A quick poll here... should I remove the "Auction History" section (which lists a sample of past sales) from item pages?

Reasons to get rid of it:

They're far from complete, and for anything less than a class-5 rarity, horribly incomplete
A pain for me to keep track of
Have no impact or relevance to item values, which are determined by the Valuation Board and which (theoretically) incorporate a much greater amount of sales
Are really just a relic of when item values used to appear in that section
Cause confusion about how values are derived

Reasons to keep the section:

A nice quick-reference on some historical sales
For people who don't like change, this is a solid step in the right direction

Comments?  More than about a 70% vote on this means the section is gone with the next update!

Foul

Hey Foul, shouldn't be too much trouble for you.  Isn't keeping those prices updated the job of the valuation board?  If they are using actual ebay completed auction values to calculate the estimated prices - then they could add in those actual prices to each section.

i agree with jeff and duke.

other than the very rare stuff, should remove the rest.

Al

I've never found its prices to have any relation to anything I've ever actually bought. The relative smallness of our hobby means we have too few examples to carry statistical weight. The data comes from auctions, the most chaotic way of generating a value known to man.

Even in the best circumstances, price guides for collectibles have a tenuous relationship to reality. A realistic use would be say a retailer using it to quickly price thousands of comics before taking a closer look at them. For collectors maybe they have incidental use as checklists or interesting snapshots of the genre. As investment guides for collectors they're about as reliable as horoscopes.

Maybe something could be done with the pages instead of throwing them away entirely? Such as listing only the amount & date of only the highest-ever sale. That would have historical value.

I voted to get rid of them.

ShaneG.

I'm fine with removing the prices (and voted to do so), but I do think we should keep the numbers for the rares ranked 4 or 5, since they do provide a quick barometer, and seeing the values gives some sense of price trending over time, which is more important than individual values in general.  

If kept, the "highest price paid" items should probably be ranked in a top 10 list somewhere, instead of tracking them where they're in the individual item entries.  Perhaps also provide some general top price categories:  TSR produced items, non-TSR produced items, original manuscripts, and original artwork.  

Perhaps also some general guidance about what the auction listing prices mean vs. what the valuation board does, with a link on each page to that info/valuation board summary, so that folks who do use the Acaeum as a price guide (and there are MANY casual sellers/gamers who do) can see the differences in the Acaeum auction listings vs. the VB price listings.  

(In any general guidance blurbs about item prices, it may also be worth pointing to the Tome of Treasures as another resource for pricing details, too).

Keep the data.  Never dump honest data.  It's how you use them that matters.

Seems it's the 4's and 5's that draw the most controversy..............

The price guide helps to legitimize the D&D collecting hobby; it is very important to keep it going.  Price guides always have critics.  It is impossible to please all the people at once.