What do you think this will go for 1972 Low pop?

handyman

What do yall think this will go for, Its 1of 6 psa 8's which is kinda low for a 1972 topps card. Just wondering if it will get a premium.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2748100171&category=16275&rd=1
1972 Frank Baker #409 PSA 8

acowa

Link to auction

handyman

Thanks for posting the pic, but do yall think this is a rare card?

mcastaldi

It's one of the tougher cards in the 72 set. I paid $100 for mine in a private sale.
For two of the tougher 72s, however, I've resorted to putting bounties out for the first PSA8 NQ example made available to me. Info is in the vintage trading forum.

Mike

DaveRead

Handy:

I too picked mine up in a private sale about six or eight months ago for $78. There were only three of them then. It is a tough card, especially since 5 of them are in people's collections. Frank, did you pick up any of these lately at Nationals?

ABBAdad

Handyman,
Boy I would love to have the card for my 72 set I'm working on, but I'm so early in the game that it doesn't matter that much to me yet. I did start the bidding off on the card though last night for a dollar! I expect it to go high, at least $100.00

ABBA

Vargha

I love this aspect of card collecting. A nobody becomes important because his card is tough to find in high grade. Frank Watts Baker played 4 seasons with the Yankees and Orioles and in his 320 illustrious AB's, compiled a .191 BA with 1 HR and 27 RBI's and a stellar .546 career OPS.

Here is a funny site detailing the 50 "best" hitters below the fabled Mendoza Line:

Determining Mendoza's Heroes: It's Harder Than Mel

FB

Dave,

I picked up one 72 Baker at the Nationals that I plan to send in. If it gets an 8 - it'll be a slider... But, I figured that for $1.00, it was worth the pickup. I didn't have the same luck picking up tough-to-find centered 72's like Castaldi did at the SportsFest.

mcastaldi

ABBAdad> This is my second time building a PSA-graded 1972 set. The first time, I got to about 94% and had a GPA of something like 7.94. As you can imagine, there are a lot of things I'm doing differently having climbed the mountain once.

Firstly, I'm not putting any PSA7s into my set. My target GPA is 8.10 and the 7s would just weigh things down too much

More importantly, I adopted a different philosophy in which cards to pick up when. With this set, I just pretty much bottom feed the easy stuff - but then I'm VERY aggressive on the tough cards. I feel at least with this set, it's very helpful to go after the low-pop cards as early in the game as possible. As Dave mentioned, there are enough people who have either completed the set or is actively building it to make anything with a population of 6 or 7 a super-tough card because of the demand. Plus, there's 787 cards to obtain. . .so the easy stuff and the stars will always be there. Yesterday, there were auctions ending for a Holtzman and a Cleon Jones IA. Both you may not see on eBay for a while. So I think it's important to pick them up when you can. You should set realistic price limits for yourself on the low-pop stuff, but as you're seeing - if you're not willing to pay $65-$100 for a Frank Baker PSA8, then you're going to have to wait for perhaps 3 or 4 more examples to be graded and then offered for sale.

If you want, check out my second set which contains some duplicates - most of them are tough cards. The set on the registry is called "Mike's Duplicates".

Mike

ABBAdad

Mike,

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, this is my first go around on the 72 set. Any bit of advice or suggestions from you or Frank or Erik or anyone that has been through it before would be greatly appreciated! My raw Baker is probably only exmt/nm. So the best thing to do is to go after the tough cards aggressively and bottom feed the high pop cards. Do most of you go after the star cards first or wait til later or just wait for a good deal? Most of the star cards in my set came from my own submissions.

FB

David,

One thing about star cards is that more of them get graded than commons. I'd keep an eye on what the prevailing prices have been for the ones you need in the desired grade and then be patient until you find a well centered example.

Wabittwax

One thing I've learned that if you see a card that you are interested in on Ebay, the last thing you want to do is post it here on this board. You can pretty much guarantee that it will get top dollar now. The reall set builders will find it anyways but alerting 5 extra potential buyers to auction will make it go as high as possible.

handyman

Well it ends today and its at 96.00 right now, I really want to see how it turns out.

FB

And the winner is Rich Corpis!

At $133.50.

RayBShotz

Whoaaa!! I can think of at least one dissappointed 72' PSA 8 collector this morning; as Frank "Homeless" Baker finds a new home. Congratulations Rich.
RayB69Topps

NeilDowney

Hey Guys, I suppose I am the "dissappointed 72' PSA 8 collector" that Ray was talking about. I went as high as I could afford. There has to be a limit as to the price a PSA 8 1972 Topps "BUM" should go for. Hopfully others will see this price and start grading more of them. Then I'll get mine at half that price down the road. Besides, I still need two others along with that card. So I'm glad that I didn't overpay for this one. Neil

mcastaldi

Neil> Not to worry. While I think the Baker will always be one of the toughest cards in the set relative to the rest of the cards in the set, there's bound to be a few more examples.
Though I'm not as convinced on the Schaal IA - which has been sitting at a pop of 5 for a LONG time.

Mike

DaveRead

Sorry Neil, but I'm sure another one will come down the road shortly. I believe there are now 3 Moe Drabowsky PSA 9's, so who's to say. I never thought I'd see that. But will the price go down? Probably not much, because as one collector fills that hole, some new one will step up.

gemint

After all the hoopla, I've pulled the Baker from my set for submission next time. It should 8.