This article describes how Estimated Values are calculated for Database Items.


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The Price Guide refreshes every 24 hours


All Price Points are added manually by members of our Volunteer Squad, the system refreshes the Price Guide once every 24 hours. Depending on when during the day a Price Point was added, it may not show up in the guide for up to 24 hours. A Database Item's Estimated Value is automatically recalculated after a Price Guide refresh if the item has had new Price Points added since the prior calculation.



Price Points are weighted by age


Each Price Point falls into one of eight different time bands such as 7 Days, 30 Days, 90 Days, etc. This helps with showing trends. Price Points in more recent bands have a higher weight in the Estimated Value calculations than older ones, i.e. a $50 Price Point from four days ago contributes more to the calculation than a $40 Price Point from forty days ago.


Sometimes when a Price Point moves from its current band to the next band (like in the above example when the Price Point turns 8 days old) the band it moved out of will be empty and the Estimated Value will decrease a small amount. If the most recent Price Point is 6 days old today with an Estimated Value of $10.52 today (rounded up to $11), when the Price Point drops from the 7 days band to the 30 days band in two days, the EV would drop to $10.42 and be rounded down to $10 and show a 9% decline.


Sometimes we don't have all the potential Price Points


We might be missing an eBay or hobbyDB Price Point from the Price Guide. This could be due to one of four reasons:

  1. The Price Point has not been yet added. eBay prices are manually added by the valiant members of our Volunteer Squad (we always welcome new members, learn more here!).

  2. The Price Point was rejected automatically. We maintain a list of sellers that Squad members decided we should not include (you can find the list here).

  3. The Price Point was rejected by a Squad member while adding Price Points. Price Points can be rejected for various reasons:
    • The item sold was not in mint or near-mint condition.
    • The item sold was missing packaging or had damaged packaging.
    • The sale was for a lot containing multiple items.
    • The item sold was not genuine.
    • The listing had shill bidding or other issues calling its legitimacy into question.
    • We determined that the transaction did not really happen.

  4. The Price Point had been added but was later flagged by a member and the flag reviewer (a Champion or above on our Volunteer Squad) decided that the Price Point should be removed for one of the reasons mentioned under reason 3 above.

We keep a record of rejected Price Points so they can't be added to the Price Guide again, and we have future plans to display them on Database Items for transparency.

Note that there are certain sites, like Facebook and Amazon, whose sales we can't use as Price Points.



See a problem with a Price Point?


Please flag it so we can fix it! But please note that we need to have a good reason for removing a price. Feeling that the Estimated Value should be higher or lower than currently shown is not a valid reason to flag a Price Point. Values of collectibles go up and down over time, and our purpose is to show those changes without bias. We do that by recording every legitimate sale possible no matter the price. Flagging is a privilege and we might restrict your membership if that privilege is abused.


Due to limited resources we cannot discuss individual prices outside the Squad. All flags are reviewed by experienced Squad members and resolved as soon as possible.


Want to help? Join the Squad!


Adding and reviewing Price Points is one of the major duties of our Volunteer Squad. There are lots and lots of discussions on the private Squad Facebook group about pricing and if you would like to join we'd love to have you! Just click the Contact hobbyDB button above to get in touch.