Can You Trust Your Comps? + Fake Sales & Green Check Marks + The Hobby’s “Dummy Tax”

How much should you actually trust the comps you're using to buy and sell sports cards?

Jeremy Lee, David Chase, Joe Poirot, Chris HOJ and Josh Adams dive deep into one of the most important issues in today's data-driven hobby: understanding what the numbers actually mean before allowing them to influence your decisions.

The conversation begins with a viewer claiming there are too many fake sales appearing on Card Ladder. Chris explains how Card Ladder handles potentially unpaid, staged or otherwise questionable transactions, why sales initially appear as they happen, how marketplaces subsequently provide information about unpaid items, and what collectors should actually take from the green verification check marks appearing beside certain sales.

But even a verified sale doesn't answer every question. Was it truly an arm's-length transaction? Was the card an unusually strong or weak example for the grade? Was there something about the seller, provenance or bidding that made the result unusual?

That leads into a detailed discussion about Card Ladder Value and one of its most misunderstood characteristics. How can a lower-grade card have a higher estimated value than a higher-grade example? Chris explains the methodology behind CL Value, why each card and grade is treated independently, how the applicable market index is used to adjust an older sale, and why Card Ladder deliberately avoids creating a black-box algorithm that simply assumes a higher grade must always be worth more.

Eye appeal makes the problem even more complicated, particularly with vintage cards where two examples carrying the exact same numerical grade can command dramatically different prices.

David calls attention to the hobby's “dummy tax,” the price collectors and dealers can pay when they use data without understanding it. Jeremy also raises the opposite danger: knowledgeable buyers or sellers potentially weaponizing a valuation tool against someone who doesn't understand how the number was generated.

Throughout the discussion, Chris returns to one central principle: don't outsource your judgment. A comp, an estimated value, a green check mark, an asking price and a current auction are all pieces of information, but none should replace your own research and understanding of the card.

Plus, the group discusses stale comps, half grades, confidence levels, market manipulation around The National, why older sales may become more trustworthy with time, and whether there could ever be a truly “perfect” sports card valuation tool.

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Check out Card Ladder for sports card sales history, market data and research.

And pick up Jeremy Lee's book, Pops and Comps: Truths, Insights, and Psychology Behind the Numbers That Drive the Sports Card Market, available on Amazon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices