Difficulty of high grade 60's sets

Buckwheat

An incredible 1968 set was just completed. Awesome. It started me thinking about the difficulty of a mint set in 60's cards. I pulled the pop reports for the sets, and here is what it is today.

year-9's-10's highest set rating

1960---876----7 ----8.04
1961--2067--66 ---- 8.47
1962--1099--18 ----7.54(not complete)8.00 weighted average
1963--1277--22 ----8.18
1964--1671--25 ---- 8.48

1965--2271--22 ----8.58
1966--1157--15 ----8.04(not complete)8.48 weighted ave.
1967--2411--35 ----8.59
1968-8488--566 ----9.17
1969-5014--177 ----8.11

What is it about 1968 that is so different from every other set? The 9.17 is very impressive, but the 8.58 in '65, and the 8.59 in '67are also incredibly impressive considering the pop report.
The year that seems like it shoud have a higher set is the '69's. Is gaspipe hoarding them again??

I just thought this was interesting. Just like low pop and high pop cards, there are low pop and high pop sets.

qualitycards

Over the last few years there were some vending runs uncovered for the '68's. Perhaps that attributes to the higher grade average and the abundance of PSA-10's...jay

gemint

For the 1969 set, if you dig further into the population report, alot of those 9's are the same card. A few cards have more than 100 9's each. For some reason, 1969 seemed to have a much wider variation in quality for different cards than other years. Some first series cards are almost impossible to find centered and have very few 8's and no 9's. Last time I checked, there were no PSA 8 Mike Ferraro's. There are still no PSA 9 #85 Lou Brock's. Other cards like the Al Dark and Preston Gomez are almost always found perfectly centered. It's almost as if the cards were not spaced evenly on the sheets. Otherwise, logic would say if one card is always centered, the rest should also be well centered if the cutting tool was lined up properly.

Some unique cards have been showing up lately in PSA 9 (thanks mostly to Gaspipe and Bauerfan). That should help increase the GPA. But the highest possible grade is still 8.51. I think it will be a long time before the best rating surpasses 9.00.

toppsgun

Reasons for high pop's of 1968 (in no particular order):

- Huge vending finds in 90's (already mentioned above)
- first overproduced print run (I once saw figures that estimated nearly double the number versus '65 - '67)
- baby boom peaked in '54-'55, making '67 the peak "collecting" demand year, which Topps would have surely known, hence overtime for the printers.
- Ryan/Bench rookies made set popular
- high numbers not tough at all compared to '66 & '67
- burlap borders allow for over-grades, unless every card is scrutinized with a magnifier (you & I both know every card is not!)

Some collectors (yours truly included) believe the vintage era ends with 1967 and the modern era begins with 1968. Some will argue that 1974, the year complete sets were produced vs. cards issued series by series, represents the demarcation point. But I know that you could buy a set from an ad in the back of a Boys Life magazine in 1966 for $9.00. A buddy of mine who collected in '59 remembers actually sending off for a 1959 set from a similar ad in a magazine. So complete sets were available well before 1974.

Bottom line, it's a supply/demand issue. I believe supply skyrocketed in 1968 and demand peaked based upon baby boom demographics. Couple that with the "sliders" that are overgraded because of the burlap design and/or possible card stock improvements and you get skewed population numbers.

uniship

Toppsgun - great post - that's why I love these message boards. Thanks!

aconte

Excellent post by toppsgun!

aconte

Cubfan

And great info to begin the discussion Buckwheat. Extremely interesting. Thanks guys.

SKINSFAN

Take a look at pop counts for 60,s football some time very tough the 66 topps i collect have a grand total of 42 nines graded no tens 62,s the black boarders run 2nd to the 66 woodgrains they are the hardest to come by per the pop counts anyway. just thought i would throw a little nfl action into the ballpark very little football mentioned on these boards wish there was more.

uniship

I sold a 1966 football common psa 9 (DeLong) for $120. I am starting to regret that one.