The Yak Shack Forum

OK folks, here it is! The price guide is live. The address you are looking for:

http://www.theyakshack.co.uk/tradingcards

Or you can just click the handy button that has appeared at the top of the forum next to 'home'.

You have to be registered and logged into the forum to make full use of it - you cannot get any stats on the cards if you are not logged in, or submit auctions, so if there are any lurkers out there waiting for an excuse to join up, here it is :)

Please help out and submit all the finished auctions you can find. Don't be discouraged if you find someone else has beaten you to it - that's bound to happen. Just whenever you see one end that you are watching, take a minute to track it.

There are only the two Harry Potter sets up there at the moment but we will get other sets up as time goes on. Any suggestions? I think the Trilogy set is one to look out for as soon as we can figure out how to scan them in well!!

 :ohey, this is really cool,

Awesome interface!! Top job Mark

The guide is all up to date with auctions and average prices so far for the Original Potter set (that's not to say it couldn't do with more auctions added :)), however, we are desperately in need of auctions for the update set, most of the high profile ones are in there, but I hand it over to you guys to continue this quest to make an online price guide with realistic prices for online shoppers :)

 ;D

Yes - that's ready for all the bandwidth use we are expecting - the forum bashes through it's bandwidth limit of 2 gig without adding pictures in ;) so that's why we went on to add the advertising!

Non members of the forum won't be able to see the card statistics. Only members will get the prices etc ;) although they will be tantalisingly able to see the cards :)

Let us know what you think, we'll act on as many of your comments as possible :)

Looks fantastic Roz and Mark - great job! :D

Hope Tom gets alot of business out it as well - he deserves it! :)

 ;D Fantastic!!! Thankyou very much to Roz and Mark for doing a awesome job and putting this up for us all to enjoy!

Thanks! It's really no problem.

I had gone to bed when Mark had finished programming the site so the content isn't all quite there yet!

I am currently scanning in some film cards which I have myself but I send out an appeal to redemption card owners to step forward with images of them - front and back preferably. Images should be 380 pixels wide and 270 pixels high but I can always resize them.

Thanks

What can I say?? WOW..Very Impressed!! ;D

This is alot nicer than I even imagined it, Thank you so much for your efforts Roz & Mark!

You are all gems... the inserted auctions are going up like mad!

I love you all for supporting us so much on this!

THANKS - plenty more auctions to add though folks, this is a 55 card insert set :P

Cheers to everyone who has helped so far

OK my scanners gone crazy! Weird... mad!

Actually not mine, Mark's! So currently I can't even get a hold of pictures of the different film cells, please help if you can.

And as to the arrangement of them, we should number them and I vote we number them in order of when the scenes were in the film. So can someone with a pirate copy or a good memory help me out here...

Is this the right order?

1) Knight Bus
2) Arthur Weasley and Harry talk in the Leaky Cauldron

this is where it all mingles in for me

3) Harry rides Buckbeak
4) Harry in the courtyard with Hedwig
5) Harry and Snape with the marauders map at night
6) Lupin in his office by the window

7) Hermione biffs Malfoy (you go girl)
8) Werewolf (shiver)
9) EXPECTO PATRONUM (ahem sorry - Harry casting EP)

Any ideas?

Oh and please feel free to critisize it as much as you like - any comments about how it works or what it looks like no matter how trivial will be useful as I want to make it as good as possible :)

Can you improve on PERFECT ;D ;D ;D

I've been inputting data for multiple auctions of the same item.  After I click submit, it redirects to enter more auctions.  But, I have to locate the card on the list again before I can do so.  Is there any way to default to the previous card?  Or maybe people prefer it the way it is so they can enter info for different cards?

Also, how should I handle BINs with more than one item for sale or Dutch auctions?  They have the same auction number, so each card can't be entered individually.  This came up with a dual costume auction that had three cards for sale.  I could only enter the auction number and price once, so I put the print run numbers for the cards in the description section.

Argh, I didn't think of auctions for multiple cards! Hmm... I'll work on that one...

Roz and Mark - a very BIG thank you for all the work and effort you have put in - the site looks fantastic! :) This is going to end up being an invaluable resource!

Wow and wow. That is awesome. Wonderful job guys. That site has so much information that will be so useful to people.
I am very, very impressed.
Thanks for all the work!

No probs at all Alyssa and Garage!

I know that you won't be properly impressed until there is a LOTR set in there :) and as soon as we have sorted out PoAU and ironed out any teething probs we'll get right on it :)

I put much stuff in. Many work for you now.  ;D

Fantastic price guide. That must have taken a hell of a lot of work to put together.

 ;D ;D

There have been at least 85 entries into the price guide today and they are all now verified... so guys...

BRING IT ON!


a good couple of weeks and 2 such late nights that Mark overslept and was late for work - *waves hand in dismissive gesture* pfft it was nothing  ;)

Just incredible!  Cheers to you.  Major cheers!!!

I think the price guide is brilliant, and after a few weeks of auctions from the new set, it will be amazingly useful!!!!   Two thumbs up!!!

Hooray! Everyone loves it! Well I have a few things I'm going to be improving on it...

1. I will make it so that you can check if an auction has been entered BEFORE you enter all the details for it. I don't know how many of you have been entering auctions and being told that it was already in the database, but if you get that a lot this should make things a lot easier for you :)

2. After it has been running a few weeks / months (depending on what I decide on, or what you guys think would be more useful) I will make it display graphs showing how the average price has changed over the weeks / months. Tell me which would be better - weeks or months?

Cheers!

1. Oh yes, that´s much better. That was the only thing i didn´t like. It´s a very good improvement, a very good idea to change it this way. :)

2. Very nice. :) I think a month would be better, a week is not enough in my opinion.

I too second the idea for a month, a week is too short!

GREAT JOB MARK & ROZ!!

Hi Mark. What do you think? When will this be done? Should i wait a day with new input or will it take much longer time so waiting for a day would make no sense?

I didn´t wait and have put some stuff in. :)

I've done the first part :)

I've also streamlined the card list so it isn't so hard to read. The cards are listed in the same order as on the "card list" page now and under subheadings. Let me know if this is better or worse!

It should all be error free but as usual let me know if you find anything dodgy about it.

Part 2 comes when we have a few months worth of data!

Added a convert function to the cards when you view them! If you want to see the prices in Pounds, Euros or AU$ you can select from the list and it'll bring up a Yahoo! Finance conversion for that amount. It's the best I can get for free ;)

Outstanding piece of programming Mark!   :)  Behind every great man there is a great woman - in this case Roz!!   :)

Yes it's true Roz is my 'Ghost (Website) Writer'!

How did you do it By the way, just using Microsoft access?

opps!

Un-say it Ben ... take it BACK!

No no no it's much more complicated than that. The first steps of preparation involve a mixture of milk, sugar and an extract of the cocoa plant and a cup of hot tea. These are for my benefit only, and nothing to do with the creation of the website.

Then I took a computer and sat down for days on end writing in complicated languages such as XHTML, PHP, CSS, mySQL and JavaScript.

That's pretty much it, nothing more complicated than that! None of your Microsoft do-dahs though...

Okay I think your done a fantastic job.

I only have one little nit picking thing. When you go to print the pages out like I did the other night it cuts the images off on the right had side. Would you be able to code it so it printed to fit on an a4 page.

That would be my only thing I would recommend as a possible enhancement.

Other than that I appreciate how much time and effort you have put into doing this project and us collectors will certainly use it.

Hmm good plan, we hadn't thought about printing!

Which pages particularly do you want to print because I was wondering about putting the recent average prices on the index page... that might enhance the printing off too - what do you think?

Well guys I think your HP list is brilliant.  Beautifully done.  Did you use Access?  I have a growing collection of pics on a database using excel.  But you have done a wonderful job!!  3 rousing HOOTS to ya!!!

When the first set came out I tracked the "Big 4" fairly closely - unfortunately I didn't keep auction ids or dates so I haven't included them in the database but the figures were as follows.

Granger Auto - Up to the 25th of May - Avg Price 360 - 11 cards
Sirius Auto - Up to the 6th of June - Avg Price 151 - 12 cards
Dubledore Auto  - Up to the 6th of June - Avg Price 108 -11 cards
Lupin Auto - Up to 6th of June - Avg Price 85 - 11 cards

It looks like the Lupin card is the only one to greatly increase its price up to around the 130 mark. Given that there were only between 100 - 150 of these made I thought a greater variation may have been expected. If the trend continues then the Harry, Ron and Hermonie cards will probably even out pretty quickly.

The Price Guide is Fantastic!

Seriously guys! Mark hates microsoft products a lot and would NEVER use one in a website :) It's just code - php XHTML, PHP, CSS, mySQL and JavaScript - anything he can use in notepad... nothing that requires loading anything more complicated than that ;)

thats seriously skilled, coding and you can't even see what it looks liek whilst doing it, i'd fail straight away ::)

Look I put in PHP twice... that must be a lot of PHP ;)

You'll be fine Ben you are well on your way to learning :)

U will learn, practise makes perfect. I like dreamweaver sometimes for html, but PHP just has to be done in notepad 4 me, i dont like the way dreamweaver puts a yellow little "P" in the way.

edit:
Roz, I think they mean were the prices/data saved in access??? MySql is what was used, I suppose its similar as access is the microsoft equivilent to saving data and accessing it with sql commands, but MySql is easier to combine with http servers and PHP as that is what it was made for. anyway, thats not what this post is about.

The price guide is a great idea, i like it alot.

I could put a "printable page" option... but which page was it you were having trouble printing? I'd like to try it for myself :) Cheers...

Hi,

what do you think? When will we get the changes you announced? I mean the two pages with the article number only on page one to check if the auction is just inside?

It's already in place - if you go to submit auction on the left hand side!

I'll alert Mark to the fact you do not get that screen if you initially go from the card page.

Cheers

Roz

Ahh, yes, i came always from the card page until now.

Hmm that was harder than I thought! But it's OK I've made it so it works when you click through from the card now as well :) Enjoy

Aaahh, that´s nice. :) Good work, much better now !!!

Keep us updated guys, if you have any ideas as to how to improve it more - let us know :)

It was when I went to print out the lists of the cards with the images on for both series.

Not sure how practical it is, but would it be worth including a box/case breakdown section in the price guide with a summary analysis?

Hmm doesn't sound like a bad idea actually... how would you think that would work?

What we could do is provide a tick box list of what cards are in each set and then a number box. You tick if you got one of that card in your case and then next to it say how many you got - in the case of Lupin shirts you should allow for up to 10 a case (I am kidding).

It would work fine on case by case breakdowns already posted but those lumped into "this is the contents of my 4 cases" would be a little more confusing and probably not so easy to incorporate at this stage!

I like the idea tho :) to preserve case contents lists.

It could also produce a standard output list we could then post in the case break thread if you liked...

What do you guys think ? (Mark won't answer til Sunday eve now at the earliest)

I think that is really cool and would work well - you could also hook the contents into the price guide and give the case breakdown a "value" - although given the case breakdowns people are reporting this might end up being on the depressing side.

Sounds complicated :s I will need pretty pictures and diagrams in abundancy :)

Would it be possible to add a link on the front page of the guide to a straight list of the cards and print runs?  Roz has an update list somewhere in the middle of the overview thread, but it's hard to find.

There is a link to a list of all the cards on the front page... but not the print runs.  Is that basically how many were printed?

Sorry if I wasn't clear.  By print run, I meant how many of each card was produced -- marauder's map is # out of 500, for example.

I was looking for a simple list, no pictures, with all of the cards in the set and numbers, sort of like a checklist.  If you want to do this, I could write it up for you so you don't have to go through the trouble.

Hi, I'm new to this forum. I joined to get access to the price guide, and now I'm very glad I did.  Great work! :)

Hi Eve,

WELCOME!!  ;D Im glad you are enjoying the price guide, so am I..Roz and Mark have done a fantastic job.

Dont forget to introduce yourself under 'General Discussion' there is a thread to let us know a bit about yourself!!

Trey

Thanks Eve - glad you like it!

As for the list of cards with the print run on them... well all the info is already there, isn't it? Each card has the print run listed in the info section. So in actual fact it wouldn't take me more than a few minutes to knock up a page to display that. Would anyone else find that useful? If so I'll stick a link on the main page, otherwise if it's only you, kbmum, I'll just put the link here in the forum :)

lol even me... little Miss "lives and breathes" Harry Potter cards ... would find that useful ;)

OK guys, you asked for it, you've got it. You now have a "slimmed down" printable view on the shack (see the print button in the top right-ish).

And if you look a tthe menu on the right you can see an option which will let you view a text list of all the cards with a column telling you how many of that card they made if known.

Anything else to tax my programming skills? ;)

Thanks for the text list!  :)

Hey this is a cool site. I hadn't spotted it before - all hidden away in the titles. Maybe you should have a bigger banner about it or something.

That must have taken a lot of work - not only in building it (which looks impossible. I have made sites myself but not like that) but in inputting all that data.

Can just anyone enter data or do you have to be pre-approved?

Good idea Renrutha.

:)

Now you guys have been using the site (for both entering and retrieving pricing data) for a while now what do you all think?

Any more ideas for improvement?

Our next upgrade will include -

1) Graphs showing price change over time. Although this will have to be based on some mean figure or other to avoid it looking like a seismograph

2) On the list of auctions for each card we plan to put a "u" next to unsold items or a "v" next to a variant item.

3)... is up to you!

Thanks

What is an "unsold" card?  And why would we track it?

It's a good point.

Not many are in the price guide but there are a few auctions recorded in there that didn't sell. So they obviously don't count in the calculated averages, but their auctions are in there to record that they existed (there are only a handful in I think).

I have a request.  When I first enter an auction, I use "submit auction," which allows me to paste in the number and then find out if the auction has already been submitted.  If it has, then I can enter the next number.

However, if the auction hasn't been entered, I fill out the form and submit the info.  Within a few seconds, an empty form comes up to enter another auction.  I always have to click on "submit auction" again, because I don't want to enter all of the info for the next auction, only to find out it's been done.

After entering auction info, can the default go to the page with just the auction number to enter?

I agree with kbmum.  I hate it when I've entered all of the info (including a description of the card) and then find out it's already been entered! :(  Her idea would definitely save some time!

Right - so presumably leaving it as the same card as you just entered?

I recently had an inputted auction for a whomping Willow that ended around $120... I was shocked... really shocked... til I got to the ebay page and found it was a monster book ;)

Oops, I think that was me!  Sorry about that!

Roz, can it revert to the "submit auction" page with the auction ID blank?

lol we point no fingers :) it just gave me a fright :)

I'll chat with web-xpert@work Mark and hope it can be done!

Thanks for the comments, I'll write Mark a "to do list" for when he's unpacked in his new house (it's slow going as he's only doing it in the evenings and he gets back pretty late as he cycles in the dark now  :-\

(that's like "riddles in the dark" but different ;))

No, it was me! ::)  Sorry about that Roz!!!

Really?  I could have sworn I entered a low-priced Whomping Willow.  Maybe it was a different Monster Book, then.

Sheesh, you wouldn't think we'd want to take credit for a mistake! ;D

lol

it's not like I am offering a free promo to the first person to own up (hmm but what a great idea ;)).

I am wondering about getting some way (in the price guide) to track who puts in the most auctions that month and try to get prizes going for it - because you guys are such astonishing stars :) I am not sure how to say thank you and I wonder if that would be a good way.

I do it because I think it's fun.  Maybe a contest would encourage others to enter auctions, too?

I enter them once in a while, but it is hard for me since I am at work and don't want to get caught on eBay.  

Speaking of competitions, we haven't seen any in a while.

:) We have plenty of things to give away but no time for Mark to set up the pages :(

That's okay.  I just thought they were fun.  I look forward to them when they start back up. :D

I have a minor suggestion for the price guide, for the FOTR set. Is it possible to put a listing in for the FOTR retail boxes? One ended on ebay today for $us280....

Definitely - I wrote to XgamingX to see if we could use their retail box picture - they said it had their logo inside and they couldn't find the original so that was no good.

If I can get a pic then it's no prob.

Thanks

This is the auction that ended this morning: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6147794209&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6147794209&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT). I was going to suggest you use their pic, but its a hobby box pic apparently.

I found a pic on another website (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/blackcat20/lotrfotr.jpg) its not watermarked...

Brill - I'll use that one but I think that's Hobby (no mention of stickers on the front)! I used one I found on the web... not great but it will do for the moment :)

 :-\ I dont know much about the diffs between FOTR hobby and retail, as I didnt know the cards existed back then, and haven't wanted to spend that kind of money...

They are pricey Kate, but they are lovely :) but the box price even by my standards is a little loopy :) especially when you consider you probably won't get anything in it!!!!

Nope I am not kidding. Two in three of those boxes have no autos in them, just base cards and stickers :(

To be fair $280 goes a long way towards buying one of the autos outright, well at least the Christopher Lee and Hugo Weaving ones.

So if you happen across one - DON'T OPEN IT!

Thats exactly why I havent bothered buying the boxes, its cheaper to buy the cards I want (except Legolas unfortunately, which I may never afford).  So far the only Fellowship card I have is Pippin, but Im happy with that...

:)

Well a FOTR card that in my opinion is going for a song at the moment is Aragorn, it's usually around $100 which to be honest with you is a complete steal - they were around $240 not long ago and I think I paid about $170 for the one we have :-\.

Thats a card I really want (rather than TT or ROTK), but I bought a TT Arwen last night, so Im gonna have to wait till my next pay day...plus there are a couple of cheap Galadriels around at the min...

My opinion is that if you are going to buy a TT/ROTK auto - save up or splash out and get the FOTR equivalent (if they have one). They are, as most people say, alot nicer and the quality of the sigs is MUCH better than the later sets. Thats what I am aiming for at the moment - picking up FOTR ones that are going for cheap - I've had alot of bargains that way - most not much different from TT/ROTK prices :)