1969 Topps Baseball POP Report

Virtualizard

I'm still kind of new to the '69 set (I'll hopefully make it into the top 20 in the next couple of weeks ).

Here's my question:

Can some of you '69 experts explain the huge pops of PSA 9's for some cards? Just scanning through the current POP report, it appears that some cards have many more 9's than 8's (#s 7,11,12,14,26,88,91,514,579,582,587). Looks like 1st series are easy (evidenced by many of my raw '69 cards). But, what about the few higher number cards? I have not seen this trend in any other set that I collect.

Thanks in advance.

JEB.

Mitochondria

JEB,

I notice the same trend, but I don't have a good explanation for it. Certainly, the cards within the 6th series (513- 588) appear to be plentiful in high grade (PSA 8 and higher); even the Nolan Ryan card (#533). This is one of the major blunders I made early in my quest to complete the 1969 Topps in high grade. In 1998, I had the whole set complete in "raw", except for the #533 Nolan Ryan card. At that point, I began transitioning the set into PSA holders. A moment occured where I was faced with the decision to either purchase a PSA 9 Nolan Ryan for $1500 or a PSA 9 #260 Reggie Jackson for ~ $1200. The Jackson had a very slight tilt whereas the Ryan was 50/50 both ways. I chose the Ryan. Several years later, the population of the PSA 9 card of Nolan Ryan has increased (30 to over 40) whereas the PSA 9 Jackson has increased slightly (~8 to 14). In fact, the Jackson is worth at least twice as much as the Ryan.

The 1st series (1-107) has certain cards that are abundant in high grade and in my mind do not deserve any type of premium (i.e. Fryman, Dark, #11 League Leaders, etc.). However, a few are true rarities in PSA 9; such as, Roy White, Mike Andrews, Jim Davenport, etc. On the other hand, the plentifulness of Roberto Clemente (#50) in PSA 9 makes it a poor candidate for appreciation in the future. Nevertheless, it stands that #85 Lou Brock is extremely difficult to find in a high end PSA 8 shape and is still nonexistent in PSA 9!

I have seen plenty of vending runs of 6th series and 7th series cards while attending the national the past 3 years and believe that this is where many of the high end cards from these series originated from. I don't know the story behind the 1st series other than I have come across plenty of unopened rack packs and cellos from this series and I am certain that a fair number remain unopened. I have only 3 unopened rack packs from the 1st series, but that is already 111 cards!



Ron

Fuzz

Regarding the 69's. I suspect that most of these came from Larry Fritsch, at least indirectly. Throughout the 70's, 80's and into the early 90's, he had full cases from 68 on in every series. He use to sell them by the series but you could occasionally pick up a box here and there. He also had wax from some of those years but not as much. I have heard complaints that the centering on some of the cards left something to be desired but anyone who has opened a vendor knows that can be the case. In the mid 90's I believe, there were several large auctions/sales as much of that inventory changed hands (but I still believe he has some of it left). It created quite a stir.
Regarding the higher pop 9's. I have always understood that those were the cards that were on the sheet closest to the registration marks for cutting. If they were closet, the centering would be sweet on almost every card and therefore generate a larger than normal pop of 9's. The farther away you go from the cutting alignment, the worse the centering will be on average creating 8's but less 9's. When you get to the far corner of the sheet, your toast. Those cards will be consistently off center and almost always the same direction. That probably also explains some of the low pop 8's as to where they were on the sheet as well. This seems to be true for all of the Topps 132 card sheet series of the era.
Fuzz

Virtualizard

Fuzz,

I expected that someone would respond with this. I have posted this question here several times before and never gotten an answer:

Is there a source for card positions on uncut sheets from vintage sets? I would really like to see a layout and compare it to the Pop Report (from any year). Maybe it would all make sense then.

Does anyone have any insight into this for any Topps Baseball set from the '50s to the '70s?

Thanks in advance.

JEB.

toppsgun

I remember seeing a '68 2nd Series uncut sheet several years back. Ryan was on one of the lower corners, lower left I think. There were three tiny black lines used for alignment on the cutter. Most Ryans I've seen were o/c, but the way the 3 lines lined up, you'd think 1/3 of his cards would be centered. Not my experience.

Fuzz

JEB,
That is the theory that I have always heard and to me as made sense so I have taken it at face value. I do not have sheets from the 69 set and no that they are very infrequently offered at best. The whole topic of card/sheet positioning is very dissicult to research which is another reason the "standard answer is offered so commonly. If I was going to start research on the subject, I would start the with the auction catalog from the Topps achives auction from about 10 years ago. I believe that many of the items were pictured and even a small pic of the sheets could allow a lot of the layout to be identified. Even a few could yield a # pattern which assumptions could be made from.
Toppsgun,
From my old printing days, I remember that every corner should have some level of registration marks and sometimes even some along the sides. However, during actual set up, only two of the marks are usually used and depending on the dimensional sensitivty some times even one. Depending on whether the "Ryan corner" was used or not for alignment could make a big difference and I agree that many are off center. Also a lot will depend on the actual monitoring of the machine which based on the results appeared to be minimal. These are BB cards not pacemakers.
I think it would take months of agonizing research and very good reference materials to get to the end of this question with some certainty. If an answer is/has been achieved, I would think it would a closely guarded secret since it would potentially yield a lot of bargain shopping oppotunities since some confidence could be obtained in which cards will always be the "low pop" cards.
Fuzz

gemint

In an old thread, Gaspipe gave some excellent insight on the 1st series uncut sheet from 1969. I'm not sure if it's still archived as it was probably 2 years ago. But you may want to search through his previous posts to see if you can find it. From my memory, most of the condition sensitive cards appeared along the edges of the sheet. Most of the high pop cards are in the middle. It seems the 1969 Al Dark is almost always perfectly centered while cards like Lou Brock are amost always off centered. That tells me the alignment of Topps' cutting tool was not consistant across the sheet.

gemint

By the way, just back from PSA are low pop PSA 8 NQ's of 1969 Tom Satriano, Lindy McDaniel, Mike Kekich, Ken Holtzman, Jerry Koosman AS, Danny Frisella, Stan Bahnsen and Bud Harrelson. I'll be eBaying them when I get back from vacation in two weeks. Keep an eye out for them.