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Toughest Vintage Set
gemint
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Has anyone done an analysis on what is the toughest vintage set (pre-1972) to build in PSA 8 or better? The best way to determine this is probably through an analysis of the pop report to determine which regular issue Topps set has the most low pop cards (say <10 PSA 8 or higher). I'm wondering how the 1969 set stacks up. There are many cards with very high pops and many cards with very low pops. My guess is the 1962 set would be the toughest but that's just a guess. I assume some of you computer savy collectors have written programs that can crunch the population numbers in no time flat to generate this data.
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Davalillo
The 1952 Bowman Small set. This is probably the toughest FB set of all time to put together in high grade. Or possibly the 1948 or 49 Leaf FB or BB set for that matter.
When was the last time you saw some of the SP's from the Leaf BB set in high grade??
Rob
Im not sure they were talking dollar wise. If they were I think maybe we need to go pre-war, Pop wise I think maybe 54 Wilson Franks. Besides the black backs of 52 the 52,53,54 sets all have alot of cards graded 8. Dollar wise these are definately pricey with the 52 Mantle right up there. Without trying to start a controversy on whats vintage again I truely believe there are different levels of vintage somewhat like the comics that have golden and silver age. True vintage is relative to whose calling the shots. My sons 15 year old friends believe I am vintage. Personally I believe vintage is from 57 and back but most hobbiests call 72 and below as vintage. I know I am building the 69 set just like Gemint and the pops in this set can vary from 3 to 200 in 8. There are alot of very easy cards but there are some very tough cards. I do know this and it has been proved by a few people on this board that if you truely want to build a set in 8 or better and if the cards are graded as long as you dont mind spending the money the set can be built. Not to take away from the sets that have been built but no matter who owns the card they always have a price they will take for it. All this said I hope this does not start a vintage war for its this collectors opinion that vintage is in the eye of the psa holder.
Dave
<< <i>You guys can't really be serious comparing 1971 or even 1962 for that matter to 1952, 1953 or 1954.
Davalillo >>
Well, perhaps we should catagorize by 'toughest set of the 50s' and 'toughest set of the 60s'.
Try doing 62 football
John
Funny you should say that. I think that will be a sleeper set in the future. Once
somebody adds it to the registry you never no. I have a good run in raw that
will make 8. I sifted through maybe 750 of them earlier this year.
I've seen a few in the past on ebay in 8. And the prices were cheap 65 bucks
for an aaron and 9.99 for a cepeda both of which I fell asleep at the wheel.
It is a tough set.
If it was this, I would rate them 1952,1954,1953,1955,1957,1958,1956,1961,1962,1959,1960,1963,1969,1966,1967,1964,1970,1971,1965,1968 toughest to easiest to complete in psa 8 or better. Toughest mainstream postwar set has to be 1954 Wilson Franks. 1948-49 Leaf also difficult.
In football hate to disappoint its advocates but 1955 Topps All America is relatively easy in psa 8 compared with 1952 Bowman small, 1952 Bowman Large, 1953 Bowman, 1948 Bowman, 1948 Leaf and 1949 Leaf. Of topps sets only, I would venture that 1957 Topps is tougher.
For basketball excluding Topps Test 1968 would probably be 1957 Topps by a whisker over 1948 Bowman.
Davalillo
I haven't analyzed the pops or tried to build any of the baseball sets, (though I've sold an awful lot of cards from them), but I agree with your ranking. The 71's are difficult but there are SO many of them that it mitigates the degree oif difficulty on any one card. The only one I might take issue with you on is the 69's which, again, are bountiful, (though the paper stock IS poor). I think there would be a lot more 69's in the marketplace but there seems to be no market for them at the moment.
On the football side, I find the 52 Smalls and the 53 Bowmans to be equally difficult. Centering on 53's is just so tough. You can go to shows for years and not find any raw in high grade.
Setbuilders Sports Cards
Ebay: set-builders & set-builders2
Though it is not yet one of the more popular sets of the 1950s, if you consider that the infamous Frank Overmire 1951 Bowman card brings thousands in PSA 8 NM/MT, I wonder what the long-term potential of some of the tough 1955 Bowman cards would be. For example, to this day, the 1955 Bowman #232 Birdie Tebbets card has only a population of two in PSA 8 NM/MT (congratulations to Rob Hobbs for having one of those two). Even more interestingly -- you often hear people say things like "oh, it's only because people have not been grading this card lately, and there is no profit in it". However, with 1955 Bowman, you will find that for many of the tough common cards, the PSA 8 and higher population has been close to stagnant since the printed Fall 1999 Population Report. I promise you that I know of dozens of sets that have been picked through in the meantime -- there are simply certain cards that will, I believe, always be extremely tough to locate.
I have always wondered where the collecting base is for 55 Bowmans? There does not seem to be alot of guys on the registry collecting it. Also, I do not see any of the big 4 collecting it so if they decide to get into it...look out!!
John
Marc, I agree with your '55 Bowman assessment. There's virtually no room for error on top to bottom centering with that issue. I've had to pass on many a strong example due to the front being OC and the back being miscut. Then throw in the woodgrain borders and you get a double whammy.
read everyone's informed & educated opinion. I don't have access
to the pop reports right now, but what about the 1951 Topps Current
All-Stars? Sure, it's a very small set at just 11 cards, but if
we're talking straight percentages here it should rank as one of
the toughest to complete in PSA 8. Does anybody have the numbers
of PSA 8 examples graded for the Konstanty, Roberts, and Stanky
from this set? I believe that these three cards were never issued
in gum packs, but they are part of a legitimate, nationally issued
Topps set, so for completion's sake this is a TOUGH set.
John wrote:
> I have always wondered where the collecting base is for 55
> Bowmans? There does not seem to be alot of guys on the registry
> collecting it.
I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I don't mean
this as an insult to the '55 Bowman collectors, but could it be
because maybe most people don't like the look of that set? I per-
sonally like the look of the '55 Bowman cards, but it is somewhat
"visually unusual" with the TV set design. If someone were to choose
one Bowman set to collect, they'd most likely go with one of the earlier
issues. And if a collector were to pick a set from the year 1955 to
assemble, they'd most often go with the Topps issue for the better eye
appeal and the Clemente and Koufax cards (which the Bowman set lacks).
Add to this the commonly off-centered cards, and how tough it is to
find cards in high grade, and that might explain why collectors shy
away from this set. Just a guess...
Chuck
<< <i>Has anyone done an analysis on what is the toughest vintage set (pre-1972) to build in PSA 8 or better? The best way to determine this is probably through an analysis of the pop report to determine which regular issue Topps set has the most low pop cards (say <10 PSA 8 or higher). I'm wondering how the 1969 set stacks up. There are many cards with very high pops and many cards with very low pops. My guess is the 1962 set would be the toughest but that's just a guess. I assume some of you computer savy collectors have written programs that can crunch the population numbers in no time flat to generate this data. >>
Here is what I have per year with quantity of cards that have a 8NQ pop of less than 10. Excluded are variations.
1952 - 8 excluding black backs
1953 - 5
1954 - 0
1955 - 0
1956 - 0
1957 - 0
1958 - 46
1959 - 17
1960 - 45
1961 - 3
1962 - 130
1963 - 17
1964 - 54
1965 - 16
1969 - 120
1971 - 65
1975 - 13
This clearly doesn't tell you what set would be the toughest, just the most amount of cards with Low Pop 8s. I do have this fairly automated so if anyone wants to change the criteria, just post it. Off the top of my head, cards from the early fifties probably should have a higher threshold to be considered "low pop."
Joe
My Lemon is a 84 or 7 and my Rizzuto is a 80 or 6.
about as close as you can get for now
BMW got a Lemon into an 86 NM+ a couple years ago.
I believe there is also a PSA 6.
beyond that it's all wilderness, I doubt even the "easy" set of 8 can be done in NM/MT holders.
I would love to be wrong.
John
John, there actually is a collecting base out there, believe it or not. Whether or not they all will admit it, all of the big four are in on this set (of course, I have absolutely no idea who you consider the "Big Four"). Davalillo and Ron Hobbs are both fairly far on the way to exceptionally strong sets. Both of them possess some of the tougher cards in the set in high grade. Ron has the Tebbets PSA 8 card, the toughest 8 in the set as well as a few PSA 9's, too. Davalillo has a Population Three PSA 9 MINT second year Aaron card. With the other two Aaron cards accounted for in private collections, that makes the entire population accounted for.
Charlie Merkel actually has a very nice set. I do not know how many graded cards from the set he has, though I know that I have sold him some star and common PSA 9 cards in the past. It is only guesswork at how much he has graded. I can say that I know he has numerous versions of this set in varying degree. He definitely has an extremely high-grade set that is presently not graded, to my knowledge. He also has, I believe, all of the high-grade commons he once had in his "Master" set that he since upgraded. So who knows how many sets that may be -- but I'm sure it is some of the nicest raw 1955 Bowman stuff out there, presumably much of it coming from the Paris, TN find.
Marshall also has a number of PSA 8 cards from this set that he purchased through the public marketplace. He is also sitting on at least one high-grade raw set.
So, depending on who you think the "Top" collectors are, I would say that the forces of Merkel, Fogel, Davalillo and Hobbs are quite the hobby force. Even if all of them do not have their sets graded -- there is no reason to think that they won't be graded some day. As for some of the other top collectors, it seems like some of them are either totally into a set or they do not collect it at all.
I agree that the 1955 Bowman set is not the most popular of the 1950s sets. Whether that may one day be a 1955 Bowman Renaissance, it is unclear. I nonetheless think it is one of the toughest mainstream 1950s sets out there.
It would be interesting who John considers the "big four".
John--in your opinion what would I have to do to arrive in the "big four" since in your eyes I am not there.
Davalillo
The big 4 are.....
CM, MF, DL & JB.
Note:"JB" is not me...LOL
Jim...is it fair to say that you are #5? Also...lets not forget about the good Doctor out west.
John
Marc-
Thanks for the insight.....I was going by the sets actually registered.
John
<< <i>The big 4 are.....
CM, MF, DL & JB.
Note:"JB" is not me...LOL
Jim...is it fair to say that you are #5? Also...lets not forget about the good Doctor out west.
John >>
Thanks John!
It's an honor to be a member of the "big four"!
Seriously, Jim - I was surprised to see the '71s so far down on your list - behind the '70 set even. I have a grand total of one PSA graded 1971 card (Willie Stargell PSA 8 in case anyone wondered) and somewhere around 900-1000 PSA graded 1970 cards. I've submitted a lot of 1970 cards myself and received a decent amount of 8s and a few 9s here and there, but looking through my raw 71s, I don't think I have even one card that would get better than a seven. Granted, I've got probably 50x the amount of raw 70s as I do 71s, but I think it's safe to say that the '70 set is a lot easier to find in NRMT to Mint condition raw than the '71 set is. What was your ranking of the sets based on? Was cost a factor or were you just speaking in terms of populations/availability?
I have been slowly putting together the 1960 Topps set as well and see that you have listed it as the 3rd hardest set of the 60's (behind the popular 61 & 62 sets). If you don't mind, I would appreciate any insight you could give as to the difficulties of this set and what makes it more difficult than, say the '69 set with the notorious "tilts". I've noticed some printing problems (especially with the Rookie subset). Are rough cuts common? I have several rough cut PSA 8s (including the Yastrzemski rookie) in my collection.
Thanks in advance.
JEB.
My benchmark for this rationale is the 62 set which has 2 cards with populations of zero in PSA 8, and 4 cards with populations of one. Right now, simply put, it is not possible to complete the 62 set. Are there any other sets out there like that? The 62 set actually had about a dozen zero population PSA 8 cards until the recent commons grading frenzy knocked those back to pop 2s and 3s. Still, virtually impossible.
Don
1. 1951 Topps Current Allstar set
2. 1951 Topps Connie Mack Allstar set
3. 1954 Wilson Weiners
4. 1971 Topps Greatest Moments
5. 1934 Batter up
6. 1948-49 Leaf
7. 1937 O-Pee-Chee
8. 1952 Topps
Please note that the first five sets have NEVER been completed in all PSA 8 (NQ) form.
1954
Try to complete a PSA 8 Tattoo Orbit set.
By dollar value of the sets, you are probably right--I may have been 4th at one time but at the rate that Branca is throwing $ into graded cards, I would say he is likely to have passed me--however, I do all sports--maybe 3 years from now my claim to fame will be to have at least 50 vintage sets in psa 8 or better. My goal is more than that--we will see.
Virtualized,
I am not too sure about the 1970 set but my sense is that the 1968-71 sets are not as difficult as earlier sets. I think that ultimately the population of cards in these sets will dwarf the earlier sets.
I am considering availability and cost in these rankings.
BBCI,
For whatever reason, 1962 is just not that popular. I am guessing as I have not looked at the total pop of cards graded but I bet it is materially less than all the years around it. As more 1962s are graded, we will see a significant growth in psa 8s of the tough cards. Contrast this with 1952--are there any more Maxwells out there that will grade 8? Same thing on the tough 1953s and 1954s. And I do agree, difficulty should refer to how hard it is to complete the set.
Davalillo
<< <i>Maybe the operative word is "complete" the set. Sagard, if you could run the numbers using a population of 4 or less, let's see what turns up. If we assume that any given set (I am mostly talking mainstream BB Topps) has 4-6 serious collectors attempting to complete each set, then the set with the most very low population cards has to be considered the most difficult to actually "complete"
Don >>
This is with quantity being POP less than 5.
1952 - 0 excluding black backs
1953 - 0
1954 - 0
1955 - 0
1956 - 0
1957 - 0
1958 - 2
1959 - 0
1960 - 3
1961 - 0
1962 - 27
1963 - 0
1964 - 2
1965 - 1
1969 - 6
1971 - 5
1975 - 0
Good luck on the '62s!
From my experience handling thousands of raw cards, rough cuts do appear to be much more prevalent with 60 Topps than with many of the other sets. I am not sure why. Print problems are rife throughout the set, not just in the Rookies subset. Unlike many years with print issues, the problem here is black print markings running horizontally through the backgrounds. There is also "snow" much like in the 58's and 57's. I think it is a very tough set to find all the commons in high grade, especially in the first 30 to 40 cards in the set, though the stars seem numerous in that condition. Good luck in your search.
Setbuilders Sports Cards
Ebay: set-builders & set-builders2
There are currently at least 22 cards in the 1955 Bowman baseball set that have PSA 8 populations of five or less. That is approximately 7x of the entire set...
Also -- as for the big names not completing the 1955 Bowman set, I have started to see some of the big names pop up here and there -- for example, Marshall has nearly all of the 1955 Bowman Dodgers listed in his 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers set, even though he does not have a 1955 Bowman set listed. There is another individual who has the entire 1955 Bowman Yankees team set. For what it's worth, I think that some of the big collectors tend not to register their set until it is either a) over 90% graded, or b) over 90% graded in 8 or better. So they may have masses of cards -- but they simply do not list them.
Ron-
Ive got you in my top 10.
John
You certainly are a humble man! I have always respected your 1955 Bowman set -- and I thank you very much for all of your professional and gentlemanly conversation in the few times that we have actually spoken to one another on the phone.
Though you may not consider your collection as extraordinary as others -- you nonetheless have made extraordinary inroads on this hobby. Your 1969 Topps Master set, your 1951 Topps sets, as well as numerous other sets that you have listed on PSA are all extraordinary efforts showcasing time and detail-oriented attention to your cards. You should certainly be very proud of all that you have put together!
<< <i>sagard, just wondering about the gaps in the list. Are you not including sets like 1967 or can we assume the result is '0' for the sets not listed? Thanks. >>
The missing years are in fact zeroes, except for 1970 TOPPS witch has 13 cards with pop 4 or less in 8.
I basically didn't run those years due to not having anything decent from them!
<< <i>FOR THE RECORD, RON HOBBS ISN'T EVEN IN THE "BIG 20" FOR THE REALLY HIGH GRADE SETS. HIS NAME SHOULD NOT BE LISTED IN THE SAME SENTENCE AS MERKEL, FOGEL AND THE LIKE. >>
How about the Top 25?
John