can someone please develop a better RAW price guide

[rjrjr]

The best price guide is you looking at ebay and judging the value based on what has sold and it's condition.

 

I maintain that eBay is the very worst venue for ascertaining true market value.

 

Okay, let's hear why.

 

I know eBay has changed my perception of value. It has greatly lowered how much I'm willing to pay for books in comparison to the OSPG. I have purchased many comics that I could not have pre-eBay without much searching and for much less.

[Bookery]

The best price guide is you looking at ebay and judging the value based on what has sold and it's condition.

 

I maintain that eBay is the very worst venue for ascertaining true market value.

 

Totally agree. From inexperienced to deceitful listings, from shill bidding to stolen photos, or simply that eBay tends to draw the garage-sale bargain buyers that would never bid in a large-venue auction, eBay is all but useless save for the really oddball item that simply isn't listed elsewhere.

 

The best source for raw pricing would indeed be a published guide by someone who takes the time to do proper research. OPG could be that guide if it wanted to, but appears it's little interested in overhauling its whole approach.

 

A raw guide would necessarily not include ultra-high grades, for if the book is worth anything at all, most will have these slabbed. And it's not worth a guide's time to list books that can't bring at least $10 in 8.0 or so (with a few exceptions)... a guide needs to choose between wanting to be a price guide or wanting to be a checklist.

 

I've actually put together a template and the first 10-20 pages for such a guide I've been toying with. Sure, there are a few raw books that are so volatile an annual guide can't keep up... but it's a pretty small number... most volatility occurs in the 9.6 - 9.8 range. The problem is... I'll never have time to work on it all the way through.

 

But as one whose put together large complex price guides before, a single author, with ample input from knowledgeable sources, can produce a very effective and reasonable guide that can be pretty accurate on 95% or more of the market, allowing for regional diversities and demand.

 

[Pike's Comics]

Wasn't GoCollect working on something to this extent?