PSA market data

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by EddieP

Not possible to create, that’s true. But to me, better data would be obtained from the time period were card prices/sales were first recorded and preserved. Heck, even data from 5 years back would have much more meaning. The further back the data yields a higher “N” ( i.e. total population in the research sense) which leads to more realistic results.

I’m guessing you’re a dentist, but as you know there’s a reason why medical researchers put more credence in studies that lasted decades rather one that lasted just months ( e.g. Framingham). Stock analysts apply this same concept. And if people are equating cards to stocks then this should hold true as well.

i certainly agree with you regarding quality of data...and yes...i'm a dentist. I just think it's funny how many want sports card collecting to be a pure..."perfect" marketplace...but it can never be. There are too many variables...combined with all data not being known/available.

Sooooooo...we just have to live with the data we have.

And...maybe...baseball cards shouldn't be viewed quite so much as stocks????

[EddieP]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

And...maybe...baseball cards shouldn't be viewed quite so much as stocks????

Bing, bing, bing. You hit the jack pot. There just not enough volume in sales to accurately predict ( notice I said predict) a card’s price.

[Rascal1010]

I was actually buying quite a few football cards (1950-80's) for my son's collection over the last 6 months, and can honestly say for a good part of them I was paying 2017-18 prices and getting them bought. There were a few that were a little stronger, but it appeared to me that this vintage of card had lost most if not all of the "COVID" gains they experienced and are settling into a price point they were in roughly 7-8 years ago. I think this is going to be pretty standard across the industry, some segments are just going to take a little longer to get back to these price points, but pricing seems to be settling at these price points for now anyway. Not sure Vintage baseball will go back to these price points, but do look for them to drop some value and have some correction, especially when talking lesser stars and more common cards from this era.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

i certainly agree with you regarding quality of data...and yes...i'm a dentist. I just think it's funny how many want sports card collecting to be a pure..."perfect" marketplace...but it can never be. There are too many variables...combined with all data not being known/available.

Sooooooo...we just have to live with the data we have.

And...maybe...baseball cards shouldn't be viewed quite so much as stocks????

Yes, not much at all like stocks.

For a lot of the time card collecting has been a thing there was very little price data, and what we had was fractured and mostly unreliable.
The ACC and whenever it came out, sales lists and results from a handful of people who bought and sold.
Followed by the Sports collectors bible in 1975? And its update. Plus a few more regular publications.
The annual Becketts started in 77 or 78, and the first monthly pricing magazines a year or two after that.

But those are only monthly pricing.

It's only been since Ebay began that we commonly had easy access to more timely data. And only since some of the automated price tracking sites started that it's been collected in a really easy format.

I don't know when the place Peter got that from began, but I suspect it's within the last couple years.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by steve B

I don't know when the place Peter got that from began, but I suspect it's within the last couple years.

I think it's right there in Peter's first post - 1 year return.

So not a particularly large window. But bigger than 1 month!

But maybe your question was whether this 1 year covers January - December 2022 v. some other 12 month window?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by raulus

I think it's right there in Peter's first post - 1 year return.

So not a particularly large window. But bigger than 1 month!

But maybe your question was whether this 1 year covers January - December 2022 v. some other 12 month window?

The question was how long card ladder has been around. It could be over a year but they had a summary of data over the past year. Or it could be they've only been tracking things for a year.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by steve B

The question was how long card ladder has been around. It could be over a year but they had a summary of data over the past year. Or it could be they've only been tracking things for a year.

You're right that Card Ladder has only been around for a few years - looks like they started in June 2020.

But I assume they collect sales data that goes back further. My experience is that data from 2010-today is fairly abundant, data from 2000-2010 tends to be less abundant, and before that is really sparse. So I wouldn't be surprised if they're picking up data from the last decade or so, and maybe attempting to go even further back, although I would be suspicious of just how precise any data will be prior to about 2010.

[EddieP]

Originally Posted by raulus

You're right that Card Ladder has only been around for a few years - looks like they started in June 2020.

But I assume they collect sales data that goes back further. My experience is that data from 2010-today is fairly abundant, data from 2000-2010 tends to be less abundant, and before that is really sparse. So I wouldn't be surprised if they're picking up data from the last decade or so, and maybe attempting to go even further back, although I would be suspicious of just how precise any data will be prior to about 2010.

Card Ladder was bought by Collectors:

https://www.psacard.com/articles/art...latform-ladder

They should have access to past sales data kept by PSA and Goldin. If the 2000-2010 ( which would include data from the Great Recession) is suspect then I would not think the current collected data is any more reliable.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by EddieP

Card Ladder was bought by Collectors:

https://www.psacard.com/articles/art...latform-ladder

They should have access to past sales data kept by PSA and Goldin. If the 2000-2010 ( which would include data from the Great Recession) is suspect then I would not think the current collected data is any more reliable.

Perhaps sparse is a better word than suspect. I'm not convinced that a lot of the sales data was picked up during the window from 2000-2010.

Go ahead and do a search using the PSA data for any given card at any given grade, particularly cards with a lot of historical volume. My experience is that the data thins out dramatically starting at around 2010, give or take. Often the data drops dramatically, by a factor of 5x or 10x as you go back in time prior to 2010. So either there were fewer sales back then, or just as likely, the data tracking systems weren't capturing as many sales.

Of course, it could also be an issue where there just weren't as many PSA-graded cards period during that era, in which case there wouldn't be as many sales. But as such, the data is a lot less robust, and therefore much more difficult when it comes to parsing the data to reach reliable conclusions.