Supply & Demand vs. BOOK price

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Posted By: Hankron

Price guides are just that: guides. I find the Standard Catalog and Beckett Almanac to be excelent recources. Each guide is worth every penny, but not because of the accuracy of the pricing. They are excellent checklists, lists of accepted cards (useful in the Roy Huff age) and usually have nice set 'bios.' The pricing is useful as a guage of relative scarcity and popularity (which is important to the buyer or seller), but not as actual pricing.

I deal almost entirely with material where there are no price guides, which allows me to run like a fox in the woods. I am a firm beleiver that, as a dealer or collector, there are only two important numbers: your buy price and your sell price.