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MHCC 1968 Topps Baseball Set 572/598 PSA-10s…
mintonlypls
Posts: 1,741 ✭✭✭✭✭
Sold for a record $1.4 million! I think it exceeds many expectations on sale price. It is further evidence that the sports card market is strong and a viable option for investors.
It is quite a feat for a collector to assemble such a set with 95% of cards in a PSA-10 and he or she was rewarded very well financially…
mint_only_pls
3
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Mantle or ryan in psa 10?
mantle was a 10 and the ryan was a 9
I noticed several I'd done early, minimal bids never made the reserve and didn't sell too. Congrats to that owner.
And some people claim the registry is dying. Impressive result to say the least.
Ok this won't be popular but I say this with peace and love.....
I'm not sure the take away is that the registry is thriving, or that Sports Cards are an amazing investment. Both may be true but I can post endless high profile vintage cards that are well off ATH's and on the modern side, 60-90% off highs. And how many are still building late 70s, 80s and 90s sets with the prices of wax and grading fee? A self subbed 82 Topps BB set would cost 15-20K to complete ffs. See almost zero posts on folks building full graded sets anymore.
Not trying to be a party pooper but I keep seeing these posts about some huge outlier card being sold, folks declare market is strong, I check PSA realized prices and......98% of stuff is still dropping and is a mile off ATH's. Just feels to me like folks that are fully invested trying to pump.
Related, I see PWCC no longer posts their indexes, at least publicly and hasn't since Aug 2022. Just looked at cards 99 and 98 in that index, quick eyeball about 60% off highs. Market is weak, we are very clearly on the way back to pre-pandemic pricing (adjusted for inflation) no matter what some grail sells for.
I think the registry is dying because it is not cost effective to get the lower priced cards graded anymore and the PSA grading standards is different from what it used to be even though PSA would deny that.
Congratulations to the seller............
Okay, the registry may be dying for 1989 Donruss graded sets but those were never a big thing on the registry anyway. You had a few people who built complete or near complete sets and then a bunch of people below 20% completion. Not every card from every year is an investment. If there are 100,000 mint 1987 Topps Barry Bonds cards out there, the market for graded copies will be weak.
Many people, including myself, are still buying graded cards to fill in vintage sets. One could say the registry is dying if a 1967 PSA 9 Duke Sims sells for $75 instead of $900+ like it did last week.
With or without the registry - people who can afford it want the best. Was surprised (and to me it should be that way) that the set sold for more than the sum of its parts.
PSA 10's is/are the new registry in my opinion.
Do you mean because so many 9s are no longer worth the cost of grading?
When I went to bed on the closing night of the MHCC auction...the price of the cumulative individual cards in the set was neck-to-neck with the cost of the set as a whole with both around 1 million dollars...telling me that high end cards (in this case PSA-10s), but in general, high end vintage cards (PSA-8.5 and higher) from the 1960s and earlier (my definition for vintage as well as high end) are in high demand by collectors/investors. As collectors/investors know...for a given grade, no two cards have the same eye appeal (grading is too subjective and the scale not fine enough nor practically so to differentiate between cards so close in grade). Exceptional cards for the assigned grade with outstanding eye appeal will hold its value or continue to appreciate in value. JMHO
Exactly. But more than that, even cards worth hundreds of dollars in a 10 might not get back a profit if you want to sell.
I just pulled 2 Puckett rookies that are somewhat off center and have a couple of print spots. Not worth grading.
These are the type of cards PSA won't be catering to. They have too much volume to drop prices down to where people can profit from grading off center Puckett rookies. Greg Morris has mint, centered Puckett rookies auctioning almost every day. Those aren't as bad as 1989 Donruss Don Mattingly's but it's not far behind. I'm hoping fees will get down to $10 so I can grade some of my 60s and early 70s commons to fill in and upgrade my sets. But those fee levels still won't support the type of cards you're referring to. You'd need $4-$5 rates to turn a profit and those were history a decade ago.
There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 Pucketts (assuming you mean 1985 Topps 536) graded 8-10. I assume that there are at least ten times that many opened (not hiding in packs) in those conditions that haven't been graded largely for economic reasons (not worth grading unless there is at least a 60-95% chance of a 10). So why would an investor be happy with a Puckett like yours that's likely not within the top 100,000 known? I mean O/C printdotted 1985 Topps just aren't all that attractive, and I assume that as far as purchasing is concerned, 8-10 graded Pucketts are effectively unlimited. I mean according to PSA, 36 sold last month. Not all in those grades, but enough that there is virtually no waiting for one to come along. This is not a card that one should have to settle for.
In no way picking on Puckett, or 1985 Topps. This holds through for virtually every "desirable" card throughout the decade. 1981 Topps Glenn Adams is different, but nobody but extreme specialists really cares (last 8 sold 8/13/2021 for a whopping $6.50, but a 10 would be huge).
Man, if they'd get down to $10 I'd send in a ton of 70s that aren't 10s but should be 7-9. I'd love to slab them all, but at this rate will probably just wholesale them down the road. A total shame.
My brother has started putting cards like that into other companies' slabs. He gets them graded for super-cheap, they're slabbed/protected and then he turns around and still makes a profit selling them. PSA has just ceded that entire market to other companies. I'm sure they have a lot of research to back up that decision.
Again with the outliers. A 1967 Duke Sims is not indicative of anything, its a pop 20 and ones in nice NM condition will always be subbed. A 67 Duke Sims sold for 538 in 2016. Adjusting for the insane hobby inflation we've seen, and the fact the card hasn't sold in 4 years, I'm not even sure 900 is a huge sale.
I can't be the only one that remembers people building 80s Topps baseball sets, the guy building the 89 Topps HKY set, all the guys collecting and building 77/78/79 sets, the 75 mini sets being built. I think this is where the registry has likely fallen off - wax is crazy expensive and if you can find some, grading will cost you a bundle, and your 9 and 10sa and now 8s and 9s. I can't see how the registry COULD be thriving?
Yes I think collecting 80s sets in graded form will be a huge uphill challenge going forward. You don't have 4SC pumping out 10s of those cards anymore. I'll repeat what I said earlier. 80s graded sets were never central to the set registry. They were the outlier where you'd have a few people building the sets with most of the listed sets being very far from completion.
Take 1985 as an example. A popular year from the 80s with star rookie power. Only two active sets are complete. Once you get past the top 5, the sets are a quarter complete or less.
Current Finest
Rank Set Name % Complete GPA Weighted GPA with Top
Pop Bonuses Set Rating User
1 Sprigle Family Collection - 1985 Topps Baseball 2022 UPDATED 100.00% 9.93 10.89 10.89
2 1985 Topps Baseball 100.00% 9.88 10.79 10.79
3 Porkchopper4's 1985 Topps Collection 89.52% 9.77 10.55 9.46
4 E3 Sports 47.35% 9.58 10.17 4.74
5 Toadman's 1985 Topps 37.25% 9.68 10.39 3.97
6 Porkchopper4's 1985 Topps Collection - Part 2 28.41% 9.03 9.05 2.56
7 bens4778 UPDATED 24.75% 9.73 10.46 2.56
8 noccolo 18.94% 9.64 10.47 2.07
9 TGF Collection 19.82% 9.18 9.38 1.98
10 EM's 1985 set 16.67% 9.99 10.97 1.85
11 ToppsOPC: 1985 TOPPS BB Set 15.91% 10.00 11.00 1.72
12 Member45452's 1985 Topps Set 15.66% 10.00 11.00 1.69
13 Coach Hill's Cards 17.93% 9.10 9.21 1.67
14 Voorhees '85 12.88% 9.27 9.57 1.26
15 CardHappy 13.64% 8.82 8.83 1.20
16 asf0800 9.47% 10.00 11.00 1.04
17 Michael W. Moore 8.21% 9.81 10.62 0.98
18 VaRedsFan 8.71% 8.52 8.57 0.87
19 PSA’ing the ‘85 Topps 8.71% 8.89 8.97 0.81
20 '85 Topps PSA 10-9-8 4.55% 9.52 10.05 0.61
I can say I am still actively building my 76 set. It is difficult with the current fees for grading, but if you have a good eye it's still cheaper to self submit if you can't find a flaw in the cards upon deep inspection under magnification. That is for commons, for stars you can still sub them in if they look like a 9 to you and be fine if they only 8. My last sub was nothing but 76 and 77, mostly commons, and I probably received back 2x the value in cards than if I were to buy them already graded. Of course that doesn't count my time, but if you are worried about that are you truly a collector ? I enjoy the hunt for gem mint 10's.
Jeff
Collecting:
post world war II HOF rookie
76 topps gem mint 10 commons 9 stars
Arenado purple refractors(Rockies) Red (Cardinals)
successful deals with Keevan, Grote15, 1954, mbogoman
I'm also a set registry collector but aside from my 75 mini set, I move towards completion at a snail's pace adding a few cards here and there over the years and that's fine with me. I do miss ripping and subbing with greater frequency as both activities now cost a lot more than they did 10-15 years ago. I'd like to see an $8 set registry special rate from time to time...we have seen lower prices recently so perhaps that is a possibility at some point.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
I hope the pricing continues to come down. I honestly do not mind waiting a year if I know that from the jump and I can get a decent pricing from a grading special.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
I have completely stopped submitting. The combination of it being more difficult to find gradeable commons in the wild and higher grading fees has me sitting out, probably permanently.
And the fact the graders are blind
Gen> @PaulMaul said:
Same, and will add that newer certs tend to be under-graded. So the real value for me is buying cards already graded. Card below would have had a good shot at a 9 few years ago, gets graded an 8, and I buy it for what is essentially grading fees and return shipping. You'd need to rip 5-10 boxes to get one this nice @ 500 a pop. Numbers just don't work,