Beckett Coin Marketplace And Price Guides

I wanted to ask if price guides have to follow any certain rules or guidelines or can anyone just make up any prices and put it in print or online?

I think we all feel Beckett does this with regards to sports cards but I don't think that would go over so well with other things like coins?

The reason I was wondering is that I had a BGS question so I went to the Beckett website and noticed they now have a section for coins.They seem to have a marketplace and a coin price guide. I don't follow the prices of coins to much but I did look up one of my favorites, a 1909 S VDB penny.

It seems they have it listed as a 1909-S V.D.P. -Yeah what could go wrong.

I am not sure where Beckett is getting their pricing or info but I don't think people who collect coins will allow the Beckett to get away with the same nonsense they do with sports cards.

Has anyone here checked out the new coin section and if so what did you think?

Thanks

What do you mean? Beckett has thousands of representatives scouring America to record and report actual sales of every item they provide prices for.

No, of course they don't. They guess what things should be worth based on the cost of the product and general market trends. Sadly, there is no "Department of Hobby Security" that watches people who put out price guides to ensure accuracy, or any relationship with reality. The fact is, though, that Beckett price guides aren't terribly inaccurate for the large majority of cards. The lo-hi columns ensure that there's a realistic range for what you could expect to pay for a card in a retail shop. And since most shops use Beckett for pricing, it tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Beckett doesn't pretend to be have authoritative, realtime price for online sales. That the world has moved on from a monthly magazine isn't their fault. The market grew up around them and has passed them by, but that doesn't make them completely worthless. They have a customer base of hobby shops, and they need to keep them happy by not telling them their inventory has plummeted in value over the last 20 years. Collectors are free to use their data or not, but that's what a guide is, after all.

As to whether coin collectors will deal with Beckett, likely they will not. As a price guide authority, Beckett entered several different collectibles fields over the years, with pretty much bad results, it seems. Few Magic players even know Beckett's Magic/CCG magazines or marketplace, but their pricing, at least going by what is listed in their marketplace, is pretty much inline with Starcitygames.com, the highest price yet biggest online retailed, and often favorable. Same with vintage sports cards, vintage memorabilia, Beanie Babies, etc. With a new endeavor, it's understandable if there are some glitches in data, though obviously undesirable if it's a service they charge for. But don't worry, those big boys up in Dallas know what they're doing. See here, http://www.beckett.com/careers, they're looking for good people right now.

No, there are no federal laws or regulations governing hobby prices guides. Come on.