Tips on Collecting: Pricing (Updated)

One of the many searches that leads people to this blog is for pricing of a card. The blog gets the searches for the pricing of cards, but I also get get them from Twitter, Facebook and email. This is something I will do my best to help with. But I can tell that my answers sometimes don't always satisfy. So I thought while I am at it, I would do a post based around how I get pricing for cards. Here are the ways I get pricing:

1. Beckett Sports Card Monthly. I have a subscription to it
2. I buy 1 of each of the Beckett main sport magazines such as basketball, football, baseball once a year. I don't find prices change that much on older product to invest into getting them on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Key times to buy them is after a team has won a championship as thats where the biggest movement will come from.
3. I use eBay. eBay is key for newer products and low numbered products that aren't priced in a magazine.

I have always used Beckett as my main source of pricing so by getting the Beckett Sports Card Monthly it covers the new releases (a few previous years as well) main sports along with some non ones as well. Of course with this being a multi sport magazine, you will not get all of the pricing you need and thats why I go to number 2 on my list. I buy one of each of the sports I collect magazines such as Beckett Football, Beckett Baseball and so on. And I usually buy them after a championship game such as the World Series or the Super Bowl. Players performances and players who win the big game will make or break their values. Which is why I wait to buy the magazines after those times. Then you can also backtrack to older cards as well.

Colin's card values went up after he took his team on a run

After finally winning the big game, Joe's cards took a hike. They hadn't gone anywhere all season til then

And lastly, when you get a big hit such as a 1/1 or other really low numbered card you know Beckett won't list I use eBay to gauge the value. For example, we recently pulled a Lenny Wilkens auto numbered to 5 from Preferred basketball. I searched Lenny Wilkens autographs, checked out ones pulled from Preferred basketball first. Then looked at the numbering of the cards and found a couple comparable. I  followed that up with a  search for different products to find comparable autographs and numbering. I found the one that is closest in numbering and product which I found a Preferred Choice Award card numbered to 5 and it was selling for a Buy It Now price of $49. Assuming most sell half book or so, we put the value of this card at around $100-$110. I may go back time to time to see if more of this similar card are listed to help more accurately price the card. Now this may not be the best way of pricing it, but it works. The quickest way  I found to depict a price is using Buy It Now. Now that may not be what people actually pay for the card (I actually do Buy It Now only when I am on eBay to ensure I get the card or cards I want) but its an easy way to get a roundabout number. Some may pay more or less.

But in case you are not  looking so much in terms of what a card is worth and want to know what its selling for especially if you are one who sells, you can use the advanced search option on eBay and choose completed auctions that will give you a couple weeks sales on a card. (Note: Some of this information was provided to us by fan AdamE.).

This was a nice haul from Panini Preferred

That works for really low numbered cards only. For cards that just hit the market and you know are not listed yet in the Price Guides, I take the average Buy It Now price and use that as its value. Now also with this being said, I don't take in account the crazy numbers some people use to sell cards for. You can weed out some to find your average value. For example, most may list a Bryce Harper Bowman rookie card for an average price of $12-$15 each leading to a $25-$30 Book Value. A few may list that card for $40 each. Now, with the majority of the card priced between $12-$15 that is the number I will use. Some people way over price. You can see this for yourself when searching and know what to look for.

These two methods may take awhile but I find them to be efficient til the newest Beckett Sports Card Monthly comes out. The values I put together most of the time are pretty close to whats listed. Most dealers, card shops, and companies online (such as Panini when they do redemption card replacements) use Beckett for their pricing. I have always used them. There are some out there that are against using Beckett, but most everybody does. You gotta stick with what works and what everyone else uses.

I hope this helps everyone with pricing. Remember this is my method of doing it. Some may have other methods especially those that sell cards. I am just giving you tips on how I price my cards. You may or may not agree with my method and since I don't sell anything so for me its just about the value for my own piece of mind and this is how I find pricing for it.

Let us know your thoughts on our pricing methods and if there are any other Tips on Collecting you would like to hear let us know those as well and maybe they will be our next post!