Is it time for a more "data-driven / insights-type" resource to help us collectors?

[seans007]

Hi Everyone,

I’m wondering if anyone else feels my pain as a collector, unable to access (and benefit from) a singular resource that doesn’t simply provide static data – like PSA, PWCC, and VintageCardCollector currently offer – but rather affords us REAL insights?

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that cards are first and foremost our "hobby," however I have many, many friends who also consider their cards tangible holdings in their overall financial portfolios, even if it's a small %. With that said, many of us would like to see some eventual, decent return on all that hard work; the “sweat equity” we each put into our collections.

I keep wondering why someone hasn’t yet created a “Morningstar” or “The Street” -type website where data science has been applied to the vintage card market … beyond what PSA and PWCC are providing (mere data) … where “new truths,” i.e. the real insights can be gleaned regarding top picks, etc. Would anyone else like to see more than just recent card “values / prices?”

I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts here. Are we crazy to think that having something like the following, where we paid for such crucial information, would be extremely beneficial to all of us … and whose time has more than come? There ARE ways to perform predictive analysis in 2019.

• A POP report that ranks cards from low pop to high pop. As we know, PSA does not segment their population report this way – they do it in card number order. One must look through 500 to 700+ cards within an issue to find the “low pop” cards.
• Speculative reports. Who’s going to make the Pro Football HOF in 2020, where many players from the ‘60s through the ‘80s will be inducted? Wouldn’t we want to know who the safe bets are, and pick up their PSA 9 & 10 rookie cards now? This is just one example, but you get the idea. I did this with Johnny Robinson cards two years ago.
• Which issue of a HOF’er is the safer bet? Why is a 1962 Topps Carl Yastrzemski in PSA 9 worth four times as much as the 1961 version, and 2X the 1963 issue? Where would you put your money, if you had the funds? Do you know how many of these situations exist? So very many, and I think we’d all like an easy way to know.
• Real time sales from the top 10 auction houses. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a window into which cards are up for auction at any moment in time, accessible with one push of an easy button?

Thank you for your input on this. It bothers me that our wonderful hobby is, in some ways, still stuck in the dark ages. Is it time for some forward-thinking, third millennium applications? One site; all of the helpful data and valuable insights we could ever wish for.

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Thank you!

[steve B]

That's an interesting idea.

I'm not so into the financial stuff, but the other features could be handy.

I think SGC for a while had the pop report sortable that way.

Without being allowed access to the database, the only way I can see is to manually enter the pop report at a particular time into a spreadsheet or database of your own so it would be sortable. I'm not sure if that could be automated, it probably can, but it would take me longer to figure out how than to type all the numbers in.

Overall, I think it's a lot of work for something that probably doesn't have a way of breaking even, let alone being profitable.

[seans007]

I wonder what people think of www.collectorsequity.com?