Baseball Card Prices
Most baseball cards are not worth all that much money. Few, in fact, are even worth more than a dollar. Still, it is important for a serious collector to keep track of the value of his collection, and there are several resources available to him. One such resource is a professional appraiser, however this can be so costly and time-consuming that it’s only truly profitable to have this done for a particularly rare or valuable card. A more affordable and practical approach is to consult a price guide. For baseball cards and other sports collectables, the self-described “#1 Standard” of pricing is Beckett Media The company publishes an annual baseball card price guide, as well as several sports-related magazines and a comprehensive online price guide. There are several other reputable price guides available, such as the online guides offered by the Professional Sports Authenticators, or PSA.
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A baseball card price guide will often list the cards according to their annual “sets,” listing by collection and year, with listings for special sections suck as hologram or foil cards, or the prices of autographed cards. The most popular and common price guide seems to be the Beckett media annual price guide series. The 2007 edition of the Official Beckett Price Guide to Baseball Cards is 800 pages long and boasts prices for over six hundred thousand cards, enough for even the most dedicated collector. Prices are only provided for cards in mint and near mint conditions, anything less pristine seems to be valueless. Copies seem to be regularly available, and can be purchased at any major bookstore or found at a library.
Online Baseball Card Price Guides
An alternative to pouring over an 800-page baseball card price book is to use an online price guide, of which there are several. Beckett media, as mentioned, maintains a price guide, as do the PSA, however, use of either guide requires that the user subscribe and pay a monthly fee. Another, more dedicated database can be found at Card Pricer, which describes themselves as the most comprehensive baseball card price guide on the internet. Card Pricer currently offers a free, 14-day trial, however it will soon begin charging all users, too. There does seem to be one free price guide available, at Collect Sports, but it appears to be neither reputable nor comprehensive. In the world of baseball cards, it seems nothing is ever truly free.
