When it comes to sports cards of any type, there’s one question that is unavoidable: how much are they worth? Even collectors who aren’t in the hobby with a thought toward making a future profit find it helpful to know the book values of their important cards and sets.
The good news is that there are price guides out there that list the book values of pretty much every card ever printed. The only issue is that not all price guides are created equal, and pricing cards is kind of like doing carpentry work - you want to make sure you're using the right tool for the job.
Experienced card collectors know exactly where to look to find the card values they need, but it can be confusing for newcomers or people who don't normally have anything to do with sports cards (say, a non-collector who was given some cards by a relative) to sort everything out. If you feel like someone who falls into the latter category, this article should help point you in the right direction.
Online Price Guides
The quickest way to find book values for sports cards of all kinds is by using the online price guides provided by Beckett and Tuff Stuff - the same names behind the leading price guide magazines. Both companies offer pricing for tons of sports cards on their sites, but they don't work in exactly the same way.
Beckett.com
Beckett's sports collecting magazines are the most well known sources for card values in the industry, so it should come as no surprise that more collectors turn to their Online Price Guides (OPGs) than anywhere else on the web. Beckett offers OPGs for baseball, football, basketball, hockey, racing and golf cards.
All of the cards listed in Beckett's magazines are also in the corresponding OPG, and the prices are updated the same week a new issue of the magazine is shipped. Where the OPGs really shine is through their search feature, which makes looking up cards for a certain player, set or year much easier than paging through a magazine or book. Beckett also offers New Release Pricing for some sets that is available online before it gets in the magazines.
If this sounds too good to be free, you're right. Beckett charges monthly subscriptions to the OPGs - even to the magazine subscribers, since it considers the online pricing to be a separate service - starting at $4.99 a month per sport. You can reduce the monthly price by buying six or 12 months of the service at a time, or by buying combo subscriptions to a magazine and its corresponding OPG. New Release Pricing can also be purchased separately for as little as $1.99 a set if all you want is values for the newest products on the market.
TuffStuff.com
In contrast to Beckett, Tuff Stuff uses its online pricing section as a supplement to its magazine. The best part of Tuff Stuff's service is that it's free. Simply head over to TuffStuff.com and you'll find pricing for baseball, football, basketball and racing cards.
One big negative is that only cards not listed in the magazine are priced online. Since the latest products and the most active and popular older sets for every sport are included in the magazine each month, that means the cards in the online archives are mainly from less popular older sets. That doesn't mean it's not worth taking a look, just remember that you won't find every card Tuff Stuff prices on the site.
Two other things to consider are that the Tuff Stuff online guides are in PDF format, so your computer will need Adobe Reader (a free download) to read them, and that they have no search feature. Also, even though Tuff Stuff's prices are usually pretty close to Beckett's, many collectors don't consider any values but Beckett's to be canon, so you may run into that mindset when quoting prices from any other source.
Monthly Price Guide Magazines
A staple of the sports card hobby for years, monthly price guide magazines are still the preferred sports card pricing method for many collectors. The Beckett family of magazines and Tuff Stuff are relatively inexpensive, price all but the very latest new releases and key cards from many past sets. They also can be taken places where you don't have internet access - and yes, there are still places like that out there. As an added benefit, the articles and columns in the magazines get into more detail on why some cards are changing in value, plus a ton of other subjects related to the hobby.
Tuff Stuff and the Beckett magazines have as many differences as their websites do. To find out more, just click on the link below.
While the monthly magazines are great resources for pricing the most heavily traded cards, they do have their limitations. The annual volume of new releases for all sports has forced the publishers to make some compromises for the sake of price and length. Many sets listed in the monthlies now have prices for only a few key rookies and insert cards. If the cards you're looking for can't be found in a monthly magazine, you may need to invest in something a little more comprehensive.
