General Forum

Hello all, 

I just (very) recently got back into a childhood hobby of sports card collecting.  When I was a kid, I had a Beckett subscription and would look with my Dad at all of "my" (our) cards and loved it.  
I am finding that these days, pricing a card can be very difficult.  Any advice how to price a unique / low numbered card?  My local shop basically only gave the advice to go to ebay and see what they are selling for.  That's great for the 2022 Topps Series 1 Wander Franco Silver pack card I pulled, but at a card show I picked up a 2018 Leaf Metal P.G. Gameday Auto Bobby Witt Jr, Purple parallel, #1/1.  Obviously, no one will be selling that card on ebay, so I'm a bit worried I may have vastly overpaid for it. 

I know it is a future investment and I'm not trying to get too caught up on current value, but any advice from experienced collectors on a good way to gage value on unique cards like this as I continue in the hobby?  

All advice and comments welcome, and I'm excited to find a site that seems to have a very active community!

Thank you,

Steve

Welcome! I can't really help answer your question about pricing, (not really my thing,) but I am just going to start by saying that the image you submitted for that Witt card will be denied. It needs to be scanned, and not photographed. And if you do or can scan it, make sure that the slab its in is not in the image.

Appreciate that, guess I will need to invest in a scanner too :) 

I'm not concerned with card value as I collect for the same reasons I did when I was 8 years old.  I collect specific teams and I like putting sets together.  Still, the simplest way to gauge potential value for a card is how well the player is doing.  Today Wander Franco is the rage, but if his career goes nowhere in a few years his cards wll have zero value.  In the late 80's there was a similar rage for Gregg Jefferies rookie cards.  He was a "can't miss" rookie phenom who was going straight to the hall of fame.  A few years later his career fizzled out and his cards could be seen being used to make cool motorcycle sounds on kids bikes everywhere.  

This discussion is a perfect example of why I'm not a fan of all the one off cards.  When they aren't someone every collector has a chance of pulling, their prices are subject to whatever someone is willing to pay for them.  Since there isn't much to compare to, if someone does have the card and is willing to sell, they can list it for whatever they want and who's to argue if they are "fair" or not?

You can search on eBay for other 1/1 (or rare) cards of the player (or similar players) and estimate a value. Additionally you can list it on eBay for a high "Buy It Now" price and enterain offers. Other options might be seeing if someone here wants to trade/buy or maybe you can take it to another card show and try to trade for other things.

Is this the same or similar card as the one you picked up? https://www.ebay.com/itm/393888437920

@tcdbkrn, hopefully not a good comp, as I am into the card for significantly more than that one haha.  I'll put it this way, I traded the seller a 2022 Topps Archive Sig Casey Mize Green Auto 2/4 to get $700 credit, and still had to pay a lot more cash on top .  I'm not really into it for the money, but like I said in the OP, I'm really hoping I didn't get totally burnt for it either.  

@lildog7 and @Kirk, I totally agree with both of you.  The Motorcycle sounds comment was gold!   If this Bobby Witt Jr ends up making motorcycle sounds I'm gonna be REALLY bummed