How do you price a true 1/1 card?

SportsCardCollector · October 19, 2006 7:36AM

I'm trying to figure out the value of a true 1/1 card. I know that it is very subjective and that the only real test is to put it up on the bay and see what it goes for, but it seems to me that there should be some ballpark way of setting a price/value. The Beckett guides (magazines and big, thick books) don't price anything that scarce and they don't offer any guidelines for setting a ballpark price like they do for ballparking cards of different grades. It would be nice if they gave some ballpark range of multipliers that you could use against the base card or other parallel cards.

Mathematically, it seems to me that a 1/1 is 25 times as rare as a #/25 card, so it should be at least 25 times as valuable. But I know that pricing doesn't work that easily. Does anyone here have any ideas on how to price a 1/1? Have you ever seen anything in print about this?

1989FleerBillRipkencollector · October 19, 2006 7:58AM

Either Tuff Stuff or Beckett had a chart listing big names,semi stars,commons that are 1/1, #d to 25,50,100 ect. a while back. Sorry dont remember when and I dont have it anymore.

phreakydancin · October 19, 2006 8:53AM

A 1/1 is one of those things that you simply can't peg to a single price. As it is the only copy in existence, it is worth whatever someone is willing to pay on a given day.

CDsNuts · October 19, 2006 9:05AM

I used to think about this way back in 1996 when Flair Showcase was the first to stamp 1/1 on a card. I thought if anyone could hoard these up, they'd have a gold mine. Kind of like the guys who hoarded up the 93 refractors and could dictate the prices because they were the only ones that had any for sale.

Lee

XanaduNow · October 19, 2006 9:05AM

The 25X multiplier doesn't work either unfortunately. A while back I was buying #'d/25 auto of a particular baseball player and they were going for the same price as a 1/1 printing plate from the same issue and a 1/1 auto from the same issue.

As phreakydancin mentioned, the only real way to determine its worth is to see how much someone is willing to pay you for it.

Arthur

Skinpinch · October 19, 2006 11:03AM

I am still shocked that people spend that much money on man made scarcity items. Just crazy.

MorrellMan · October 19, 2006 11:34AM

Maybe I'm missing something, but what is it?

lawnmowerman · October 19, 2006 1:14PM

<< A 1/1 is one of those things that you simply can't peg to a single price. As it is the only copy in existence, it is worth whatever someone is willing to pay on a given day. >>

Exactly!

I had a 1/1 Prior, Maddux, Wood, Zambrano Jersey card my wife pulled. We had no idea what it was worth, so we just threw it on ebay and got $140 something for it. Not too much but it was a good chunk of change for a pack pull.

matt

CDsNuts · October 19, 2006 1:58PM

I think you're better of listing a 1/1 at a high set price, especially if it's not a widely collected player. The odds that the two or three people that really want that card will see a 7 day auction is rare and you'd probably get a lot more if you had it up there over a few months. For example, say you have a Chris Sabo 1/1 card. The guy on these boards that collects him most definitely wants the card, but there's a good chance he'll never see your auction. He might be willing to pay up to $150, but it may only get bid up to $40. If you have it up there over a month or two at $150, chances are one of his searches will bring it up.

Lee

yankeeno7 · October 19, 2006 8:50PM

I dont play with too much modern but I did open a couple of 04 Leaf Limited or something like that...pulled a 1/1 Alan Trammell. I put it on ebay and landed 46.00 for it.

Courvoisier · October 19, 2006 9:11PM

<< Either Tuff Stuff or Beckett had a chart listing big names,semi stars,commons that are 1/1, #d to 25,50,100 ect. a while back. Sorry dont remember when and I dont have it anymore. >>

Chart Listing = nonsense. Go to Ebay and look at comparable "completed" items and use that as an actual sell guide.

1989FleerBillRipkencollector · October 20, 2006 12:10AM

<< 

<< Either Tuff Stuff or Beckett had a chart listing big names,semi stars,commons that are 1/1, #d to 25,50,100 ect. a while back. Sorry dont remember when and I dont have it anymore. >>

Chart Listing = nonsense. Go to Ebay and look at comparable "completed" items and use that as an actual sell guide. >>

I agree. It has too many variables. For fun I looked at some of their prices and what stuff ends at and they were different.

I pick up 1/1 Dodger players for my boys of any player for the cheapest I can. So far I found a Printing plate $8 shipped and a Kevin Brown signed by a Fleer exec. $9 shipped. A steal in my eyes. Plus the boys flip over the fact its the only one !!!

mikeschmidt · October 20, 2006 12:14AM

Also, remember, that sometimes rarity works against a card.

There are many Albert Pujols autographed rookie cards that are many times rarer than his Bowman Chrome Autograph - but they are less valuable.

Sometimes for cards to be valuable, the value is more in the fact that people can reasonably expect to finish the set/collection - as opposed to the specific scarcity of the card/set in question.

For a long period of time, prices realized on 1915 Cracker Jacks significantly exceeded their 1914 Cracker Jack counterparts, despite the fact that high-grade 1915 CJs are many times easier than 1914s.

mikeschmidt · October 20, 2006 12:15AM

Also - any idea of how many 1/1 cards of a particular player are now issued per year?

I think Mike Schmidt probably has something like 100-200 cards issued in 2006 that are serially numbered 1/1. When you have so many 'unique' cards - each individual card becomes incrementally less valuable.

FifthScaleRacer · October 20, 2006 12:29AM

Probably not much.

The card must suck since they only made 1 of it.

cardpool · October 20, 2006 12:56AM

My approach for trying this on ebay is put up a high fixed price on it. Higher than anyone would want to pay for it (perhaps) and use the Best Offer option to gauge what people are Willing to pay for it. This way you don't lose much other than the insertion fee for the fixed price unless you want to accept a best offer.

Griffins · October 20, 2006 1:08AM

The best offer option just tells people that you're not serious about the price and have no clue what it's worth. That may be the case, but why advertise the fact? People will make offers regardless of whether you have the best offer, but by putting it in there you'll get a lot more unreasonable offers.

Courvoisier · October 20, 2006 6:08AM

<< Also, remember, that sometimes rarity works against a card.

There are many Albert Pujols autographed rookie cards that are many times rarer than his Bowman Chrome Autograph - but they are less valuable.

Sometimes for cards to be valuable, the value is more in the fact that people can reasonably expect to finish the set/collection - as opposed to the specific scarcity of the card/set in question.

For a long period of time, prices realized on 1915 Cracker Jacks significantly exceeded their 1914 Cracker Jack counterparts, despite the fact that high-grade 1915 CJs are many times easier than 1914s. >>

Value is all in advertisement it seems. The price guide can take a scarce card of no matter who it is, do a write up on it a couple of times, and *boom*, you got the next hot card. It's always been like that. For example, if someone pass away, if they show it on TV 2-3 days, watch the vultures pay a couple of hundred dollars for their autograph. But once the coverage is gone, those autographs go back to their original market prices. There is always a write up on the Pujols Bowman Chrome Auto card.
Vintage is somewhat different as they hold their value, but advertisement will always increase it.

Pimp On.

How do you price a true 1/1 card?

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