1969 Topps Super Award Set

psa10fan

Thanks to all my collecting friends who have emailed me with congratulations on the award for the Best Topps Specialty Set of 2003. I am very honored
and humbled by this selection; it was completely unexpected.
--First, I owe a huge thanks to my collecting friend Marc Schoenen; he is almost more responsible for putting this set together than I am. He got me
started several years ago, and has been a constant source of encouragement and support. Marc is one of those prime reasons that I can say that I value the friendships
I have made in collecting far more than any cards that have come my way.
--Second, one of my top collecting goals for 2004 will be to upgrade the 1969 Supers set if at all possible. Following is a list of the 8 cards I
need in PSA 10 to complete this is an all-PSA 10 set (the numbers in parentheses indicates how many 10s are currently in existence somewhere):
#1 McNally (2)
#5 Yaz (1)
#21 Chance (2)
#24 Mantle (6)
#27 Monday (2)
#40 Helms (0)
#64 Marichal (0)
#65 Mays (0)
--Any help anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated. I also get great satisfaction helping others complete their sets, so let me know what
you need and I can work at tracking it down, particularly in graded and ungraded baseball from 1950 to 1982.
--Congratulations to all of you other award winners. Thanks for your part in helping to maintain the fun and enjoyment of this hobby.
Sincerely, Robert Earhart (contact me at earhartr@aol.com)

mikeschmidt

Bob:

Thank you for your kind words.

Having loved and lived this set at a point long, long ago, I would be interested to hear your thoughts about this set long-term. I am posting here, as I thought others might be interested in the conversation. (You can always e-mail me if you would prefer to talk off-line...)

1) What do you think the long-term outlook for this set is? I seem to recall you telling me that these sets were available for something like $24.95 in the mid-1970s, and that is when you picked up some of your first sets. I have seen a couple of high-grade raw and graded sets in various auction houses over the past two years (including Lew Lipset's -- though the others slip my mind right now), and I was wondering if you thought there was much more raw sets out there?

2) Do you ever think that there will be a Willie Mays PSA 10? It seemed to me that that card almost always had a large "cloud" splotch to the up and right of Willie's stance. In fact, I think over 75% of the PSA 9's I ever saw of the card carried that splotch, to some varying degree. As such -- given a short-printed set with such a defect -- do you think that this card would ever 10? Just curious.

Best of luck tracking down your final eight heathens!

Marc

qualitycards

BOB - Thats one helluva impressive set. Congrats!!!..jay

murcerfan

Marc,
Ok, i was gonna hold my piece about this set winning an award.
I truly appreciate the effort Bob has made.
Heck, I even gave him first crack at my set when it broke, I think he got 3 psa 10's and Davalillo and Marshall got a few handfuls of 9's each;

BUT, I believe that the rarity and difficulty of this issue is overstated. Despite the surplus lost in the legendary warehouse fire.... many,many sets were sold after-market by collectors warehouse.

It seems these days complete raw sets come out about every major auction and each one that goes into psa gets about 6-8 psa 10's and a slew of 9's. It seems like just a matter of time before this set turns into another 1968 in terms of difficulty.

and I don't think the PSA graders take cards with round corners seriously or the criteria they follow becomes skewed somehow. I've had SGC 8's (and even a 7) get into PSA 10 holders. I love the set and think it of very high quality, more so than the much tougher sister set of 1970 FB super gloss, but the market on these in 10 has been cool for 4-5 years now.
I piecemealed most of a raw set together in the mid nineties and then finished it with graded cards and upgrades (got it to 9.05 when i broke it). I enjoyed the endevour. bBut in the end decided I cvould probably buy the set back at 60% of current market if I so chose.

You are right that the print splotching on the Mays is the achilles heel to the set, as is the centering on the Seaver.

However, many stars in psa 9 are selling below SMR and I believe this will continue. It would seem that this set has swaped popularity with the formerly unpopular '71 Greatest Moments.

One more hope and thought is that Mike "Mickey" Campell will read this and finally sell or swap that damn Yaz 10 to Bob, as I am pulling for him to complete the set in 10's........and for TC to follow behind him.

mikeschmidt

Murcerfan:

Again -- being a relative "neophyte" to the hobby compared to many others -- I appreciate your wisdom. I am left with the following question, though: Is this set more common than believed, as you suggest -- or is it more of a matter that the sets that do exist tend to exist in high grade (e.g. NM/MT or better...)

I think pricing a set like this is somewhat hard. I really have not seen too many bad examples from this set....ever. Occassionally I see creased examples, or those with stains, but more often than not, the cards that I see do seem to be in pretty high grade. Add in the rounded corners -- and I do not think that PSA can really "price" these cards very fairly in tmers of SMR. If you look through SMR -- there seems to be a general paradigm of pricing multiples for 8s, 9s and 10s. Those multiples do not hold for this set because of its commonness in high grade if and when it is seen.

You are right that a number of sets seem to have hit the hobby lately. I'm curious to see whether this continues or not.

I used to have a good idea what separated the 9s from the 10s -- but looking at what I have left from this set (two 10s and two 9s -- all Phillies cards), I can no longer definitively say.

murcerfan

oohh.........the phillies are the tough ones.
Allen and Rojas are on my top 500 cards in the hobby list (the book will be out for x-mas)


I kept psa 10's of Roy "I'm a coach now?" White and Mel "I'm still a coach ?" Stottlemyre.

I bought a raw "mint" Mantle from Rosen a few years ago....it had a little surface imperfection on it and I was about to semd it back....but thought, what the hay.. send it to L.A..........lordy..lordy..a 9 is born.

The Bill Freehan and Dave McNally are subtley tough.

The exclusion of Bobby Murcer from this set, released mid-season in '69 was lazy on topps part and a major reason I look down upon this one................ as the set went to press, he led the league in virtually every hitting (no, his middle name is not Alfonso) and fielding category. Yaz probably should have been pictuired in tears.........

Cubfan

Marc - Just being a casual observer to the set, I would have to think that these cards just lend themselves to being in better grades.

They are smaller than the other Supers (less likely to crease), they do have the rounded corners and the blank backs eliminate all of the printing or centering problems that can pop up for the back of the card.

Looking at the pop report, 16.3% of all cards submitted have received a 10!!! Thats amazing. If you add the 9's into the mix, a full 66.4% of all cards submitted have received a 9 or a 10 (I left out the 9's with qualifiers). Two out of every three submitted have received a 9 or above.

Not having a lot of these laying around, I would like to hold a 10 and a 9 of the same card together to determine the difference. I would guess it would have to be centering or the roughness of the cut?

Anyway, while it seems as though there are a ton of 9's and 10's, it still is a great accomplishment to get most of the singular examples in one set.

Now if I can just find a Billy Williams .

murcerfan

smaller yes, but they are thin and easy to crease if handled,
the backs do have printing (not blank) and that centering can affect the grade.
To date the only psa 10's I have ever gotten are all from that set (I do not submit or collect modern carsd). I believe I got 6 or 7 on one 35 card submission a few years ago.

Basilone

Will someone please submit some 1970 Super commons.....most of the PSA 9 commons are POPS 1-3.

Virtualizard

<< <i>Will someone please submit some 1970 Super commons.....most of the PSA 9 commons are POPS 1-3. >>



Yeah, what John said.

I could really use that Stargell in a PSA 9!

JEB.

Basilone

heh...

how much you willing to pay for it Jeb?

Virtualizard

<< <i>heh...

how much you willing to pay for it Jeb?

>>





Sixto,

If I remember correctly, I was willing to pay $88.88 for it.

JEB.