Fun with numbers !
wolfbear
Posts: 2,759 ✭✭✭
I enjoy playing with the pop numbers for football sets,
but Scott's post about 1968 baseball commons motivated me to do some math on Topps baseball sets.
Year - average # of each card graded - % grading 9 nq or higher
1962 - 81.9 - 3.4
1963 - 97.3 - 3.9
1964 - 74.5 - 6.9
1965 - 83.8 - 7.5
1966 - 57.0 - 6.7
1967 - 80.4 - 8.9
1968 - 124.3 - 22.9
1969 - 83.0 - 16.9
1970 - 61.0 - 14.1
1971 - 69.4 - 3.2
1972 - 72.8 - 14.7
1973 - 44.9 - 23.5
1974 - 54.3 - 26.6
1975 - 90.9 - 15.0
1976 - 46.0 - 33.0
Of course, these are just raw numbers.
They don't take into account other factors like the popularity of a particular set or short prints.
Still, the numbers seem to indicate that Topps produced a lot more cards in 1968.
Not only that, but the cards tended to be of much higher quality,
resulting in a much higher percentage of submitted cards coming back 9's and 10's.
0
Comments
<< <i>Still, the numbers seem to indicate that Topps produced a lot more cards in 1968. >>
Mr. Wolfbear - Very interesting number crunching. '71's percentage is a bit of a wake-up call; I'm not sure I would althogether agree with the conclusion that more cards were produced in '68 - the statistics only support the conclusion that more 68's made it to the 21st century in high gradable condition. IMHO, there are other factors at play, availability of a lot of '68 vending being a major factor. My speculation has always been that there is a demarkation between pre-68 and post-68 and, given the social and polictical upheavals that occurred that year, less product left the shelves rather than more product being produced, resulting in more unopened product being available today. As I recall (and certainly my recollection of 1968 would be "hazy" at best), the '68 design wasn't received real well in its day, coming on the heels of what had been progressively better designs from the early '60s on. Ever notice how "retro" the '69 cards look in comparison? Topps learning from their mistake of '68?
Of course, on the other hand, it's still early and I gave up coffee recently....
"All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
MorrellMan, you point out the interesting phenomenon of confounding factors in statistics. Wolfbear's analysis is interesting and a great topic IMO. Another confounding factor in the analysis is that the ROI (return on investment) for dealers with 1970's cards is probably lower than with 1960's cards. This would likely push down the # of submitted cards for the later years (with exceptions for popular sets like 1975). Adding the variable of %Graded9 helps alot though it again may not tell the whole story. It shows the relative quality of the submissions. It fails to account for the relative value of lower grade cards in that set. For instance 1963. The % grading 9 is low but that could be a result of PSA 8's being valuable therefore dealers submit all the 9's, and all the 8's and some 7's they think might make an 8. With 1974, dealers probably submit only 9's and strong 8's that might make a 9. Thus the percentage is artificially inflated. Thoughts?
As a COFFEE aside. In the past it was found that heavy coffee drinkers were more likely to develop pancreatic cancer. This caused the coffee market to tank and the price of coffee crippled South America (Juan Valdez and all that). Later it was found that there was a confounding factor at play. Heavy coffee drinkers were more likely to be heavy smokers. When this was controlled for, no effect of coffee intake on pancreatic cancer rates was found. Whew!
Greg
"All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
Ohiotaz - I agree that dealers are less likely to submit cards from the 70's that are 8's with no chance at getting a 9. Hence, the percentage of 9's should be higher. According to many people on this site that collect sets from the 70's - PSA 8's are not selling well.
Why has the 1966 set been submitted so infrequently, especially compared to all of the other sets?
Interesting. I thought I'd extend both ends of the list. It's interesting to see how clearly the sets can be divided into 4 "eras" with a minor aberration here and there (i.e. 1968 and 1971, and to a lesser extent, 1959).
1952 - 153.1 - 1.4
1953 - 136.6 - 1.5
1954 - 162.0 - 1.6
1955 - 209.6 - 1.0
1956 - 232.2 - 1.8
1957 - 179.1 - 2.5
1958 - 103.5 - 1.8
1959 - 112.9 - 3.5
1960 - 105.6 - 2.7
1961 - 134.8 - 4.7
1962 - 81.9 - 3.4
1963 - 97.3 - 3.9
1964 - 74.5 - 6.9
1965 - 83.8 - 7.5
1966 - 57.0 - 6.7
1967 - 80.4 - 8.9
1968 - 124.3 - 22.9
1969 - 83.0 - 16.9
1970 - 61.0 - 14.1
1971 - 69.4 - 3.2
1972 - 72.8 - 14.7
1973 - 44.9 - 23.5
1974 - 54.3 - 26.6
1975 - 90.9 - 15.0
1976 - 46.0 - 33.0
1977 - 26.4 - 29.9
1978 - 50.0 - 37.7
1979 - 25.7 - 32.3
1980 - 26.5 - 36.8
JEB.
Thanks for throwing in my 61's! I was feeling left out by Wolfbear.
61's have a large number graded, but that may be in part due to the large demand that tends to keep prices strong.
Buck
1955 - 126.8 - 3.0
1956 - 66.6 - 9.7
1957 - 77.4 - 2.4
1958 - 40.8 - 1.6
1959 - 53.4 - 8.6
1960 - 46.0 - 4.0
1961 - 39.8 - 7.5
1962 - 37.4 - 2.5
1963 - 32.3 - 2.2
1964 - 15.4 - 6.5
1965 - 25.6 - 1.5
1966 - 31.4 - 3.7
1967 - 28.3 - 6.2
1968 - 21.0 - 8.6
1969 - 49.0 - 6.4
It's interesting that there are no distinct strata like there are in baseball. The tough percentages generally follow what collectors know to be tough sets, and the submission numbers generally follow the set's popularity.
Joe
JEB,
I echo Buckwheats sentiments (except interjecting 50's) !!!
That Wolfie knows how to hurt a guys feelings
I appreciate both of you guys working the numbers.(Edited to include Joes work on the football)
Vic
These are the # of cards receiving these grades (excludes qualifiers) divided by the # of cards in the set.
So for instance in 1970 every card has about 15.1 PSA 6 or 7's on average.
This shows the mostly obvious item that early years are more likely to have submissions of lower quality cards.
What is surprising is the relatively constant rate of PSA 8 cards between the 50's and 60's.
It is a little better demonstrated with the noise removed:
Greg
That is fascinating. IT will be interesting to see how that changes over time, as I believe there is still a lot more 60's hi grade raw stuff out there than 50's .
The 1979 data is a little surprising to me too. I was going to look at the 80's as well but it occurred to me that the closer to the present the more skewed the data by BGS. I don't collect post 1970 baseball but it appears that BGS has a substantial following in the 1980+ crowd.
Buckwheat
I had not noticed that point. You are absolutely correct. Remove the 1968-69 data and the 50's and 60's are very similar. The 8's for 1960-67 are 38.90 per card in a set. The 9's for the same time period are 4.78.
I have another thought on the scarcity of 60's material. I cannot believe there is a lot of high quality unopened material out there. The premiums for PSA 9-10 cards in any year (pre-73) have been so high that you would have to be crazy to be sitting on such a stash (in my opinion) unless you are a collector. I don't really count the high quality ungraded material in hard core collectors set as any kind of hidden reservoir of cards. A hard core collector is unlikely to flood the market with these cards (unless they die - we prefer to call it expire in my line of work).
Greg
<< <i>
I have another thought on the scarcity of 60's material. I cannot believe there is a lot of high quality unopened material out there. The premiums for PSA 9-10 cards in any year (pre-73) have been so high that you would have to be crazy to be sitting on such a stash (in my opinion) unless you are a collector. I don't really count the high quality ungraded material in hard core collectors set as any kind of hidden reservoir of cards. A hard core collector is unlikely to flood the market with these cards (unless they die - we prefer to call it expire in my line of work).
Greg >>
Taz- I agree that there is unlikely to be a huge stash of unopened wax out there. But I still count collectors sets, as they die eventuallly, and the stuff gets recycled. The other thing that happens is that there are probably some presentation sets out there waiting to be graded. They can often yield 10=15% 9's and above, even in 61. The Skerbe brothers recently graded a set( I don't know if it was presentation, or just a high grade collectors set) and got back over 100 9's and 6 10's! That type of set will really impact the pop report.
And I have no idea where DSL keeps coming up with there cards to grade, but it just keeps coming.
I keep waiting for the grading to slow, but the 61's just seem to keep adding about 1200 to 1500 PSA graded cards per month.
1970- 25.2- 13.9%
1971- 25.1- 3.6%
1972- 47.7- 18.2%
1973- 12.1- 29.2%
1974- 6.0- 27.9%
1975- 12.2- 37.6%
1976- 13.5- 29.9%
1977- 6.7- 27.7%
1978- 12.5- 36.7%
1979- 10.9- 38.9%
1980- 4.9- 47.0%
1981- 18.6- 20.0%
1982- 11.7- 43.8%
1983- 2.1- 69.7%
1984- 74.0- 19.2%
1985- 20.1- 28.7%
Man, those 71's are TOUGH...Quite a few overlooked sets as well..1974, 1977, 1980, 1983..
according to my values and my needs. Nothing holds dominion over me, I stand alone as the ruler of my life.
or better yet, a comparison vs bowman and topps for their respective years?
Groucho Marx
3 graded.The stock on the 68,s is much better then any other 60,s issue so the only real trouble is centering. A large number of what i have graded came from packs ,cellos they seem to have about a 1 in 5 ratio of being centered good enough for 8,s or better.
I am really surprised that the % of 66,s is as high as it as with how many of those i have graded also but also saying that dsl has had more 66 nines graded then anyone and though i have no trouble with dsl and buy often from them there nines tend to be weaker over all.
Also you have to take into considerration years like 62 get more cards graded that have no chance at higher grades just because psa 6,s and 7,s will sell of the stars and short prints hence bringing the % down.
Bottom line football is still a much tougher market to find high grade stuff then baseball and as more bb guys and new people join the hobby it will have a much bigger upside
BUT WHAT DO I KNOW I THINK THE SKINS WILL GO DEEP IN THE PLAYOFFS THIS YEAR
The first factor was an apparent improvement in manufacturing technology and card stock on the part of the Topps Company. If you look very closely at the edges of 1967 cards and 1968 cards (at 40x or higher), you'll see a significant difference. The card stock appears stronger and the cutting appears cleaner. Further, Topps apparently solved the production problem of "tilts" (aka "diamond cuts") that plagued the 1966 and 1967 sets. Perhaps they simply sharpened and realigned their cutting machines more often but for whatever reason, they produced both more cards, and more cards of high quality, in 1968 than ever before.
The second factor was an above-average increase in MLB popularity in 1968. Some pretty good evidence can be found in the population of "high numbers" of the 1968 set. Traditionally, retail stores stopped ordering baseball cards at some point late in each season because they still had plenty of unsold baseball cards still on their shelves. With some teams dropping out of the pennant race, demand usually dropped in those cities in the second half of the season. Consequently, Topps produced far fewer "last series" cards. But in 1968, Topps was obviously shipping out new orders all season long, including cards in the "last series."
One more thing. A lot has been said over the years concerning the Topps card design of 1968 with the "burlap" borders. Most of it has been negative toward that particular card design, at least in comparison with other years of that era. Personally, I've never found the 1968 design to be all that bad -- at least it was "different." After 1964-1967's continuous run of plain white borders, I look at 1968 as being somewhat of a "retro" look and even a bit risky from Topps' perspective. One thing is for sure -- Topps' 1968 design must have been popular with those buying baseball cards in 1968 -- they bought a LOT of them!
Scott
You hit the nail on the head on presentation sets when you said about 10-15% of the cards would grade 9. I have a 1963 Topps presentation set. I have just started grading some of the cards and I already have 18 9's. I just sent in another small order and expect about nine of them to grade a 9. I still have many cards in the set to grade and I estimate that I will end up with 50-75 of the cards in a 9 holder. That is about the 10-15% range that you mentioned. Of course, as with any presentation set, there is the usual number of off-centers as well. I have some of my 9's scanned and added to my 1963 set in the registry.
Collect primarily 1959-1963 Topps Baseball
set registry id Don Johnson Collection
ebay id truecollector14
That is awesome. Can I ask wherever did you come up with a presentation set?
I won it in an auction through SCD in March of 1998, long before the popularity of eBay. This was back in the day when SCD was a lot more valuable to collectors. The auction was by Scott Goodman of Staten Island, New York and his business was called Sports World. He did annual auctions in SCD for a year or two after that but since then he has not shown up on the radar again. I have no idea if he is still in business. His auction had good stuff and the presentation set I won was everything that he advertised, so I was happy. I still have the original supplement of his auction in SCD and the subsequent article in SCD that recapped the auction. The presentation set came in the original Topps boxes that the cards were presented in in 1963. It looked like they had never been handled....pretty unbelievable!! The Stargell rookie and Duke Snider came back PSA 9. Out of the set came the 1 of 1 PSA 9 John Blanchard card. The pic is in my registry set.
Needless to say, this set is a plum in my collection. The thing about presentation cards is that the registry, color and gloss on some of these gems have to be seen to be believed. They are incredible and breathtaking.
Since you are the master of the 1961 set, I imagine that you have seen '61 presentation cards and you know what I am talking about when I say that the cards are just much sharper than the cards that came out of packs, etc.
The only problem you get with presentation cards is that there are some with corner dings and a fair amount that are off-center. The cards went through a different cutting process (it was once described to me as a guillotine cut) and the cards are different sizes. I actually have a few cards that I really thought would grade a 9 that came back from PSA as "does not meet minimun size requirements". One of them was the Clemente card. If you stacked all my raw cards together, you would see how they are really different sizes. It is interesting.
Collect primarily 1959-1963 Topps Baseball
set registry id Don Johnson Collection
ebay id truecollector14
My experience with presentation sets is limited, but interesting. In 2001, Superior had cards from a presentation set up for auction. The whole set had evidently been graded, and they sold it with all of the PSA 7's together, the PSa 8's together , and the PSA 9's together. There weren't too many stars, so thye may have been sold seperately. In any case, I won the 77 PSA 9's and the approx. 230 PSA 8's that came from the set. You are absoolutely right about the color and gloss. At that time, I had about 100 PSA 8 cards in my set. In every one of the duplicates that I received, the presentation card was lightyears ahead in beauty, color and gloss.
I still have the 9's, but most of the 8's that I had have been sold as I have "upgraded" to PSA 9's. I have to admit that some of the 9's didn't look as sharp as the 8's, but generally had better centering.
I imagine if you bought a presentation set when you did, you have an incredible profit in it! Thanks for sharing your story.
Rob
OK, I understand the comments about the presentation cards being more aestically pleasing, but what was the difference in the manufacturing processes of presentation vs. wax/cello that make this so? Is it due to more careful monitoring of the presentation (prototype, pre-production?) set manufacturing processes?
BOTR
<< <i>I actually have a few cards that I really thought would grade a 9 that came back from PSA as "does not meet minimun size requirements". One of them was the Clemente card. If you stacked all my raw cards together, you would see how they are really different sizes. It is interesting. >>
I hope you either resubmit the Clemente or sell it to me.
Great thread.
Does anyone have historical data showing how many cards for a given set were graded in the past year or month or any time period?
I can only imagine how beautiful those 1961 presentation PSA 9's that you won from Superior are. They must be mind blowing.
BOTR....
To tell you the truth, I can only speculate on the mfg process of the presentation cards. For them to be so sharp, the process must have been monitored very closely. All of the equipment would have to be in top working order with fresh ink, etc. I don't know, just speculation. If that is so, then it is interesting that the cutting process, which I do know is a fact, was not more closely monitored. Then again, they probably did not care about centering, etc. Who would have thought then that vintage baseball cards would be so collectible many years later.
sagard...
I actually did resubmit the Clemente twice but still did not have any luck getting it graded. It is a shame because it is perfect other than the smaller size.
Collect primarily 1959-1963 Topps Baseball
set registry id Don Johnson Collection
ebay id truecollector14
<< <i>Does anyone have historical data showing how many cards for a given set were graded in the past year or month or any time period? >>
I keep such data in Excel format on the 1955 Bowman set - updated somewhat periodically over the past 3-4 years.
<< <i>I actually did resubmit the Clemente twice but still did not have any luck getting it graded. It is a shame because it is perfect other than the smaller size. >>
I've often wondered why Presentation cards generally run short. Assuming sheet size was the same - either there are a bunch of larger presentation cards out there (there are not...) or the presentation cards were potentially cut a second time to ensure better centering and/or sharpness...? Just can't seem to work that one out...
Although, sometimes vending seems to run a little shorter than wax/vending/cello of later year Topps...
<< <i>Following AlanAllen's lead, here is a continuation of Topps football through 1985.
1970- 25.2- 13.9%
1971- 25.1- 3.6%
1972- 47.7- 18.2%
1973- 12.1- 29.2%
1974- 6.0- 27.9%
1975- 12.2- 37.6%
1976- 13.5- 29.9%
1977- 6.7- 27.7%
1978- 12.5- 36.7%
1979- 10.9- 38.9%
1980- 4.9- 47.0%
1981- 18.6- 20.0%
1982- 11.7- 43.8%
1983- 2.1- 69.7%
1984- 74.0- 19.2%
1985- 20.1- 28.7%
Man, those 71's are TOUGH...Quite a few overlooked sets as well..1974, 1977, 1980, 1983.. >>
Of these, I think '71 and '77 are genuinely tough, and '74, '80, and '83 suffer from lack of interest. '71's colored borders explain its difficulty, but why '77? I think '77 baseball is relatively difficult too... I wonder why?
Joe
'60 Fleer - 26.4 - 9.3
'61 Fleer - 22.5 - 17.7
'62 Fleer - 16.6 - 6.2
'63 Fleer - 38.7 - 7.2
'64 Philly - 35.1 - 10.0
'65 Philly - 25.4 - 6.7
'66 Philly - 15.6 - 4.3
'67 Philly - 13.6 - 6.4
I'm not surprised that '62 is the toughest of the Fleers, but I thought '67 Philly would be tougher than '66.
Joe