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COMC Thread

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tpeichel

Well-known member
Oct 10, 2008
15,639
119
I wonder if COMC will continue the relationship with Beckett for getting cards graded? Has anyone tried using this service? I looked at it a little, but $12 seemed steep.
 

olerud363

Active member
Jun 14, 2010
3,212
14
Ontario, Canada
I wonder if COMC will continue the relationship with Beckett for getting cards graded? Has anyone tried using this service? I looked at it a little, but $12 seemed steep.

I can't see this service really taking off, and I haven't heard of anyone using it. Collectors would want to be able to examine the card in-hand before deciding if they want to submit it, wouldn't they?

- Rodrick
 

Dilferules

Well-known member
Aug 10, 2012
1,948
1,746
Auburn, WA
In the old COMC, wasn't it true that sellers could only list a card for a certain amount or percentage if book value? With the change in price setup, will that change?

That is incorrect. I've seen cards on COMC anywhere from 95% off the Beckett price to 10X Beckett price. On cards I am selling, when I set a sale value below 10% of Beckett value it does bring up a prompt asking me if I'm sure I want to price it that low, but it lets me set the price wherever I want.
 

MansGame

Active member
Sep 25, 2009
15,324
20
Dallas, TX
I think there is a rule for being able to list a card for so much more than the value or something? Only reason I say that is someone contacted me about a rare '90s Albert Belle insert that was submitted to COMC but couldn't be listed because the seller couldn't list for the price he wanted because the system flagged it was too much or something, so he was trying to figure out how to get it back and then sell off eBay or something.
 

DaClyde

Well-known member
Jan 17, 2010
1,614
58
Huntsville, AL
That is incorrect. I've seen cards on COMC anywhere from 95% off the Beckett price to 10X Beckett price. On cards I am selling, when I set a sale value below 10% of Beckett value it does bring up a prompt asking me if I'm sure I want to price it that low, but it lets me set the price wherever I want.

There is a limit on the percentage discount you can auto-accept on offers. That's the only thing I can think of that is similar to the initial statement. It has nothing to do with BV, it's just dependent on the card's listed price. Besides, if you want to accept 90% off your asking price, just set your asking price lower.
 
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LWMM

Well-known member
Feb 21, 2009
1,062
46
Well, apply that exact same question to Beckett. How many cards do they actually sell? I can't imagine the Beckett Marketplace doing much more volume than COMC given the enormous shipping costs their sellers charge.

Beckett doesn't set it's price guides based on the sales of cards on their marketplace. Those sales may be a contributing factor (I suspect eBay plays a much bigger role), but they tend to find general prices for commons and stars in a set, and then use them across the board. COMC, on the other hand, is now providing their archived sales data. When you click on a card's price, it tells you how many have sold, and what the maximum price for that card has been.

Take the 2011 Topps Heritage Jonny Gomes Chrome /1962 as an example. COMC says that it has sold 11 of those cards, for up to $2.13. Beckett, on the other hand, will give estimate a general book value, such as $3 (I'm not sure what the actual BV for that card is). It will use that same price for all commons in the set, another price for semi-stars, and another for stars.

Thus, while Beckett gives an estimate of a card's worth (and, being estimates, can be applied to all cards), COMC gives raw data for the cards that it has sold. COMC thus has the ability to be more precise and accurate than Beckett, but will be hard pressed to be as comprehensive. That's probably a more significant factor for sellers who are pricing their cards (takes longer to research prices, and how will COMC stop them from setting an outrageous price if there's no BV to gauge it?) than it is for buyers (although again, if sellers are able to set outrageous prices, buyers may be less inclined to look at those cards).
 

sabrgeek

Member
Apr 10, 2010
578
13
Just as a note, it was stated in the long thread after the Blog Post (And the web site confirmed this) the relationship between COMC and BGS has continued.
 

mrmopar

Member
Jan 19, 2010
6,187
4,087
I have not used a price guide in ages. Then again, unless I am the only buyer of an item, the price I pay may very well be affected by those other bidders who are bidding based on published prices. However, I generally buy the newest released items for the Garvey collection and the prices I pay would help establish the pricing structure of that set, except it is very possible that others are bidding based on past issues and how that were priced, thus affecting the current issue. I may do that myself subconsciously. What I have been willing to pay for things seems to be dropping year after year. I would not consider bidding $300-500 or more for a rare Garvey card these days, but I did 5+ years ago. Thankfully I never won any of those auctions!!

I think a lot of people are going to be a tad upset when the truth is exposed and we are finally shown hard data of what cards are selling for, rather than what Beckett (and the Krause/SCD) has been listing them for. No matter how COMC reconciles all the various circumstances of the sale of a given card, I think in all cases, the resulting number will be less than what Beckett would have us believe.

In any case, I truly hope COMC continues to forge their own path, and don't make any blatant pushes into Beckett's perceived markets (grading and producing "values" for those graded cards). I would love to see COMC expand beyond Beckett's US-only worldview and build a global marketplace and catalog system.
 

Dilferules

Well-known member
Aug 10, 2012
1,948
1,746
Auburn, WA
I think there is a rule for being able to list a card for so much more than the value or something? Only reason I say that is someone contacted me about a rare '90s Albert Belle insert that was submitted to COMC but couldn't be listed because the seller couldn't list for the price he wanted because the system flagged it was too much or something, so he was trying to figure out how to get it back and then sell off eBay or something.

Either that is a policy that was abolished years ago or that guy was confused. Here's somebody selling a 1988 Topps Hubie Brooks card for 25X Beckett value. (Okay their actual asking price is only 20X BV, plus the 25 cent shipping surcharge to the buyer)

It's not just something where you're allowed to list X number of dollars over book, either. Check out the selection of 1959 Topps Joe Shipley cards, ranging from $2 to $5...and the one for $890. 178X Beckett value of $5. Hoping that was some kind of mistake by the seller, but it does show you can charge whatever you want.
 

Ct Sox Fan

Member
Aug 20, 2008
447
2
Connecticut
I am not sure if this was mentioned in this thread already, but I just learned that COMC sells through Amazon as well. I had a $50 Amazon Gift Card I was looking to use. I decided to see if I could get some holes filled in my 1970's Topps Red Sox sets and found that they listed the cards they have on their site on Amazon. I was able to pick up 23 cards for $38 shipped. As others have mentioned, if I grabbed these low end cards via eBay, my shipping costs would be ridiculous at $2.50-$3 a pop. So that gift card that I was originally wondering what I could get, turned into a really nice gift that my sister would never have been able to pick out for me!
 

tpeichel

Well-known member
Oct 10, 2008
15,639
119
I am not sure if this was mentioned in this thread already, but I just learned that COMC sells through Amazon as well. I had a $50 Amazon Gift Card I was looking to use. I decided to see if I could get some holes filled in my 1970's Topps Red Sox sets and found that they listed the cards they have on their site on Amazon. I was able to pick up 23 cards for $38 shipped. As others have mentioned, if I grabbed these low end cards via eBay, my shipping costs would be ridiculous at $2.50-$3 a pop. So that gift card that I was originally wondering what I could get, turned into a really nice gift that my sister would never have been able to pick out for me!

If sellers choose to have their items listed on Amazon, they sell them at a 20% discount.
 

subject to change

New member
Aug 7, 2008
1,417
0
Pittsburgh, PA
I do wonder about the space issue. There are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of commons that have been submitted to the site that are never going to sell. There are 88 copies of 1990 UD Barry Bonds, ranging from $.44-2.25. Sales data shows 11 copies of the card have sold on the site, so it's a safe bet that COMC is going to have 60 or 70 copies of that card sitting in their inventory until the end of time unless the seller has them returned. I think the site works best for the business, buyers, and sellers when cards are moving quickly - but many sellers price their cards so far out of line with market value that some cards I have been watching have been sitting in my cart for 3 or 4 years without a price change.
 

tpeichel

Well-known member
Oct 10, 2008
15,639
119
I do wonder about the space issue. There are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of commons that have been submitted to the site that are never going to sell. There are 88 copies of 1990 UD Barry Bonds, ranging from $.44-2.25. Sales data shows 11 copies of the card have sold on the site, so it's a safe bet that COMC is going to have 60 or 70 copies of that card sitting in their inventory until the end of time unless the seller has them returned. I think the site works best for the business, buyers, and sellers when cards are moving quickly - but many sellers price their cards so far out of line with market value that some cards I have been watching have been sitting in my cart for 3 or 4 years without a price change.

Have you tried offers?
 

subject to change

New member
Aug 7, 2008
1,417
0
Pittsburgh, PA
Have you tried offers?

The point is that there simply isn't enough demand for many of the commons that sellers have submitted to the site, regardless of price. Sure some of the cheapest copies may sell, but COMC likely has a significant portion of their warehouse space tied up in these cards that are more or less undesirable. As the business grows, that could become a potential liability in my eyes if that stagnant inventory is pushing them close to their max capacity.
 

tpeichel

Well-known member
Oct 10, 2008
15,639
119
The point is that there simply isn't enough demand for many of the commons that sellers have submitted to the site, regardless of price. Sure some of the cheapest copies may sell, but COMC likely has a significant portion of their warehouse space tied up in these cards that are more or less undesirable. As the business grows, that could become a potential liability in my eyes if that stagnant inventory is pushing them close to their max capacity.

Oh, I don't disagree that there are hundreds of thousands of cards that will never sell outside of a port sale. I assume that some of the larger sellers will use the donate option for some of the unsellable inventory.
 

LWMM

Well-known member
Feb 21, 2009
1,062
46
The point is that there simply isn't enough demand for many of the commons that sellers have submitted to the site, regardless of price. Sure some of the cheapest copies may sell, but COMC likely has a significant portion of their warehouse space tied up in these cards that are more or less undesirable. As the business grows, that could become a potential liability in my eyes if that stagnant inventory is pushing them close to their max capacity.

As long as COMC is charging a storage fee for those cards, there should be no problem. A storage fee means a) COMC is making money, and b) sellers have an incentive to get those cards moving, either by reducing price or donating the cards. If it were to really become a problem, COMC could just stop accepting commons, or, far more likely, change the fee structure. Currently, cards prices at $0.75 or less are stored for free (about 516,000 of 2,085,000 listings* on COMC currently meet this criteria). All COMC would have to do to generate movement (via reduced prices, withdrawn cards, or donated cards) would be to lower that threshold.


*By listings I mean one type of card. So if COMC has 9 1984 Topps cards of Don Slaught, I count that as one listing. When I say 516,000 listings are below the 75 cent threshold, I mean that at least one card in each listing is at 75 cents or less. Thus, as some cards are priced higher (only 5 of the 9 Slaughts are at 75 cents or less, for instance), the 516,000 number actually overstates the proportion of cards that are being stored for free. By the way, these numbers also imply that COMC is making well over (probably several times) $15,000 a month just in storage fees.
 

maxe0213

New member
Oct 10, 2012
1,833
0
California and Oregon for school
It would be extremely nice if they could get rid of history points and just allow sellers and/or buyers see the purchasing history of the cards. Doing the IQ test is such a waste of time and having that able to be seen would drastically help the pricing on COMC IMO.
 
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