I assume you '79 Topps collectors have seen this.

RedHeart54

Beauty!

Murray

dom

Murray used to be my tailor.

downgoesfrazier

Murray was also the dog on "Mad About You"...multi-talented.

jaxxr

The car lists in SMR as $ 275.00 in a gem mint 10. Prices for cards 1976 through 1980 are still being solidified. These cards whlie a bit old are not scarce in total. Condition problems, very acute in 79 by the way, reflect the variances seen. It is hard to say, when set- registry mania subsides, how much these white- bordered years will go for. 1975 has the colored borders and 74 with white borders, is two years older whch even only 24 months was at a time before sophisticated collecting and popularity really began, Cards from 73 and prior were done in series, thus more scarce and they gain age factors also.

A PSA ten of a lock HOFer in his second year card is probably going to be a good investment in the long run. Didn't he also kick for the Lions a few years back ?

mcastaldi

As if there won't be any more tens from among the jillions of 79s still floating around out there. . .

Mike

uniship

I don't know, from my experiences (no vending though) - 79's are IMPOSSIBLE. Cheapest printing quality of any year in my opinion. Funny how the quality of cards from the 50's was far superior than the product from the 70's and 80's.

jaxxr

Several monrhs ago on a related topic somebody posted the following, which I'll paraphrase the best I can, as I can't remember the exact thread or poster.

RAY CHARLES MUST HAVE BEEN IN CHARGE OF THE CUTTING ROOM FOR 1979 TOPPS BB.

I've had new unopened product , bought recently and some 20 years ago, and they are very very hard to come by in true 9 or better condition. Even if there are "jillions" of 79s available, I really believe tens will be quite scarce .

mcastaldi

jaxxr> Depends on how you define "scarce". So far there's only been 10,192 total cards graded from the 79T issue - and one card (the Ozzie RC) accounts for over 21% of those. As of 3 October, there have already been 58 PSA10s awarded for 79T. By contrast, 1975T has only produced 35 PSA10s out of total submissions of 28,409.

Looking at PSA9 NQs. . .for 1979T PSA9s make up 19% of total submissions. . .for 75T, PSA9s account for 10%. . .1970 is roughly 10% PSA9 (out of 24k cards). . .1971T are only a whopping 2% PSA9 (30,000). . .1972T is 11% (30,000+). . .1973T have 16% PSA9s (14k). . .

I would say 79T 9s and 10s may seem scarce now, but time is the true measure of scarcity. Compared to 75T, 1979 has nearly twice as many 10s with only about 1/3 as many total submissions. And compared to other sets of the 1970s, 1979T doesn't even make it into the top five toughest to get PSA9s.

Perhaps the percentages will change, and while they may be tougher than 78s or 80T, at this point I have a hard time considering 79T PSA9s and 10s "scarce".

FWIW, as my 75T set nears completion 1979T will be my next major project.

Mike

jaxxr

Mike your points are well taken and probably valid, in part at least.

My camparisons/rants per the 79s are meant primarily in relation to the last five years of white bordered vintage cards, per Beckett. I believe more 75 and older cards are sent for grading because they have some more" marketability" and can be sold. Thereby a collector/submitter of a 79 ( knowing hardly a market except for stars and true high grade stuff) would be much more selective in his send-ins and get the corresponding higher percentage via pop reports.

I do believe I would wager that if a random sample of a dozen or more unopend packs, obtained with a random yet consistent process, from each year, 1974 thru 1980, the 1979 would be of the poorer quality overall. They might possibly have a ten(s) equal to any years' total but the average grade/condition would be the lowest easily.

No mention to the scarce variation B Wills card, not since the 74 SD/Wash. variations is there any other year with such a "sleeper". I truly enjoy the talk and opinions set forth. Hope more replies are added. Different perspectives and frames of reference are part of what make this hobby so much fun.

uniship

Very good points from both of you. I think the quality of the 1979 product is the worst I've seen, but perhaps it is that there is so much product, that only the best have been submitted, yielding the stats Mike previously listed. So, in the end maybe they wont be that scarce in terms of real numbers, but in terms of quality work by Topps, 1979 has to be the worst ever.

1420sports

What is it about 79 Topps? Is it centering or print quality? This was the first year I collected - I was 12, so the cards I have are 6's or 7's.

I was thinking about starting to buy some of these back raw, but it seems that even a PSA 9 is tough to get.

Any advice? Thanks

mcastaldi

Well. . .I think there's two things at play right now. . .there's a ton of unopened 79 stuff still available - and - there really hasn't been very much submitted at all.

Ultimately time will determine what is "tough" and "scarce" and what is not. Too often, people look only at the situation now and pay silly money for cards that will be readily available in 1-2 years.

Do you guys feel 79s are worse than 80T? 81F? 81D?

Mike

jaxxr

How about them Angels ????

What do you mean by "worse" ? I , even though very enthusiatic about them, feel the 79s are worse looking than 1980 or 1978 sets in general. Because the 1981 and later cards, according to the top collecting publisher Beckett, are not vintage ( also the correlation to the end of Topps' monopoly and ensuing glut ) I can not really compare, although my four complete sets of 81 Topps look worse than the 79s and anything else earlier. As far as tough to obtain in high quality from a good source of unopened stuff the 79s are probably worse than anything.

RedHeart54

1420sports-

79s have both bad print quality and centering problems on the majority of cards. 9s are pretty tough at least as far as lesser stars go. Stars such as Ryan, Brett, Schmidt, Yount, Ozzie, etc can usually be found on ebay.

mcastaldi

jaxxr> Actually, if you think the cuts were bad on 79s you should look at the 81D stuff. The paper was thin and they must have used a plastic butter knife. And the centering on 81F is downright scary. Maybe someday people will figure out how tough some of the late-70s/early-80s stuff is. . .but not until my sets are done

Mike

SayitaintsoJoe63

I still have nightmares of the time I opened a case fresh '79 vending box, and every card was not only off centered....but slant cut.......

mcastaldi

SayItAint> Perhaps jaxxr can confirm this, but my understanding is that for the most part if you get a 79 vending box and the cards in the box are off center, then it's a pretty good bet the other boxes in that case are very likely to be off center as well.

Mike

downgoesfrazier

I've done 77-80 Topps in some quantity. The 77's have been the most difficult for me followed by the 79's. The 79's are plagued by chipping, I've found quite a few tilts as well.
Lots of tilts in 1980, but the cards are generally clean. 77's are a horror show. Two wax boxes yielded a whopping 14 mint 9's! At 800 bones a throw that's scary. I'd rank them 1977,1979,1980,and 1978 the easiest. The truly great thing about 77 topps is that you can get two players on one card! There's nothing like the thrill of pulling half a Chip Lang and half an Orlando Ramirez on the same piece of cardboard

Mike, You may know I've been doing 81 D for years (wax here, cherry pick there) and have found it a blast. Inexpensive, yet one of the most challenging issues I've encountered..I love all the Wrigley/Comiskey shots...I sent a handful on my 80's submission and registered them. I'm at 133 raw minties to date...I'll submit a couple here and there. I'll never try to slab the whole thing, however.

GATOR5

Frazier,

So where would you rate the 81's. HMMMM might as well let everybody know from your mouth.

79's seem to be a run issue in my eyes find the correct run and you should be golden..

Matt

MickeyC

<< <i>The 77's have been the most difficult for me followed by the 79's. 77's are a horror show. Two wax boxes yielded a whopping 14 mint 9's! At 800 bones a throw that's scary. I'd rank them 1977,1979,1980,and 1978 the easiest. The truly great thing about 77 topps is that you can get two players on one card! There's nothing like the thrill of pulling half a Chip Lang and half an Orlando Ramirez on the same piece of cardboard

>>



I just started a 77 set. I bought a nice (so I thought) starter set of about 500 cards, which was put together from vending boxes. This was 12 years ago, and it set me back $350. I took a look at the cards, and was satisfied. This was before PSA took off, before collectors were putting together PSA sets, and at the time, centering wasn't a factor for me. I was more concerned with corners.

When I decided to put a slabbed 77 set together, I figured I had a great start with this vending starter set. Sitting down to pull cards for the registry special, I was in for shock! Of the 500, I think I submitted no more than 12 cards. The centering is horrible, so bad to even look at!

From what I hear, and this post reinforces it, stay away from wax. Vending is your best shot.

Mark

downgoesfrazier

Gator,
I defer to your judgement there. I think they're incredibly easy. All you need to do is research the rack case serial #'s...buy a dozen or so to get the settings (ink, blades, etc.), find the zone you're looking for, hunt them down tirelessly and have the five grand at the ready. Then you need to 10x and 100 watt stacks of Ivan DeJesus cards and weed out the pepper, chipping, tilts, centering problems and surface imperfections...couldn't take more than thirty or forty weeks...tops...then, painstaikingly list Ivan or Win Remerswaal eight times on one of 100 submission forms in search of your 10...only to have a grader unfamiliar with the product send you back all eight cards contendedly cushioned in thier repective "8" holders and start the process over again. How you do it amazes me and boggles the mind. Forget challenging for the 81 Topps crown...guru is 'da guru! And 81's when they look like Gator's are gorgeous cards.

Kurt

77 is brutal. There are obviously nice ones out there though. The best source of late has been rack boxes which has blown up the 9's by hundreds and helped move 10's from 1 to 20 in just months. Anyone know who has any rack boxes??

downgoesfrazier

Mark,
I'll have some 77's that I've upgraded available soon. About a dozen 8's and a half dozen 9's. A couple of my 9's are much stronger than my 10's (PSA's gotten "10" happy of late) so the 10's may become available as well. LMK if interested.

GATOR5

Frazier,

Yes you busted me it's not that hard, try it I dare ya. Yeah I here ya on the no wait was it doug rau 8's across the board. Oh yeah one 9 remember looking at them mystery 8's all 150 of them them were the days...I still have 78's at your house or do I

Matt

downgoesfrazier

Kurt,
Yes racks yield the best surfaces for sure. The 10 explosion has me perplexed. Tread lightly. The cards haven't gotten stronger--the standard--in some cases has slid a touch.
And YES! I know who has some rack boxes

GATOR5

Frazier,

Oh yeah forgot to ask did you think up of that process yourself????

Matt

Kurt

Well PM me if you can with any info on who has them

downgoesfrazier

Gator,
Nah, I busted 'em...landed all 10's...coming to eBay in November!!! As far as the 81's-- I figure I buy up about 30-40K worth of product and maybe I'll land a Fernando 10! No biggie

downgoesfrazier

Gator,
Nope. I bought a book that outlined the whole thing. It's called "How to build the best set in the hobby and have it pay for itself"...a must read...now in paperback!

The book costs less than submitting a '65 Tall Boy.

GATOR5

Frazier,

HMMMM nando in a ten for 30,000 g's thats a deal you can bet it'll be a 1-1. Well maybe I've seen some nonsense going on, in the 10 column. Hmmm Baines 10 not possible sorry and when it comes up in a big wigs hands and he turned it go figure 1 box of wax. What a joke and it had the scribble. I tell it like it is...

Matt

GATOR5

Frazier,

Did you find it right next to my other book GURU GRADING that a how to start your own..

GURU

jaxxr

I've had plenty of new product from the late 70's to 1984, dropped out of collecting for personal reasons like a divorce. Silly ex-wife didn't realize cards were more important than anything.

I would still rate the 79s as the year with most problems. The 77s ( of which I got rid of all but a few sets in 1984 ) are next . they are quite OC in abundance and share the other flaws common to 79. However I wonder if any set ( 1973 shows higher than average occurances also ) has such gloss/focus/register problems as 79 ? It's kind of hard to explain , but there are various dergrees of color intensity shown on many 79s. I may be wrong but it seems graders miss this at times and will give a card an 8 or 9 which has not a really good photo representation. A slight "dull" card with sharp corners and good centering can get a high grade. The 79 Murray shown in the first post of this thread ( scan probably less than perfect ) has a photo quality no better than many 8s or 9s. I have some 79s ( unfortunately most are OC somewhat ) which truly show a very clear deep colored bright photo , which is highly appealing. I am aware this difference exists for any year, but to me the 79s are notorious.

Re another question / comment , I have best luck with rack-packs, but they seem to have tremendous inconsistency within themselves. I've only gotten one vending box, so no case correlation, and it was fair. I am always afraid the corners will be dinged due to 23 years of handling the box or case.s

MickeyC

<< <i>Mark,
I'll have some 77's that I've upgraded available soon. About a dozen 8's and a half dozen 9's. A couple of my 9's are much stronger than my 10's (PSA's gotten "10" happy of late) so the 10's may become available as well. LMK if interested. >>



Very interested. PM me or email at mark@baseballcardz.net.

Thanks.

Mark

downgoesfrazier

Kurt,
I have three rack boxes. They'll stay sealed for awhile, however. An awful lot of product out there right now.

downgoesfrazier

Jaxxr,
What you're describing is EXACTLY what I see in 77's...the range of 9's is unreal...the reason I rank 77's tougher is my own experience. It depends on the specific product you open. I'm sure we'd both agree they're both exceedingly challenging. A nice '77 looks like a tiffany.

mikeschmidt

I think that the 1977s are the toughest of the late 1970s. 1979's are tough in ten, but terribly easy in PSA 9. Though they are all over the mark in PSA 9 -- there have been too many of the cut vendor cases and other unopened that have been searched in the past few years. There are many star cards from 1979 that are simply exploding so much in population in PSA 9 that their value is becoming increasingly de minimus. 1975 is probably the toughest of the mid to late 1970s on certain cards -- with 1977 as the toughest overall.

I agree with the comment that the standard for 10s seems to have dropped in the last few months.

downgoesfrazier

Hey Mikeschmidt,
My first son was born on 10/20/00...Mickey Mantle's B-Day...
My second son was born on 9/27/02...9/27...who else has a 9/27 B-Day...thought you'd be the only one to appreciate that besides me.

NickM

jaxxr - '78 has far worse color and registry problems than '79 IMO. I have '78s where the orange color team name can be anywhere from red-orange to clay.

Nick

mikeschmidt

downgoesfrazier-

Congratulations on your your second son! Less than two weeks old -- and born on the same day as Michael Jack. He should be go far! Congrats.

dom

OK Phil,

For your next son, aim for 11/17 which is my birthday and Tom Seaver's.

GATOR5

Frazier,

Dom he couldn't do that he'd be to scared he'd fall short on the 16th then it'd turn out like me. Thats a must if you wan't him to be a guru...

Phil,

Look at the clock before you call. Unless of course your cracking a rack box then you can buzz me at anytime...

Matt aka 81 guru

downgoesfrazier

Thanks guys. Dom, I'll get to work on that one. Well, "work" might be stretching it a little...
Hey, was Seaver the best pitcher of the 70's in your opinion? His numbers are rivaled by very few. He seems to be existing in a black hole when discussions of the all-time greats come up. Then someone says "Seaver" and people go "Oh yeah, he was good too". Maybe this is another thread.

Nick,
You must've had one motley (not Daryl) run of 78's to encounter such problems. I really don't think it's too subjective. 78's, while challenging, are really not in the same league as 77's and 79's...although scary vending runs and obnoxious pd's do exist. Are you doing a set?

rbeaton

I've opened a lot of 1979's and have always found the majority to be off centered w/poor print quality. Occasionally, I have found a good card or two, right Mikeschmidt?


<< <i>Hey, was Seaver the best pitcher of the 70's in your opinion? >>


Jim Palmer was the best pitcher in the 70's IMHO. His numbers were a bit better than Seavers in the 70's. Strangely enough, Palmer and Seaver both had career ERAs of 2.86.

Robert

downgoesfrazier

Palmer and Carlton were the other two that came to mind. JR Richard was the most dominant 76-80 in terms of being hittable...too bad the Cooperstown Express derailed...

By the way regarding Palmer; he was an absolute joy to watch--a 20+ win machine and smooth as silk. His '77 Topps card is one of my favorites if you can get the goldenrod color just right and tight registration. Gorgeous.

mikeschmidt

Robert has found some nice 1979 cards from vending. I am deeply in thanks.

MS

NickM

downgoes - I'm not doing any of the large Topps sets slabbed, but I've gone through plenty of assorted raw cards from each year of the late '70s in the process of putting together a nice raw set. '79 is significantly worse than '78 on centering IMO, but '78 has more color and registry issues than any other year around it (except for '75). The PD problems in '78 that I've seen seem concentrated on the backs - I don't know what it was about orange backs that brought out every dark spot of pulp.
The strange thing is that I've seen a lot of Murray rookies with really poor color (very light) in PSA 8 holders.

Nick