Unfortunately, with Hurricane Ike aiming straight for Florida, I was forced to spend the day putting up shutters and bringing in all patio furniture while the wife spent the afternoon fighting over supplies at the suddenly active grocery store. That of course means I was not able to make it to the card show but since it is a monthly affair, I will do so next month.
As far as this video, this is my personal opinion on book value. It is not meant to flame the fires of Sports Cards Uncensored vs. Beckett Media but it’s just that an eBay auction I read last night got me thinking about the value of price guides in our hobby.
Next episode should air tomorrow night but it’s not a promise. Also, I deleted both my Facebook and MySpace accounts so to the friends on both ends, don’t think I deleted you only. Unfortunately, being a married man on social networking sites causes a lot of drama so rather than put up with nagging, I cut all ties. As always, you can contact me on my personal email as well as through my YouTube account.
P.S – Prepare for October 12th, 2008
Do you think Beckett will ever fix the fact that their price guide is obsolete?
It’s frustrating that I have to agree with your statements in the video. When I was a kid I swore by Beckett. Everybody did. Now, as an adult collector, I still WANT Beckett to continue to be a part of the hobby and regain it’s status. But I don’t know that they ever will. I’m afraid irreversible damage has already been done.
It seems like such an easy fix for this company to change their methods of determining price. The fact that they’ve failed to do so in the past few years tells me that they have no intentions of it in the future. I could look past all of the other problems stemming from the Beckett camp if the price guides were corrected.
That’s a little depressing…
Keep the videos coming! I really like what I’ve seen so far.
I think the only relevant thing for them to do is go back eBay prices. The way I look at pricing now is I search whatever product I’m looking for on eBay, then I go to completed auctions. Based on those, I take the average price of the past month or so then I also note the high and the low price. Then based on that, I make my maximum bid. That’s just me though, perhaps a lot of other people do that too, or perhaps not.
I could really give a darn about the book value or market value of baseball cards. This is a hobby not an investment tool.
As you and others have said, Beckett was the Word in the ’80s and ’90s. When I started buying on eBay in the late ’90s, it was clear that Beckett was no longer the Word. But even before that, I was suspicious of how Beckett came up with their prices. I would often see that if the prices of a certain players cards had dropped, then every card of that player (with the possible exception of the player’s rookie card) would drop by exactly the same amount. How could that be possible? It seemed impossible that in a month, every single card of a certain player had been sold somewhere and all of the sales resulted in the same drop in price from the previous month.
The Beckett price, also, was not the real value of your collection. You would expect the pay the Beckett prices in a card store but if you were trying to sell that same card to the store, you would only expect half the book price.
eBay, of course has changed everything. At best Beckett is good for looking at the relative difference between cards.
As I write this, the Phillies are beating the Mets in the first game today, 6-0 after 5 innings. And Ike is now heading for Texas.
This guy was obviously a moron for including all the BV crap in his auction. However the opening bid is still only 12.95, and the BIN price is $40.
Good stuff Mario. I by no means am backing Beckett or any other guide but seems to me some collectors could be just as easily “blamed.” The guys you speak of in your clip – that will only buy, sell or trade something for its “book valule” are the problem imo.
Beckett as any other PVG is just that A GUIDE. By no means is it meant to be the final word on what a card is worth. The people that take it for that are the ones screwing things up. To me a card is worth what its worth to the person who wants it.
For example I just bought a 2007 TOPPS TRIPLE THREADS CARDINALS-TIGERS WORLD SERIES “BOOK” 16/36 for a little over $40.00 on ebay. I did not even bother to see what others had sold for or what its “book value” was.
Why? Because I really really like the card and I was at Game 5 of the World Series when my Cardinals won it all. So to me that card was well worth the money no matter what a guide says its worth.
Mario my friend.
I would have to Total Agree with aybayz and ross they are right on point. So tell me this friends,how is Doctor James Beckett a Doctor? He’s a Doctor of what?????????
Mario enjoy yourself my friend at the card show,try not to spend to many green backs…..
Looking forward to the video…..
Beckett earned a Ph.D. in statistics at Southern Methodist University in 1975.
He also has nothing to do with the price guide any more. I don’t like Beckett’s prices either, I just had to point that out.
I think he has a PhD in statistics, and taught that as a professor so that’s what makes him a doctor, but i don’t think he really even has a role in the company anymore. He used to just right some articles in the magazine years ago.
I posted a response video, although its not really a response. Its more of an addition to what you said.
Basically it comes down to this. There are a lot of collectors (including myself) who hate Beckett because of the conflict of interest that the guide presents(See my site so I dont have to explain myself). But the main thing is that 90% of the hobby still uses it in some capacity because they think it is a guide with the collectors at heart. That is shit. The guide functions as an ad vehicle for the manfacturers. Bottom line. Its not even a secret.
Beckett has no responsibility to the collector to provide an objective guide, but they definitely have a responsibility to the manufacturers to present their products in a favorable light – or a higher price than they are actually worth. They may post negative reviews every SO often, but the prices for those sets remain high, and the negative reviews are coming less frequently and less frequently. Besides, when the negativity is posted, its usually done in a passive agressive way to preserve the relationship they have with those people.
Lastly, they provide a wholly unrelistic expectation for any collector that puts stock in their publications. Pulls of a lifetime in EVERY box break, high prices on cards, and a hobby where no one takes advantage of people. When was the last time they did an expose on hobby scammers? When was the last time they presented a problem with autograph authentication? When was the last time they covered anything relevant to the hobby? Its all top ten lists and crappy fluff stories. Give me a break.
Ebay is the only true guide and its free, why pay for some hat drawn price provided by some disconnected idiot in texas? Sr Market Analysts my ass.
Hey, thanks for making a video response on my vid. You made some very good point in that vid. I used to use Beckett in my early collecting days, but since I started trading online and using Ebay, I just go by sell value or what its worth to me. Keep up the vids.
Stay classey
Bucknellbison