VCP - Worth It?

[KMayUSA6060]

Is VCP worth the monthly expense? Are the prices accurate enough to save enough money to warrant the expense?

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by KMayUSA6060

Is VCP worth the monthly expense? Are the prices accurate enough to save enough money to warrant the expense?

I'd say yes. You can probably root around on Ebay and on the internet and piece it all together, but it's a lot faster when, for example, you are at the National and trying to decide whether to pull the trigger on something. Relatively complete info but not perfect.

[Edwolf1963]

The revamped CardTarget has been pretty good - and it's free. Not perfect, none of them are, but gives a nice perspective of prices and cards over time. Took me a while to get used to it, but since it's been fairly easy to navigate. I also use the eBay "sold" view which shows last "x" amount of sales over the last .. what is it .. 3, 4 months? Recent snapshot, but again it's helpful, easy and free.

[Rhotchkiss]

I think VCP is well worth the nominal monthly nut, especially if you are buying relatively high-priced and/or pre-war and 1950's stuff. It is by no means perfect, and does not catch everything, but as mentioned, it catches most and is much easier and quicker than piecing it all together off eBay and Internet searches. For me, the best part is that it breaks everything down by both grader and grade and almost always has pictures of the cards (front and back, which is especially important on t206 and very vintage cards). Plus, you can go back almost 10 years. End of the day, not much risk at $10/month, and well worth it IMO

[Sean1125]

Yes VCP is worth the monthly expense.

The site provides data. You need to interpret that data. The data it shows you is accurate when you see an eBay or auction house sale. It will give you access to see comparable images and pricing of any particular card in your desired grade.

VCP comes with my highest recommendation. Bobby and team are great.

[RedsFan1941]

if you believe all reported sales are legit, yes it's worth it.

[rdixon1208]

It depends. If you're working on a set or two, it doesn't take long to get familiar with prices on your own. If you're collecting a variety of sets, it's well worth it. But the main thing to know is that you can cancel at any time. I use it intermittently, but I never go to a big show without a subscription.

Don't get too caught up in it though. When the site first came out I was pretty new at collecting and I used it as the bible for every card I bought. I always paid less than VCP. It took me a bit to realize that while I had paid below average for all of my cards, my cards were also below average condition wise for their grade.

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

I'd say yes. You can probably root around on Ebay and on the internet and piece it all together, but it's a lot faster when, for example, you are at the National and trying to decide whether to pull the trigger on something. Relatively complete info but not perfect.

+1 there.

Best wishes,

Larry

[BosseFieldBoy]

VCP is still worth it, but I've noticed a lot more inaccurate prices. Always click on the links to see what it really sold for. And I've noticed fewer auction houses sales are being captured. Anyone know what's up with that?

[jimtodd]

I was recently looking at signing up for VCP, but wanted to revive Kyle's question now in 2023 before I do.
Is VCP still worth it to you guys, and do the comments in this thread still apply now 6 years later?
Do they capture REA, LOTG, etc auctions? Or just Goldin/PWCC/Heritage that the website lists?

[cgjackson222]

They track these auction houses:

[conor912]

Depends on how much buying you do. I just do their $4 for 24 hours of access every few months and that's enough for me.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by conor912

Depends on how much buying you do. I just do their $4 for 24 hours of access every few months and that's enough for me.

This. I have an active subscription, but am actively buying and selling cards and find the data useful. If you're not making purchases often enough to justify the expense than the $4 option would be enough when needed.

[botn]

Invaluable if you do any amount of buying and selling. As to accuracy, it is only a messenger. It still requires looking through the presented sales data to make up your own mind as to value but it is so convenient to have the data in one place.

[sterlingfox]

Yes, as long as you're doing enough buying and/or selling.

Saves a bundle of time vs scraping together the same info across eBay and Google, and contains more data than just the last 90 days of eBay sales (10+ years, in fact).

Also, don't cheap out and go for the full gold membership pre-paid for 1 year. The pics are worth it, and tell you much more than what a slab number and price do. I initially did silver for a while and regretted it.

[ValKehl]

Originally Posted by conor912

Depends on how much buying you do. I just do their $4 for 24 hours of access every few months and that's enough for me.

Me too.

[Exhibitman]

I canceled my subscription. The service is fine but I don't actively buy or sell graded mainstream cards, so it really didn't offer value for me.

[theshowandme]

Great tool even for small fish like myself.

Card Ladder and other tools are good too but don’t have the history or breadth of coverage.

If you’re spending a few grand a year on pre-war stuff, it’s almost a must have in my opinion.


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[sycks22]

VCP is great

[Jstottlemire1]

I am also firm believer it’s absolutely worth it.

[raulus]

Query:

How timely is the data these days? For example, if an auction closed yesterday, will the data be there today? Or is there a small lag? A week? A month? Hopefully not more.

[Baseballcrazy62]

Highly recommend using VCP. They have been very quick to fix any inaccuracies that I come across.

[BobbyVCP]

Originally Posted by raulus

Query:

How timely is the data these days? For example, if an auction closed yesterday, will the data be there today? Or is there a small lag? A week? A month? Hopefully not more.

To answer your question

Ebay Chinese auctions post within the same day of ending. Fixed Bin's and BO's post once the time set by the seller expires. Out of our control an API issue

Other auction houses usually post a day or two after ending when we run a final script.

[dmats33312]

Originally Posted by raulus

Query:

How timely is the data these days? For example, if an auction closed yesterday, will the data be there today? Or is there a small lag? A week? A month? Hopefully not more.

I've bought something in March off of Goldin that still doesn't show with last sale in 2019. Would guess it depends on how it's listed too if they are scraping the data.

[todeen]

I too just get the 24 hour option. I have most recently used it to price cards to sell. It gave me competitive prices. I got a couple offers "will you take x% less?" but ultimately someone paid my initial asking price. So it was worth it from that stand point.

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[bammerbb]

I like VCP for sports, but to me it seems way light on the pricing. Only have PSA priced out, but for SGC it only has maybe for 1 random grade. But I love it for baseball.

Now my question, what could I use for non sports? I like the more vintage cards. I have a nother favorite, 1910 American Caramel Co Navy Caramels (Battleships). Would love to find a good, inexpensive pricing for these.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Brian

[Lucas00]

It would be nice if there was a lite version of some kind.

I personally can't justify $15-$18/month for the single card I need to look up once every other month. And $6 for 24 hours just also doesn't feel right to me. Maybe if I had a list of cards to look up, but that's almost never the case. (I could see this being a great option if say, you wanted to sell a portion of your collection)

If there was something more like $5 a month and you could only do a certain amount of searches for the month (maybe 10) I think that would be the sweet spot for me.

That said the value for dealers seems INCREDIBLE. It would be in use all day every show which would pay for itself probably in the first 15 minutes.

But for somebody who would only need it very rarely it's more worth it to just search the auction results manually. That is my personal opinion on vcp. Great service if you need to know prices often.

[4815162342]

I am a yearly subscriber to VCP, and I use it daily.

I wish a few more AHs were included, e.g. Hunt Auctions and Classic Auctions.

I would also like to see price history for raw cards and for cards sold as part of a lot. These sales would obviously not affect any VCP averages, but this additional information would be very useful for scarce cards. It would be challenging to implement, but it could likely be achieved by using AI, which would probably also help with missing eBay sales.

[x2drich2000]

Has anyone used Card Ladder instead of VCP for prewar cards? pros/cons of each?

[ZiggerZagger]

I can't imagine collecting without VCP, honestly. I collect nearly 100% vintage with a good amount of Pre-War mixed in.
The hassle and inaccuracy of other sites keeps me gladly paying my annual fee for VCP every year.

Bobby is so meticulous in the curation and organization of the service, and it really shows on the User end.
He's also been consistently responsive when I've reached out -- usually to point out an obviously shilled eBay auction on a couple of occasions.
He's reviewed and then removed those sales, keeping the sales data honest on VCP.

The thought of trying to navigate the floor of the National without VCP is terrifying to me...
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[bcbgcbrcb]

In my opinion, VCP is the best out there, no doubt.