What is the PSA definition of how compositions are formulated in a player set?

MCMLVTopps

I recently got involved in collecting a certain player's Master Topps Set. The variations are crazy!

I was wondering, what constitutes a Basic Set, a Basic Topps Set, a Master Topps Set, and a Master Set?

My guess is that the Basic Set consists of the one card per year per manufacturer, Upper Deck, Donruss, Topps, etc.
The Basic Topps Set consists of the one card per year manufactured by Topps.
The Master Topps Set consists of every Topps card manufactured by Topps, including all variations, like chrome, refractor, etc.
The Master Set consists of everything, including the kitchen sink.
All of course are only within the player's active playing years, and not beyond.

Why has PSA not allowed for a Basic Upper Deck, or Basic Fleer, etc, etc, set?
How close am I?

Why has PSA not allowed other manufacturer Basic Sets, like Upper Deck, Fleer, Score, etc, etc?

JoeBanzai

Who are you collecting?!?!?!????

There is also a Super Set!

I will try to address the Master Set part of the question;

You were close when you said "everything, including the kitchen sink", however there are sometimes curious exceptions.

Master set would include MOST cards issued for that player, that appears on during their career and one year after retirement. It also looks like on the "newer players" pre-rookie cards are sometimes included.

I collect Killebrew (no pre-rookie cards) and for some silly reason, very early on, I wanted EVERY Killebrew card/item ever issued, so I was a perfect candidate for the Super or Master set. At some point in the 1990's the card companies started issuing an insane number of Killebrew cards and after buying hundreds of "different" cards that were not really very different, I realized I couldn't get every card or afford the grading fees, so I focused on the Master set.

Master set cards can include players "regular" card (of course), League Leader cards, inserts, team cards (more on that later), other multi-player cards, coins, postcards, Team Issued photos (now up to 8x10's), other photos, (the "Manny's Baseball Land" 8x10's are in some Master sets).

Because of my insanity (?) I was able to add many (but not all) of my graded Killebrew items to the existing Killebrew Master Set and was able to actually have the #1 set for three years.

It really boils down the what PSA decides, and they don't always seem to be consistent with their decisions. Below is an example of a card they refused to allow.

Killebrew does have a "regular" card from this set in the Master set, but PSA denied this one, in part because they didn't feel it was a "Killebrew" card as it didn't have his name on it and/or wasn't issued "just for him". Obviously, I disagreed. Team cards are allowed in and most of them do not have a reference on them to the individual player.

Here is a more confusing one to me;

Even though this is obviously an item that belongs in the set, PSA denied it.

In the end, I have had a lot of fun, mixed with some frustration, in collecting Harmon's cards!

Good luck with your collection.

P.S. to address your question about why there are no Fleer, Upper Deck etc. basic sets, I assume PSA simply cannot keep up with the massive demand in what they are grading now. I would hope/assume that as things move forward and they catch up with demand, they will add these sets.