How on earth does one get a 1986 Topps Baseball card graded a 10?

JewVol

I don't think it's possible and all the 10s are fake. Hell a 9 seems like a one in a million.

jayjones82

I submitted an '86 Topps Traded Bonds recently that I was sure would grade a 9 (and possibly a 10). My grades are usually fairly consistent with what PSA assigns, but I just got the grades in and it's a 7. Wa wa waaaaa

countdouglas

I've never sent a 1986 Topps baseball card in for grading, but I have opened a crapload of product over the years. I believe it's been discussed before in other threads, but there will be different results for the same card across the spectrum of packaging options. For example, I've never seen a Clemens come out of a vending box that wasn't centered EXTREMELY high, but will usually be much bettered centered in wax or rack. I believe it is also widely accepted that your best chance of pulling cards worth grading is from rack packs, as they seem to suffer less corner damage and can be found more often with the deep black ink and better registration than in the other packaging. While you will still find gradeable specimens in the other packaging, they will more often be found with the washed out black ink or the stray streaks of ink and other PD. Also, whatever the characteristics of a certain card, it will stay pretty consistent on that card for the entire case of vending, wax, or rack, so if you find a Steve Carlton with an ugly fisheye on it, that fisheye will also be on the next 15 you pull from that product, so also varying up your sources of material is absolutely required if you're hunting for 10s.

miwlvrn

I've given up on 1986 Topps/OPC. I've subbed thousands of other items and feel like I have the hang of determining what grade to expect by now. Last time I sent in an '86 that I was confident would be a 10, it came back as an 8

GreenSneakers

Just in terms of volume, my 86 collection is right up there with others. I don’t submit them though. The investment return isn’t there - sure if you get a Sandberg or Ryan in 10 it’s a lottery ticket but like OP days it just ain’t gonna happen. And I just can’t get excited to build a registry set for a product so readily accessible. Just my view, others may differ.

softparade

I love the look of a minty 86 Topps. The 80's are a awesome design decade. There will be a yuge renaissance down the road I think. Buy that unopened product now!

rcmb3220

The number of no pop 10s and 9s have gone down dramatically the last couple years. I marked them down when I bought a rack case and I think there were at least 35 with no 10s and 6-8 with no 9s. I don’t think there are any no pop 9s left and a lot less no pop 10s. Someone has been busy. I never even sent a card in from that rack case.

trammell3

I picked up an 86 Topps vending case a few years back and stopped after about six boxes. It was very frustrating to say the least. I pulled some Ryan's out that I may submit, but there is no way they would even get a 9. I have a rack box somewhere that may bring better results. Those other vending boxes just sit, taking up space.

LarkinCollector

@trammell3 said:
I picked up an 86 Topps vending case a few years back and stopped after about six boxes. It was very frustrating to say the least. I pulled some Ryan's out that I may submit, but there is no way they would even get a 9. I have a rack box somewhere that may bring better results. Those other vending boxes just sit, taking up space.

I purchased 10 vending boxes a few years back and made it through 7 at the time. I finally got sick of looking at them recently and sorted all of them into sets while going through the other 3 also. I got less than a handful that are potentially PSA 10 worthy, but once I checked the pops and past sales I was looking at about $13 retail/card if I got lucky and PSA agreed with me. At most, I'll be subbing two Nolans out of 5k cards, hoping for 9s and buying a lottery ticket that either copy grades a 10.

waxman2745

@rcmb3220 said:
The number of no pop 10s and 9s have gone down dramatically the last couple years. I marked them down when I bought a rack case and I think there were at least 35 with no 10s and 6-8 with no 9s. I don’t think there are any no pop 9s left and a lot less no pop 10s. Someone has been busy. I never even sent a card in from that rack case.

Wow, I guess this is proof that even rack cases are not guaranteed to have sub-worthy cards.

countdouglas

I opened a vending case about 2 months ago, and had 7 boxes in there where any one of them would have been the box of a lifetime, while most of the other 17 boxes produced garbage. I put together a really nice album set. I don't claim them to all be 10s by any stretch, but they are the best of the best from this one vending case, and you can see that I pulled some really nice cards. Here are a few photos of entire pages of sequenced cards that are representative of the set I was able to assemble from that case, mostly from the spectacular specimens in the 7 aforementioned boxes.

And then every single Clemens looked similar to these

rcmb3220

@waxman2745 said:

@rcmb3220 said:
The number of no pop 10s and 9s have gone down dramatically the last couple years. I marked them down when I bought a rack case and I think there were at least 35 with no 10s and 6-8 with no 9s. I don’t think there are any no pop 9s left and a lot less no pop 10s. Someone has been busy. I never even sent a card in from that rack case.

Wow, I guess this is proof that even rack cases are not guaranteed to have sub-worthy cards.

They are tough for sure but I wasn’t going to send in a card that would sell for 15 or less. I had a generous pile of about 30 cards, but nothing worth sending in. I’m sure some were 10s.

Another thing to add is that I’ve never been enamored with the 10s I’ve owned from this set.

GreenSneakers

Every time I see Fred Lynn in an Orioles uniform I get a pit in my stomach.

If Lynn never leaves Fenway, he’s a hall of famer. (intentional Friday afternoon hijack stir the pot comment).

lawyer05

i believe i have the 1986 berenguer psa 10 i will check

lawyer05

@countdouglas said:
I opened a vending case about 2 months ago, and had 7 boxes in there where any one of them would have been the box of a lifetime, while most of the other 17 boxes produced garbage. I put together a really nice album set. I don't claim them to all be 10s by any stretch, but they are the best of the best from this one vending case, and you can see that I pulled some really nice cards. Here are a few photos of entire pages of sequenced cards that are representative of the set I was able to assemble from that case, mostly from the spectacular specimens in the 7 aforementioned boxes.

And then every single Clemens looked similar to these

cards look really good, i would have put them in card savers

countdouglas

@lawyer05 said:

cards look really good, i would have put them in card savers

I personally detest cardsavers for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is their extra lip of useless plastic. I know I'm in the minority.

All of my mint+ raw sets go into ultra pro platinum 9 pocket pages and BCW albums. It's just a personal preference. I like to actually interact with my collection, and get the sets out to flip through quite often. Individual sleeves or toploaders or cardsavers stacked in a box are just too cumbersome.

SOM

Those are fantastic looking cards, count!

softparade

What’s a BCW album? I use cheap binders lol

countdouglas

BCW is just a competitor of Ultra Pro. Both sell supplies, including their own lines of pages and albums. I just prefer the BCW branded albums, but with the ultra pro platinum pages, so it's a bit odd, I guess, but it's what I prefer. Kind of like if you wear Nike swoosh socks with Adidas shoes.

countdouglas

@SOM said:
Those are fantastic looking cards, count!

Thanks! There were some vending boxes with just unbelievably stunning cards inside with crisp corners, perfect centering, and a full ink printing. As many can attest, often vending boxes are full of dinged up, dull garbage.

There were several cards that showed up throughout the case consistently OC or with a repeating print defect that caused me to reject them from the set I assembled, but at last 95 percent of this set was from this most recently opened vending case, with the rest pulled from my vast stock over the years accumulated from a mix of vending, rack, and wax to complete.

I just pulled a few pages for pics to give a representation of what is possible with this set. I don't know how many would really be "10s", as the OP brings up, but they look pretty good in hand individually, and just fantastic assembled all together with their various colors in the ultra pro pages.

The 86s were a set that I didn't really care for too much upon release, and the lack of "hot" cards hurt its standing with me for many years, but I've come to really appreciate the look of a well centered 86 with the proper ink application.

fiveniner

I have loads of 86 Topps and in my judgement I would say some would grade a 10 However it’s a pretty risky submission if it comes back lower than a 10 hi high is usually the case.I plan on sending a couple in soon with my free submission.

GoDodgersFan

1986 Topps is underrated. Those black borders make grading mission impossible. Love to put together a PSA 10 Dodgers team set down the road.

ahopkins

@GoDodgersFan said:
1986 Topps is underrated.

Agree 1000%

ldferg

@JewVol said:
I don't think it's possible and all the 10s are fake. Hell a 9 seems like a one in a million.

I've pulled a few 10s, but my rate is less than 2%. Here are the last one's I've had pop, received last month:

NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 20 Lou Whitaker
MINT 9 1986 Topps 27 Ray Knight
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 28 Eric Davis
MINT 9 1986 Topps 70 Dave Winfield
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 73 Randy O'Neal
MINT 9 1986 Topps 99 Buddy Biancalana
MINT 9 1986 Topps 144 Doug Sisk
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 144 Doug Sisk
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 175 Steve Sax
GEM MINT 10 1986 Topps 202 Dwight Gooden
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 210 Calvin Schiraldi
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 290 Carlton Fisk
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 290 Carlton Fisk
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 301 Dennis Rasmussen
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 340 Cal Ripken Jr.
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 379 Bobby Meacham
MINT 9 1986 Topps 405 Roger Maris Turn Back the Clock
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 411 Sparky Anderson
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 411 Sparky Anderson
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 446 Lenn Sakata
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 461 Walt Terrell
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 500 Rickey Henderson
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 500 Rickey Henderson
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 538 Dennis Eckersley
MINT 9 1986 Topps 630 Fernando Valenzuela
MINT 9 1986 Topps 654 Ken Howell
MINT 9 1986 Topps 670 Willie Hernandez
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 690 Ryne Sandberg
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 690 Ryne Sandberg
MINT 9 1986 Topps 708 Gary Carter
MINT 9 1986 Topps 709 Dwight Gooden
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Topps 780 Robin Yount

GoDodgersFan

GEM MINT 10 1986 Topps 202 Dwight Gooden. Nice!

Those 8s are probably the nicest 8s you will ever see.