Is the baseball card market a "perfect" market? The Demise of the "price guide"

[ullmandds]

There is no doubt to me that "price guides" have become totally obsolete in regards to vintage baseball cards in this day and age. Their only value is the checklists...in my opinion.

So should the big catalog(The Standard Catalog) even offer value "suggestions" any more...or should it just be a book of checklists?

A vintage card is worth what someone is willing to pay for it...period. And these hammer prices usually have no relation to what is listed in the price guide.

Opinions?

[bn2cardz]

agreed. If they spend less time worrying about the prices they could spend their efforts each year to better organizing the cards and maybe even redo some of the sets (like mentioned in the Old Judge thread).

[atx840]

I haven't needed to use a price guide or VCP type service to determine T206 buy/sale prices. I remember pre-Internet my dad would get the latest price guides when working on our 80/90s cards.

[ullmandds]

I use VCP somewhat often to find recent sales prices...this is definitely helpful for more "common" cards...for both buying and selling. IT's the tough stuff that u can just throw the book(s) away for.

[ullmandds]

cardtarget...you are correct re. my "perfect market" comment...I def spoke in error!

[CardTarget]

I would think that a "perfect" market would only be possible if all potential buyers of a card were aware and able to place a bid if the card comes up for auction. This is obviously impossible unless there is a single marketplace - which will likely never happen in this hobby.

Regarding price guides, this has been the case for at least a decade... people are finally starting to realize it. That said, the dealers who pull out a catalog at a show to give you a price are still plentiful.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by CardTarget

That said, the dealers who pull out a catalog at a show to give you a price are still plentiful.

True that.

[novakjr]

I've always thought that the standard catalog(and most price guides) did a poor job of pricing. Obviously, I don't think that their intentions was to necessarily have accurate pricing though. For what it is, I think they did a good job. But it's fairly obvious that for the most part the cards in any set were pretty much just priced in "suggested tiers"... common, semi, low end HOF, typical HOF, and then the high end guys (like Ruth, Gehrig).. Very little attention payed to specifics(especially in pre-war) for things like Rookie consideration... In many pre-war listings, there are rookies of HOFers(or cards that could be considered a rookie depending on an individuals criteria) that are just lumped in with the typical comparable HOFer price-wise. When in reality, they seem to command a little more of a premium in the open market, due to their being a growing number of rookie collectors. I'm sorry, but a (reasonably considerable) "rookie" of a HOF player is worth more than a comparable HOFer who is in his 16th season...

Yes, I know the rookie thing in terms of pre-war is somewhat subjective, and almost a taboo topic with some collectors, but to completely ignore it as a factor in this suggested pricing is kinda silly.. If a premium can be given to Yankees/Dodgers in the pricing, then one should also be given to actual (or potentially acceptable) rookies...

If this same pricing were applied to modern cards, then I guess a 1982 Topps Cal Ripken rookie would be worth the same a 1982 Topps Nolan Ryan.. Or the 1978 Topps Paul Molitor rookie would be worth the same as a 1978 Topps Rod Carew... Ridiculous, right?

For the record, I really only use these as checklists too...

[Leon]

The last Beckett guide I looked at, 1 yr ago, was spot on for vintage pricing. I tried my hardest and couldn't find an error. We gave out around 10-20 of them at the last dinner and I never heard from anyone that said there were glaring errors in the vintage section. I didn't look at the newer cards as I have no interest in them. As for the Krause big book, it's hit or miss, imo.....LL

[glchen]

I think the prices in the price guides are still good from a relative standpoint. For example, you might not realize that the Stengel is a short print in the Maple Crispette set unless you saw the price for that card relative to the other cards in the price guide. Another example is Moe Berg in the 1933 Goudey set, who a collector new to the set may just think should be priced like a common.

[Rich Klein]

No, no guide can ever be perfect because we are in many cases shooting at a moving target.

In addition, especially in the thinly traded sets, one or two big sales or sales below expectiations can certainly change the perception of what something is worth.

As for VCP remember that not all "6's" are truly alike as some may be technically a six but not look as nice as cards which are 4's.

Where cataloguers and pricers have to make sure they are correct is in the checklisting of information. Because pricing can always be adjusted but bad data is much harder to fix.

For those thinly traded vintage sets my goals were thus

1) Get the checklist IN and correctly
2) Get an image for the card so we could see what said card in a set looked like
3) Get the pricing right.

Remember Step 3 is easier to do when steps 1 and 2 are completed.

And for Beckett, getting Steps 1 and 2 right are even more important since BGS and COMC, among others, needs to use those checklists.

Step 3 is also important but can wait for 1 and 2

Rich

[arc2q]

I agree they are growing in obsolescene from the days when a price guide was the primary source of such information. It seems almost comical when you see auction descriptions say something like, "The card is worth $1500." It is worth what it sells for at auction -- something you will find out conclusively in 6d23h. Auctions are not a perfect market but they are far more reliable as a price determination than a price guide which may be based on total speculation.

I wonder why price guides like SMR have to be published every month? They seem to be using up a lot of content space for reprinting the same list (which is dubious to begin with) each month -- and they never change. They only list certain sets and then refer you online for other sets. Why not vary which sets are included in the price guide each month?

The thing that bugs me in price guides are the modern card listings (I have said this before so it is almost like my mantra). They throw around values that you know are totally made up and it is what leads to ridiculous bubbles. How does anyone know what the limited edition, signed, orange chrome, refractor card of the next supposed superstar rookie would really be worth when it has only been printed and available for two weeks and has never properly been exposed to the market? Yet they'll stick some number like $10000 next to it. Who would pay $10000 for a card printed last week of a player who probably has 3,000,000 different cards in print anyway?