It has a pop of 7, i would rather have a jabbar for that price
Looking for in PSA graded 1. 75-76 Topps Keith/Jamaal Wilkes in Psa 8+ 2. 1971-72 Trio stickers PSA 8+ 3. BSKB 1977-78 topps psa 10
Basketball Autos 1992 Courtside Flashback Action Packed HOF Autos(need elvin hayes,both bill bradley,and the 1st bill walton) 2001 and 2005 Greats of the Game UD=retro,epic,legends,legendary,generations and chronology 2006 Topps Style 1952 Fan Favorites Autos #/10 (Refractor Autos) Press Pass Legends
I just bid anywhere from 110-175 on 7 commons/minor stars and lost them all--some by a wide margin. This has gotta be one of the hottest sets out there.
I've been lurking on eBay on that set for a month or so now, and I sure wish I got in on it earlier. I haven't bid on any yet, as I haven't been sure of committing to it yet, but I was thinking of dropping a large bid on the West 9, hoping to sneak in. But it got cancelled early. Anyone see what it got bid up to before ending?
WANTED: 2005 Origins Old Judge Brown #/20 and Black 1/1s, 2000 Ultimate Victory Gold #/25 2004 UD Legends Bake McBride autos & parallels, and 1974 Topps #601 PSA 9 Rare Grady Sizemore parallels, printing plates, autographs
I've been following the '69T Tall Boys on e-bay and this has been going on for over a year with prices on this stuff in orbit. The only card that even remotely comes close to reflecting SMR values is the Alcindor rookie. Everything else is going for 100-500% over SMR at a minimum and this is just for PSA 8's. I don't think there are a ton of collectors holding on to these cards secretly waiting for them to increase in value & all of the sudden we're going to see all these PSA 9's come into the market -- the shake out should have happened by now. These cards are tough and, similar to a comment made earlier about the 71-72 Topps & OPC Hockey, the make up of these cards dictate that they really only look truly good if they are perfectly centered. Quite a few of the 8's on e-bay are way off center R-L and/or top-to-bottom w/ no qualifiers attached. But the ones that are 60-40 or better seem to commanding an even greater premium price. The reason for the spike is probably a combination of several collectors trying to lock and load their PSA registry and a few more recognizing this set for what it is.....an extremely rare 99-card set in terms of quality which is very difficult to come by.
This is the highest I have seen some of these go... however, I have been watching psa 8 stars and commons from this set ever since psa started grading tall boys... and they have always EXCEEDED smr... I haven't seen a 69 psa 8 boozer this high... Some barely double smr while others crush it...
What has blown my mind even more is that the last 2 or 3 psa 8 1970 cazzie russel sp's have exceeded $500.00~
meanwhile there is a sweet psa 8 1969 Len Wilkens with an $80 buy it now~
I have has some luck crossing sgc 88's to psa 8's... the last 4 I submitted got me 3 8's back... -G
Like many other sports card bubbles of the past few years (From Tiger Woods to '75 Topps PSA commons), this one is going to crash badly.
If only someone was selling put options on Mr Boozer. Talk about a sure bet. I'd buy some January 2004 $800 puts.
In every single market bubble, people always say "oh, it's different this time". Whether its the Nikkei at 40,000 or YHOO at $250 or the 69 Topps Mike Shannon at some outrageous price, people will usually come up with a seemingly valid reason as to why the price will continue to be so high. In this case, the 69 Tall Boys are tough in high grade, and it is in big demand. But it's only hot air keeping it up.
Only a few of these psa 8 semistars/commons have been bidded on this competitively... so I wouldn't start declaring that this boozer is reflecting a market bubble... Most commons and stars are selling around what they have always been selling for.
I hope that people don't think that demand for this set is recent. I remember when the first psa 8's were hitting eBay... they immeadiately started at twice smr... and for the past 3 or 4 years, it has been one of the most consistient issues to exceed smr values.
While I agree that this Boozer is remarkably and unusually high, I do not agree that these issues should be compared to commons from other sets and tiger woods cards... These were very hot long before the set registry existed... It is also a widely held understanding that there are not mountains of high grade raw examples to be found. A better comparision might be to the oversized baseball cards of the 1950's.
'69's are tough to find in high grade, there is virtually no unopened product left. But it shouldn't be left out that 69's and all the tall boy issues were among the last to be graded by PSA. All else being equal, if PSA had been grading 69's from the get go, I think supply would be higher.
Tough basketball cards do come onto the marketplace. The '57 Topps vending find and the recent '68 Topps Test cards from an ex employee via Sports Cards Plus come to mind. The odds of this card staying over $800 in the next year or two are virtually zero.
Long term, the '69 set is a great investment. The rookies, the small size of the set, the lack of other sets from the era, the condition sensitive nature of it....it all adds up. But you can overpay, even for great cards.
This set seems to parrallel with 1954 Topps hockey. *Hot set that not everyone knows about. *Supply seems very short. *SMR can never seem to catch up. *It's been this way for a while. *There is HUGE competition on ebay for PSA 8's. *Small set that seems attainable. I keep waiting for the set to cool down so I can finish my set (of 54 hockey) but it doesn't seem to happen. I didn't realize this 69 Basketball set was so hot. I can see why, it is pretty sweet.
Yeah, I tried jumping on the 69 topps bandwagon a few years ago and it was tough then with factorjim, wheels, skovran, psa1setbuilder... and others were knocking them out of my league. I searched and scoured for raw examples and almost everyone told me that they were not to be found... once in a while you'll get lucky buying raw off ebay... but that's a risky proposition...
One thing I want to say is that a lot of criticism about these unusual and amazing ebay sales seems to revolve around the investment aspect of collecting... I mean... people get labeled as crazy, psycho or stupid because they pay 800 for a boozer or 5000 for a psa 9 wilt etc...
I can't speak for everyone... but I do know some of these guys who seem to disregard smr and pay as much as they feel like... some of these guys simply love collecting and have so much money that whether it is a smart investment or not doesn't matter... they'll simply pay an extreme amount of cash because they don't feel like waiting a year or two to see another one pop up... If you were a millionare would your portfolio revolve around sports memorabillia? I doubt it... Also... a lot of these guys who are paying tons of money are in fact, very intelligent people... they didn't make their money by purchusing a hundred thousand shares of a loser stock... They are bidding on the card becaus ethey really want it and appreciate it.. the money part seems to be a game or obstacle.
I simply watch in awe as the cards I want fly hundreds of dollars away from me and kick myself for becomming a public school teacher instead of a human ATM machine.
I seem to recall that someone was saying in an article following last year's National that the basketball tallboys were plentiful and going for below market prices. It doesn't make any sense. I am going to try and hit the National this year and see if I can find some good quality 8's in raw form. I am about 25% through this set in psa 8 and now it is just getting a whole lot tougher on ebay.
About 8 or 9 years ago I was fortunate enough to run into a guy named Willy Erving who would show up at shows in south Texas with a car load of 57's. He was unloading a vending box find that was incredible. He would have 25 or 30 examples of Russell in all different centering grades with perfect corners (along with every other card). While I picked up a lot of the cards fairly cheap, I made the BIG mistake of not really cherry picking the great ones. I settled for a little OC at the time because I really didn't care about grading back then. I know I will never see anything like it again!
I think that what this mania is going to do is pull all of the ungraded quality cards from the shoeboxes that people will send in to PSA. If you haven't noticed, the number of PSA 8's have climbed dramatically in this set recently and I believe it wasn't too long ago that the 7's outnumbered the 8's, which is always a great sign of a tough set.
Also, the 61 fleer set went through somewhat of a bubble about 3-6 months ago with people chasing sets. It has since died down now to reasonable levels. The same thing will happen again with the 69's, I hope!
about a year and a half ago i started looking at the 69 tall boys. picked up a loy petersen and johnny egan both in psa 8. didn't pay more than $25 for either of them. i know i probably missed out on some other 8's as there didn't seem to be as many bidders out there. now with the prices of 8's, i've deceided to do the set in 7 instead. almost as nice but without the pricetags of the 8's. i would be proud to own a complete psa 7 set!!! especially if i can ever find another checklist in 7. i even put up my psa 8 goodrich rc on ebay figuring i can probably pick up 10% of the set in 7 for what i get for the goodrich. besides, that 70 topps set is where my true love is anyway. if i could only get my psa 9pd bob rule into an 8nq holder!! i see a psa 7nq rule on ebay now and it has much more snow than my 9pd. although they weigh the same, my 9pd is soooo much better looking than that 7. anyway, i do agree that the 70 topps will come down in price because it appears there are many cards being currently graded, but the 69's will probably level off. too bad more guys have recognized the beauty of the 69's!! well, thanks for listening to my ramblings!! tim
1969 Topps are nice, but unless you have money to burn, these prices are ridiculous. There is no way in hell that anyone can consider these cards good investments at these levels. In the two years that PSA has graded tallboy cards, PSA has graded over six thousand examples from this ninety-nine card set. More and more people will send these cards in and I suspect there will be over ten-thousand examples graded by 2005.
Regardless, congratulations to the sellers of these cards. You picked a fantastic time to cash out of these cards.
There are lots of 1969 basketball out there, but (1) there isn't a lot of quality (i.e., 60/40 or better centered PSA 8s or 9s) and (2) it's a set-builders market out there - the population report dictates the final hammer price.
Personally, I think that the 70-71 set is much more attractive and has the Maravich rookie. But there is lots of unopened 70-71 product out there, and the set is almost double the size of '69. Will the prices stay this high? I doubt it. As nosoupyou mentioned, the 1961 Fleer set seems to be calming down. Perhaps all the '61 set builders moved on to 1969?
During last nights action, several of the commons (8's) went for around SMR book value, which I conisder to be very reasonable. There are still bargains to be had. The West went for under $150 and books for $210 in 8, although it appeared to be a little OC left to right. Also, others like Reed and Baylor went at or below book.
One of the things that you really have to be careful of is the serial numbers on the cards. I've noticed that the some of the recent auctions with numbers beginning with "0" and sporting a psa 9 don't look even close on the scan, yet they are bringing high values. That doesn't mean that you can't have a great card that was graded early on, you just have to be careful.
The guys that bid up Boozer and Sanders, well more power to them. Neither Loaf nor Domenicbasketball seem to care how much they pay for anything.
I guarantee you that you can go to the National and pick up each in 8 condition (ungraded or graded) for book or less.
I really don't believe that the investment aspect of these high dollar sales is a factor for any of these wealthier buyers... seems obvious... in any case, there were some significant sales of psa 9 1970 commons tonight... one was in the $500 range... rick at mintstate has some of these for 50% less~
Comments
1. 75-76 Topps Keith/Jamaal Wilkes in Psa 8+
2. 1971-72 Trio stickers PSA 8+
3. BSKB 1977-78 topps psa 10
Basketball Autos
1992 Courtside Flashback
Action Packed HOF Autos(need elvin hayes,both bill bradley,and the 1st bill walton)
2001 and 2005 Greats of the Game
UD=retro,epic,legends,legendary,generations and chronology
2006 Topps Style 1952 Fan Favorites Autos #/10 (Refractor Autos)
Press Pass Legends
Davalillo
2005 Origins Old Judge Brown #/20 and Black 1/1s, 2000 Ultimate Victory Gold #/25
2004 UD Legends Bake McBride autos & parallels, and 1974 Topps #601 PSA 9
Rare Grady Sizemore parallels, printing plates, autographs
Nothing on ebay
Some barely double smr while others crush it...
What has blown my mind even more is that the last 2 or 3 psa 8 1970 cazzie russel sp's have exceeded $500.00~
meanwhile there is a sweet psa 8 1969 Len Wilkens with an $80 buy it now~
I have has some luck crossing sgc 88's to psa 8's... the last 4 I submitted got me 3 8's back...
-G
Click here to view my Knickstars collection and wantlist
If only someone was selling put options on Mr Boozer. Talk about a sure bet. I'd buy some January 2004 $800 puts.
In every single market bubble, people always say "oh, it's different this time". Whether its the Nikkei at 40,000 or YHOO at $250 or the 69 Topps Mike Shannon at some outrageous price, people will usually come up with a seemingly valid reason as to why the price will continue to be so high. In this case, the 69 Tall Boys are tough in high grade, and it is in big demand. But it's only hot air keeping it up.
I hope that people don't think that demand for this set is recent. I remember when the first psa 8's were hitting eBay... they immeadiately started at twice smr... and for the past 3 or 4 years, it has been one of the most consistient issues to exceed smr values.
While I agree that this Boozer is remarkably and unusually high, I do not agree that these issues should be compared to commons from other sets and tiger woods cards... These were very hot long before the set registry existed... It is also a widely held understanding that there are not mountains of high grade raw examples to be found.
A better comparision might be to the oversized baseball cards of the 1950's.
Click here to view my Knickstars collection and wantlist
Tough basketball cards do come onto the marketplace. The '57 Topps vending find and the recent '68 Topps Test cards from an ex employee via Sports Cards Plus come to mind. The odds of this card staying over $800 in the next year or two are virtually zero.
Long term, the '69 set is a great investment. The rookies, the small size of the set, the lack of other sets from the era, the condition sensitive nature of it....it all adds up. But you can overpay, even for great cards.
Yeah, this set is a pretty good investment at current SMR prices. However, it is a rather poor investment at current eBay prices.
Click here to view my Knickstars collection and wantlist
*Hot set that not everyone knows about.
*Supply seems very short.
*SMR can never seem to catch up.
*It's been this way for a while.
*There is HUGE competition on ebay for PSA 8's.
*Small set that seems attainable.
I keep waiting for the set to cool down so I can finish my set (of 54 hockey) but it doesn't seem to happen.
I didn't realize this 69 Basketball set was so hot. I can see why, it is pretty sweet.
I searched and scoured for raw examples and almost everyone told me that they were not to be found... once in a while you'll get lucky buying raw off ebay... but that's a risky proposition...
One thing I want to say is that a lot of criticism about these unusual and amazing ebay sales seems to revolve around the investment aspect of collecting...
I mean... people get labeled as crazy, psycho or stupid because they pay 800 for a boozer or 5000 for a psa 9 wilt etc...
I can't speak for everyone... but I do know some of these guys who seem to disregard smr and pay as much as they feel like...
some of these guys simply love collecting and have so much money that whether it is a smart investment or not doesn't matter... they'll simply pay an extreme amount of cash because they don't feel like waiting a year or two to see another one pop up...
If you were a millionare would your portfolio revolve around sports memorabillia? I doubt it...
Also... a lot of these guys who are paying tons of money are in fact, very intelligent people... they didn't make their money by purchusing a hundred thousand shares of a loser stock... They are bidding on the card becaus ethey really want it and appreciate it.. the money part seems to be a game or obstacle.
I simply watch in awe as the cards I want fly hundreds of dollars away from me and kick myself for becomming a public school teacher instead of a human ATM machine.
Click here to view my Knickstars collection and wantlist
About 8 or 9 years ago I was fortunate enough to run into a guy named Willy Erving who would show up at shows in south Texas with a car load of 57's. He was unloading a vending box find that was incredible. He would have 25 or 30 examples of Russell in all different centering grades with perfect corners (along with every other card). While I picked up a lot of the cards fairly cheap, I made the BIG mistake of not really cherry picking the great ones. I settled for a little OC at the time because I really didn't care about grading back then. I know I will never see anything like it again!
I think that what this mania is going to do is pull all of the ungraded quality cards from the shoeboxes that people will send in to PSA. If you haven't noticed, the number of PSA 8's have climbed dramatically in this set recently and I believe it wasn't too long ago that the 7's outnumbered the 8's, which is always a great sign of a tough set.
Also, the 61 fleer set went through somewhat of a bubble about 3-6 months ago with people chasing sets. It has since died down now to reasonable levels. The same thing will happen again with the 69's, I hope!
$910 for PSA 8 Bob Boozer?
1969 Topps are nice, but unless you have money to burn, these prices are ridiculous. There is no way in hell that anyone can consider these cards good investments at these levels. In the two years that PSA has graded tallboy cards, PSA has graded over six thousand examples from this ninety-nine card set. More and more people will send these cards in and I suspect there will be over ten-thousand examples graded by 2005.
Regardless, congratulations to the sellers of these cards. You picked a fantastic time to cash out of these cards.
Personally, I think that the 70-71 set is much more attractive and has the Maravich rookie. But there is lots of unopened 70-71 product out there, and the set is almost double the size of '69. Will the prices stay this high? I doubt it. As nosoupyou mentioned, the 1961 Fleer set seems to be calming down. Perhaps all the '61 set builders moved on to 1969?
POTD = 09/03/2003
I bid on this auction just to see where it would end up. Boy was I surprised.
Tom Sanders
Ed
One of the things that you really have to be careful of is the serial numbers on the cards. I've noticed that the some of the recent auctions with numbers beginning with "0" and sporting a psa 9 don't look even close on the scan, yet they are bringing high values. That doesn't mean that you can't have a great card that was graded early on, you just have to be careful.
The guys that bid up Boozer and Sanders, well more power to them. Neither Loaf nor Domenicbasketball seem to care how much they pay for anything.
I guarantee you that you can go to the National and pick up each in 8 condition (ungraded or graded) for book or less.
seems obvious...
in any case, there were some significant sales of psa 9 1970 commons tonight... one was in the $500 range... rick at mintstate has some of these for 50% less~
Click here to view my Knickstars collection and wantlist