The Drubbing

For anyone like me that still has boxes and boxes and boxes of baseball, football, basketball and soccer trading cards in their parent’s attic, hoping that the mice will leave them alone, that the moisture level will stay low, and that these cards will count as their “retirement plan” there are some tools you can use to see if you’ll be eating Ramen Noodles when you’re 75, or if you’ll be kicking it in a swank pad in Naples, Florida.

Formerly an online auction house that specialized in high-value collectibles, the start-up company CardPricer has transformed themselves into a subscription-based database of baseball trading card values. Much of the data that goes into their pricing models is gathered from Ebay. And to-date they claim to have utilized over 5 million transactions to develop their price guides.

The company offers pay as you go membership pricing, as well as six-month memberships for $45 with unlimited access to their card pricing. So the entry may be a little steep for the average Joe The Plummer that want’s to see what he can get for his Aaron Boone 2006 Topps card. But for the serious card trader trying to make some cash on Ebay, CardPricer may be the tool you’ve been looking for.

Unfortunately, CardPricer only indexes baseball cards right now.  But some of CardPricer’s competitors, including Vintage Card Prices and Beckett Media, do include cards from other sports.