Are Price Guides Still a Valuable Tool?When you are a collector of certain items, it is wonderful to have resources to use as research. While Terapeak is still a fantastic way to research sales history, trends and more on eBay, sometimes having a definitive guide to the items you are either collecting, buying for resale or even buying in anticipation of an escalation of worth can prove invaluable.
The problem arises when searching for information or books about a certain genre, the books may be out-dated. For example, doing a search on Amazon for Cereal Price Guide leads to a result for: Cereal Boxes and Prizes, 1960s : A Tribute and Price Guide from 1998. While this may be a decent book, it surely must be out of touch with the current market as far as value goes. But, if you were to run across a large assortment of cereal boxes, it may well be worthwhile to purchase a book to verify existence, sizes, rarities and a variety of other attributes. Even with the advances in technologies, I still see die-hard 'pickers' and sellers carrying a library of books in there vehicles while on thrifting excursions. Often very used, these price guides still maintain a wealth of knowledge more than what an eBay seller might include in a listing and certainly it is a way to gain insight into a new category or even for a field where you may very well be the expert. I'm sure that there may be unscrupulous dealers who use out-dated price guides as a way to justify a low offer on an item, when the current value is extraordinarily higher. One other hint, if the price guide is expensive and you only need it to help for a short while, you may be able to use it and then re-sell it online to recoup most of your investment!  
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
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