1980 Topps Baseball

brucemo

Is there any demand for this graded? I saw a box of about a thousand of these today, and they were stunning. The cards were commons, but they were almost all dead mint.

bruce

Vargha

Not from the looks of the eBay listings.

Kurt

I feel that there is in 9 & 10 enough to warrant sending them in for $5.

Alot of them would be "low pop" at least for now. The 1 of 1 seem to average about $20-$25.

1 of 1

Another

Vargha

Talk about a fool's paradise -- being the owner of Pop. 1 cards from the 1980's. Not because they are so rare in that condition, but because nobody has submitted them. If people will pay that much for Biff Pocoroba, then I say "Go for it!"

pinhigh

I don't think there is much of a market for these cards yet. Though there are quite a few set collectors attempting to build this set graded and I don't want to speak for these collectors, but it is my belief that they are submitting these cards themselves. mcastaldi would probably be able to tell you better than anyone, as he is involved with this set.

mcastaldi

pinhigh> I am indeed building the 1980 set. It's not a high priority to me right now, but I am working on it. Right now I have 200-300 submittable cards just sitting around. I'm in no rush to submit these because with a phone call I can have a vending box of 80T in my hand the next day. I'm more deeply involved in the 75 and 78 sets right now.

I think there is a market, but as Vargha alluded to people are paying stupid money for "1 of 1" cards - as if they think there won't be any more of them, much less many more of them. These morons drive the price up artifically because they don't have a true sense of what they're really worth. So the smart money says just to wait. Eventually I'll start submitting some of these.

Vargha> Your point is also valid for sets say 1975 and newer. Check out 1843109756. Sure this is a "1 of 1" - today. What about 6 months from now? A year? Looking at the scan, this Tidrow is not even a solid 9. Look at the black print bogeys right under the "Yankees". And the green border seems to have some minor light-colored 'ink clouds'. I'd put my PSA8 example against this 9 any day of the week.

Mike

helionaut

There were 3 1980 10s listed about a month or so ago. A George Brett sold for $350, and a Joe Morgan and Dale Murphy went for $250 each, IIRC. Tidy little profit there, but I would guess 10s are just as hard to come by with 1980s as with any other set of the era.

Kurt

I agree 1 of 1 is a stupid thing to chase for modern card collectors. That 2nd 9 will show up somehow. And a 3rd, 4th, and so on.

Some people have that NOW, NOW, NOW attitude and it goes into everything. Take Playstation 2?? I got 7 of them at $299 the day it was released. Was I wrong to sell them online for an average of $1250 each??? Just wait a little and it's $199 in stores everywhere now. I enjoy making money out of thin air like that.

Suddenly this worthless $0.25 common card will bring you $25, $50, $100 and beyond....

Sportscards work pretty much the same if you ask me.

mikeschmidt

1980 used to be the second toughest year from 1970 - 1980 Topps to get 10's in. That has changed, perhaps, with more 10s. But a Pete Rose 10 once sold for well over $1,000.

Hendersons have also sold for five figures on multiples occassions.

mcastaldi

Schmidt> I'm not yet convinced PSA10s are any tougher for 1980 than any other year. There just hasn't been very much submitted. When we reach the 10k to 15k submission mark (excluding Henderson rookies), then we'll have a better picture of whether they're really tough or not. While the PSA10 Rose did sell for $1100, that certainly doesn't mean it's worth that. I spoke to that seller shortly after that sale and the card went to someone who collects PSA10s.

The market for PSA9 and PSA10 Henderson RC is a little more fleshed out simply because so many of them have been submitted.

Helionaut> The dealer who sold those 1980T PSA10s you mentioned offered them to me privately before putting them up. He was asking nearly double what they eventually fetched on eBay. Needless to say, I politely declined.

Mike

69topps8

<If people will pay that much for Biff Pocoroba, then I say "Go for it!" >

That buyer really biff'ed on that purchase!

PlayBall

I know nothing about the 1980 Topps set, but I am a collector of 1981 Topps. Occasionally I spend too much for a high grade example, but as low pop 80's graded cards are overpaid for, what's to say that the first graded set won't be overpaid for also?

Out of 800 cards I just opened I have about 12 submittable cards. The cards may be cheap, but they're still tough (Centering, print marks, coloring).

Remember......."Today's modern is tomorrow's vintage".

Bernie

brucemo

I bought the box, and I'm going to send some of this stuff in and see what happens. The cards came out of packs and most of them are pretty good.

bruce

49erfaithful

Bruce, what did you pay?

brucemo

What I paid doesn't matter, since the stuff is either worthless or worth a lot.

I got about 27 inches of cards for $150. Many of the stars are in there more than twice, and some of the DP stars are in there 10 or 12 times. No Henderson, no Ryan. This was his price, and I didn't haggle, since I didn't really have any reason to.

The seller threw in a free bottle of what appears to be dessert wine, which he found behind the counter in his shop. He had no idea how it got there. The wine is called "Razz" and it says "Paul Thomas" on the label, which is apparently a Washington winery. It has a real cork, so it can't be that bad.

He has another box that has '81 Donruss that are centered and not rough cut, and which includes the stars, such as they are.

bruce

jaxxr

Some 20 years ago I would buy a rack-pack case of cards, about 2 or 3 years after issue date.

I did it for four years, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980, for 1981 (Topps) I just bought a half dozen complete "mint" sets. I stopped my card buying frenzy around then, but jumped back in for the ultimate rare 1987 and 1988 Topps issues.

Anyway my feeble point is this, with some large volume of cards from those 5 years to reference, it seems to me (unscienticically of course) the 1979 year is the toughest to get in high grade, high-end 8 or better. All years have some tough cards to get of course, but it appears Ray Charles was in charge of the cutting room for 79's as centering problems abound. Focus is a very big problem also, I have several 8's which have a noticable blur to them.

I do enjoy the 1980 set as it is the end of an era, and am slowly working on it, but it does seem a bit more easy to get high end cards. A 10 for any year is always tough regardless.

mcastaldi

With 1979 and 1980, the true costs of the graded cards isn't the raw examples themselves. Rather, the true costs of building these sets is having to go through 500 cards finding only 50 that are worth submitting.

Mike

brucemo

Going through 500 cards is nothing. It's paying 250 BUCKS to send in 50 (even at the special rate) that kills me.

bruce