Can anyone make sense of this?
Yankees70
Posts: 540 ✭✭✭
This card just came up for auction and the current bid is already $86. There's two PSA 9's for sale for $44 and $75 on EBAY and recent PSA 9's on EBAY sold for $39, $46, $41, $32, and $47. If the guys doing the bidding want a raw card why not buy the PSA 9 and crack it out of the case? That way they know the have a legit 9 and don't have to worry about a small wrinkle that can't be seen in the picture.
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It's all in the eyes.
Nice card but not a 9 in my opinion due to the fish eye in the lower right border and print snow along the bottom. I wonder if the "set break" designation is commanding a premium over just selling 1 or 2 cards from the 1978 Topps set. Set breaks are a powerful drug.
buying O-Pee-Chee (OPC) baseball
All the bleeding in the purple of Orioles, the color smeared all over the place makes me think its a 7. If I submitted it.
So I wouldn't. The fish eyes, maybe 4?, in the red border dont help much either. Blue streaks above his shoulder dont help.
Image is skewed…PASS!
I stared directly into Jimmy's eyes and suddenly felt the need to purchase a condo in the Bahamas, so there must be something fishy about this card.
All is fair in love and war and third party grading.
Is it the rare not wearing jockey shorts variant?
Why is it a concern what others are willing to pay for anything? Someone once said, “ if you nail two pieces of wood together someone will buy it”
It makes me want to pull my....not quite good enough to get a 10 but a 9 is almost a sure thing cards and let run by auction.
email bcmiller7@comcast.net
No concern just trying to make sense of things. There's a reason why the card is going to sell for such a high price. This is a sports card message board and discussing the prices cards are selling for seems to make sense.
As I've mentioned in the past, zorbaca has very dedicated followers, as do the other high profile dealers on eBay. It astounds me sometimes to see a competitors bidding history which is at 100% for these dealers and presumably the dedicated bidders only feed from these raw card offerings. Nothing else. As if they don't even know that other deals are out there. They just fly high with the big guys. Of course that might cause suspicion. So if you want to bid on the card, beware of who else could be your opponent and just bid your max. If you win, good, otherwise move on, especially if the active price seems way too illogical to bid at all.
All is fair in love and war and third party grading.
Every card I sold thru GM that brought an insane price was always paid for with the exception of one that was never paid
I had 1974 Topps Football commons sell last year for $40+ each like 10 of them. I had to laugh because I had them listed for a year on EBay at $3.99 each with free shipping and old 2 or 3.
It’s crazy, I don’t know this seller but wow.
Good comments guys thank you I appreciate it. I understand that some collectors dislike PSA and want to purchase raw cards. My buddy knows a guy who only collects raw cards but he does buy PSA cards and cracks them out. That makes sense if you are trying to get legit Mint cards especially if you can purchase them much cheaper in a PSA holder.
The Palmer bidding makes zero sense unless the bidders think they can get a 10 which it won't for the many reasons already discussed.
If anyone thinks they'll get a 10 on a late-70s Topps issue then all I can say is that I wish I had their same optimism about life...
Agree even receiving a 9 with vintage is extremely tough.
A good idea regardless, as they say optimists live longer.
The thrill of winning a 13th year HOF pitcher card????
For sure. Those folks should live to 150 then!
The card just sold for $128.50. The buyer could have purchased three of them in PSA 9 condition for a similar price.
So one raw 1978 Palmer is better than three 1978 PSA 9 Palmer's.
Makes complete sense.
Some folks seem so deeply vested in the business of other folks, it feels like stalking.
All is fair in love and war and third party grading.
A seller could buy many 78 PSA Palmers for under $50, crack them out, and then sell them raw for $100+. This seller also sold a 78 Brock for $107.50, a card that routinely sells for under $40 in PSA 9 condition. He also received $103.50 for a 78 Seaver, which usually sells for around $50.
It used to be collectors purchasing high grade raw cards and submitting to PSA in the hopes of saving money instead of purchasing a PSA 8 or 9. Times might have changed and buying inexpensive PSA 9 vintage cards, cracking them out, and selling them raw for 2X - 3X PSA market value might be the way to go.
He's not cracking cards out, dude. The seller you've referenced has a HUGE inventory of 70s sets and he breaks them down, one-by-one, week-by-week, in sequence. He never seems to run out of cards. I've known about this seller for maybe around 20 years. Never changes his methods. Your speculation about how dealers make money need a bit of a fix. You assume too much. Try studying the market for awhile. A long while.
P.S. There's no way that Palmer would have been cracked out of a PSA 9 holder. Just my speculation.
All is fair in love and war and third party grading.
And.....if you feel like getting around to it.....go check out some of the closing numbers for raw cards sold late last year for 1974 Topps thru 1979 Topps Baseball, and I think there's some football in there, too. Some of prices for raw cards will blow your mind right out of 1978.
All is fair in love and war and third party grading.
I have bought a lot of singles from zorbaca over the years to complete my raw sets. As mentioned, he always seemed to have an endless supply of cards, and if you missed out on what you needed during one set break auction, just wait a week or 2 and another of that same would soon be up and running.
I never had to pay the exorbitant prices that are being shown, though. Everything was super minty looking and affordable, and I was always very pleased with what I received.
I would guess that the last period of time where I was really bidding on a large amount of his cards would have been around 2017-2019. After not bidding or purchasing from him, it was maybe a couple of years later, I received a solicitation email inquiring if I was looking to sell off any of my raw complete sets. So I suspect that is how he's able to always replenish his inventory.
I would recommend zorbaca 100% based on my previous experience, as far as quality and customer service. I would in no way pay the current prices being shown, though.
The guy is legit and one of the best sellers of raw cards on the internet. I have purchased ample cards from him. My comments are about the insane prices that collectors are paying. It makes no sense to purchase a raw card for 3 to 4 times more than one can be purchased in a PSA 9 holder. I follow his auctions weekly and the prices for hall of fame cards he grades as mint have gone up big time. Why are collectors paying over $100 for a 78 Brock which usually sells for under $40 in PSA 9? The Palmer sold for $128.50. There's currently five PSA 9's available on EBAY right now that are much cheaper.
Bottom Line I brought this topic up because I want to figure out why this is happening. Are more collectors going to be purchasing raw vintage cards instead of PSA? Zorbaca like Greg Morris seem to be killing it with their vintage raw hall of fame cards. I know a lot of comic collectors are going back to raw comics and doing less business with CGC. Could this also happen with sportscards?
Far less trust in the PSA brand, as also discussed here ad nauseam. Yes, raw is the new graded.
All is fair in love and war and third party grading.
You're right on. Especially for the vintage.
No idea about the ultra modern.
I checked eBay at that Palmer sold for $128.50 with 28 bids coming mainly from 3 buyers.
It would be interesting to understand the % of folks that are buying from him (zorbaca) or GM cards in the "NM/MT" category are sending for grading versus for their ungraded, binder sets.
It also seems that there could be more value extracted from cracking out anything less than a "9" for the majority of stars and some tougher commons from the mid to late 70s and list them ungraded for known dealers like GM Cards. Knowing the answer to the question above would drive that decision...
My guess is there aren't nearly as many folks building out complete vintage sets at current grading prices unless - that ship has sailed for most of us... but to answer the question, it doesn't make sense to me paying $128.50 for that Palmer.
I do think that there's a lot of newer collectors in the market that don't understand vintage very well. It's getting harder and harder to find HOF players in clean NM or better looking condition, even up through mid 80s that's not sitting in a graded holder. I saw some 1983 Topps PSA 10 cards of HOF players that were listed for $3K to $6K in a dealer's case at a show. Bizarre to me...
Erik
I see junk wax commons that sell for under 20 dollars in psa 10 on ebay in sellers cases at local shows for hundreds. Never underestimate the Richard factor with card sellers
This has enticed me to open a box of 78 opc baseball wax. We'll see how bad the gum got.
Winner. I’ll have to create a thread for this. First pack.
Nice start with the Yaz. Please keep showing the results.
Thank you
That's a sweet Rose RB!
Since it's a tape intact box, you should check the front and back of each pack before you open it as you may find stars showing that would command a premium, sometimes a significant one, depending on the star. Finding a Murray faced out on back (or on top) would be very cool!
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.
That’s good advice. But too late. I only opened 3 packs today and it was really solid. As you can see this one was dinged by the robopack.
Oh man! That is a tough one to see...that pack would have been at least $500 in a PSA holder.
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.
Wouldn't the value of the pack, if it was still sealed, be diminished if one could see through the wrapper the ding on the card?
I guess the good news is I've looked at the rest of the packs, and found a
Back (wax)
Blyleven, Tiant, Rose, Morgan, Palmer, & Ryan.
There are a couple I put aside that I couldn't discern the front card of the pack, but there wasn't much in those.
@grote15 I appreciate the advice/note on reviewing the packs. I'm not really a pack collector so when I open a box I rarely think to look at the packs. I'll get in the habit of that. So far this box has been one of the best 70s OPCs I've opened. It's not full of 10s or anything, but there might be a couple and lots of 8s in today's grading for sure.
No, on the contrary, the grade of the card, which is easy to find on any given day, is not the basis for value. It's the scarcity of finding an authentic pack with Murray showing that unopened collectors prize.
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.
Nice! Keep that one sealed!
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.
Of the packs you listed, Rose and Ryan would command the highest premiums. Not as much as Murray but still worth keeping sealed.
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.