How to Price My Baseball Cards Online

Whether you're a serious baseball card collector or you collect them as a hobby, you'll want to know what they're worth. Things to consider when determining their value: the popularity of each player, how rare the cards are, their age, their condition and how much they're in demand. Use an online pricing guide to estimate the value of your baseball cards.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Look at each card for important identifying information, such as the name of the player, the card manufacturer, the year it was made and the set the card belongs to.

2. Determine the condition of each baseball card. Creases, smudges, worn edges and even how the image is centered on a card can affect its condition. The condition of your card will be assessed as: gem mint, mint, near mint, excellent, very good, good, fair or poor.

3. Visit an online baseball card price guide. Some baseball card price guides are free, others charge a fee. Beckett.com is generally considered the authority when valuing baseball cards. Other popular pricing guides are portasite.com and tuffstuff.com.

4. Find your card on the list and look at its value. Some price guides give a range of values, others only give you one value. If there is only one value, that is the value of the card if it is in mint condition. If there is a high and a low value listed, the condition of your card will determine where it falls within the range.

5. Check the price guide information or FAQ section to learn what criteria were used to determine card values. Price guides get their information from different sources and assign card values in different ways.

6. Compare your baseball card with the criteria used in the price guide. For example, if the value listed in the price guide is for a card in mint condition and your card is in good condition, the value of your card would be less than the value listed in the price guide.

7. Check more than one source to get the best estimate of your baseball card's value. The values listed in baseball card pricing guides vary and not all of them are updated regularly.

8. Once you have an estimated value, check live auction sites and baseball card trading forums to see what the cards are selling for in real time. If possible, check recent sales as well as sales over time to determine if the value of your card is rising, falling or holding steady.

Tips & Warnings

• If your card is worth a large amount of money, you may want to have it professionally-graded. Card values change, so if the value of your baseball card is low, don't be discouraged. It may rise.
• Regardless of what the price guides say, a baseball card is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

Resources

• Beckett.com
• Tuffstuff.com
• Portasite.com

[bama1965]

on 11/17/2009 I use http://rookiestars.com to check my card values. It's a free web site.