Best pricing research

[mginster]

I am finally going through my old sets with about a quarter million cards. I am new to researching values, but this appears to be incredibly difficult to find a good easy to search guide.

I have been using PSA values, but their guide appears to be absolutely worthless with outdated pricing and showing cards worth 0 that sell for thousands on eBay. I also have been hitting sports card pro, but that is the absolute worse for searching. So far the best has simply been searching eBay for that year and sorting, yet makes it cumbersome.

Do people still use Beckett? I assume so with the $40/m price tag for all sports which is absolutely insane for a glorified website scraper. I guess given my previous remarks on the hassle, this is why people justify the price?

 

[AndyDrummond]

Your best bet for a quick sale pricing reference is using eBay and narrowing your search to sold items. It will give you a good idea of the most recent sales on any given card.

 

[LarryG]

I subscribe to Beckett, baseball only, and they offered a really good deal on a 2-year commitment when my original 3-month plan ended. You can take it for what it's worth and disagree with it for many, many reasons, but it is an equalizer and authority for trading if people are concerned about the card values to make a trade as equal as possible. It's not so much about what the $ is as much as it is about having both sides comfortable with an even trade.

40% of Beckett High value is often considered a starting point for a sale price for most cards (not "hot" cards and I don't think so much for vintage) if you are primarily interested in selling. It would certainly save you a lot of eBay comp price searching if you are looking at a lot of cards. Some people like it, some people hate it. Either way, it is a convenient tool. You can always get it for a month, do the bulk of your pricing work and cancel.

A site that is better for eBay pricing than eBay, since it gives the real sale price when a Best Offer is accepted, is 130point.com. Under "search ebay sales" just type in the card you are looking at and it will give you final price on all recent sales.

Hope this is helpful. Good luck with your organizing and Enjoy!