Determining Collector/Muscle/Classic Car Value

Ok so we need to touch on sources for help us come to a decision on the value of our cars.

There are several areas.  NADA has an online collector cars section and Kelly’s Blue Book doesn’t cover cars as old as mine, at least their on-line services only goes to year 1990.

So for a “collector value” you need to turn to one of the other publications, there are many, the one I use most often is Old Cars Price Guide.  I have a copy sent to me but they have an on-line service as well.  www.oldcarspriceguide.net.

Most price guides require a selection of “condition”. errkkk……there we go again, subjective, subjective, subjective.  The Old Cars Price Guide gives you a 1 -6 rating with 1 being the top condition. In the front of the guide there is a listing of what the conditions mean and what’s required for meeting that goal.

Here is how my cars stack up.

The Mustang:

Old Cars Price guide –   1. $22,500   2. $15,750   3. $10,130  4.  $4,500  5.  $2,700   6. $900 (wow the at the drop of value)

NADA’s   Used price –  1. $17,440    2. $13,140   3. $8, 110

The Vette:

Old Cars Price guide –     1. $27,000   2. $18,900   3. $12,150  4.  $5,400  5.  $3,240   6. $1,080

NADA’s   Used price –  1. $17,350    2. $13,510   3. $8, 503

Over $20k drop in prices by condition with the Old Cars Price guide. and $5k there ’bouts with NADA’s Used price.

Couple of things are clear right up front.  There is no way my cars are going to bring Old Cars Pice Guide’s top money, either one of them,  and the Mustang is pretty close to a 2 condition and the Corvette is about the same.   I won’t say how much money I’ve spent on the cars but considering the Mustang has had a ton of “stuff'” done.  Lets just say that the 1 condition price is still under that.  (more on that later.)

The next areas are online car sales.  You can search Craig’s list and Cars.com and AutoTrader and one of my favorites Hemming’s Motor News. But the draw back of all those is that the prices are offered prices – they don’t often give you the “sold” price and the conditions are only as reliable as the sellers assessment.  Now, Hemmings Motor News does have auctions listed with in their pages and the do tell you what the selling price was and/or the top bid if they didn’t.

“Whoa..there” you say..”that’s a lot of work.”  And yup it is.  First you have to be lucky enough to see your car listed more then once…I hate to keep picking on Mr. Sears, but you just aren’t going to seem too many Mercury Cougar station wagons for sale….nor will you see too many ’70 Mustang Coupes…you just won’t.  Once you find some, and you’ll need a few so you can find the average price..errk…. but even then the actual conditions may vary.

One other way is to search on-line auctions, like Ebay. There are some companies out there that will mine the data for you and give you the sold prices.  But again you have the condition variable you have to account for.

Drop me note if you have some idea.

Next up is a “formula” for you to use for helping determine the value..oh… don’t worry it will be straight forward………..yeah..right.

Thanks for reading.

Tim