i've been wondering if i'm the only one who would like an online price guide, from NSU? i mean it could be for subscribers only, i'm willing to pay extra for it,(especially if we can have an online portfolio available) say 5 or 10 bucks. NSU could have it $21 for regular subscription and $25 or $30 for subscriptions and online price guide. what do you think?

I don't know if an online price guide is totally necessary as well, but what I propose is that some of the dealers who work conventions, etc, post some of their sales....kinda like a "market report" from their viewpoint. On the website I'm building (email me, of course, if you want the link)I'm providing some of the sales that surprised me. For example, I believe Justice League is a very undervalued set with a lot of demand, at least here in Texas from what I've seen at shows. Stuff like that interests me, and I'm sure others as well. A short show report doesn't take a lot of time and let's us all know of trends in certain areas of the country.

Good idea or rampant stupidity?

Good idea

Then an average sale price can be formed from all of the prices for one particular item.

This would probably make the most accurate price guide.

I think you would wind up with a guide with incredibly inflated prices. I think Bill Defranzo does a fine job with the NSU guide, and more times than not, it is rather accurate.

Don't get me wrong...I agree that Bill does a fantastic job with the pricing in the magazine. It's THE bible for card collectors and sellers, no doubt. I am just interested in seeing what cards are selling for what prices in different parts of the country. What's hot in Texas may be dead in Philly...I'd like to know that.

That's all I'm saying....

It also varies from the US to the UK, you often find prices in Diollars in the US equate to Pounds in the UK.

If someone's looking for a model for this type of site I recommend looking at the comic site www.comicspriceguide.com. They are a on-line comics price guide that built from very small beginings to be quite a good going concern. The price guide is free, they make their money from subscriptions for portfolio management and advertising.

Because they are always updating their info from new releases and user requests they make an ideal portfolio manager. In effect anything you need gets added. In my experience they are much more on the ball and flexible that the current comics bible (Overstreet) because they can change things very quickly. I suspect 5 years from now they will replace it as the point to go for information on comics titles (and pricing).

It's easy to see how a similar system for cards would work. To make it finiancially viable you'd make to have enough people interested in portfolio management, so I'm not sure if NON-SPORTS would be a big enough field. If someone did cards in general (sports, non-sports and CCG) and had enough to invest to initially build a sizeable database containing most of the popular card sets this could easily be a winner.

On the other hand I don't think a site of this type would necessarily do big damage to NSU. After all the magazine is much more than just a price guide. If it wasn't people wouldn't buy each issue as most card prices aren't that volatile.

It is clear than the people at NSU have the necessary expertising to provide the data for such a site and therefore would have an edge on anyone else trying to do it.

K

Wow, this thread was two years old until it got restarted the other day.
No offense, but as I said two years ago, it's easy to say you wanna guide, not so easy to do. Whether online or as NSU does, I think you guys who ask about this tend to underestimate the effort involved. It's a great idea in theory only.

What she said. To get an idea of the effort involved, take the time to format into a word processor all the info associated with one set. Take a simple one, without chase cards, like a 1980's Topps set. Compile the checklist of card titles, and write a description of the set. Did you take less than an hour?

Then multiply by hundreds, or thousands -- however many sets you want your guide to have. Value your time at $10 an hour -- it mounts up pretty quickly. Throw in some more for coding the html and database, and some more for web hosting. Who's going to foot the bill?

The only way that the original Sport Americana price guides by Chris Benjamin got written is that he was on the payroll of a card shop at the time (Denny Eckes', I believe), and that subsidized the labor.

Chris's labors were the basis of the NSU price guide, and it couldn't have been maintained since without the magazine subsidizing the effort it takes to maintain it.

I know that when I did the promo part, I made less than minimum wage compiling it. I doubt Bill DeFranzo does much better. Stuff like that, people do it because they enjoy doing it. Once you commit to making it a business, it stops being fun, and therefore you _have_ to make money doing it, otherwise there's no point.

I'd sonner suck on an octopus limb tham undertake a price guide for Trek alone let alone anyone sitting down to a NS guide....
:shudder:

I think an online price guide for subscribers, even with an extra fee, is problematic. Many people order their 'subs' thru comic/hobby shops..or buy it regularly thru bookstores or thru card dealers. They wouldn't eligible for this perk..which would either mean they would lose out, or if they changed over to subscribe directly from NSU - then the bookstores/dealers/hobby shops would lose the subscription business.

And though I understand the sometime desire for one..I think it would cause more problems than it's worth. After all if you buy the magazine you have the guide. Everyone who buys it does. The only advantage to online would be the need to have it updated more often...which would cost NSU a small fortune. And would, imo, 'cause endless discussions/arguments on the boards.
about the pricing at it changed. And then, there would be arguments about pricing for trades between folks who had access to the onlline guide and those who had 'only' the hard copy...

My two cents..

o.k., then how about something like what wizard did and just have a fee for using the online guide. that takes care of the magazine buying problem. as to the changing of the prices, NSU already does that in their magazine a people don't camplain, too much anyway.

Hey Kev - No fair, you hit 300 b4 me!!!

http:\\mtlhddoc2.8m.com

the online guide would not only be for prices, but to keep track of you portfolio.

If you want to keep track of your "portfolio" get a database program. You can do all sorts of good stuff with one once you learn how to use it.

An online guide is a huge undertaking, both in time and money. If someone wants to pay me fulltime I'll do it. Of course, I don't come cheap...

Personally I just build excel spreadsheets for each collection, and keep track of them that way.
WOrks for me!

kathy warrior counselor

www.geocities.com/warrior_counselor/index.html

This subject (online price guide) comes up every so often, and yet I don't think anyone has come up with an easy way of doing it! Keeping the prices up-to-date involves man-hours - if it was something NSU started up, it would mean someone having to maintain if from the NSU staff. For this to be commercially viable, there would have to be a fee, even for subscribers (just my opinion on this!)
Then you would get debates about whether a particular price was correct (we get those sometimes here about particular entries on the magazine guide, so imagine what it would be like for an online guide!) And, what would you include? Only cards available generally in the US? Would Show exclusives, mail-in offers or food (and other product) premiums be included? What about non-US sets? What about non-US prices?
Starting to turn into a bit of a monster, isn't it!
In an ideal world, it would be great to have a central online reference point, so that a collector could see how much a card he or she is contemplatinh the purchase of is really worth.
This, alas, is far from being an ideal world...

Au Res.,
Paul
(Still WAY ahead on posts!)

Sometimes, one pack is not enough...

why is everyone assumeing that updates would be so often, i was thinking updates of 1 or 2 times a month, maximum.

Interesting idea but, at the risk of sounding argumentative (not the intention I promise) but if the online guide were only to be updated once or twice a year, it would quickly lose it's usefulness.
Afterall, new sets come out more or less every month - as new product appears, old stuff is dumped (though not as much as it once was!) and the popularity (and, it follows, price) of certain cards will change.
Honestly, I'm not trying to shoot down the idea - I woould greatly appreciate some sort of online resource myself (though I wouldn't necessarily use it every day, it would be handy when pricing things fairly on eBay or the Amok Time Auctionne!)
It's just that, as yet, I don't see how it can be accurately and cheaply done by NSU or any other magazine.
Au Res.,
Paul

Sometimes, one pack is not enough...

i said, once or twice a month, not year