Why is PSA’s “price guide” so out to lunch?

[cjraleigh]

I know, I know..nobody actually relies on their “price guide”…not unlike flipping open a Beckett these days.

Just curious why there is such a discrepancy, especially when PSA also has a separate APR section (actual prices realized) that draws from completed eBay/auction house sales.

Modern or vintage, the PSA price guide tends to be wildly different. Any idea why?

Random example…a 1969 Topps Fergie Jenkins in PSA 7 is listed at $16…but the recent APR is 3x-5x.

[hxcmilkshake]

The last thing PSA needs to worry about is their price guide.

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[Tomi]

Originally Posted by cjraleigh

I know, I know..nobody actually relies on their “price guide”…not unlike flipping open a Beckett these days.

Just curious why there is such a discrepancy, especially when PSA also has a separate APR section (actual prices realized) that draws from completed eBay/auction house sales.

Modern or vintage, the PSA price guide tends to be wildly different. Any idea why?

Random example…a 1969 Topps Fergie Jenkins in PSA 7 is listed at $16…but the recent APR is 3x-5x.

Prices change on a daily basis. Pointless to even price items in a guide.

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by cjraleigh

I know, I know..nobody actually relies on their “price guide”…not unlike flipping open a Beckett these days.

Just curious why there is such a discrepancy, especially when PSA also has a separate APR section (actual prices realized) that draws from completed eBay/auction house sales.

Modern or vintage, the PSA price guide tends to be wildly different. Any idea why?

Random example…a 1969 Topps Fergie Jenkins in PSA 7 is listed at $16…but the recent APR is 3x-5x.

Recent “actual prices realized” is just that, it doesn’t always take into account a variety of long-term or larger-market factors…and common sense when it comes to prices.

Beckett will always be more collector-centric here, is more stable and isn’t prone to quickly highlight trends like market manipulation in specific cards.

Flipping by its own nature will always be volatile and difficult to capture long term-pricing, partially because flippers don’t want and can’t profit on a stable market.

[SupermanBrandon]

Things of importance in the hobby...

1. EVERYTHING (other than prices guides)













































2. Price Guides

[cjraleigh]

No one is suggesting any credence be paid to price guides…just curious why any resources at all would be spent maintaining/publishing them.

Where is their data coming from?
How are their monthly changes in value determined if not real world data?

The first response here is perhaps the most telling….allocate resources where they are most needed (ie; continue to whittle the backlog of submissions).

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by cjraleigh

No one is suggesting any credence be paid to price guides…just curious why any resources at all would be spent maintaining/publishing them.

Where is their data coming from?
How are their monthly changes in value determined if not real world data?

The first response here is perhaps the most telling….allocate resources where they are most needed (ie; continue to whittle the backlog of submissions).

Sure, they should definitely be used…along with other sources.

They’re useful when there’s less volatility and can help explain why volatility may exist.

[D-Lite]

APR is the most useful for actual price info. And it tracks serial number which is nice.

[mjohnatgt]

If all you use price guides for is to figure out which cards in a set have value, you're doing it mostly right.

[ThoseBackPages]

SMR? Oh man, ive not thought about that in some time!

[mfw13]

Because they have realized that it doesn't make financial sense to employ the hundreds of "price-watchers" it would take to keep a price guide accurately updated given that doing so would generate no additional revenue.

EBay completed sales is your price guide......

[oddstuff]

Was curious about OP's question so I did a brief test. Looked up one of the cards in my current PSA inventory and clicked the APR value which opened up all the PSA versions (10s, 9s and 8s) of that card sold (2018 Topps Acuna refractor auto), at least going back to January 2019.

46 PSAs have sold (not sure if the data only goes as far back as 1/1/2019 or that was the first PSA version sold). Then selected the 10 grade which narrowed the list down to 35 gem 10s. I took a guess and just tallied the 2021 completed sales and divided by the 9 sales (which included a Goldin auction from February 2021). The APR value on my inventory page matched the value in the calculation. From that limited sampling, it seems the APR value is for the current year (or maybe for a rolling 12 months).

The SMR is prefaced as a representation of "average dealer selling prices for PSA-certified collectibles"...it does not seem to be based entirely on completed sales data.

https://www.psacard.com/articles/art...tscard-pricing

It would seem that using the APR value is a better gauge than the SMR if you had to chose between the two. But with comps sometimes changing drastically in a matter of weeks or even days, there are a lot of other sources available to get a more current value.

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by oddstuff

Was curious about OP's question so I did a brief test. Looked up one of the cards in my current PSA inventory and clicked the APR value which opened up all the PSA versions (10s, 9s and 8s) of that card sold (2018 Topps Acuna refractor auto), at least going back to January 2019.

46 PSAs have sold (not sure if the data only goes as far back as 1/1/2019 or that was the first PSA version sold). Then selected the 10 grade which narrowed the list down to 35 gem 10s. I took a guess and just tallied the 2021 completed sales and divided by the 9 sales (which included a Goldin auction from February 2021). The APR value on my inventory page matched the value in the calculation. From that limited sampling, it seems the APR value is for the current year (or maybe for a rolling 12 months).

The SMR is prefaced as a representation of "average dealer selling prices for PSA-certified collectibles"...it does not seem to be based entirely on completed sales data.

https://www.psacard.com/articles/art...tscard-pricing

It would seem that using the APR value is a better gauge than the SMR if you had to chose between the two. But with comps sometimes changing drastically in a matter of weeks or even days, there are a lot of other sources available to get a more current value.

If you’re limiting your research to a specific card and grade you’re eventually leaving yourself open to a world of hurt.

[Nodnarb]

I got a Wander Franco /25 auto from that topps prospects or whatever series that I been thinking of sending in... I'm not really huge into collecting right now because of time, is it worth it to send out to PSA now? Like has turnaround times kind of gotten better? I know at one point BGS or PSA stopped taking orders altogether... Still a hassle?

[k13]

Its great. I had a local use it to price his vintage cards.
Lets just say I bought 90% of them.