Something I've Never Shared Here: How to Use the Market Movers' "Deals" Tool
Full transparency, I have found a couple of actual deals by using it, but I’m often left frustrated. If one were to spend time with it, though, you might be able to uncover some steals. Here is how.
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This is not buying or investment advice. I’m simply reporting the data I’m seeing. Please do your own research and make your own decisions. Just because cards have increased in value up to this point, it doesn’t mean they will continue to do so.
I speak highly of Market Movers a TON, but one of the platform’s tools I don’t talk about often if at all is their “deals” tool.
In full transparency, I have found a couple of actual deals by using this tool, but I’m often left frustrated. If one were to spend time with it, though, you might be able to uncover some steals.
I’ll run through how to use the tool and some examples, and if you wan’t to follow along, you can grab a free trial to Market Movers with code BALLCARDGENIUS.
You’d also get 20% off of your membership forever if you wanted to continue once your trial has been completed. These tools aren’t perfect; no tool is. I’ve seen instances where a graded card was being included in the raw numbers, which might cause a huge spike in value. So trust, but verify.
Market Movers Deals Tool
Ok, so what this “deals” tool does is basically compare a card’s last sale with what that same card is currently listed for on eBay and other platforms.
The tool has all of the typical filtering options: sport, player, set, etc. You can also filter buy sales prices, grade, and threshold—that is, anything form 10% to 50% below a card’s last sale.
If I were to simply plug-in football, baseball, and basketball, this Joe Burrow Red Ice is the top deal listed:
The card is listed on Fanatics Collect (far left), and the two pictures provides a comparison between the card Market Movers is referencing in their catalog and the card for sale.
You then have the price you can buy the card at ($70), the last sale amount and date ($140, 1/8/25), the dollar difference between the sales price and last sale price, the percentage difference, and whether or not the seller accepts offers.
Pretty simple and straightforward.
If you click the link to “Fanatics Collect” on this one, you can see the current sales listing.
Funnily enough, this one sold by the time I accessed the deal and wrote this post. So, perhaps it was a great deal!
You can click into the Market Movers data to confirm that last $140 sale, which is a must IMO, and you can also see if that $140 was an anomaly or the going rate.
Below we can see the last few sales of that card have been $140, $140, and $120, so the $70 price tag is appealing:
Pretty cool, right?
Let’s take a look at the next deal to see where things can get squirrely.
Wrong Card Altogether
The second deal presented is this Spencer Steer Gold Auto /50. In this case, you don’t even need to click into the listing to figure out what is wrong.
While the card for sale at $60 is the 2023 Topps Chrome Black Autographs Gold Refractor Spencer Steer RC Auto /50, the Market Movers card data it’s being compared to is Steer’s 2023 Topps Chrome rookie Auto Gold Refractor /50.
While they are both gold autos /50, this is not the same card. Not even close.
No Grading Qualifier
The third “deal” on the list is this 1961 Sandy Koufax PSA 7 being sold on eBay, and if you’re not careful, this one is ripe for a purchase mistake.
It’s tough to see from the image above, but while the card being sold is a PSA 7, it’s actually a PSA 7 (ST). This “ST” is one of many qualifiers PSA uses to say yes, it’s in PSA 7 shape in terms of its centering, corners, etc. but it also has significant staining issues.
Just from that explanation, you can figure out why comparing a PSA 7 to a PSA 7 ST isn’t exactly apples to apples.
According to the eBay research tool the last 1961 Topps Koufax PSA 7 ST that sold was in March for $149.06.
Not bad, but not at all a deal when compared to the $200 listing.
Stale Data
This one isn’t Market Movers’ fault, but something you need to be mindful of. The next “deal” according to the tool is this 2018 Optic Anfernee Simons.
The card last sold for $650, but that was back in 2022!
Simons is a fine player, but the market has surely changed, making that comp somewhat irrelevant, and not something you can compare the current $330 listing to.
Last, is this a Deal?
Last example. I thought we were going to have a situation where a card being sold at Best Offer on eBay was being reported at its listed price and not the actual accepted offer sold price, but it seems to check out.
So, is this a deal?
According to the last reported sale of $339, it could be.
What gives me pause, though is that the sale before that was $125 and the one before that was $169. There is a current listing at $899.99 with one watcher, but not sure that means much.
At $193.05 to have this purchased and shipped, I’m afraid the worst-case scenario could have this card selling for much less, which means I’m out. But, the best-case scenario does provide the upside for those who like to roll the dice.
All in all, you can see where this tool can be useful, and where it can be tricky. Have you had any luck with it?