275+ consecutive certs all graded 9?
Geoff76
Posts: 163 ✭✭✭
I was browsing eBay and found a 1978 Topps George Gervin PSA 9 Probstein is selling and it caught my eye because I used to have one.
I typed the wrong cert number when I was looking it up on PSA and it was a different card in the 78 set…also a 9. Long story short - I kept moving forward and they were all 9s (variety of 70s-80s FB and BB, some non sport), went backward from the Gervin and saw the same thing. A lot of 70s Star Wars cards along with 70s BB. In all, 278 cards in a row that were graded 9 (88723507 to 88723784).
Has anyone seen this before? Is it someone telling PSA not to slab unless it’s a 9 and nothing else? Someone reholdering a ton of previously graded 9s and getting new numbers?
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Wonder if they all belong to Probstein? I know there is no way to find that out. PSA used to do this for 4 Sharp, years ago. They would only slab 9's and 10's for like $3 per card and charge (guessing) $1.50 for the ones that weren't 9's or 10's. At least that was the hub bub on the boards. (at the time you could grade cards for $4.50 to $5 each).
If all these cards are from one person, receiving that many 9's sounds a little dicey.
I have wondered on this board if this isn't the way to go so speed up the process. Only slab certain grades.
They are pretty recent cert numbers. They might not be listed for sale right away. But if someone really wanted to investigate a bit further, they could identify the cards by typing the certs into psa's database, and then track the completed auctions for those cards using ebay's terapeak and PSA's auction prices. If all or majority are from the same seller, then it should be a reasonable guess who owns/owned them when the submission order went in for grading.
There's another way you can look into it, too. If the owner has entered the certs into their set registry account, then when you type the cert into PSA's cert query, it will tell you if the card is entered in someone's registry, and will either give you their username on the set registry or it will say registered in private inventory but without disclosing a name, depending on the owner's account settings. So, that can also be a pretty easy way to tell if a whole bunch of the certs are all under common ownership, depending on those conditions.
Makes sense. I think what seemed strange to me is that they were all 9s...as opposed to 9s and 10s, which would suggest not slabbing anything 8 or below. With that many 9s (assuming they belonged to the same submitter), it seems like a few 10s would be in the mix as well. A few of them were 90s Kobe Bryant cards.
Can you set a minimum grade to be slabbed? That way if someone said they wanted 9s and everything that wasn't returned then you'd get that many in a row. I can see where that would be a good move by a dealer. Everything else you could sell as raw and 'Mint' and probably get a higher price than a 5 or 6.
I don't think the average person can. But I am not speaking for you. You might be the 5th sharp corners. LOL!!!
They have allowed min-grade off and on for a while for collectors club and maybe everyone. I know they have had special arrangements with large submitters so it could be that, but what I will say about the min-grade thing, which I have used before... the cert # is still consumed even if they don't slab it, and it will just show up as 'does not exist in the registry'.
275+ is a big streak, but it's not the biggest streak of 9s ever considering consecutive numbers.
I love watching the cert database... you see some amazing stuff come through.
Ha. I am not the 5th or any of the sharp corners, and especially considering the low consideration I seem to get on some of my subs.
I'm more like the 5th Rounded Corner
SWEET!!!!
It could be someone that subbed 1000 of their best 70s cards and that is the result. No really know way to know without digging and even then, why dig? It could be any number of reasons as mentioned above.