Lizard's Rant

1. Get all your sports collectibles news in one place with Collector’s Voice Subscriptions.  We pull headlines from the best independent blogs and collectibles sites on the web and deliver them to you in a daily email.  We also offer a RSS feed for those interested in subscribing with a feed reader.

2. Search results and new custom player/team pages include results from SportsLizard, Google Product Search, and eBay with their innovative new widget that allows you to browse and search eBay faster than you can on their site.

3. Unlimited use of our revamped Price Guide Tool.  Use it as much as you like for free.  The new Auto Filter makes results more accurate than ever with less effort from novice users.

4. Premium Price Guide images.  Since the Price Guide attempts to automatically filter through hundreds of thousands of collectibles to determine exactly what you’re trying to price, often times it will return similar products that aren’t quite what you want to value.  Premium accounts now have photos so you can visually ensure that the card you’re looking up is the one we’re pricing.  Hover over the thumbnails for a full-size image and then use the “Don’t Include” filter to weed out any collectibles you don’t want included.

5. Learn.  The Real Card Price Guide: Seven Simple Steps to Value any Card or Collectible article outlines a free and simple process that anyone can use to value a card or collectible using our tool, eBay, and other information readily available on the web.  Our customs section will teach you how to get involved in one of the most creative sports hobbies, while the Rant blog and new Collector’s Voice offer news and opinions that you won’t see in any magazine.

Since launching SportsLizard in 2004 there’s been a whole lot of content published.  I’d like to think most of it’s been pretty good, but there are a handful of articles and posts that I consider to be great reads for anyone who is involved in the hobby in any capacity.  I’ve added a “Best of” sidebar to the Lizard’s Rant Blog and to the new Collector’s Voice so to help new readers find these articles and old readers re-discover them.

Here’s the list:

• Pack Searching Experiment (It Should Not be this Easy)
• The Problem with Autograph Authentication
• How to Make a Custom McFarlane
• Blogs - How I Think the Card Industry Will Be Saved
• Tuff Stuff Misses the Point with Autograph Removal Article
• Proof That You Can Impact an Industry

Last week I was interviewed by Mike over at CardScape.net regarding the economy and its impact on card values.  I thought he asked a bunch of good questions on the topic.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

Does a down economy affect card values?
I think it has to. Cards are a commodity item, an unnecessary expense, and when faced with the choice of paying the bills or buying a box of cards, the bills will always win. The hobby has really evolved to rely on the collector who spends their disposable income on cards. We’re talking hundreds of dollars a month, not just a few packs here and there. Those same collectors also drive the secondary market. The ‘hot’ cards in the hobby, generally cost $50 or $100 or more. The demand is there because there’s someone willing to pay that much for a card pulled out of a pack. When those people diminish (as they likely will), values will definitely diminish as well. How much is anyone’s guess.

You can read the full interview over on CardScape.

Thanks again to Mike for the opportunity.  I’m planning on doing a full review of the CardScape software in the coming weeks.

It took a bit longer than I had hoped, but I’m happy to finally announce that the new SportsLizard.com is up and running!  There are so many new features that I’m not exactly sure where to start.  I’m planning a few more detailed posts where I’ll dive in to some of the more not-so-subtle changes, but here is an overview of what’s new:

• New design -  a cleaner, simpler, and more modern look and feel.
• Improved Price Guide -  unlimited searches for free with no account, improved accuracy with our “auto filter” feature, and item images for Premium Accounts so you are 100% sure that the card you have is the same as the one being factored into your price.
• New Collector’s Voice - the best place to read collectibles news, updated hourly with headlines from the best collectibles blogs.  Discover new sites, share articles that aren’t posted, comment on articles, and more.
• Improved Collectibles Search - easier browsing of your favorite teams/players, and search results now include results from eBay and Google Product Search.  The eBay widget is super cool, almost too cool for words.  Take a look at the LaDainian Tomlinson page for a great example.

Check out the new site if you have’t already and let me know what you think in the comments below.

Oh, and thank you to everyone who has emailed and commented over the past few months.  I tried to take everything I heard into account when building the new site.  Also - you may have noticed some prolonged site issues during the transition.  I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.  Everything should be all set now.