hi prices seem a little all over the place, what would you guys say a fair price is for both a grade 7 and 8? I see lower grades rising higher and higher with a lack of sales in the 7,8 region or at least the sales I have seen are just all over the place making it hard to estimate what is a fair price. I’m in the market for a PSA 7 but I’ve seen it hit 6.5k which was what I thought an 8 was hitting so now I’m confused as at this point its better to get an 8 for a tad more than a 7? seems better value buy right now? any insights would be greatly appreciated!
Market value is what is available on the market. Common commodities have a consistent price because they’re consistently being replaced. Gasoline prices are dependant upon a lot of factors. I think we can all understand these things as we live them regularly. What’s interesting to me is in the Pokemon community, despite it being clear that the prices are constantly changing, a lot of us don’t seem to grasp the concept of what market means.
If there’s only one item on the market, it doesn’t matter what past sales are, the market price is whatever the sale of that one item is. Past sales are a metric to help determine what others have paid and gives a data point as to what could be expected. This isn’t always true, in fact when I go to price exclusive items, I don’t use past sales to determine my price points, I use current listings.
This is why I find it so strange that people are worried about paying over market price when market price is literally what they’re paying. Have people gotten it cheaper in the past? Of course. Does that mean that the market prices is what was paid in the past? Nope.
Right now, I don’t see anyone selling a PSA 8 less than 8k, same with PSA 7. Do I think the 7 will sell for 8k? Not right now when there’s a couple of 8s available, but in the near future I could see that happening. I haven’t been paying too much attention, but the 1st ed base Charizard market is getting pretty dried up. I’m also seeing PSA 6s in the 6-7k range.
To answer your question directly, if you can find a PSA 7 for 6.5k at this time, you probably find someone who’s selling cheap, depending upon where you’re searching you might find that person, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Thanks for the detailed reply it has helped me to understand more I think I’m gonna try grab a 7 maybe a $7000 offer may tempt a seller, ill make a buy thread see if I get any bites
Why are you only highltighting one part of my statement? I’ve bolded the part that talks about market value.
The context of what I said in the part you hightlight is clearly talking about past sales and why past sales aren’t market. You need the context of the rest of the thread to get full understanding of that part.
I hightlight in green basically what you say…
I’m sorry if my semantics aren’t perfect, but I’m sure most people are smart enough to figure it out.
Yeah…past sales are a way better indicator of ‘market price’ than current listings – especially for scarce items. If there are five of something on the market for $200 ea and you buy all 5 of them, the price isn’t suddenly more than that. There has to be more demand for that thing – and demand typically leads to sales. Sales data reflects demand, and is the most important factor of ‘market price.’
Can we please use context. This information is useless. Nobody is selling PSA 7/8 1st ed base charizards for 200 each. If all 5 1st ed psa 7/8 charizards sold for 200 each no that’s not a good indicator for market price, you’re not going to replicate that sale unless someone has a truck full of them to sell off and kills demand.
I’ve said it already I’ll say it again market price is what the item will sell for. If you’re using past sales data for exclusive items in Pokemon instead of what’s readily available on the market you’re not going to get the item. If you look at the market and think there’s higher grades that are priced lower, that listing is probably overpriced and isn’t going to get market. (my first post covered all of this)
This isn’t a hard concept untill we start play semantic games with no context to what is being said.
You’re right that if there were 5 sales of PSA 8 1st Ed. Base Charizards for $200 a piece that would be irrelevant to the price of it. But that’s because there’s a long established history of that card selling for more than that. The reason why we know that the $200 figure isn’t an indicator of its value is because of sales data.
I didn’t state that recent sale price = market price. I said that it’s the most relevant factor in determining market price. Of course, we can construct scenarios where cards are being regularly undersold by a factor of 50. And in those instances, sure, recent sales data is not relevant. But that scenario is just that. In real world cases (which, I imagine, is what we’re discussing here), sales data isa pretty accurate indicator of market price. It’s not the only one, but it’s the certainly the most important one. And it’s absolutely more relevant than the asking prices of listings presently on the market.
That’s where we disagree, I don’t think recent sales data is the most relevant, most important factor when it comes to a card like 1st ed charizard. It’s relevant data, we’re on the same page there. It can be useful, but the issue is when nobody is selling near the last sold price (what’s happening right now) it’s not a helpful.
That’s my point, we’re not talking about the market at whole here. We’re talking about PSA 7/8 1st ed charizard. Past sales data says one thing, but what’s available for sale is way more relevant.
FWIW I paid $7300 for a strong 8 last month and would pay that again for an equally strong 8. I have to assume 7 is over $6k at this point but there is more variance within the grade.
At the retail level, in any sale there are two prices, a bid price and and ask price. Bid price is what a buyer will pay at the moment. Ask price is what a seller will sell for at the moment. There is usually a gap between bid and ask prices. In any kind of normal market the bid and ask prices are relatively stable over the short term. If a buyer needs to purchase immediately he jumps up to the ask price. If a seller needs to sell immediately he drops down to the bid price. If there is no rush on either side they settle somewhere in the middle.
A couple of things complicate pricing for Pokemon cards, and Charizards in particular:
The market at the moment is not stable. Prices jumped, and no one knows for sure if price increases will continue, slide back a bit, or become stable at the current level. In other words, prices are volatile at the moment.
A lot of larger collectors are effectively dealers. And a lot of sales go through dealers. Dealers expect to buy at wholesale pricing and sell at retail pricing. This works well when markets require dealers to function. But in times where demand exceeds supply, or where markets are very open and accessible, dealers effectively have bid prices that are too low (or ask prices that are too high). If the concentration of cards held by dealers is high enough, this can artificially increase retail pricing in the short term. This is what happens in MTG when you get runs on scarcer (usually older) lesser cards. A handful of dealers buy up everything available, and then stimulate demand with a story that generates interest.
Sales platforms like Ebay, and card services like PSA, increase pricing and increase the gap between bid and ask prices. If you are buying raw cards with the intention of getting them graded, you need to factor in grading prices, shipping/insurance costs, the turnaround time for graded cards, and a slight risk factor that the cards will grade lower than expected (often offset by the expectation that the cards will grade higher). If you sell on a platform like Ebay, as a seller you need to factor in the 1ikelihood that you will only get 85% to 90% of the sale price, due to the cost of listing, selling, getting paid, and shipping the card.
Do not go by last sold… Shill bidders have ended auctions but you have no idea if the item was actually paid for, I know several Psa 8s that were shill bid and not sold, basically any in the 8k range.
Not to mention there are several PSA 8s up for sale in that range right now, and have been up for sale for weeks cause they aren’t worth it… Now PSA 7s are asking $7k+
My advice is stay away from this inflation and be patient. ( March - June) An absolute sky rocket in price with no real valid reason to justify the intense increase.
You will end up overpaying for a card that will decrease in price.
I think I’m gonna try grab a 7 maybe a $7000 offer may tempt a seller, ill make a buy thread see if I get any bites 