Brings back a valuation of any item, based on the myriad factors affecting that item, all of which are exposed in the Market Price Illustration tool.

[item_id] is a mandatory parameter. No results will be returned without it being specified correctly.

You can retrieve an Item ID by:

1. Using the API call to getAllItemIDs in conjunction with a machine, or
2. Using the API call to getAllItemIDsByPublisherAttribute in conjunction with a publisher ID, name or folder, or
3. Using the API call to getItemsFeaturingTracksByArtistName in conjunction with an artist name, or
4. Outside of the API entirely, just looking at the very bottom of an item's landing page (in the case of this link, Item ID 9411).

The following call, substituting 992 for [item_id]:

will return a response containing an array similar to the following:

							{
								"response":
								{
									"item_id":992,
									"show_title":"Bun Fun",
									"publisher_info":"Squirrel",
									"machine_type_group_name":"Acorn Electron",
									"format_type_info":"Cassette",
									"valuation_type":"market_price",
									"valuation_amount":"15.50"
								}
							}
							

 
The only field in the arrayed response that is likely to interest you is the valuation_amount (and possibly the valuation_type). The other key->value pairs are merely returned to confirm to you the correct item has been valued (i.e. in the example, 992 equates to the cassette (format_type_info) game Bun Fun (machine_type_group_name) for the Acorn Electron (machine_type_group_name).

For the sake of completeness, the following table shows the data types returned:

In the case of the example, the valuation_type returned is of the "market_price" of the given item and, ideally, every item would return a valuation of this type. However, the vast majority of items will return a valuation_type of "base_price". A full description of what the base price is, along with forms to generate it for specific machines and formats can be found using the Market Price Illustration tool but, in essence, it's the minimum price you would expect to pay for a format for the machine specified.

Valuations of "market_price" type are extremely reliable - they have taken into account all of the factors which you can see demonstrated using our Market Price Illustration tool. However, "market_price" valuations are not reliable. The following call, substituting 81497 for [item_id] shows a valuation for a very modern game:

will return a response containing an array similar to the following:

							{
								"response":
								{
									"item_id":81497,
									"show_title":"Michael Jackson The Experience HD",
									"publisher_info":"Ubisoft",
									"machine_type_group_name":"PlayStation Vita",
									"format_type_info":"PlayStation Vita Card",
									"valuation_type":"base_price",
									"valuation_amount":"14.50"
								}
							}
							

 
In the above example, the site has returned a valuation based on the "base price" of a PlayStation Vita Card game (i.e. the minimum you might expect to pay for a single PlayStation Vita Card game). That is because the site does not have any information to work out whether the item in question is rare, desirable and/or good/bad.

Of course, as the site grows, more items will return valuations based on market price rather than base prices.