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I went back and read more of the comments on here and I think I'm with spazmatastic on this. Conditions should have to be met and I think he has it right. If there are restrictions on pricing, not just open ended, I think this could potentially calm down. Plus, the idea of earning that right is pretty spectacular. 

I've only been on here for 2-3 months (been collecting for 35+ years) and you see what happened. I'm glad I didn't go too crazy entering anything and if the few I did enter that are "book value" screw anybody up, let me know and I will adjust them. (They were a while ago and a few thousand cards back, so you may have to point them out. Plus, I'm a combat vet--my memory sucks. Long story if you didn't get that.) Also, I don't want Beckett shutting this down either...  I rely on this site too much for that to happen. Plus, I'm making some pretty epic friends here.

I'm glad this thread was opened. I have learned more about the finer details of site pricing from this thread than anywhere else on here. You guys are a treasure trove of knowledge. 

And from here out, I'm leaving the pricing to people who know what's going on.

Soooo... Let's hope more than 1 person takes on the task of righting the pricing ship... as switzr1 pointed out previously and with a little fanciful mathematics applied IF a single person was to have a go at it and based on the current number of cards alone onsite and say just for fun if that said individual was successful at "correcting" (again under the assumption that the vast number would need an adjustment), at a conservative (?) rate of 1 correction/ minute working a normal 8 hour day would merely require an effort of a little better than 62 years to complete. Oh yeah but by then ... well who knows!

If we go the condition route it would be nice if NM was the default for all newer cards. It would save a mostly unnecessary step.

Back again, and I do see some good things being bantered around. I like to consolidate, so here goes:

1. We need a certain access permission. That will hopefully keep things in the serious "pricers's" ballpark.

2. We need a specific guideline [giant chart], that can address: a. year, b. condition, c. player, etc. This may not cover everything at 1st implementation but I feel it would be a good start. This guideline needs to be followed by EVERY MEMBER that is interested in adding prices. ex. the chart could include across the board values for Commons, HOF commons, HOF, SUPERstars, RCs...just an idea. Kinda a Sportlots approach.

3. We then need to take this chart 1 step further by introducing "Dan's %s of Value" . His ideas along with others  are documented in a recent posts. Will this work, not sure? But by adding and calculating the input, we would arrive at and what we feel is a realtime value. [Probably need to get a real good math member involved, for our Real Time Value Equation]. Statistics, mean, median and that lingo will need to be integrated as well.

4. Meanwhile, we wouldn't necesarily have to address millions of cards because in most cases "commons are commons and remain commons" and so on. So on "stagnant" cards, an initial massive entry [big, big job] would suffice. Remember the old Tuff Stuff, SCD, Beckett where they used + or - to show cards moving up and down the value scale. So what we would need to do is to pay attention to these "value movers" and keep them updated.

5. We need a committee and a Price Overseeyer. The Committee would be a Member[s] from each major category....Baseball, Football, Hockey, Basketball etc. They would be the "quality control" members making sure there are no outrageous prices entered. They would also be responsible for reporting offenders to L8s to ADMIN. They should then be reprimanded with a warning. Repeat offenders lose their access permission.

6. For ALL this to be implemented successfully, PRICING would have to be shut down until the changes are complete. And the ANNOUNCEMENT made "NEW PRICING" features grand opening!

Granted, alot of work, alot of involvement, but I see a number of members dedicated to fixing this and eager to help. So any member, L8 or even ADMIN that feels strongly about this great site, STEP UP and let's fix this PRICING thing!

Vonnegut37, first of all, thanks for your service to our great country and the freedom we share because of men and women like you who have sacrificed and served in our military. You said, "I'm leaving the pricing to people who know what's going on", and I appreciate that very much. It shows wisdom and humility on your part. I'd venture to say that if others would abide by that rule in life it'd be much improved.

Secondly, each time I see your name I'm reminded that I've never read Vonnegut, but I am really familiar with a minute part of his writing. My wife and I started visiting the library again after a few years of hiatus. I'm making it a point to check out The Cat's Cradle. One of my favorite bands as a college freshman was Ambrosia and their eponymous first album included the song, "Nice, Nice, Very Nice" which if I understand uses Vonnegut's poem from The Cat's Cradle as lyrics to the music composed by the band. If you haven't heard it, there's the link. I think you'll enjoy it.

Thirdly, and this will connect it to this thread (but it's not aimed at Vonnegut37), a repeated refrain in the aforementioned song is, "So many people in the same device". The pricing feature being fixed is not on my list of wants, but it is for many - more than those who are apathetic to it, I don't know - however, if that is your cup of tea then go for it. And I wish you guys well.

Way off track, but much appreciated. Commish, not sure what drives you more, Music or Cards?

I'm just throwing in my cents, to try and fix it. At the moment it's not my main concern either. But I think a fully functioning Pricing Mechanism might be very helpful, and welcomed by many members but useless to others.

The various features on the TCDB are used by members that relate to them and their collections. Some use most of them while others use only a few. I think having a full functioning site would be great for our numerous and varied collectors. If Pricing took a turn for the better, I may use it and contribute more.

I mean, I don't want anything to do with Gaming Cards, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be included, especially if ADMIN gives the stamp of approval. Just sayin'

My only input on this is that I usually find the prices put on here rather amusing. I had one guy offer me a refractor for trade and he claimed it was worth $20. He had entered that price himself on this site. Reality is I could go on Ebay and get the same card for a couple bucks shipped. I told him so as well. Price guides are pretty much useless at this point. I don't really even see a need for it here in my humble opinion. Heck the people at Beckett do it for a living and they can't even get it right. I had people on other trading sites try to rip me off talking about "I only trade using book value". That's why I am here as most people don't seem to worry about it. My vote would be to remove it completely although I'm sure I'd be in the minority. In the end I guess I'm trying to say price guides are fairly useless. 

I've been casually following this thread and I like where it's going!  For pricing commons of major sets, I would suggest taking the average price per card of a sold common lot from a single set.  For example, recent sales of "1975 Topps Commons lot" (and then repeating with 1980/1985/1960) on eBay:

1975 Topps:  19.5 cents per common card (107 cards for $13, 575 cards for $156, 600 cards for $85, 318 cards for $30, 407 cards for $109)

1980 Topps:  3 cents per common card (2000 cards for $44.5, 2250 cards for $67, 125 cards for $19.75)

1985 Topps:  1.3 cents per common card (3000 cards for $40, 2900 cards for $36, 2100 cards for $30)

1960 Topps:  98 cents per common card (32 cards for $32, 6 cards for $8.73, 18 cards for $18.5, 14 cards for $9.50)

Prices above are for baseball only, include shipping, and only include sold items.   And I did the math quickly for example purposes only, so apologies if there are any errors.

Obviously there are flaws here as well.  For example, buying a large lot of 2000 cards will generally be cheaper per/card than buying a smaller lot of 100.  And if you are buying just a single 1988 Topps Frank DiPino, it'll probably cost you 99 cents on eBay.  But this at least gives some baseline of what people are actually paying for commons.  Once you get into the 1987-1993 era, then I would suggest setting the price at a penny per card for commons of the widely available sets.

Despite these flaws, I think this provides a more accurate picture of the actual selling price of commons of major sets.  As an added bonus, these common prices would generally not need to be re-evaluated (unless something bizarre happens, like the recent Mark Jackson example).

For commons, I don't think we need to make it that complicated.  If I want to check what commons are going for, I go to Sportlots, loook through a set I am looking to price per card, look at what NM cards are selling for and quickly get an average price.  On these, the price so rarely varies that anymore work than that is wasted.  That is why, I think our effort really should be towards those buddig or emerging stars where the price does fluctuate on a regular basis.

I decided to check out 1988 single card sales on eBay after reading the above comment. I had to laugh when I saw someone paid 5.98 with free shipping yesterday for the Gooden All-Star card.