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POP is ZERO, how can PSA raise SMR?!

JEROJERO Posts: 68 ✭
in Trading Cards & Memorabilia Forum
How can PSA adjust values for cards that do not exist? Case in point, the 38 goudey heads up jimmy foxx. SMR was raised to 11,500 this month, but the POP report is ZERO. So is it just me, or shouldn't SMR be blank for POPs that do not exist? Another note for the SMR prices on prewar stuff, my friend had the bright idea to try to start a tattoo orbit set until the cards went for many multiples of SMR the other night on ebay. Does emailing Joe at PSA actually help adjust SMR? How can they be sooo off on so many sets? Seems to me that even one person watching major auctions and ebay and going to shows with PSA could easily get some much needed adjustments in order. Call me Joe, i'll be glad to set up an interview... HEHEHE

JERO

Comments

  • jrdolanjrdolan Posts: 2,549 ✭✭
    I e-mailed BJ Searles about some SMR values that are so far removed from actual market sales that they might as well be from some alternate universe. Some cards consistently sell for many multiples of SMR, but SMR doesn't budge, month after month. Other cards consistently sell for 1/2 of SMR, but again SMR doesn't budge. I think the SMR staff only updates small segments at a time (early 1950s Topps baseball, for example), then those sets won't be revisited for a year or two.

    That said, I can't think of another price guide that's better. Anyway, BJ recommended writing to Joe directly on SMR inaccuracies.
  • GoBravesGoGoBravesGo Posts: 607 ✭
    Are there examples of this card graded by other companies? Or could there have been a high grade example that is not graded, that was sold at acution recently that COULD have affected the grade?
  • shagrotn77shagrotn77 Posts: 5,585 ✭✭✭✭
    I don't see what's so great about a price guide (SMR) that does a very poor job of reflecting actual market values. According to SMR, card values are way off and...they NEVER change.
    "My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. Our childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When we were insolent we were placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard really."
  • habs71habs71 Posts: 321


    << <i>price guide >>



    Key word.. GUIDE



    Skip
    I'll take the cards & flowers when I'm living and the BS when I'm dead!

    ANGEL OF HOPE


    Skip
    TUSTIN CA
  • shagrotn77shagrotn77 Posts: 5,585 ✭✭✭✭
    Oh as in let me GUIDE you the wrong way? LOL.
    "My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. Our childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When we were insolent we were placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard really."
  • Steve1124Steve1124 Posts: 198 ✭
    Seems that the only thing they pay attention to are the MAJOR auctions, where they print up fancy catalogs, so that afterwards they can boast at the high prices that things brought--thus a way of adverstising "why it pays to have them grade your cards"! I too, can think of MANY examples where the SMR is so far off it's ridiculous.
  • boggs301012boggs301012 Posts: 1,135 ✭✭


    << <i>Key word.. GUIDE >>

    Using the word GUIDE is too strong. This is PSA's best guess from 3 years ago......
    x
  • MeferMefer Posts: 1,159 ✭✭✭
    I think it is pretty near impossible to keep up to date on current card prices in any printed guide today. eBay I think for most collectors defines what a card is actually worth. eBay has its ebbs and flows; as such, a printed guide, which has publishing deadlines, is outdated by the time it is published.

    I throw SMR pricing out the window and rely on eBay. It works for me.
  • Love of the GameLove of the Game Posts: 250 ✭✭
    I agree with Ace Frehley. What he says is usually right anyway.

    Although it would probably be pretty easy for someone at PSA to write a script that downloads purchase data from auctions, aggregate them all on a monthly basis, throw out the high and low values, and come up with a monthly value for most cards.

    That's certainly more accurate than updating prices every few YEARS, which is something I never heard speculated before.

    -Al

    Edited to reflect speculation vs. fact
  • phreakydancinphreakydancin Posts: 1,691 ✭✭


    << <i>I think it is pretty near impossible to keep up to date on current card prices in any printed guide today. eBay I think for most collectors defines what a card is actually worth. eBay has its ebbs and flows; as such, a printed guide, which has publishing deadlines, is outdated by the time it is published. >>

    Agreed. A PSA 10 card I was tracking on eBay recently sold for $130. A week later, another copy of the same card from the same seller sold for $27. How is a price guide supposed to reflect that kind of discrepancy. eBay is all about who is looking at any given time.
  • mikeschmidtmikeschmidt Posts: 5,756 ✭✭✭
    JERO:

    The population of 1955 Bowman #1 Hoyt Wilhelm in PSA 9 is zero - but, based upon my knowledge of the set, new collectors that are money-rich that have entered the foray, and a recent sale of a GAI 8.5, I would whole-heartedly endorse a significant increase in the SMR value of a PSA 9. Although there may not be a Jimmy Foxx yet - it isn't rocket science to make educated predications of what a card might fetch by the player's significance, the card's rarity, and the supply/demand mechanisms of that set's market. There are many cards that aren't yet graded - but accurate estimates of prices realized could be made if the card was graded.

    ~ms
    I am actively buying MIKE SCHMIDT gem mint baseball cards. Also looking for any 19th century cabinets of Philadephia Nationals. Please PM with additional details.
  • JEROJERO Posts: 68 ✭
    I understand the idea of assuming that increases are in order as your Bowman example. However, I find it a bit funny that PSA takes the time to theorize what a non existant card MAY be worth, when they don't update known cards that are changing hands for 150-200%+ of SMR ALL the time. I know certain super rare cards can't be accurately priced everytime one sells, but based on the responses PSA is obviously pretty deficient in portraying a relatively accurate price guide. I also agree ebay is a very good indacator of what the market will bear, so how hard would it be to set up a program that tracks all ebay vintage sale prices, throwing out the top few and the bottom few and giving a more accurate guide. Sounds like a bunch of data collection so it would have to be automated but doesn't seem impossible. I'm pretty dumb when it comes to programing, but surely someone would be able to do this.

    Thanks for the input,

    JERO
  • qualitycardsqualitycards Posts: 2,811 ✭✭✭
    Also keep in mind there are many Pop 1 and Pop 2 cards that have never changed hands (the owner would have submitted it himself for his own set and its not for sale) so its hard to theorize a price on them as well. So in essence they can be considered a zero pop too!.
    Prices on eBay change daily, so its a daunting task to have a precise price guide. Beckett has been out of sync in their guides for years. Brand new cards are instantly marked down at shows at a % of book...jay
    image
    Website: http://www.qualitycards.com
  • DataDriven05DataDriven05 Posts: 164 ✭


    JERO - were you referring to a program one of us could create/use or for PSA? Trying to track this from the outside, through the website application, would be extremely difficult and not practical. To have any shot at an effective program you would need access to that data stored in EBay's data farm, that way it could be queried and put into a format that is usable. You or I would never have access to this data, but maybe a PSA might, since Beckett does, unless they have an exclusive relationship. Anyway, getting an import (data feed) based on some frequency; daily, weekly, monthly, would definitely be the way to go. EBay already has some of the legwork done for you because they have a lot of the data grouped without having to decipher everyone's auction titles. When you create an auction you are asked to categorize it, and when you find the category you want you will see an id assigned to it.

    For example, and this is ficticious, say you have a 1959 Topps Yogi Berra Graded PSA 8 titled as such and another guy has the same card but states it differently "59 Berra PSA graded". Now say the category id for 50's graded cards is 06594, even though the cards are labeled differently, and could end up on different databases/servers, they are still linked by that id. PSA could request a file of all 50s graded cards and cover the majority of the data unless someone categorized it wrong, nothing is perfect, but at least it's something. What's left however, is to take that category "50s graded cards" and break it up by year/brand/player. That is the hardest part because it's subject to the most error, but possible. Once PSA had that data, they could evaluate it in a myraid of different ways; how many times a card sold, for much, how frequently, etc. While it shouldn't dictate their guide by any means, it would at least give them some more insight and could even be persuade them affect prices more frequently.

    I left quite a bit out, but I am sure I have bored everyone to death by now, and who knows PSA may already do some form of this. It's something I would love to see and even more to do, definitely be more interesting than the databases I currently work with, probably a lot smaller too image

    My 2 cents

    Chris
  • JEROJERO Posts: 68 ✭
    Excellent post. It is not something we could feasibly do as individuals I guess, however if you collected only one set per se and kept data logged for your self you could see the trends I guess. However on the sets i'm looking at (pre-war) the availability is very limited so it may take you 2 years to get say 2 different PSA 6 38 goudey Yorks to sell. so yea, I don't really have an answer, but when DEALERS are buying prewar for full SMR, and they sell on ebay (whosale) for multiples of SMR something about SMR needs to be addressed. however not all pre-war stuff is false low. It seems 34 goudeys can be had consistantly under SMR for mid grade examples, as can 33 Goudeys. So I don't know. All I know is some old stuff is crazy undervalued, and most new stuff isn't worth shipping.

    nice example... SMR $185

    http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5155813709

    how high do you go?! Where is the line between value and insanity?

    JERO
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