Buy/Sell/Trade Forum

I recently bought 2023 beckett for hockey was noticed something.  2021-22 Upper Deck base commons are listed at 60 cents, but 2010-11 OPC are listed at 30 cents.  And I also noticed I wasted my money buying a beckett, but that besides the point.  

Now, on this site, most 21-22 Upper Deck base commons have want:trade ratios of 10:100. While 10-11 OPC is more like 20:5 - wants to tradelists.

So how would you look at trading 2010 OPC for 2021 Upper Deck base cards?  Or any sets that have a similar supply to demand difference.

2 OPC for 1 Upper Deck - as per beckett pricing.
1 OPC for 1 Upper Deck - it's just a base card.  Even it's 1 or 50 of them
1 OPC for 2 Upper Deck -  Supply and Demand. 

Also, are there other factors you consider when making base card trades?  (other than what feels right since that trumps all)
Or do you think differently when looking at the Wants:Trades list ratios, or at all?

I would think it would be one for one for modern commons. Toss out Beckett pricing as it doesn't make a lot of sense. 

I've tried thinking of a card "score" when trading but I'm not that smart. I saw someone post something similar here one time, but not sure where. Something about dividing the wants and needs along with how many people have it creating a number to show rarity or how common, i cant remember

I'm not a hockey guy, so take this with a grain of salt. But I do think want:trade ratios here are a much better indicator of how desirable something is than the dreaded price feature. For commons, it's also good to consider how much something might go for at a card show, or as part of a lot for sale online. (Individual prices for commons online will never totally make sense when you consider all of the outside factors like shipping and convenience.)

If I'm trading commons within the same set I normally do 1:1. 

If I'm asking in return cards from multiple sets. I try to put extra into the trade from my end. No set ratio, but send a few extra for them having to dig through extra boxes/binders.

Granted, the population here is growing, however, please take a few things into consideration when using the "wants to haves" ratios from the data available here:

1. The number of people in the hobby who are not members here (walk into any card show, how many dealers are TCDB members? How many patrons are TCDB members? If it's not a majority, how reliable are these numbers?)
2. The number of people here who have literally put any card they don't own on their want list (skews the wants portion)
3. The number of people who track sets only (individual cards do not show when this method has been used to add a set - this can skew the haves portion, but since this is a newer feature here, it's probably not used as much as the want list feature)
4. Raw numbers - which is a more indicative 3:2 ratio - 6 wants vs. 4 haves, or 1,500 wants vs. 1,000 haves?
5. Additional factors such as relative scarcity / obscurity of a set, the length of time the set has actually been listed here, and the desirability of that player/card

These are just a few of the examples I can come up with off the top of my head. While using a ratio as mentioned clearly has merit, using only data at TCDB for this is not casting a wide enough net (in my opinion) to gauge a hobby-wide ratio that is helpful in ascertaining value.

This analogy is only a way of "justifying" a trade proposal. Same era, a common is a common across all sets and can be had for 20 cents or less. 

When I look at a trade, I look at three things besides the era of the cards in the trade: the names of the players being requested; RC; and inserts/parallels. You can quickly tell is someone is trying to scam you or if the person is actually a true collector looking to trade.

When it comes to base commons, I'm still a fan of 'everything I've got that you want for everything you've got that I want" type trades.  As long as it's not so lop-sided that there is a big difference in shipping one side or the other, that is.

-Tom

I don't generally look at the ratios here.  Being a set builder, most cards I trade for are base commons.  When I do have a key rookie or star player that I need, I look at sportlots to see pricing and how many are on their site.  With the automated system here, a lot of collectors put every card of the player they collect.  Not sure, but I believe the ratios on players like Ohtani, Acuna, Trout, Judge and a few others would be way out of line, a ton of people wanting them-player collectors, team collectors, and set builders, but only a few trading them.  They are generally the same on sportlots, not as many available to buy.  But the base commons for sets are generally plentiful with a bunch for sale.  While the big name players do bring a higher price, some stars, rookies and commons are .20 cents.  For those still using Beckett, they feel base common semistars and stars are worth more than .20 cents and that's ok.  However, I feel that if a player has several cards listed on sportlots for .20 cents, then the Beckett pricing of 1.50 is not realistic to me.  Sportlots is real time pricing everyday, regular folks selling cards. Beckett is trying to sell magazines, not cards.  Just my humble opinion. 

As far as using a price guide like you did.  There are more than Beckett and they vary on prices from Beckett.    So that is an issue in that area.

So far, this site is the only one that shows numbers of cards in a want and for sale lists, so you can figure out the ratio.   We have no idea what the ratio is on other sites are.  So I have a card that has a ratio of 7:1 here, but I find 20 of them on Sportlots and 15 on COMC.      Now is the 7:1 correct or how many of the members with the 7 or the 1 not active at this point.  You may have to dig deeper and find it is really 5:1 or 5:0.   If I'm willing to buy I have 35 cards to choose from not just one.  Problem is if I want to trade, I have one choice but again the other 5 may not have anything for him so I'm the only one he has to trade with if he wants to get rid of that card.

So 90% of the time it goes back to   "Is this offer good for you" no matter how you figure the offer out.