$1000+ PSA 10 Junk Wax Commons! Will they hold their value?
mouschi
Posts: 687 ✭✭✭✭
For starters, we'll use 1986 Topps as our subject. The black portion of the card at the top can make it a bit difficult to find a PSA 10 worthy card, but since it is a junk wax era card, you have millions of shots at each card.
A fellow collector that goes by the name of jordangretzkyfan has a quest to build PSA 10 sets of all the 80s sets by busting box after box. He has documented it here and it has been a real treat to follow. Many times, it looks as though he can open an entire box, and only find 2 or 3 PSA 10 contenders on average. Could you imagine???
I decided to look into prices of a few of these cards in PSA 10 form. It's no secret that there are likely millions of these printed, but just to show you how readily available they are in raw form, check out the '86 Topps Nolan Ryan just from COMC alone:
180 of them ready to be sent to your mailbox at any given time for about a buck a pop.
The pop report of PSA 10 Ryan shows 91.
Now check out the PSA 10 sold prices ....
This isn't just for Nolan, either! (Ryno has 7 PSA 10 '86 Topps in the pop report.)
Heck, even Eric Davis!
If you think this is exclusive to 1986 Topps, think again. (This is just one of MANY examples.)
To be fair, the pop report is much, MUCH lower for these guys than Ryan, but even if these had pop reports of 1, I would have never guessed the prices would be this high. All of this research leads me to one thought:
1986 Topps will never be made again. PSA 10 cards however, will. Throughout the years, more and more PSA 10 cards will pop up.
Since there really is no "cap" to how many PSA 10 cards there will be in the future, do you think the high prices of junk wax PSA 10 cards will hold their value, increase or decrease? Will their numbers rise higher than the collectors of them, making the prices drop? Or will the higher prices spark the interest of more people, thus causing their prices to rise if the supply simply can't keep up?
What are your thoughts? I'm curious to hear what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryJ69Y58Rio
https://tanmanbaseballfan.com/2019/02/1000-psa-10-common-card-prices-will-they-hold-their-value.html
Comments
No.
Your observation is not limited to the junk wax era. Take a look at the prices on PSA 10 and tougher PSA 9 commons from the 1972 baseball set in 2011 and today. In many (possibly most) cases, prices have dropped by as much as 80%, due to 4SC inflating the populations over the last 5+ years.
Way back when the first PSA 10 '86 Ryan came on the market didn't it sell for 4 or 5 figures? And then a second one popped up and it went for a lot too. Now there's 91! Can't only see the price continue to fall. Linsanity!
Where does 4SC get all their inventory? It seems like they are printing cards the way the roll out 70s and 80s cards with new cert #s.
PC Walter Payton - Bear Down!
Holy smokes! I had no idea. That's crazy!
I would just say that the pop report will determine the values of most cards...the cards that continue to be tough to pull down a PSA 10 will continue to bring good coin...if the pop report goes flying way up in number of 10s available for a particular card, then the value will go down...once the people who wanted the card get their card, then the demand drops off greatly, and therefore the value...so if 10 years from now there are still only 2 PSA 10's of a common player from the 1986 Topps set, then it will will still bring good coin....the low population and the set registry will ensure that I believe...
Back about 12 or 13 years ago, I was going through a box of Nolan Ryan cards. I saw a 1993 Topps Finest (NON refractor) and it looked like a high grade candidate. So, I sent it in and it got a PSA 10. I thought "Oh, that might bring $100 or so". Boy, was I wrong. It was a pop 4 card at the time.
I auctioned it. It got to $100 really fast, but stayed less than $200 all week. About 30 minutes before it ended, it jumped to something like $1,200! I was stunned. In the last few seconds, It jumped to $2,200!
I don't know how many 10's there are now, but I am sure there are many. It ranges from about $230 to $700+ now.
Shane
the pop reports will continue to rise. think of how much unopened there still probably is out there. they will not hold their value. you also have to look at how many people are putting together PSA 10 junk wax era sets. if the number is less than 5 or 6, when those guys get their cards, the demand will plummet.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I think junk era PSA 10 commons will eventually be $5-$10 cards. I believe there have to be more junk era PSA 10s than PSA 9 70s cards. QC in the late 70s was way worse than the 80s and there were exponentially more of each ‘86 topps printed. Move into ‘87 or ‘88 and there are even more. Couple that with the relatively few people that have to have a PSA 10 ‘86 Thad Bosley because a PSA 9 or a raw one simply will not do and I just do not see prices staying high.
Agree. The pop reports for 1986 Topps changed a lot from the first rack case that I opened to the second one a couple years later. I checked again recently and the pops once again have changed a lot. Now there are no 0 pop 9 or higher cards.
On the other hand, after all these years there are still plenty of cards that are not near that magic 5 or 6 number where the prices will fall off.