What the hell! Where are all the Beckett arrows??

[chadjaja]

Have a look at the October issue and you see what?? Up or down arrows on 3 players?????

Beckett staff all the time tell me they are working on the pricing for the new issue and busy then NOTHING changes. Sure they have to put in the new products but with the huge amount of market activity how the hell is it possible for nothing else to change in value based on the secondary market??? How can they not notice yet we all can rattle off the changes straight off the top of heads at the drop of a hat??

Beckett needs a spring clean me thinks! We have GU booking at $30 selling for $3 etc. Sure you can have your house on the market with a price tag of $400,000 but if it sits there unsold for a year its probably not worth that and you would have to drop the price for it to sell. Imagine if the same GU was up for auction/sale for $30. It would just gather dust.

The biggest glaring mistake this month is the pricing on Mikan autos. As some of you know I collect the big fella and take note of most ending auctions. Just because he died beckett gave him an up arrow on autos. Sure there was more market activity but he went up about $20 for a few weeks after his passing and now has acutually DROPPED by about $40! Thats right, dropped in price! There is too much of an influx of those trying to cash in and not enough buyers.

Yet auto sets like the UD 2000 century legends autos are going thru the roof on ebay etc and nothing. The Havlicek, Cousy and others have been selling over book and WORST of all the Dave Debusschere always at around the $80-$130 mark booking for $30. He is deceased like Mikan.

Cousy autos are going up and up too at the moment with increased competition.

There are heaps of other examples but these are some.

It seems only the REAL obvious changes get noted. Wade, 04 Exquisite, Yuta etc.

Beckett is like playboy now as its only good for the articles.

 

[Hennessy]

Beckett is like playboy now as its only good for the articles.

I have to agree with you Re: Price Changes. There isn't much at all. I often by my Beckett's for the interesting articles and pictures of nice cards.

Cheers!~

 

[lockymac]

I wonder Chad whether Beckett has a vested interest in not adjusting the arrows that often
The Century Legends Autos aside, if Beckett were to reflect the 'market value', we would see a LOT of down arrows
And that is not in Beckett's best interests

 

[kidd05]

It's sad though how autos are so undervalued now.

It pains me when I see Kidd autos (BV$60) sell for US$9 on ebay.

 

[chadjaja]

Thats all fine if the low bv adds up to the low prices sold but it rarely does. Beckett like you said has a vested interest in the hobby. Notice the low amount of graded cards in there and how they are mostly BGS even though psa still rules the roost.

The dealers are maybe the ones that rig the whole thing though. They report sales to beckett and it would be MORE AGAINST their interest for prices in the mag to drop.

 

[lockymac]

Yes, that is a very good point
You know your stuff!

 

[happymerv]

I wish a pippen auto would sell for $9 or even a little under BV

 

[chadjaja]

I know a few people at the mag not happy with the way its run. But they work more on the article side than the pricing and have little infuence etc.

Keith is a great guy too but I'm guessing he has higher powers to answer too as far as the owners go. A huge price drop would imply a drop in the hobby and that would put collectors off spending. That in turn would cause a drop in mag sales too.

 

[thumbboy]

what you are saying is valid chad ol son but there's a very big problem that might be faced if they start showing real sale prices as book values.
If you go by ebay sales, u could find bv 100 jordan cards going for like maybe $10-15etc
but.... if u change the book value to $15 all of a sudden, people may no longer pay $10-15 for that same card.
A lot of buyers base whether they are getting a bargain on the price that beckett lists it at.

See, if you have a really shitty player like Cousy.. just kiddin, like say Bostjan Nachbar. You pull his jersey from a pack and it books at $15US
you can still maybe sell it for $4 or 5 because it books at 15.
Say you pull that same card and it books at $4
you wont get full book on a bostjan nachbar jersey card.
Do ya follow me?
I think there is now a real problem because people wont pay book value for cards unless it's really rare or highly sought after.
So by bringing down book value to actual sale prices the whole market could go ass up.

I reckon leave em all as they are.
plus, box breaks would be the most depressing thing in the world if you looked at the break results and saw what you'd be getting back for them on the market.

 

[chadjaja]

People don't pay book because its become pretty irrelevent except for a few exceptions ie exquisite.

As far as eBay goes past auctions influence price more. How else do you explain cards going up in price on the bay when they don't change in book price over months or years?? And I'm not talking a buck or two but a heap more. Collectors see this and jump on. Bowman chrome autos are a great example of this.

A $4 jersey card is exactly that, a $4 jersey card. Booking it at $15 is just giving false hope.

 

[thumbboy]

not really. The cards you are talking about are more the exception rather than the rule.
There are a few sets that have been climbing. But on the flipside look at the Spx auto/jsy rc of all the celts.
They are getting shilled left right and center to reach those prices. If you started printing out completed listings prices as "book value" there would be a whole lot more dodgy stuff going on in ebay I think.

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with what you say about Beckett being lazy with the arrows.
I mean how hard would it be to at least give some indication of what is moving each month..
Most of the time I flip inside the mag and see no movement and maybe 1-2 new sets released and figure, why would I pay $11 for this when I already got the previous mag with basically the same prices?
and the articles, sure they're good but you can get by with reading stuff online and that $11 could be better spent on other stuff.

I think moving the entire market to match realistic sale prices would bring down the hobby extremely fast.
Plus the coolness wouldn't be there anymore. Rather than showing off a triple floor card of mj/kobe/kg that books at $200US you'd be showing them one that books at $50US cos thats all it would get on ebay.
And then whats the point of buying boxes if the cards all have such low book values. I think it would expose major weaknesses in the hobby and how our mindset is being exploited by many companies to make $$ off us. But for now I'd like to stay plugged into the matrix and imagine that all the money I spent on cards a good idea

 

[chadjaja]

I'm not solely talking about eBay. At the shows etc stuff is being priced at beckett or close to and doesn't move. Nothing wrong with having cards listed at their actual worth.

The whole Delonte and Celts thing is bought about by one individual. Secote. Mr Las Vegas money bags with more money than sense sometimes. Only someone with too much money would pay those prices as it would be of no concern with ending price. Beckett upped Delonte not even taking into account the guys pushing Secote prices up. Jimmy W has pretty much hung up the Delonte cause meaning even Secote main competitor is pretty much gone.

I don't care much for value AFTER I have the card. Its not of a concern unless I flip it and then market value decides it not BV. As you find out with Wade gu's Sorry mate

Who really here believes that if they get a $100US BV card for $20US its really worth $100???? Not me for sure!

I doubt a price reduction in book value will make that much difference in buying habbits for most sets. Hot cards sell at high book and others half or so. We already know that, therefore we already know the 'actual' value of our cards.

That much is simple.

Card prices for 90's stuff has plumetted yet people still collect these.

One thing is vintage never seems to change price yet each year after year even less is on the secondary market or in nrmt condition etc.

Take a look at psa's smrp and you will see that most graded cards sell for the same price as the value they are listed at on their site. Its almost always spot on.

Its not hard. Over the last 12 months I'd love for someone to show me how many arrows have appeared in beckett. I couldn't believe for one sec that was all the difference in pricing activity for the year.

Just a question. Who here buys based on beckett price when buying on eBay? I'm interested......

Any of the newer members care to add their point of view?

 

[jimboiitmac]

well for me, i buy cards, solely based on how much i would pay for them.. that's the same when i'm selling..

if the seller is too high, tough luck, if the buyer is too low and he rambles about BV or ebay, too bad.

it's nice to say "I have a $150 BV Card" of course, but in reality i buy and sell at the prices which I am comfortable.

 

[clarkescards]

Chad, although not technically a noobie, I use Beckett for reading the articles (a la Playboy), but I use the Price Guide as just that, a guide to determine how much I will pay for a card. If I am buying a card, it is generally for my PC, so I am not buying low/selling hi trying to make a profit. The exception has been cards selling to BV's, but I am chasing a different type of card than you are chasing. You are generally chasing vintage, whereas I am generally chasing new releases (& a few old 90's cards). I think the biggest problem with Beckett since the 90's has been the price of a base card. In 90's they were 5c, and then there were more listed players (player scales). These days, even the most basic set, commons start at 15/20c, and then the semi-star/unlisted star brackets.

Maybe they should assign each player a scale value (ie common = 1, and max say = 10 MJ, LBJ). They can then adjust the scales on players. But yes, this would be a radical change, and being a major force in the industry (whether we like it or not and whether they like it or not) it would alienate a lot of current collectors.

 

[Billyhoyle]

As my Mum used to say to me -

Those DAMN cards are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them, not what that book says

 

[chadjaja]

LOL your right on Billy.

But you could buy a beckett from last year or so and what has changed. My main beef is the lack of movement in book prices.

How does vintage pricing and todays differ Clarkey. In EX-nrmt vintage sells for closer to book than todays stuff. And if there are arrows on just three players a month if we are lucky then its all the same. Nothing has changed in the hobby for another month according to the card bible. Which we all know is crap.

For some of todays recent releases I've paid over book lately but thats what it took to win based on previous sales. I don't then look at beckett and then think I paid too much. I only do that when its bills time and I dont' have any money coz I spent too much on eBay. Thats my limit.

How do you use Beckett to buy? Do you give yourself a cut off price based on BV?

 

[WoobieZarz]

Might had my 2c worth here...

I havent brought a Beckett in about 4 months I think... I used to love reading the articles in there, and chekcing the Ups and Downs on players since previous month.

As Chad says, it's pretty shit, if there's just 3 players who've changed since previous release, with all the hype on Ebay at the moment....

A Harris Auto /25 sold for $96USD just last month, when it's previous listing sold for just $43.... :shock: