Whether you’re pricing out an old collection to sell, or you’re adding new cards to the personal collection (PC), you’re going to want to know what you have (or if you’re paying a good price for it)
This is the first skill that you need to hone in sports card collecting—unless of course you’re just dumping a collection for whatever cash you can get (boring!).
Either way, let’s dive in and I’ll show you the most common ways to price out your cards!
9 Best Places to Determine Baseball Cards Values
Here are the best ways to figure out how much my baseball cards are worth:
- eBay
- CardLadder
- Sports Card Investor
- 130 point
- PWCC
- Auction it Off
- Beckett
- COMC History
- Talk to LCS (Local Card Shop)
1. eBay
We’ll start with the monster, because most pricing roads start here. As I’m writing this there are currently 52 million listings for sports cards on eBay! That’s…just insane.
Because they’re multiples larger than any other selling platform, this is the place to start—especially because you can look at sales history.
First, search for your card. The easiest way to do this is to put in the player’s name, the card brand, the year (look at the bottom fine print), and the card number on the back. You’ll almost always get the right card, and you can always compare pictures.
I’d search for “Juan Toscano-Anderson NBA Hoops 2021-22 #248” and you’ll definitely get the right card.
Next, and this is CRITICAL, you must search for SOLD listings of this card. This might be the most common mistake sports card rookies make—comping their card to someone else’s ridiculous Buy It Now listing!
Just..don’t do it.
Instead, on the left-hand side of your screen (on a desktop), scroll down and click on “Sold Items” (it will also check “Completed Listings” for you).
(On the eBay app, in the top right there’s a “Filter” button. Tap it, scroll down until you find “Show More” and then you’ll find “Sold Items”)
People list things crazy high for a few reasons. I list cards at the price I’d like to sell them, even if there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that it will right now. Last year (before the gun drama), I sold a Ja Morant rookie that I’ve had listed for years. At the time, it was a high price, but since he’s become a superstar, the price I had listed suddenly became a good price.
I do this so I don’t have to hurry and list something to capitalize on a price hike. Also, I use eBay as sort of a database for my cards. I have my pics already in there, with headlines and descriptions ready to go. I can scroll through them and see all my cards…it’s pretty cool!
Now that we’ve established that eBay is the king of the pricing hill, let me show you some others. Almost all of these grab their pricing from eBay sold listings, but they just organize them differently.
2. CardLadder
I think CardLadder is the best tool out there for tracking your collection and watching cards you’re interested in buying!
While they don’t have the biggest database, if you’re looking for a graded card of a good player (especially rookies), you can usually find it.
Then, you can take a look at pricing history to gauge highs and lows:
This is a lifetime view of Julio Rodriguez’s total market index (which is a collection of the total values of key/popular cards). It becomes much easier for a collector to get a holistic view of his market to determine whether they think he’s a good investment right now.
At $15/month, it’s hard to beat.
3. Sports Card Investor
Full disclosure: I’ve never used anything but their free app which gives you a list of trending cards. I like to sort through it occasionally to see who’s moving the market.
However, I know that they are a data-driven company and a lot of collectors swear by it for targeting cards and managing their collection.
At $25/mo (for limited features) or $50 for everything, it’s always seemed a bit pricey to me.
4. 130point
Not all heroes wear capes. 130point is a rather old-looking website, but has some incredible functionality for looking up values!
When you search on eBay for sold listings, they’ll tell you that a listing’s offer has been accepted…but won’t show you for how much!
130point actually shows you what the accepted offer was! It’s nice to get a complete picture instead of guessing what a card sold for when a best offer was accepted. It’s free, and they’re my go-to for quick pricing on cards I’m looking to sell.
5. PWCC
PWCC is similar to 130point—basically a big database of cards that have sold on eBay. They have a bit nicer of an interface, so some people prefer it…but I still like the stripped down simplicity of 130point.
It’s also free, but you’ll need to create an account.
6. Auction it Off
So now we’re done with the services that aggregate eBay sales (there are more of course—just sharing the ones I like or are super popular).
Another option you have if you’re planning to sell your cards anyway:
Just list them up for auction on eBay! If it doesn’t really matter to you and you just want the money, then you can go ahead and let the market dictate what it’s worth.
This seems to work well on a card that I think will get a lot of views. For example, Jordans and Kobes always have a good market.
I also recently did this with a card that had zero comps. I pulled a Chronicles Draft Picks Cade Cunningham Select Black Prizm.
Being the #1 pick, and it being his first (or nearly his first) rookie card, and being a highly desirable variation…I sent it to SGC.
It came back a 10!
If you want to learn how to sell on eBay, you’ll definitely want to check out this article I wrote:
=> The 13-Step Guide to Selling Sports Cards on eBay
7. Beckett
I’m including this one only because it’s a big name in the industry…but I’m not a huge fan.
So back in the day, I spent some of my precious allowance money on a monthly subscription to Beckett! It was awesome every time it came…
I loved looking up my 30-40 best cards each month, hoping for the little green up arrow next to the price!
But then, back in the early days of eBay, I’d list my cards and they would sell for a tiny fraction of the price. Disappointment city.
Nowadays, I don’t think it’s that much different. While they offer a range of pricing, the low end is supposedly what you could sell it for on eBay. That’s not really been my experience.
However, I do know that some higher-end sellers (like card shop owners or people who sell at card shows) do like to use Beckett’s higher end of their range to price cards.
The problem is…more and more people are savvy to eBay pricing. You go to a card show, and eBay has sales of a card for $100. The card owner listed it at $150 because that’s what Beckett has the top of the range for the card.
Just doesn’t make a lot of sense why sellers don’t use comps from the largest database and would rather go off what Beckett’s best guess is for a top-end price.
8. COMC History
COMC or Check Out My Cards is perhaps the second largest selling platform for cards. They have a few things going that eBay doesn’t.
For example, it’s a lot easier to find more obscure cards that are selling for $1 or so. Many collectors like that you can buy a whole bunch of cheap cards and only pay once for the shipping. On eBay, it’s hard to buy a bunch of cards like that because you’re going to pay shipping for each one (unless you buy from a single reasonable seller).
Because of this, you might have an easier time pricing out those low-end 90s inserts, and perhaps listing some of your own on there!
It’s free to check pricing, but you will need to create an account.
9. Talk to Your Local Card Shop (LCS)
This is the worst option on this list for getting accurate pricing…but it’s also the easiest way to unload your cards fast.
The problem is that your local card shop is only interested in flipping your cards for profit, so they’re going to lowball you.
They understand the work that it will take them to go through your collection, and also that most of the cards will never sell. They know that you’re likely to take a lower number so you don’t have to hassle with it…
So if you can get 50% of what it’s worth, you’re probably doing extremely well!
Sell Your Cards After Determining Values
If you’re pricing your cards out to sell them, I think you’ll find this article helpful:
