1970's psa 10's

Wayne8348

I was looking through the pop reports and wanted to know which sets from the 70's had the toughest psa 10's and even though first place is very obvious some of the other kind of surprised me.

1970's Topps Toughest PSA 10
Year Total Graded Total 10's Percentage 10's
1970 33201 70 0.2108%
1971 35654 20 0.0561%
1972 40696 183 0.4497%
1973 19308 83 0.4299%
1974 24184 132 0.5458%
1975 39848 56 0.1405%
1976 17076 198 1.1595%
1977 10302 60 0.5824%
1978 25305 328 1.2962%
1979 14335 141 0.9836%

I was sure that 71's would be the toughest but they are follew by 75's being the 2nd toughest and 70's being 3rd. The easiest psa 10's are the 76's, 78's, and 79's. What does all of this mean - probably not much of anything other than colored borders are probably harder to find in gemint than white bordered cards.

Wayne


I put all of this information in nice columns and then when I post it the information all comes out a mess. How do you stop this from happening?

Stump

Wayne

Great info on the 10's. 1975 surprises me. The 1970 set I knew was tough. Maybe Jeb can help with the column thing it also happens to me when I post info.

Virtualizard were are you. Help

Dave

Virtualizard

The Fuse Talk program does not allow multiple spacing - that's probably the reason your table doesn't look right. No matter how many times you hit the space bar, Fuse Talk will display it as 1 space. Luckily, the space is the only character that is treated this way.

Here are 2 ways that I can think of to create formatted tables:



First, instead of using spaces, use the "underscore" -

---

__Year___Graded___10s____% 10s

---

1970___33201___70____0.2108%
1971___35654___20____0.0561%
1972___40696___183___0.4497%
1973___19308___83____0.4299%
1974___24184___132___0.5458%
1975___39848___56____0.1405%
1976___17076___198___1.1595%
1977___10302___60____0.5824%
1978___25305___328___1.2962%
1979___14335___141___0.9836%



Or, you can put the data into a spreadsheet (a word processor table would work as well) and do a "Print Screen". Save the image in a graphics program and upload it as a .jpg -




I hope that was of some use to you.

JEB.

RedHeart54

There's still quite a bit of unopened '78 and '79 product. '76 is somewhat surprising though do '76s have the printing flaws so prevelent on '79s? '72 doesn't seem really surprising. Seems there is no short supply of high grade commons out there. Plus, it seems a week doesn't go by in which a wax box is up for auction.

Stump

Jeb

Great job I knew you had the answers. Thats why we pay you the big bucks.

Thanks much

Dave

jaxxr

Nice job, good to see that type of info with details. Informative but some other conclusions or possiblities may be drawn also....

Perhaps, due to the more recent nature and corresponding lower value raw ( per Beckett) the more recent "vintage" sets and I'll include 1980 Topps BB as well, these years have a slightly different submission index.

For example, I'll be more likely to submit a 70 or 71 which is a probable 8, chance at a 9, due to the cost/value of such cards. If I get a 7 they still have a decent chance to sell. If I'm going to submit 78, 79, or 80, I know there is no market for 7s and very little action for many 8s. Therefore would not one be much more selective in submitting a card from those years ?

Grading is, of course, quite subjective, we all know all 9s are not always equal and perhaps some 10s could easily be 9s. There is a constant element of "chance" when submitting. To minimize the downside of lesser than marketable grades, perhaps most submissions from the less expensive more recent sets, are done with a higher subbmission index and therefore don't necessarily support in full the raw conclusions per the toughest sets to get 10s from ??

On a related note, I like to classify the last 11 years of "vintage" per Beckett and many collectors, in three groups;
A). 1970 thru 1973, the last four years cards issued via series, submit almost all 7 + cards.
. 1974 thru 1977 first four complete set years, 660 size avaiable from Sears and Penny's I believe, submit almost all 8+ cards.
C). 1978 thru 1980 last three Topps monoply sets, bigger with 726 cards. submit almost all 9 + cards.

NHLfightguy

I'm surprised that 1971 has 20 10's. Wonder if any HOF are in that mix, they would probally sell for a small fortune. Not only is the black border tough, but centering is another killer on why so few tens from this year. Very little room for error on both t/b and l/r and the dark green back can chip as well.

Wabittwax

jaxxr, you hit it right on the head. When I submit 70-75, I shoot for 9's but I'm ok with getting 8's. On 76's and 77's I shoot for 9's but really make an emphasis to avoid 8's, in doing so, passing up many cards that would have gotten a 9. On 78-80's, I shoot only for 10's and I am happy with 9's and lose money on any 8's that I get. On those, I only send a card that I could reasonably see in a PSA 10 holder. That usually ensure's that I don't get any 8's, but I pass up many, many cards that would have gotten a 9. On a 500 count vending box of 1980 Topps, I average about 5 commons to submit that have a shot at a 10. That usually results in about 1 in every 20 coming back a 10. All of that is for commons, stars are a different story.

Virtualizard

<< <i>I'm surprised that 1971 has 20 10's. Wonder if any HOF are in that mix, they would probally sell for a small fortune... >>



NHLfightguy,

Your question got me curious so I checked it out. Here's what I found:

Out of the 20 - PSA 10's, 7 of them (8 if you include Pete Rose) are HOFers:

Tom Seaver - 1 PSA 10
Al Kaline - 1 PSA 10
Hank Aaron - 2 PSA 10s
Ernie Banks - 1 PSA 10
Jim Palmer - 1 PSA 10
Roberto Clemente - 1 PSA 10
Pete Rose - 1 PSA 10

Of the remaining 12, 8 more are of minor stars and special cards:

Tony Conigliaro - 2 PSA 10s
Checklist #206 - 1 PSA 10
Phillies Team - 1 PSA 10
Reggie Smith - 1 PSA 10
World Series Game 2 - 1 PSA 10
Bert Campaneris - 1 PSA 10
Milt Pappas - 1 PSA 10

Only 4 could really be considered commons:

Marcelino Lopez - 1 PSA 10
Jackie Hernandez - 1 PSA 10
Mike Nagy - 1 PSA 10
Ron Hansen - 1 PSA 10 (He was 1960 Rookie of the Year if that counts for anything)


Jaxxr is right about submissions being different across the decade. Since there is such a discrepancy about the differences between 9s and 10s, maybe a more indicative statistic would be the total population of 9s and 10s combined, along with the corresponding % of total:



I think this gives a much clearer view of which sets are the toughest to get the higher grades.

JEB.

Stump

Jeb

Great stats it gives me an idea of what to earmark first.

How do I print those stats or can you email me the spreadsheet?

Dave

qualitycards

STUMP - Did you get my Email yesterday at noon? Email back or call....thanks, jay!

jaxxr

Jeb,
I don't feel any of the info you've provided is inaccurate or mean any disrespect, and I hate to drone on about my prior view that many of us submit a bit higher quality cards as they get newer. I do feel the tiotal of 9s and 10s per year percentage will not always reflect the true difficulty or toughness of a particular year. A common submitted for 1979 will usually have a clearer shot a a 9 or 10 than one we select to send in from 1969.

I know this does not prove anything, however I looked up some pop stats for a superstar who played the entire era, checking out his 10s as via the original post. Using only regular issue Topps individual/solo cards as a base, I believe Nolan Ryan cards are probably submitted with the least scrunity with respect to the grade gotten back. Any Ryan card worthy of a 7 or better should result in a value of over grading costs. So probably Ryan cards get sent in with less regard to year, or being in 9 or better type condition, perhaps giving a more random sample of the toughness of any given year. That is, I'll send in any decent Nolan Ryan cards that have a chance at a seven, but I'll not send in any 1978 commons with the same quality percieved.

1969 thru 1974; 7689 submitted, 5 tens, a % of .00065
1976 thru 1980; 5093 submitted, 3 tens, a % of .00059

Virtualizard

<< <i>Jeb,
I don't feel any of the info you've provided is inaccurate or mean any disrespect, and I hate to drone on about my prior view that many of us submit a bit higher quality cards as they get newer.... >>



Jaxxr,

That's why I said that I agreed with you in the first place. I didn't see any relevance to the # of 10's graded vs. the # of total graded being indicative of a set's difficulty. 10's are basically a roll of the dice. Many 9's out there would be 10's on a day that a grader is in a good mood.

Maybe we should go a step further and include 8's in the analysis. But, at some point it doesn't make any sense to compare 1970 to 1979.

From my experience with '70s cards, I do think the percentages of 9s and 10s is generally a good indicator of the difficulty of a set. For instance, the '71, '75, & '70 sets (respectively) are the 3 most difficult to achieve high grades. This makes sense since they are the only cards from the '70s with colored borders. Look at the '79s as well. From posts I've read here before, the '79 set is tough.

I don't currently collect '76 through '79 graded cards. I'd like to hear more thoughts on the numbers from the late '70s.

Good discussion.

JEB.

helionaut

A PSA 10 1979T Rod Carew sold for $898 last night. Seven other 10s sold for $30-50. So 5% of the 1979 PSA 10 population changed hands in one day.

I saved the 1975 pop report from 3/8/02, and it shows:

Total--------9-----10---------%age 9-----------%age 10
16427---1209---20------------7.36----------------0.122

And on 12/11:
Total--------9-----10---------%age 9-----------%age 10
31486---3470---37------------11.02--------------0.118

9s have gone up dramatically, with the overall percentage of 9s increasing more than 3 points as the population doubled, and continuing to increase since then. Being able to turn a 50-cent card into a $50 card I'd think is a good motivation for dealers, and collectors who do the submissions themselves have had great luck. 10s I'd expect to be less predictable, seeming to be as much a whim of the grader as adherance to any objective standard, but they are actually being graded on a consistent pace.

While one would expect the colored-border sets to have the lowest ratios of 9s and 10s, and they do, it's still good data to see where market growth could come from. As later years become more collectible for the Registry, more and better submissions will come. Except for 1978, all sets 76-79 have fewer total submissions than those 70-75. I wonder where all those 1978s came from. I guess that would be an indicator that it was just a good year for production so more nice ones get submitted. If 35,000 1977 cards are ever submitted, I'd think the percentages would look similar to earlier years. If 1976 is the new 1975, how long until 1977 is the new 1976?

BTW, the white space issue is a web-browser thing. If you have consecutive spaces in almost any situation, unless they are specified to be non-breaking spaces (&nbsp or in a pre-formatted tag, the web browser ignores any after the first.

jaxxr

Regarding colored border cards....

I realize the 71s and 75s have non-white borders and the 70s have gray ones, a bit closer to the traditional white borders. The backs of the 73s have black borders as well. Certainly chips are more apparent to the naked eye or casual observation. But when magnified under 10x or greater magnification and closely inspected by professional experts, why are colors other than white more prone to chips / corner wear ??

Is the ink used for white stronger than that of, say blue for example ?? If a card is banged, dropped , or handled the same way, why is "wear" more evident on colors other than white ?? If the usual paper stock of the vintage cards is grayish, is the gray, produced via wear, more contrasting and noticable with green rather than with white ?? Perhaps the 1970 gray borders show wear less because the wear is only different shades of gray. Possibly the ink or dye or whatever, used to produce colors, including black, on vintage cards, is of a weker, less lasting type than white ink. Woodgrain-like borders from 62, 68, and even 1987 might be even tougher per wear /chips showing.

Centering issues, print mark likelyhood, miscut ratios, focus /register problems, cutting crew expertise, the age of the card, and a large variety of other elements , not just corner-chip wear alone, contribute to factors making a particular year "tough" to get in nice shape.

Wayne8348

Jeb,

Thanks for the help - I think I can understand the first method but the second one may take some work for me. It looks great though.

Wayne

OhioTaz

Stump

Not certain whether your question was answered or not but you can print Jeb's tables at least two ways. You can put the mouse over the table and if you have a modern version of IE you will get a series of small icons appearing in the upper left hand corner of the image. One of those is a printer. An alternative and more reliable method is to get a screen capture program. There are many available. A great one (and free as well) is ScreenPrint32. It can be downloaded from this link if you are interested.

Download Center for Screen Print 32

Hope that helps.

Greg

Stump

Greg

Thanks for the help with that. Jeb emailed me with a download and that took care of it. Thanks for the help

Dave