A Beckett's Magazine for Domain Names?

[cshel]

I realize baseball cards are not exactly analogous to domain names, but I was thinking... it would be sort of neat to have something like the Beckett's Baseball Card Magazine ( or maybe it's more analogous to a Kelly's Blue Book for cars...) anyway... something published every month with just lists and lists of domain names and their estimated or appraised value as determined by some independent group.

While this would probably be very easy to publish online on a regular basis, I think having a slick, shiny, pretty magazine format to hold and carry around would feel more authoritative to the average business person interested in perusing domain name lists. Toss in a couple relevant info articles and maybe a gossip/trend column and you have a nifty little publication.

Just a random thought.
Discuss amongst yourselves.

 

[BobDiGiTaL]

A guide wouldn't be a bad idea. But "Beckett" is more corrupt than "GoDaddy." ,sorry MR. Parsons.
I have my own guide but it is not written down anywhere, it is in my head.
I left those bickering, penny-pinching, baseball dorks in the dust when I found DNForum.com. And I've never looked back.
Anyone want to buy or trade for some cheap sports cards ?

 

[Jacksplat]

i used to own a card store and wholesale outlet before that. Now The stores contents are in storage, and have been since '91 or '92. Wanna buy some crap ?

The market is dead.. now its domains, who knows whats next when this gets a bit more saturated. Before cards i think it was stamps or coins.
There's a pattern to the cycles of each new trend.
I can't see domains flopping too hard though... there is a purpose to them other than collecting, even though the highest percentage is parked or stagnent.

Kevin.

 

[RegFee]

I think the baseball card market and the used car market change less often then the domain market does, so this would be very difficult to accomplish.

For example, katrinarelief.org was worthless before the obvious happened.

But few things happen that cause Ken Griffy Jr.'s rookie card to go up in value within a couple of days, except for maybe death.

I guess I'm not making a perfect point here, but I think many will agree that while this would be a neat little guide, it would be very very very hard to make.

btw, I kept all of my baseball cards from childhood and I'm giving them to my grandchildren when I get old. Always wished my grandpa did something like that for me, so I decided to start a tradition. It's pretty hard since I was in an eBay selling phase for about a year.

 

[DNjet]

To many variables in domains to create a published guide , but maybe if you published a "domain investing guide" and used actual history & interesting articles that would be cool , and let the advertisers in the guide (which would be domainers probably) do the work of creating the stir, most people buy Becketts to see the ads.

 

[tekz999]

Talking about beckett, I still have ALOT of old times basketball cards like Ultra, Upperdeck, "power in the key", and so forth. anyone collect basketball cards like me?

 

[Jacksplat]

I have some, all boxed up. Probably a couple thousand pounds of assorted cards. Unopened boxes, packes, sets, uncut sheets from factorys, Autographed pucks, baseballs and photos. It's insane what I have in Cards.

I had some 1987 unopened wax boxes of OhPeeChee Hockey (The Canadian Version) and my kids opend all the packs a couple of years back. I think I paid 500$ a box in 1991 or maybe 1992, cant remember exactly. I do remember selling each pack for 20$ or more before I shut down and packed up.

When the market swings again, I'm gonna dump them all to the highest bidder but it's gonna take me months to re-organize them.

Kevin.

 

[Bob]

The big reason the baseball card market died in the late 90s was because of the Internet.

I was a dealer in the mid 90s before Internet use was widespread. I used to take requests at shows get any card anybody wanted from my Internet contacts - and I could beat any other dealer's prices too. I made a lot of enemies.

Over time, I saw more and more dealers use the Internet as a tool. Then, it was not too long after that, the collectors started to use the Internet too. Once the collectors started, it was relatively simple for anybody to become a card "dealer", and that caused priced to plummet. The card manufacturers tried to sustain card value by producing limited numbers of cards. First there was the Donruss Elite inserts with 10,000 numbered cards, then there were 5000, then 2500, then 1000, then 100, then 100, then 50, then the inevitable - 1.

You could go to a show and get cards for 50% off "Book Price". Then it was 60%,then 75% off. Collectors demanded those kind of discounts because after all, they could go to the Internet and get those kind of prices.


If you were a collector of a certain player and wanted to get all of their cards (like I was), it was now impossible with all of the 1 of 1 cards. That also drove a lot of collectors out.

When I stopped collecting and being a dealer, my card collection was worth well over $100,000. I dumped a lot of it before the prices sunk even further, but I kept a fair amount of cards (I mainly collected hockey cards for myself, but dealt with all 4 sports).

On the subject, I don't think there can be a "book value" for domains. Each domain is like that 1 of 1 insert. Each domain is unique and has its own characteristics. I have MANY times over the years thought about making a "book value" for domains, but due to the uniqueness of each name, I don't think it would be possible.

DNForum member Duke does the best at this IMHO. He publishes weekly sales at DNJournal.com - which gives you a feel for the market at the moment.

-Bob