Blowout Cards Forums - View Single Post - Is Beckett Price Guide Online a reliable source for card values?

coreydean · 12-03-2015, 01:48 PM

Beckett doesn't really have info on past sales posted on their site. Not that I have been able to tell anyway.

regarding the Annual vs the Online Price Guide:

Beckett, in order to save space in their printed monthly price guides, has removed a lot of the checklist info if the item has a low print run and is un-priced due to that low print run.

An example is Clemente's 2001 LCM FOTG. There are 5 cards for him in that set. An unnumbered SP version, and the following numbered versions: /166 /21 /29 and /21. Beckett only shows the version that is numbered to /166 in the monthly price guide, so anyone looking at the monthly price guide and didn't know any better, would not know there are 4 other versions of that card.

Now the online price guide and the annual will have or show those 4 other cards listed in the checklist. It is cheaper to buy the annual for $20 to $30 bucks and reference that than pay $9.99 for the online guide every month. The only thing you are losing in the annual vs the online guide, is current sets that came out after the annual was printed. Still cheaper to buy a new annual each year than pay a monthly online price guide fee. Finally, Beckett's price guide is not legit. I could list things all day that sell for far more and far less on average than their price guide says.

So, the annual and online price guide is really only valuable due to the completeness of the checklists. Beckett is not good for much else, certainly not card values.

Ebay completed listings are great for looking up previous sales. The biggest drawback there is it only goes back 3 or so months. Not a big time frame, but still useful. The biggest drawback to this is if the card is fairly rare and not a new release, you won't find many if any past sales in that limited 3 month window

I have looked into Terrapeak and Worthpoint. I currently have a Worthpoint subscription.

Regarding Worthpoint, there are a few things to note:

1. The data goes back to 2007 so that is GREAT.
2. No items, where the sale price ended for less than $9.99 is shown. This can be viewed as either good or bad.
3. Worthpoint does not show ebay seller Id's. Certainly not a deal breaker but that info would nice to have.
4. The biggest drawback to worthpoint is they do not show the actual sold price on BIN/BO's. If an item is listed at BIN/BO $50 and the seller accepts an offer of $35, Worthpoint will show the item as having sold for $50. So some of the pricing can be inaccurate in regards to BIN/BO's.
5. Worthpoint does show pics and they are the same size as what was included in the original listing. So no thumbnails, which is a huge plus.

I think Worthpoint is great despite some of it's limitations. For instance, I recently searched for Roberto Clemente 2012 Five Star base cards and it returned approx. 50 sold auctions dating back to when the set was first released. I am not sure where you are going to find access to that many completed auctions for a card...not ebay, not terrapeak, not sortsof. I have searched for Emmitt Smith gold refractors and I get completed auctions going back to 2007. Now some of these results were BIN/BO's and I don't know what the best offer accepted was, but not all are so you can get an idea of previous sales. If you are interested in the history of what certain cards have sold for in the past, Worthpoint is great. I even searched 1952 Mantles graded PSA and got examples of sales going back to 2007. Boy, they were selling "cheap" back then! Interesting to see how that card sells for so much more just 8 years later.

If you are only interested in sale prices for current sets, then ebay completed sales should be good enough.

Terrapeak, when I was researching it does have some deal breaker aspects that has prevented me from even taking advantage of their free trial version just to test it out. They only offer 1 years worth of data and that data is only searchable in 90 day block increments. So you would have to do 4 searches to get a full years worth of past sales. Also, only thumbnails are shown for search results. Terrapeak does however provide the actual sold price on BIN/BO's, so that is a huge plus for them.

12-03-2015, 01:48 PM	#12
coreydean Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 506	Beckett doesn't really have info on past sales posted on their site. Not that I have been able to tell anyway. regarding the Annual vs the Online Price Guide: Beckett, in order to save space in their printed monthly price guides, has removed a lot of the checklist info if the item has a low print run and is un-priced due to that low print run. An example is Clemente's 2001 LCM FOTG. There are 5 cards for him in that set. An unnumbered SP version, and the following numbered versions: /166 /21 /29 and /21. Beckett only shows the version that is numbered to /166 in the monthly price guide, so anyone looking at the monthly price guide and didn't know any better, would not know there are 4 other versions of that card. Now the online price guide and the annual will have or show those 4 other cards listed in the checklist. It is cheaper to buy the annual for $20 to $30 bucks and reference that than pay $9.99 for the online guide every month. The only thing you are losing in the annual vs the online guide, is current sets that came out after the annual was printed. Still cheaper to buy a new annual each year than pay a monthly online price guide fee. Finally, Beckett's price guide is not legit. I could list things all day that sell for far more and far less on average than their price guide says. So, the annual and online price guide is really only valuable due to the completeness of the checklists. Beckett is not good for much else, certainly not card values. Ebay completed listings are great for looking up previous sales. The biggest drawback there is it only goes back 3 or so months. Not a big time frame, but still useful. The biggest drawback to this is if the card is fairly rare and not a new release, you won't find many if any past sales in that limited 3 month window I have looked into Terrapeak and Worthpoint. I currently have a Worthpoint subscription. Regarding Worthpoint, there are a few things to note: 1. The data goes back to 2007 so that is GREAT. 2. No items, where the sale price ended for less than $9.99 is shown. This can be viewed as either good or bad. 3. Worthpoint does not show ebay seller Id's. Certainly not a deal breaker but that info would nice to have. 4. The biggest drawback to worthpoint is they do not show the actual sold price on BIN/BO's. If an item is listed at BIN/BO $50 and the seller accepts an offer of $35, Worthpoint will show the item as having sold for $50. So some of the pricing can be inaccurate in regards to BIN/BO's. 5. Worthpoint does show pics and they are the same size as what was included in the original listing. So no thumbnails, which is a huge plus. I think Worthpoint is great despite some of it's limitations. For instance, I recently searched for Roberto Clemente 2012 Five Star base cards and it returned approx. 50 sold auctions dating back to when the set was first released. I am not sure where you are going to find access to that many completed auctions for a card...not ebay, not terrapeak, not sortsof. I have searched for Emmitt Smith gold refractors and I get completed auctions going back to 2007. Now some of these results were BIN/BO's and I don't know what the best offer accepted was, but not all are so you can get an idea of previous sales. If you are interested in the history of what certain cards have sold for in the past, Worthpoint is great. I even searched 1952 Mantles graded PSA and got examples of sales going back to 2007. Boy, they were selling "cheap" back then! Interesting to see how that card sells for so much more just 8 years later. If you are only interested in sale prices for current sets, then ebay completed sales should be good enough. Terrapeak, when I was researching it does have some deal breaker aspects that has prevented me from even taking advantage of their free trial version just to test it out. They only offer 1 years worth of data and that data is only searchable in 90 day block increments. So you would have to do 4 searches to get a full years worth of past sales. Also, only thumbnails are shown for search results. Terrapeak does however provide the actual sold price on BIN/BO's, so that is a huge plus for them.