jay gives very good advice. I track these prices to have a better resolution on the vintage card market than the 'sources' that are currently available (they're just too inaccurate for me to use). I do this to add to my own personal collection of vintage cards, and not as an investment. The Mr. Mint story should show it's better to be in this for the love of the cards rather than to trying to make a quick buck.

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Posted By: Dave

I started tracking T206 prices sometime in March 04. I only record what is listed in the title; and only graded cards. This is my only concession to sanity in this process. It takes hours to keep up. I've hand entered each card into excel so it can be alpabatized for easy reference. I got behind and I'm just now trying to catch up. I let it lapse and lost about a week of data at the end of June. With about the last week still pending, I'm up to about 2500 entries.

To some degree this flys in the face of the advice here, "buy the card, not the slab." My database is a slab list, not a card list. But, I do follow that advice when I buy.

I really like having this data. It's only 4 months old, so I can't see any price trends. I'm really a rookie, and I think this is a reality check. I've started trying to fill in an inherited T206 collection; been buying commons and SL to learn the process.

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Posted By: Jason Smith

That hypothetical conversation with my wife was to show that she was the one more concerned about the money/investment aspect of the collection. I won't be selling any of the cards I buy anytime soon unless I upgrade, so, yeah, I agree that I do it for the love of the cards, not the hope for future riches. I do sometimes think of it as an investment that I can enjoy though.
Jason

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Posted By: Scot Reader (ebay: sreader3)

For each auction, I record the auction close date, front, back, grade and winning price. I separately track all 36 backs to the extent the seller's item photos or item description provides back information. I also separately track ungraded, PSA, SCG and GAI cards. For ungraded cards, I actually look at the photos, read the seller's objective description of condition (if any) and draw my own conclusion about grade. (Due to the tendency of sellers to overgrade I ignore any grade assignments they might offer). I don't record PSA cards with qualifiers, and I don't record ungraded cards that look non-authentic or trimmed. I have recorded about 6,000 transactions so far, which probably represents about half of the total T206 auctions on ebay in the last nine months. When I think I have compiled enough data (I'm not yet sure if this means 10,000 transactions, 50,000 transactions or some number in-between), I plan to crunch some numbers and publish some information including an updated checklist, commentary on relative availability, a few new theories on the set and pricing data. Since this is starting to look like a multi-year project, I'll also probably publish some pricing "delta" data showing pricing trends during the tracking period. My interest is limited to T206; I expect others might appreciate having similar information on other sets. Finally, I expect we're not the only two people with an interest in doing this sort of auction tracking. Scot

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Posted By: Dave

Scott,

I thought I was going overboard (Anal was actually the term that came to mind). You are keeping 3x my data, and judging each card as well. What a database. How much time do you spend on this?

I'd definitely be interesed in seeing your conclusion when ever you decide to share.


Dave

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Posted By: David Seaborn

Speaking only for myself, the tracking does take lots of time...but then again, most of us spend plenty of time (and money) on eBay and elsewhere so isn't it worth it? It does involve a lot more than simple cutting and pasting. I always check the scan to see if there was a qualifier (in which case the price is not recorded), whether the reserve was met, and what kind of back the card had. Once I finish this year, I feel I'll have enough of a sample size to share with the board.

There was a comment about the worthiness of data more than six months old. Thats a valid point for cards that are traded frequently, like T206's and T205's. But, if you want an idea of a price on a more uncommon card..there's no way you can only use six months of data. Those data simply are not enough. Heck, some cards don't even come up every six months. While it's a little dated in some cases, it's a lot better than nothing and it does allow for looking at trends with the more common cards. Just my two cents.

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Posted By: Scot Reader (ebay: sreader3)

Dave, I've spent way too much time on this project already, but I think I'm well past the point of no return. Anyway, it's a labor of love. I've been fascinated by this set since I was 10 years old (let's just say Carter was president), and thanks to the Internet and ebay in particular I think all of us T206 maniacs now have a chance to develop a better understanding of this incredible set than Bill Heitman or even the great Lew Lipset. Scot

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Posted By: Jason Smith

Man, every time I go on ebay now, I wonder (for example) - "When was the last time a PSA T206 Clancy/Pelty/Persons etc was sold, and how much?"

Remember to let me know when you're ready to have people pay for your research.
Jason