A question I had on pricing is: How do you take backs into account for pricing? I know there are multipliers out there for mid-tier and rare backs. But, when a card has a low population (5 or less 10 or less ect.) How do you determine prices for those? How do the prices move as grade goes up?
Im my opinion, there is no easy answer to this question. While helpful, the back multipliers will almost always be off in one direction or the other in practice. If you’re trying to price a mid-tier back in order to sell it and you use one of the back multipliers, typically one of two things will happen: Either it will sell right away because you had it a little too low, or it will just sit there because the back multiplier estimate was too high.
Personally, I have never paid any attention to the multipliers that people have come up with. Even years ago when I was just getting into buying the tougher backs, I always tried to base values/prices on actual sales. These days I have seen so much price data over the years that I just kind of know values instinctively. It took quite a lot of price research and buying/selling to get to where I am now, but anyone can do it.
If you want to get more precise with your value estimates for T206 mid-tier and rare backs, I have a couple of things I would recommend. First, follow the tougher backs that get listed in auction format on eBay. Make a guess as to what you think the card will sell for, and then when the auction ends, see how close you got. I’d recommend keeping notes of all the cards you observe so that you can review them in the future. You can do the same with any cards that sell via an Auction House. The second bit of advice is a pay service. You can pay $4 for 24 hours of access to vintagecardprices.com (VCP). When I was learning this stuff, I would pay for the 24 hours of access a few times a year, and spend a few hours searching tons of data and taking notes.
Obviously, doing this type of price research is only appealing if you’re really passionate about the mid-tier and rare backs. If you mainly just collect the T206 set based on fronts, but want a quick way to estimate values, I wish I could be more helpful. If you find yourself in that situation, I do have a couple bits of advice. First, you can always ask me for my opinion. I can be reached here via the “Contact” button on the site, or via net54 (Luke) or Facebook. Alternatively, it might be worth the $4 to log into vintagecardprices.com (VCP).
Let’s look at an example: Let’s say you have a Ed Killian Portrait with Cycle 350 back in a PSA 3 holder, and you have no idea what it’s worth. Here’s what I would suggest you do. Look up the PSA and SGC Population Reports for Killian. Then look up a few other players’ Cycle 350 Pop Reports. This will give you an idea of the relative scarcity of Killian versus other poses in the Cycle 350 subset. The more poses you can look up, the better. Then, log on to VCP, and look up sales data on Killian, and all the other poses that you checked Pop Report data for. While you’re there, I would also check sales data for all the other Cycle 350s. You’ve already paid for 24 hours of access to VCP, so why not get your money’s worth? While browsing VCP, make sure to make note of the date that cards sold for. If you see a card that sold in 2009, I wouldn’t use that piece of data to help you price your card. Sales from the past couple years will obviously be the most helpful.
One more bit of information to keep in mind is if you happen to be trying to buy or sell the highest graded copy of a given front/back combo, you can expect that card to command a premium. There’s no magic formula to figuring out the value of the highest graded copy, but it’s something that can be learned in the same way you would learn the value of the Killian Cycle 350 in a PSA 3 holder.
