Best Offer sales and hidden prices
Valuing cards. . 1 min read.
When a card sells through Best Offer, eBay shows the listed price struck through and does not publish what was actually accepted. The sale is real. The number is not the one that changed hands.
How to spot one
In a completed listing, look for the price shown with a line through it, or wording indicating the item sold via Best Offer. In a list of results these are easy to skim past, which is precisely the problem: they enter your comp set at a price nobody paid.
What to do with them
- Treat the shown figure as a ceiling, not a comp. The real price was lower by an unknown amount.
- If most of your comp set is Best Offer sales, your estimate should be a range that sits below the listed prices.
- Where you have any genuine fixed-price or auction comps, weight those far more heavily.
This is one of four listing types worth discarding before reading a price, alongside lots, wrong parallels and mismatched condition. The full filtering pass is in how to check eBay sold listings, and the method it feeds into is how to price a sports card.
Why sellers use it anyway
A high list price with offers enabled lets a seller advertise an anchor while quietly accepting less. It also keeps the public record of their sale looking strong. Understanding that motive is most of what you need to read these listings correctly.
Common questions
- Can I ask the seller what they accepted?
- You can, and some will tell you. Treat the answer as unverified: there is no record you can check and an incentive to quote high.
The full guide
How to price a sports card
The method underneath everything else on this site: find comparable sales, discard the ones that are not comparable, and read what is left.