Card Prices Back?
 

Anyone else noticing card prices seem to be coming back to pre-depression pricing for the most part (maybe not T206s)? I was following 4 cards on eBay tonight and put in strong snipes on all of them; was the under-bidder on 3 and was 2nd underbidder on the 4th. On 2 of them, my bids were higher then VCP all-time highs for the grade.

Yes, was outbid on a pre war card tonight that I thought my bid would be plenty high enough. Went for twice what I estimated.

yes I was outbid on 2 of them by a shot. the 3rd went for my max which was $23 over VCP and it was raw. I have seen several spurts like this before and hope maybe the turn is coming.

Depression??? .....
 

Folks ... you can give your thanks, that you have no idea what a depression is like.

This recession is pretty bad, and not over yet, but during a depression, you and I wouldn't be bidding on cards, or anything but a Home Relief Line ... Ask anyone in the family that's been on one of them, about them.

(Ignoring the issue of whether you call the economic situation a depression or a recession...)

I think prices are somewhat stronger now than they were early this year, but it does depend on what cards you are considering. I base this on fairly limited data - mainly my impressions of the REA auction this spring vs. the B&L auction that just closed. Again, this is pretty unscientific, but I thought the prices at REA were pretty soft on a lot of great, rarely-seen material. At B&L, I thought the prices were closer to years gone by on the higher-quality and high-demand lots. However, I did notice that prices on single commons at B&L (even ones in quite high grade for the sets - a.k.a. low pop commons) went very cheap at B&L in general.

As for Ebay, I have not seen much of interest in many months.

Cheers,
Blair

Further anecdote - last night I was the underbidder on Ebay on a T205 Mathewson SGC 50 (=4). Great seller w/ 100% feedback on many thousand deals. The card sold for $550. I should have bid harder. This was a heckuva deal.

Price guides on this say $900-$1,000. Not sure what VCP says as I don't subscribe.

Cheers,
Blair

Blair - as with most pre-war cards, the price guide references is way off with regards to actual market pricing; it doesn't sell for anything like $900-$1000. Also, not sure if it made a difference, but that Matty appeared narrow in the slab.

Hi Matt,

Just for my own info on this, can you tell me what this card does sell for in VG-EX grade (or I guess what VCP says?)

For the cards I have watched/bid on/purchased at auction in the last year, I would go so far as to say the price guide references are off on some pre-war cards (and even way off on some), but I would not say "most".

Cheers,
Blair

VCP shows prices on an SGC 50 Matty that span from as low as $450 to as high as $960, which is a wide range. Some of course may be nicer than others. That happens to be a rather easy card to find, so I can see that prices might be soft.

Thanks very much for the reply, Barry!

Looks like I should subscribe to VCP so that I get the full range of sales data. Do you guys recommend the Gold membership (as I understand it, this lets you see scans, which could help explain some different price results)?

I appreciate your help.

Cheers,
Blair

If you think you will make regular use of it, the gold is best. Seeing scans of the cards is important.

Great - thanks again!

Cheers,
Blair

I haven't been watching closely, but it's my impression that when the price guides are correct it is merely a coincidence. Because it seemed to me that all of them were way off, with the occasional exception of the guide for M116's and some low grade t206's.

dunno vcp or smr or this "book" everybody around here tries to lowball me with .. but the dgt can tell you most card values are still way down from 4 years ago....you like the vcp or "book" prices better, I always say go buy it from them. :-)

uh-oh...I'm turning into Levi :-)