I have seen this pretty often where mint items are showing up in Non-mint item price points. Does anyone have insight into why this happens? When I add price points, I make sure to check if the item is indeed mint but many times, items I add are put in the not near mint catgory.
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I have noticed the same thing with almost all Pristine Auction price points recently
That is probably for pins. Here is the problem -
- Pins have packaging
- Different to other collectibles most people take them off the packaging and through it away
- The value of the pin with no packaging is the same or mostly the same as with packaging
So if the pin does not have No Packaging clicked (as it comes say in plastic cling and a backing card) and the Price Point says No Packaging it does not take the PP as Near Mint or better.
Possible solution:
- A tickbox that says Packaging not relevant for Estimated Value and then treat PPs with packaging and without the same (we could tick that box for all Pins as default)
- Keep like it is as we plan to show EVs for items in loose condition (no Packaging but other Near Mint or better) soon
Tagging @wsbudman9 as this is relevant for him as well. Opinions are valued!
That makes sense but these pins have all the packaging. And unfortunately, this is also happening for many figures. It’s just a bit odd…
Please add some examples here (with URL to the item). I am pretty sure it has to do with packaging info either for the Database Item or the Price Point.
Christian, thanks for the tag! With my comments that follow (and with apologies in advance for their length), I’ll attempt to represent the Hard Rock Cafe community’s pricing needs and what I’ve learned about accuracy and efficiency in 5.5 years of doing Hard Rock pricing here:
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Your three bullet points are spot on. The third one is key here: “The value of the pin with no packaging is the same or mostly the same as with packaging.” Many Hard Rock items on eBay are resold without any original packaging, which could have ranged from an unlabeled clear plastic bag (many years ago) to generic or even fancy backing cards or boxes (more recent times). I’ve observed repeatedly that even significantly bent backing cards or the absence of the box for originally boxed sets do not tend to affect completed sale prices. There are a few collectors who care about packaging (and actually I’m one of them where possible), but as you said, packaging presence or condition does not materially affect eBay completed auction prices.
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The status quo for the “condition” aspect of Hard Rock pricing is not in need of change. Specifically, Item Condition and Packaging Condition have defaulted to Mint for both pricing methods (Workbench and manual). This works well for two reasons. First, nearly all completed Hard Rock auctions are mint or near mint for pricing purposes. It’s rare for me to see a sold auction for a single pin that has a broken clasp or major scratching. Same goes for magnets and glassware. Second, about 98% of Hard Rock sale pricing is eBay, and about 2% is hobbyDB. We hardly ever use other sources, which seem to be where the “Not Near Mint” questions here from other categories may be coming from. So essentially I’m talking about eBay pricing only here, and essentially all of it is “Near Mint or Better,” and therefore ideally should affect item valuations without extra steps.
Bottom line: I’d prefer these “Mint” condition defaults not to change if possible (at least not for the major Hard Rock categories: Pins & Badges, Magnets, Glasses & Barware, Keychains, Tokens & Casino Chips, etc.). The condition part of pricing is currently a simple process (unlike search for the correct Hard Rock item to receive the price, which as you know is inherently challenging for several reasons, mostly having to do with Hard Rock’s lack of consistent product naming and identification over 30+ years, and which we constantly edit old catalog information to try to optimize).
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There is one aspect of pricing that recently changed that could use fixing. That aspect is the old Hard Rock Pin Catalog prices with which we seeded hobbyDB pricing when we transitioned here from the Hard Rock website at the end of 2018. When hobbyDB was revised a few months ago to break prices apart into sections (Near Mint or Better, Not Near Mint, Retail Price, etc.), something got out of whack with the prices that have Hard Rock Pin Catalog icons. Specifically, these old prices should be classified as Near Mint or Better, appear in that section of the item page, and affect the item valuation. Currently a few show up as Near Mint or Better (OK), and most now show up as Not Near Mint (IMHO not OK). So we’re not even being consistent with that. And I cannot tell whether they are affecting the item valuations at all times, as I’d contend they should continue to do, or whether they will now be excluded as Not Near Mint the next time a price gets added to the item.
Recommendation: Old Hard Rock Pin Catalog prices should be in Near Mint or Better, and they all should count toward item valuation, as they always had until a few months ago. Admittedly this matters more for the ever-shrinking number of pins from before 2019 where we do not have any other or many other “actual-factual” sales. Ideally we need to fix this presentation inconsistency and make sure they all count toward valuation. As a side note, this situation to me sounds similar to the Not Near Mint issues reported here by other curators. Maybe our definitions of exactly what is Not Near Mint need a deeper dive or double-check?
I hope these observations and suggestions are helpful as we seek to find a balance that works for all of our diverse categories on the site. Thanks again for reading all of this if you did.
The Problem with Pins is that they have some kind of packaging and Packaging is a BIG deal for some collectibles (vintage Corgi Toys, Funko POP!s etc).
But for Pins that just does not seem to be the case. Hence we need the ability on a Database Item Type and also individual Item Type to say that the packaging is not relevant for Estimated Values. We plan to do that but is not highest priority. The other reported problems are different as some Price Points in the past do not have packaging info and thus do not apply. We will fix those.