Help me make sense of this...

SportscardAdvocate

As some of you may know, I am trying to bottom feed a 62 Mantle. This week I was excited that a GAI 5 was up for auction and I figured it would go for beneath SMR which means it may meet my financial limitations. I don't have any GAI cards so I thought it would be cool to get one and see what it looks like. I'd cross it over regardless. At the same time, the eBay search engine informed me of a PSA 6 for sale.

As the week passed, I saw these weren't getting much traffic, so I thought I might have a chance at the 6. So I set my snipes for both cards figuring it was unlikely I'd get both cards, and even if I did, I was lowballing so much I could sell to lmayer and still make money.

To make a long story short, or rather shorter, the GAI 5 went for $169.16 and the PSA 6 went for $169.49. A whopping premium of 33 cents for a PSA card graded one grade higher.

SMR is $170 for a PSA 5 and $275 for a 6.

Is it odd that a GAI card gets SMR and a PSA card hardly beats it despite being one grade higher? Now I can't figure out why this is. Both sellers have 1000 plus 100% feedback which in my mind resolves any credibility issues.

The GAI has a better scan but is included with a bunch of other cards that I think might annoy bidders. The 6 didn't even have Supersize but that may have been because the card wasn't that good.

My sense is that the 6 is a low 6 with what looks like an almost shorn left side. But the 5 doesn't look that much better. In fact I thought it might crossover into a 4 (VG/EX).

Finally, I'm sure that even if I'd pursued the 6 with a higher price (my snipe didn't even kick it it was so low), I would have pushed the price to over $200 and still wouldn't have gotten the card. I feel like contacting the buyer and asking what their max bid was, but it feels like lifting somebody's cards after no sees their raise. That's just not done.

Any thoughts?

goodriddance189

too small of a sample size. the scan difference might have accounted for something, and im sure there are many more psa 6 mantles than gai 5s out there

MyBigToe

The 61 AS in the 6.5 looks like a very nice card. I would agree as well, the scan size is too small to make any kind of assessment.

thefootballcardstore

Could be the BVG (BGS) effect. When BVG first came out, they were selling for a pretty premium over PSA. BUt once the initial crowd got thiers (1-3 people) there was no market for the stuff. I still hear from people that paid a ton for a 1/1 BVG, but that are now selling for a fraction of the PSA price. Lots of people got burned on BVG (me included), and learned a valuable lesson.

Just 1 possibility - Jeremy

aro13

Other than the fact that the GAI card is nicely centered I see nothing unusual about the card.

However, the bidding pattern on the GAI card is very interesting. The high bidder seems to bid on quite a few mid-grade cards so he would be fine. But the second and third bidders are syzygy3.14 and kardz-r-us both of PRO graded fame. It is obviously not a shill bid and the seller is good but I have read so many negative things about those sellers that I would be tempted to suspect the worst if they won the card.

Wabittwax

So based on those prices, it would be profitable to buy a PSA 5, cross it into a GAI 5, and resell it. This collecting world is crazy. Whatever trend that is defiantely won't last.

sagard

The five looks to be a nice card. Nicely centered, thick borders. Obviously a candidate for an unscrupulous person. That may have been what drove up the price.

qualitycards

You can take any 2 vintage cards on any given day and come up w/ a trend, be it in favor of GAI, SGC, PSA or Beckett. In fact if those 2 cards were sold a week earlier or a week later, the #'s would be different, maybe more so in GAI's behalf or possibly higher on the PSA end. If you want me to believe that any grading company's cards are worth more then another, do many examples (like a few dozen) before the hammer and lets see what happens...jay

LuxuryWines

You guys are missing something .... The GAI 5 card probably fared better because it is grouped with the 33 Gehrig card... If the pages for the auctions have counters add up the number of hits for all of Mantle and the Gehrig GAI cards combined , and compared it to the PSA 6 MAntle I would bet the difference in people viewing the cards is huge.... Probably pulled a bid from somebody who was seriously interested in the gehrig and was intrigued by the Mantle as well....


Jeff