Who Are Your Preferred 1950's Vintage PSA Dealers?

Machodoc

I already do active business with Levi, Jay, and Natex, but that's about it away from eBay. I am interested in hearing other opinions about other dealers who you think have good 1950's PSA inventory for sale at realistic prices.

Davalillo

1)Kris Keppler fromm Kris Keppler Enterprises
2)Peter Lalos from Champs and Bums
3)Wayne Varner from Shoebox Cards
4)Chris Porter from Superior(sometimes)
5)Kurt Coltrane from Kurtz Cards
6)Brian Drent from Mile High
7)Sports Cards Plus
8)Legacy Sports Rarities-Greg Bussineau

That should get you started. I have bought from them all and would recommend them all.

Dav

--also the Skerbes have a large inventory.

Basilone

.....

slvnumber2

Mile High Card Co - great inventory all the time

Kurtz Kardz - very good knowledge of the industry and have done some great deals with him.

Quality Cards (Craig Roehrig) - always has some of the best cards in the industry. Sold the PSA 10 Mantle and has the '54 PSA 10 Williams. Not having a website does not help though.

Keppler has a huge inventory.

There are a few dealers that I try not to deal with based on past deals.

AJ Cards has a huge inventory but they are WAY over-priced.

Piedmont Cards (see AJ Cards). Ric does not negotiate one bit and needs to learn that he is better off pricing stuff 10% higher and coming down rather than sticking with his prices and never budging. His wife is a very nice person and very pleasant to deal with at shows.

I think that the days of the large dealers controlling the market are gone with the introduction of Ebay and message boards such as this one. There are so many sellers these days with very few new buyers, and the only growth in the hobby is done through set building and people paying huge $$ for commons.

duner

bill miller....he lurks around these parts and ebay as millfam36

The53Kid

I'd also look at Andy Madec's site. He always seems to replenish his 50's stock.

I have to agree that the above mentioned dealers are the big guns for vintage material. Almost all of them attend each Ft. Washington show and run nice websites.

One note on prices, don't be scared off by anyone's listed prices. If you were to list all your cards on a website, would you list them with your lowest price and blow them all out at once? Call them up, introduce yourself, shoot the bull. They can pass along just as much information as this board, and they certainly are willing to negotiate on most items.

And even if a dealer won't budge on a price, doesn't mean it isn't a good deal. I recently did two transactions with major dealers who only offered slight reductions. However those prices were 30% below the going EBAY rate. It's all part of the chase.

Good Luck,
StrangeMan of the Booze Junkies MC

Machodoc

Something that's become very clear to me over the past couple of years is that to have any chance of building a high-quality set you have to rely upon a four-legged stool, and those legs are: eBay, dealers, individual submissions, and increasingly, deals with members of this board.

Over the past year I have spent large green with members of this board in order to make big gains on sets. My 1972, 1973, and 1974 sets were helped with 150-card plus deals with several board members, and I recently dropped several large ones on a great vintage set that just might hit the boards in a few weeks. You all have been a great alternative to the auction site.

However I don't submit at all, except for Kellogg's, so that's not been real fertile ground, although I think I'll probably explore it a lot more as I get down to just a handful of cards in several sets. eBay is always there, but is seasonal and hit and miss - but as always, indispensible.

I have been buying slabbed cards for about 5 years now (slabbed coins for 15+ years) and started off with dealers exclusively, but find them now to be an ever-decreasing share of the market due to eBay, Mastro, Superior, etc... Don't get me wrong, I love competition, but as I whittle down the cards I need in some key sets, it feels like completion is increasingly out of your hands and subject to the random chance of something coming up on eBay instead of in your friendly dealer's hands.

Again, this all probably means that I will have to spend more of the time I don't have searching for raw product to submit, which is a crapshoot all it's own.

Nothing profound, just venting a little. See you at the Fort next month!

Steve

highend

good luck in your quest, raw 50's material is tough even in a psa 7.
grade. when building my 57 set, i went through a ton of raw exmt- nm at the shows, nm-mt raw cards are few and far between. on ebay........ your right, it's a crapshoot , i dropped near 2 g's on a raw nm or better partial set of 57's from a "reputable dealer" . he never mentioned that with the exception of the 16 or so scanned cards everything else was oc, stained, print defects and miscuts and some cards i thought to be trimmed. a waste of time. he made good on the return so i won't mention his name. i did get lucky on a partial set of 60 topps from a seller named WAVERLY82. nm to nm-mt as advertised. he also sells singles.

edited to add: for graded 50's i've been happy with kurtz, mickey's, shoebox, skerbe, and natex, all very reasonable.

The53Kid

I definitely would agree with highend, any 50's material is tough to find raw. In searching any big shows, Ft. Wash, the National, and others. I rarely find any raw 50's material. And half of what I do find, that looks decent, is colored(53's) or trimmed.

The other things I try to buy raw are the low pop cards. Rather than spend $2000 for a low pop common in 8, I've buy a card raw for $10, submit it, get a 6 and be happy.

Hubcap

Vince Morini...sells now under vam836. Was vmorini@nycap.rr.com. Bought a lot of vintage 50's and 61's for my sets. He is also an active buyer. Check out his feedback and see what he buys and sells. Pays SMR in many cases to have quality inventory.