Values

Where a Value Comes From

An item's value is worked out from real sales. Nobody types in a price for it.

• Our pricing team records sales they find on marketplaces such as eBay's sold listings.
• Items members mark as sold on their For Sale page also count. That feed is anonymous: nobody can tell who sold what, to whom, or from which account. A sale on eBay counts once its eBay item number is added, so the same sale found on eBay isn't counted twice.
• The value is the typical (middle) price of recent sales, with buy-it-now prices counting the most, then best offers, then auctions. Newer sales count more than older ones, and sales over a year old drop out.

Because it's built from what things actually sold for, a value is a guide to what the market has paid, not a promise of what you'd get.

Two fallbacks keep an item from showing no value at all:

• Old sales: if an item hasn't sold for a while, it keeps its last known value, the value as it stood at its last sale. It shows with the red Stale light, so you know it's not recent.
• Sealed or Mint: the value comes from Mint sales once there are 3 of them; until then, from Sealed sales if there are 3 of those (labelled Sealed). With fewer than 3 of each, it uses what there is and says it's a rough guide. On the chart, Sealed sales are gold dots.
• No sales yet: a new item with no sales shows its retail price (where we have one), marked Retail, until real sales come in, as long as it's still sold at retail.
• "At least" values: when an item has no Mint sales yet but copies in worse condition have sold, a Mint copy should be worth at least the best of those. That's shown as "At least $47.00" (or "$47.00+" on cards), marked Estimated, when it's more than the retail price or the item isn't sold at retail anymore. The first Mint sale replaces it. The retail price itself is listed under Details on the item page: in your own currency first (converted at today's rate and marked ≈ if we only have it in another currency), then any other currencies your plan shows. Visitors who aren't logged in see it in US dollars.
• Signed editions with no sales yet: an autographed or remarqued item that hasn't sold yet is valued as a signed estimate: the matching unsigned version's value (same exclusive, sticker and traits, or the closest one) plus what each signer (and remarque artist) charges in person, from Celebrity Pricing. It's marked Signed estimate, the item page shows the math, and the first real sale takes over. When nobody on it has a going rate yet, its retail price (if any) is used instead.
• What's on the signature: sales of a signed edition say whether the autograph has a quote, the character's name, a personalization ("To Sam") or a doodle, and whether it's authenticated. Each is valued on its own: the item page shows the plain autograph's values by condition (these make the headline value), and a separate With Extras or Authentication table for the rest. If your copy's autograph details say it has a quote (say), it's worth the "Mint · With Quote" value when the catalog has one, and its page says "Value for this signature".

The Freshness Light

A small colored light next to a value shows how recent the evidence is.

• Current (green): a recent sale, or our team checked recently.
• Aging (yellow): the latest sale is a few months old.
• Stale (red): nothing recent. Treat the number with more caution.
• No Sales (grey): nothing has been recorded, so there's no value yet.

A ✓ means our team looked for newer sales and found none; the value stays the same, but you know it was checked and when. The exact day cutoffs are settings the site can adjust.

Condition Matters

The headline value is for items in top condition (Mint, to start). For items sold in a box, the worse of the box and the item counts, so a mint figure in a crushed box is valued as a crushed box. Items taken Out of Box, loose items and graded items are valued in their own groups and are never mixed with the standard ones; graded items are grouped by grading company and grade.

On plans that include it, the item page's By Condition table shows a value for every group that has sales. That's the one to look at when your copy isn't mint.

Currencies

• Values are shown in your own currency (US dollars when you aren't signed in).
• On a set or blind box page, each piece in the Includes or Possible Figures list shows its own value in your currency, with its freshness light (hover for what it's based on). A piece listed more than once shows the value of one.
• Where there are enough sales in your currency, the value is built from them. Where there aren't, it's the US dollar value converted at the day's exchange rate, and the page says so.
• Some plans can also see the value in other currencies, from sales in those currencies. Vinyl members choose which on My Profile under Preferences, in Value Currencies; Acrylic members can pick any currency the item has sold in. Pick one from the menu at the top of the item's Value & Sales card and everything in the card switches to it.

Values in Your Collection

• Each copy is worth the item's value; an entry with several copies is worth that times the quantity.
• On any item's page, the Your Copy card under the photos shows how your copies are doing: their condition, their Total Cost (what you paid plus any autograph costs, the same as Total Acquisition Cost on the copy's own page), what they're worth now and the gain or loss. If the item is also (or only) on your wish list, an On Your Wish List card shows your target price against the current value, and says so when the value is at or under your target.
• My Collection shows an Estimated Value card, and, if your plan includes Total Spent, how it compares with what you paid. The Dashboard shows the same figure and your Top 10 by value: By Value (Single Item) ranks by what one piece is worth (shown "each" when you have several), By Value (Multi Item) by all your copies of it together.
• The catalog can sort by value, the wish list shows each item's value beside your target price, and the CSV downloads include value columns.
• Items with no value yet aren't counted in totals.

Setting Your Own Value

If your copy is signed, rare, graded, or otherwise not what the catalog value describes, plans that include it let you set your own value on the entry's page: Set My Own Value. It replaces the catalog value for that entry only, shows with a * in lists, and never affects the catalog's value for anyone else. Use Catalog Value puts it back. A signed copy also gets a Signed Estimate on plans that include it; see Autographs and Remarques.

Sales History and the Value Chart

Market Insights

On plans that include it, the Market Insights link on an item's Value & Sales card (or Market Insights in the menu) opens that item's market page:

• Recent Sales: the last N sales or the sales in the last N days, for one condition (or all), one currency and one sale type: how many, the average, median, low and high, and how the average compares with the period before.
• Buy: what buying at a price really costs, with shipping and your sales tax (set your rate on My Profile > Selling, or right there with Save as My Rate).
• Sell: what you'd net selling at a price on a marketplace, after its fees (including your own fee settings) and the shipping label, with your profit against what you paid if you own one. Type an amount under Price needed to net to work backwards, and it also shows the price to break even.
• Confidence: High, Medium or Low, from how many sales there are and how much their prices vary.
• Sales Over Time: every sale as a dot, colored by condition; the ones in your period are larger.
• Condition & Graded Premiums: each condition's value against the standard value.
• Across Currencies: the value in each currency it has sold in, converted to compare.
• Signed Premium: what its signed or remarqued versions are worth against it (or, for a signed edition, against the unsigned one).
• Value vs. Retail: how far the value has moved from the retail price.
• The Sales, Bought and Sold: each sale with what the buyer paid all in and what the seller netted.

Plans with the Market Insights extras also get:

• My Collection (on the Market Insights page itself): your Gainers & Losers (each piece's value now against what you paid), Worth Selling Now (what you'd make on each copy selling at today's value on a marketplace you pick, after fees and the label, for pieces whose value comes from enough recent sales) and all your price alerts, with a Download CSV of the lot.
• Price alerts: on an item's Market Insights page, ask to be emailed when its value goes above or drops below an amount. It's checked as soon as the value changes (and every half hour); you get one email, then the alert switches off until you switch it on again.
• Download Sales CSV on an item's page: its sales (as filtered) with the Buy and Sell figures.

Everything about an item's value is in its Value & Sales card, under the Details and Attributes. When you're signed in it also lists the sales behind the value, newest first: the date, the price for one copy (without shipping), the kind of sale and where it sold. Sales from members' For Sale pages just say "Member sale".

• The card shows one currency at a time, chosen from the menu at its top (on plans with more than one currency).
• On plans that include the condition breakdown, each sale also shows its condition group, such as Mint, Out of Box or a graded grade.
• Sales too old to count toward the value are greyed out. Sales our team left out as wrong-looking aren't listed.
• Value Over Time (Vinyl and Acrylic): a chart with a line for the value month by month and a dot for each sale. Where the line is dashed, there were only a few sales that month, so treat it as a rough guide. Filled dots are top-condition sales; hollow ones are other conditions. Hover a dot to see the sale. Switch between the last 12 months and all time. It needs at least 3 sales in the chosen currency.

When There Is No Value

No value means no sales have been recorded for that item yet; newer and rarer items often have none. Our pricing team works on the items members own and want most first. There's nothing you need to do, though items you've sold on the For Sale page help the next person.

See Plans and Limits for which value features each plan includes.