Yes, final prices from eBay. Asking price isn't a very good estimator of what an item will actually go for. Of course, it is asking price which appears on places like Maxwells site...not the final price. I'm sure you know that. I can't tell if orangemi does.
There are several other codes which can appear under the Bids field to indicate other outcomes like: -3 best offer accepted but we don't know what it is (eBay quit giving that info), -2 reserve not met, -1 for when it was BINned, 0 for when nobody bid (hence it didn't sell).
All of my usual reporting is based on restricting an analysis to bids >= 1. All of this plus all the different coding details for every field are fully documented in the Codes tab of my spreadsheet. And of course, all my data is freely available on request. You don't have to take my word for anything. You can analyze it yourself.
Naturally I'm collecting all the different stamp eras, diameters, and hats as pairs. Same for old As, and the same for 602s and Sound Creations. With the 602/Sound Creations I have a data series which started in 2006 so it is possible to examine price changes over time. And as a happy circumstance the reissue 602s came out during this time so it is possible to see how they affected used prices. And the Global Financial Crisis is in there too. :)
In addition to eBay sales (worldwide as best I can) I pick up sales on CH and DFO (at least I'm starting to be more thorough about those) but not here. I have a feeling that quite a few people would list things in several places so I'd record some of them. I also pick up some CraigsList sales via CH when people post links to a CraigsList listing. But that source is much less reliable given I'm relying on others to both notice and bother to post on it. In the case of CH and DFO I only know the asking price because I'm not party to any private negotiation by Private Message. Since prices on the forums are a bit less than eBay I don't see this as much of a problem.
My coverage isn't a perfect reflection of the total used market because I don't see things for sale in local drum shops, for example, or at vintage drum shows and the like. But I don't know anybody else who has this sort of data actually recorded and makes it freely available. It seems a worthwhile project.
