With the price of some older cards moving to eye-watering prices, I'd like to highlight another trend. Making it up as they go along. I just went on a well known retailers site and saw a box of Rittenhouse's Marvel 70th for sale. Those that know me also know I bought an obscene amount of this product when it came out. It was excellent! The price of this box? $249.95. Too rich for me, but they are entitled to charge what they wish. What they shouldn't be able to do is pluck a figure out of the air as the "Suggested price" - $299.95 as though that's what it sold for in the past and they are doing you a favour by knocking $50.00 off. If they want to be honest with the suggested price, put up what they originally went for - $70/$75 a box.

There is only one SRP and that's the one set by the manufacturer when the product is released. Years later the SRP becomes unimportant and as far as I know, is rarely mentioned, because what's the difference? The market for the item may have changed and certainly the value of the currency that buys it has changed.

I can see quoting an SRP for cards as long as the product is sealed and within a year of release. After that the value should be determined by the secondary market, but there really is no rule, it just seems reasonable to me. However, what someone can't do is make up an SRP that never came out from the manufacturer, whether that price is higher or lower than what they are trying to sell it for now.

What happens if somebody does? That's the real problem, isn't it?

Just for a laugh, I thought I'd see if the afore mentioned box had sold. It may have, but there's another except the selling price is $299.99 with a RRP of $349.99. Who would have thought a box from 2010 would have a RRP increase?

Sadly many sellers will tilt a listing description in their favor even if it doesn't paint an honest picture.

On the other hand, collectors need to be educated on what they buy at all times. Of course Rittenhouse hasn't done us any favors by destroying all of their archive data. It was difficult enough trying to figure out which bond autograph went to which set when we had access.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
On the other hand, collectors need to be educated on what they buy at all times. Of course Rittenhouse hasn't done us any favors by destroying all of their archive data. It was difficult enough trying to figure out which bond autograph went to which set when we had access.

And Rittenhouse are definitely not doing us any favours bringing out premium packs (Lost in Space and rumoured to be Umbrella Academy) instead of boxes. LiS has sold out which to me screams eBay sellers.

I didn't even see that Lost in Space was coming out as premium packs. I would actually be interested in that if I came across it, whereas I have never cared to buy a box or saw an episode for that matter.

It's not a bad idea from their standpoint to tie off iffy titles. They are probably wary of putting the money into a new set with waning demand and they already have the 12 LiS autographs. Same thing with the Umbrella Academy too, if they decide to do it. While those shows have their fans, I would still call them niche titles, and many of the fans probably never bought the cards anyway.

Of course the next issue is, if RA is shedding licenses, what will replace them?