PSA 10s of cards that book for less than $1 - "Rare" Modern issues

mikeschmidt

Continuing on this thread a little bit, I wonder what the future holds for prices of many of these grossly-overproduced, but poor production quality sets. The way I see it is as follows:

PSA 8s are basically worthless
PSA 9s may have some potential to get you your money back - particularly with tougher star cards
PSA 10s may have some premium potential in the long term.

It's kind of funny when you look at it -- especially the thought that people sorting through this modern stuff should be able to better select "only the best" for their submissions. The two examples that most clearly come to mind are as follows:

1988 Donruss: 2,655 total submissions
17 PSA 10s -- less than 0.7%
410 PSA 9s -- less than 15.5%
1,546 PSA 8s -- over 58%

1986 Topps: 1,029 total submissions
13 PSA 10s -- less than 1.3%
171 PSA 9s -- less than 16.7%
557 PSA 8s -- over 54%

Now, with PSA 8s being worthless, and PSA 9s or better accounting for less than 1/6 of all submissions -- the question that I raise is "are people submitting crappy cards?", which should seem unlikely given the quantity of cards available to sort through or, "is this a relatively tough modern issue when it comes to GEM MINT and perhaps even MINT examples". Compare the above figures to 1990 Leaf, for example, and the differential is shocking.

I can't say as this is truly a thought-provoking issue for me, but it is nonetheless very fascinating. I do not have Mike Schmidt PSA 10s in either of the above issues (yet). And, for some of them, I have literally looked through hundreds or thousands of examples for submissions candidates. Kind of a silly enterprise for some -- but if I don't think I found a single PSA 10 candidate out of a lot of 2,000 Schmidt cards fresh from factory -- I think it makes it a tough call to actually find one.

Of course, this is all balanced by some of the production propositions. I seem to recall on Ebay a year or two ago someone actually was selling a tractor trailer load full of 1988 Donruss cases. Argh!

GATOR5

MS-

My thoughts exactly!!!!!!!


86's are truely tough what they worth now who knows but I can say this comparing 81's to 86's. By far the stars in 86 are alot tougher.

Centering for 86's is a factor for the gem 10 but usually most will fall into the 9 slot biggest prob on the 86 is reverse touches the cards are very,very thin and in my case with no 5000 cts in the house most of the cards I havent put in savers are curling already. With 81's being such a horror in vending I couldn't fathom by anyway cracking vending for grading.

I've said this for awhile you get 10 guys doing 81 topps in 9 and better you could see a war if you have 5 guys doing 86's it could be a war. Granted probably 50% of both sets is rather easy but piecing together the remaining 50 could be time consuming. Now if you have some freak collectors such as myself looking for cards to be within 60-40 and focused your into a whole new dimension.

88 dnruss well dont look to me to be the guinea pig I have alot of 10 quality stuff but like you said the stuff can be found in truck loads and not just one truck.

I see 10's in both 81's and 86's a positive.

Gator

RayBShotz

MS - In briefly perusing the 86T POP Report get a load of the Bret Saberhagen grades. Either this one's REALLY tough (I dought it), some one didnt look at their bulk submission very carefully, or PSA did a sample test with this one (coaster give aways for trade shows!).

250 submitted

107 - 7's
136 - 8's
7 - 7 & 8 Q's
No 9's
No 10's

Pretty scary!

RayB69Topps

joker73

If I remember correctly, the Saberhagens were part of PSA grader training a while back, so those weren't really "submissions" in the usual sense ...

Robert

aro13

Very interesting topic. Look at 86-87 Fleer basketball. You would think with the red borders chipping so easily that would be a tough set in PSA 9 but there is so much of it out there. My guess would be if everybody were to carefully scrutinize their mid-80's baseball including 86 Topps that the percentage of PSA 9's and 10's would rise dramatically.
I think the % of 9's will go up as people do a better job scrutinizing their cards. On the last $5 special I submitted some 86 Topps cards that I did not really look at carefully enough. They all came back 8's. For this special I am looking over each card with a loupe and only sending in cards that in my opinion are a lock 9 even with the grader of death.
The 86 Pop Report is bizarre even without Saberhagen having 250 cards graded and Clemens being next with only 119. There are quite a few common players who have one card graded and it is a 7.

pebblyjack

As a witness for the prosecution I would submit my George Brett Basic Set.

I have a complete run of 1981-90 Donruss in PSA 10, except 1988. I can't even sniff a 9 in 1988. I have probably 100-200 of them and the best any of them would do is 8. I submitted my best example during last year's special and snagged an 8ST (I overlooked an obvious wax stain on the reverse).

I have a similar run of 1980s Topps (1982, 1988, and 1989 are 9s and the rest 10s). I have the 1986 Topps in 8 (although it is an ugly 8) and I feel fortunate to have that. I have been through approximately 200 pack fresh examples of the card and an additional 2 rack cases and have found none that would 9.

I would guess that a 9 of either card would bring 1993 SP Brett numbers ($50.00) or more and who knows what a 10 might bring.

Thanks

Randy

theplasticman

great insight fellas, I appreciate the wisdom being offered.

KING KELLOGG

1986 Topps are tough on grade...

Just got results back on a little invoice.....8 Pete Rose cards in...All 8's out...

#4110157...Zip....97232



Larry

1420sports

If someone submitted 20 raw 1986 Joe Blow cards that were absolutely positively still of XYZ 9 quality, how many would be graded XYZ 9? All nine cards or two?

I am not at all good when it comes to seeing the real difference between 8's and 9's and especially 9's and 10's, so I am curious to learn. I still have many Schmidts that are raw - just not the ones I need for my set - and I would love to pull a 10.

boggs301012

KK

When will this arrive...30646196 1988 FLEER ALL-STARS 8 WADE BOGGS N/A 9


I added to my set already so you might aswell send it.


james


Seriously how much for the Boggs card MR.?

goodriddance189

<< <i>As a witness for the prosecution I would submit my George Brett Basic Set.

Randy >>



i started a Brett master collection about 2 weeks ago. so far i've picked up about 10 PSA 9 cards on ebay

KING KELLOGG

Boggies...

I added $1000.00 to my bank account, soooo..you might as well send THAT to me......




Let's see.......Hmmmmmm...new car...???..nah, already have one of those.........Hmmmmmm....trip around the world..??? nah, takes too much time.......

Hey!!!...I know.....


I will give you that Boggs card,.. FREE OF CHARGE........under " 1 " condition...


.......That I personally hand it to you at the PSA Registry Luncheon this year !!!! Now, everybody would get to meet the "Worlds Greatest Wade Boggs Collector"...yea...


Best



Larry

boggs301012

KK

Very tempting offer. I would like to meet eveyone. Where is the National going to be ? And will there be PSA graded Boggs cards I dont have there? I have wanted to go for a long time.I wil do my best and this year looks to be pretty good financialy. I Am from Chicago I have been to The rosemont skyline room many times a very good show. Card shows in AZ just plain suck. I was gonna offer a new car but you have one. How about a stack of raw Boggs ? And what A turn around time on your submission. My order was recieved the same day. I am guessing mid to late FEB. Larry who do you know at PSA?

BTW I have an 1988 DR that was easy for me to get in a 9.


JAmes

TheCARDKid

My theory may be overly simplistic, but I believe the reason why 1986 Topps cards and 1988 Donruss cards are so hard to find in Gem Mint 10 is because most collectors have not scrutinized these issues as they would 1986 Fleer basketball for example.

1986 Fleer basketball had a production run much smaller than any 1980's mainstream baseball issue. Yet, even in Gem Mint 10, the cards are out there. The centering was worse on these cards than most other sets and the red borders were very sensitive.

But because of the high value of the set, and the high level of collectibility, collectors have more thoroughly scrutinized these cards than most other issues from the 80's.

There is an enormous amount of 1988 Donruss cards out there. Conservatively, let's say a million of each card. The average '88 Donruss card is probably in much better shape than 1986 fleer basketball. There would be hundreds of potential PSA 10's of each player. But does it pay to open it? 8's are worthless, 9's are borderline. There is virtually no demand for raw cards. There's not much left.

With 1986 Topps Gem Mint 10's running at 1.3%, there are still potentially hundreds of each player out there.

I never thought I'd see the day when 1988 Donruss cards were valuable!!

GATOR5

Cardkid,

I agree 88 donruss who knows. 86 topps however I see it alot different, along with 81's toss out all vending for none and I mean zero vending cases will ever effect the ten pop in either issue. Wax in 86 will mostly likely yield nothing to effect the pop in 10. So your left with racks and they run in very weird ways usually with all the same cards minus the 86 which seem to be all over the place. 86's are thin with black tops which sticks a prod in the graders backsides which mean they actually can see a touch before the loupe is even used so lol...Not to mention cards centered 55-45 and better with no print flaws then and then your into a whole different game which will outweigh any vintage set in 8 and better. I mean how many vintage sets in 8 and better have centering throughout the set 65-35 and better not to mention 60-40 or lets say 55-45 I'd love to hear from them collectors. No matter what the psa grade is 70-30 still and does make it into a 8 holder.

Now 86 Fleer basketball which is a set I love is alot different.

A) Made by fleer
Card stock is thicker
C) No snow or print to speak of
D) When they broke fleer they were looking for stars left the commons in a stack and they are a tough piece of cardboard so they could withstand a little abuse. Which 86 topp you pull them you better get them handled.
E)Even with the border being chipped according to psa it still can reach 10 status which rarely happen in 86 fleer yet you see it all the time in topps issues.


I find 86 topps a little more fun do to more action shots than 81 will they ever catch on well a few true collectors might try to tame the set but I will tell you this if you get 5 guys doing the set within a 5 yr period in 9 and better you will be suprised of the potential. 86's are left with way way to many probs. One of which in your subs you most likely will have a modern grader grading them which leaves you with this before you submit is it a lock or not. Trust me you will scratch your head 3 times going well maybe if its the correct grader. Trust me I do this and everyone will attest my eye for gemness in modern cards with 86's I've found alot of 10's to come yes but what you pulled out of the run might be rare with a 800 card set who's tough and who's not is just an illusion of the pop report. Only the guy opening the most cases be able to tell you the true toughies.


NOW THIS IS A TEST AND SHOULD NOT BE TRIED AT HOME UNLESS:

A)You have alot of time on your hands!
B)Have a excellent eye for quality!
C)A wife or woman that doesn't mind cardboard on her tables, bathroom,bedroom, or any other cupboard that makes a good place for storing goodies.
D)Must have a fireplace to burn all the NMMT material!
E)Have to have a full fridge of beer for if your looking for a handfull of cards, the occasionaly 6 pack will be gone in the first case of cards.

Gator

pebblyjack

goodriddance:

Welcome to the club. I've been on the Brett journey for the past year and a couple months and have enjoyed it immensely. Right now is a good time to be loading up on Brett 9s (at least from the 80s) as the prices are low. And, it seems that, right now, only a few of us are actively chasing the Brett Master List. There are a couple PSA 10 collectors that will chime in from time to time on PSA 10s. And, one guy seems to seek out the Brett odd-ball stuff. But, other than that, the field is wide open.

Good luck chasing the Bretts and if I can help in any way, especially on the ins and outs of the Bretts, shoot me an e-mail at pebblyjack@sunflower.com and maybe I can help.

Randy

Fuzz

While I may agree that the 86 has a bunch of things going against it. Poor production, thin card stock, centering issues and print snow to get started. I also take Gator's expert opinion on the lack of quality in wax and the vendors and let's say he is right (and he probably is) that there are ZERO 10's that will ever come out of any of that product. I think the numbers game will win in the end.
At 1M cards per player (which I think is a pretty fair estimate for the production of the year at that time) and estimating that only 20% of the cards were sold in racks. That is still 200,000 cards of each player available. I beleive that if you factor out the "practice grading Saberhagens" as not been submitted for grade but just for cards to practice on that would bring the percentage of 10's to about 2%. Let's even use .5% to be conservative. The the math still works out to 1000 cards available per player that are 10 quailty. If you figure that even 80% of the rack product was opened and bicycle spoked, you still get 200 cards available per player.
Will that ultimatly be rare? I doubt it.
Will they maintain value? You bet !
Will they be the hardest modern cards? Very possibly.
Will they be hard to find now ? Absolutley.
Can you slab these and make money? Not now and probably never will
But in the end as the interest rises, the perception of difficulty increases, the prices will rise. When the prices rise, the submission rate will increase. When that occurs, some of that stuff will come out of the closets and will be turned into 10's. I wouldn't hold my breath but the pop's will go up with time.
I think in the end, the numbers will win out. They printed a phenomenal amount of stuff then.
Fuzz

GATOR5

Fuzz,

I agree on must of what you said but a couple quick questions?

Do you have the info on what % were dealt out in racks? I'm just asking because I'd like to know myself also what or do you know the production #'s of 81's. I do know for a fact they went bezerk in 86 after the gooden demand.

So lets say your correct. Out of the 20% of the racks what has been opened (half) or more I'd presume granted it's in know way shape or form of drying but say you did like i did in 81's go around and buy everything in racks and start hoarding granted this might be a true test but hey you can put in plastic what you'd like. It will dry eventually just like the 81's. 81 rack cases are becoming hard to find. Not to mention of the rack cases that are left in 86 are from different runs and you might have 3 runs that are absolute garbage with 1 good run then your way down into 5% of your initial 20 leaving you with what 50,000 cards chopped in half for what has been opened leaves you with 25k. Again I dont know much on the runs at this time I'm into my 18 rack box today. What scares me is the stars are way tough. Of course you alway have that card that just keeps saying 1010 tony phillips every tony phillips is a 10 go figure.

So who knows but I do know 15% of this set will probably be next to impossible with a 9 rare!!!!! Thats almost a fact.

But like you said I agree the #'s will probably win but you just never know and like I stated before if you know the last 15% of the set thats all you have to worry about.

Gator

goodriddance189

pebblyjack,

besides the fact that Brett was one of my favorite players growing up, a large reason i started a Brett master set is because i already own the best card- PSA 9 Topps rookie (although i've heard his '76 is tougher to find)

jackstraw

will,
the 76 card is very tough just in a solid 8. the 78 is not very far behind. i also heard that the 90 o pee chee is tougher than both
boggsie lmk how you did on them 90 o pee chees.

boggs301012

Jackstraw


I sent in the 1990#760 so far. I will Submitt the A.S next time around. I already sent in my regular order befor the cards arrived from Jeb. So I sent the one in with the 6 "freebies"


james

pebblyjack

goodriddance:

jackstraw has it right. The most difficult Brett to find in high-grade is '76. I have seen 2 of the 4 PSA 9s and both barely met the centering criteria. Centering and print defects (including smears, snow, and sometimes the card will be covered with tiny black specks) undo most candidates. In a year-and-a-half, I have only seen 2 or 3 decent 8s (i.e., ones that I would like to own) on e-bay.

'78 and '86 are also difficult. However, decent 8s can be found in '78 and I assume, with more submissions, the same could be said for '86.

Thanks


Randy

jimtb

Do the same issues apply for 86 Tiffany's?

This post has gone a long way towards explaining the problems I am having trying to find certain 1980's Trammell cards.

Fuzz

Gator,
Do I have hard data for card #'s and %'s? No, Topps tends to be pretty tight lipped about such things. Back in the early 80's I was a pack specialist and co-wrote the pack/wrapper section of the SCD guide #3 (released in 86 I believe) with Paul Wright who is now one of the pack graders for GAI. I personally believe that Paul is by far the most knowledgeable guy about this stuff in the country today. I was also a "big spender" at the time and cards were cheap. There was little documentation on ephemera available so I did know most of the big dealers at the time. I remeber a couple of them telling me that they had been told that in 86 Topps passed the 800M mark for the print run as I remember clearly thinking that that was more than 1M per card. I also obtained information on their ordering patterns to help determine %'s of cello/wax/rack/vending and the like. Is it hard data? No, but I suspect that it is relatively close because some of these guys were very big players at the time. The pattern for relative volumes of cello/wax were well known at the time. It was clear from the 60's forward that racks were getting more common year to year and vending was becoming less and less. I always have believed that was because that vending machines for cards were in decline during the timeframe and that Topps was switching it's volume directly to racks. Rack packs, which were hangable, were often found in the toy department which was a new strategy and opened different venues than the traditional candy counter displays. So honestly the 20% is an estimate, but I think it is a useable number.
I do not have info on the 81's as I lived in "card hell" in the early 80's where the nearest card stores were small and more than a one hour drive. I concur that it was much less than 86's and Lord knows those 86's were everywhere.
The point of the calculations that I did was obviously not to exactly predict an eventual average of PSA 10's per card in the set. It was an "order of magnitude" calculation. See the Physics degree does come in handy from time to time. The assumptions are intended only to provide a ballpark number to what it should be like. If it is really 10 % or 30%, or even 5% for example, the numbers really don't change a lot. It will still end up that the average card will have between 50 and a few hundred PSA 10's available if everything eventually gets slabbed. I would be very surprised if it ended up being less than 5 or more than a thousand.
During my current "card collecting vacation", I've been some of my hobby energy into an analysis of uncut sheets vs the pop reports. I have dozens of auction catalogs from the 90's to present and early indications are that there are clear scarcity patterns that develop based on where the card was located on the sheet. I believe that these lead to the "15%" of impossible cards that you mention. I have collected enough sets to know that you are correct that some of these, in every set, are much much more difficult than one would typically suspect. I thin that 86 might be perfect for this type of work. There have been relatively few cards graded in the set to date that were submitted "for a real grade" and not practice. It is not widely clear yet which cards will eventually be the killers in the set and which will not. This type of sheet analysis could easily give one a couple of years head start in accumulating the cards that will eventually prove to be scarce. This whole process would be greatly aided if anyone has an extra copy of the Topps archive auction catalog from '89. I had one but it some escaped over the years. I would pay handsomely for it.
Fuzz

mikeschmidt

<< <i>Do the same issues apply for 86 Tiffany's?

This post has gone a long way towards explaining the problems I am having trying to find certain 1980's Trammell cards. >>




The 1986 Tiffanys do not have grading problems. They are obviously much tougher to find -- but if you are able to find an unopened set that has been kept in good shape, odds are that you will yield good results.

NickM

According to Beckett, only about 5000 sets were made of '86 Topps Tiffany. Many of these sets ended up in collections where they are not likely to come up for sale.

Nick

GATOR5

Jim,

If you need a blazer 81 topps tram lmk I have one.

Fuzz,

I'll reply to your post later gotta run.


86 tiffs alot easier 4sharp just sold alot of 10's today.

Gator

jimtb

Hi Gators,
I have a nice 81 Tram that's a 9. What's your guess on how yours would grade?
Jim

peterredshoes

Here's my two cents...

I have to think there is at least some difficulty in finding quality '88 Donruss cards. In my early going at finding Trammells from this set, I've found centering to be a signficant challenge. I think that the unusually wide borders add to this because from an eye appeal standpoint, the centering needs to be tighter on a percentage basis to look good vs. a card with more typical or small border width. Additionally, I can't help but think that there would be more than two copies of the '88 Donruss Tom Glavine rookie (which was the count when I checked a few months ago) in PSA 10 if there wasn't simply a relative shortage of worthy candidates. By way of comparison, I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm working from memory) there are around 300 PSA 10 '88 Topps Glavines. Many of these have shown up on eBay in multi-card lots, which has led me to think that someone ran across a large enough collection of either wax or Glavine singles to get multiple 10s back at once. Aside from the possibility of an edge in marketability of the Topps brand name, I can't think of why this wouldn't have happened for the Donruss rookie as well aside from random chance, or that the amount of wax or singles required to achieve it is prohibitively large.

Peter G.

minibeers

I just cracked an SGC 9 Topps 1986 Pete Rose #1 card and sent it in along with one I pulled from wax. The SGC I cracked is KILLER. If it comes back an 8, I will know there is a bias against the set. I expect the other Rose to get an 8. Only nine 9s out there and I need one for my Rose Basic Set. I'll let you know how it turns out.
cheers,
minibeers