General Forum

Hello fellow collectors,

I am curious if anyone here uses the online Beckett price guide.  I understand that some of there prices don't seem to be correct, but it gives the card something to go by.  I am looking to catalog my cards with "sort of accurate" prices.  I am assuming with Beckett when you catalog a card the price will fluctuate, like the monthly guides.  Also the monthly guides and the yearly book doesn't come close to listing all the different cards, for example Fleer, Leaf and food series collections.  Does the online version list them all?  Is there another site that is better for prices?  I recently heard about Sports card pro.  The issue I found with them is the lack of cards listed and the lack of prices on the cards.

The reason why I ask these questions is for a little piece of mind.  Not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but what if something was to happen to me.  My wife and kids would have no idea what cards are valuable or what the value of my collection is.  I would hate to have them sell them for a steal or maybe they would just bury them with me...hehe!  

Trade On!

"for a little piece of mind"    I would put down what I purchased them for.  As the prices going up and down real fast at times.  So there is no real way to keep track of the value of a collection in real time.

I've used the Beckett site for many many years. The only cards that don't have prices are a lot of the 1/5 SN cards, AAA sets from the 80s, obscure stuff. The new cards will get prices within a month. I use Beckett and TCDB to store and organize my collection. This site has more cards, but fewer prices. Beckett also has the detailed OPG page where you can see historical sales data for Ebay and Beckett Marketplace. The price that shows on the standard page on Beckett runs high more often than not. If I want to value something I look here, the price in Beckett and then I dig in to the recent sales data to find an average. 

I am a religious user. The prices may not be 100% accurate (I'll check ebay sales as well) BUT I use it often to check on the relative balance of a trade. The prices may be high but they'll be high for both sides.

I use Beckett for values as well.  Since I am mostly a player collector and a rookie prospect and HOF collector.  Using the prices they have helps me keep organized. 
 

on the other hand I also use eBay for pricing as well 

yes Becket has food cards and game cards as back to 1913.  

Beckett is full of crap (actually just full of themselves)! And NO, not all modern cards have a price within a month no matter what the SN is on the card. They still have base inserts for Panini racing products from 2016 that don't have values. Even worse, Beckett doesn't give a damn about you or any other collector. All they care about is money, not the cards or the collectors now. I was a Beckett member from 2003-2021 and was buying the Total Access OPG for about 15 of those years. They don't make corrections or additions to their CL's, no matter how much proof you provide. They don't add member-submitted scans to the site anymore (and stopped doing that about 8 years ago) and the price goes up every 6-12 months while the quality of the site continues to go down. When I first started buying the TA OPG, it cost $18/month. When I finally refused to renew it in August of 2020, they wanted $41.99/month. I refuse to pay that much money to see a bunch of "N/A" in the price fields for cards that don't even have a serial number. I had about 80K cards listed in my Organize at that point and a good 8-15% had N/A listed as the value. Beckett banned me from the site in January of 2021 for calling them out across every forum for just being useless and refusing to fix anything, reply to emails OR PM's to employees and because I said that moving my NASCAR Fantasy Game from their site to another one would kill the Racing Forum. But I was right and my Fantasy Game (that Beckett staff happily allowed on the forum to revive it) killed the Racing Forum as soon as I moved it to another site. My game has thrived on the new site and I had record numbers for the 2021 season. Even this season is better than most of the seasons that it was on Beckett's site (2014-2020). Check the Racing Forum and you'll see how dead it is now.

For those that just now are using the Beckett "prices", just know that others using it are looking to buy for a third of the HI price and sell for at least half of that same price. That's the way it's been since before the OPG existed and the crappy people want to sell for 100% of BV, or higher if they can find a way to make it seem better than the average card at that price (IE.. SN 01/xx, #99/99, JSY# SN, etc.). Beckett IS NOT the best out there, they just bought all the competition or sued them into bankruptcy. Look it up because it is true.

I use 130point (https://130point.com/cards/).  Easy enough to just do a quick search & see what the card in question has sold for recently on eBay to get an idea of the current 'value'.  Even shows the 'best offer accepted' prices.

Thanks JC Kazama... never heard of 130point.  Interesting comments above about the downside of Beckett.  I'm vintage only so I've never been concerned about recent releases.  Sounds like Ebay & something like 130point covers that.

I still use Beckett vintage annual.  I buy one every 3 years or so. It has all 4 sports and deep checklists for 79 and older. 

I still get a monthly magazine for baseball. Football,  basketball about once a Year. Usually a local shop has recent mags from past few months for 5.00

Mark 

Have also used 130point for looking up values. The only issue I have with that site is that they do not list the shipping someone paid. I've see quite a few people selling cards (Ebay) at a low price but they bump up the shipping quite a bit. I've seen shipping prices anywhere from $9.99 - $24.99 for a single card. Is that $5 card now a $15-$30 because of the high shipping? So keep that in mind when using 130point web site for values. 

JC Kazama wrote:

I use 130point (https://130point.com/cards/).  Easy enough to just do a quick search & see what the card in question has sold for recently on eBay to get an idea of the current 'value'.  Even shows the 'best offer accepted' prices.