1972 collectors...was $128 a good price for the Schaal in action PSA 8?
acowa
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acowa
Posts: 945 ✭✭
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I auctioned one a couple months ago and it finished at $281. There have also been two more of the Schaal IA's graded PSA 8 since then.
Scott Jeanblanc
jeanblanc@iconnect.net
Ebay UserId: sjeanblanc
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Collecting improvements to my Nolan Ryan Basic set
As for the $128...keep in mind we collect a piece of cardboard with a picture. Realistically, 10 cents would be too much.
Kevin
Regards,
Alan
The Schall IA has been known (arguably) as the hardest card in the set for the better part of the last 3 - 4 years. For 72, this is the equivalent of the 65 Charlie Smith, the 61 Houk, the 71 Lonborg, etc.
The price has come down from over $400 over a year ago and might drop below $100 until some of the guys closing in on completion realize that the price is becoming somewhat attainable. Whether or not its really worth it - I think that question is answered differently if your set is 600 cards from completion or if its 1 or 2 cards from completion and this is the card.
As to where the price goes from here - it all depends on how many more guys get serious about completing this set. You can get to 95% on this set in PSA 8 without having to spend above SMR - its that last 5% thats a booger. Prices used to be much higher when guys could purchase 30 or 40 PSA 9's and jump from 12th to 6th place on the list. But, now that you have to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to even get somewhat close to completion on a set this size, there are a lot of guys who see the task as too daunting and don't feel that they're moving up the list as fast as they'd like and find its easier to just give up.
Waitil - I have submitted almost 8000 - 1972's to PSA so far and have looked through at least 100 times that in the last 3 years. You're right that the price may actually be lower next year (probably, in fact) but this card will never get down to $10 unless the whole graded card market collapses. I could see this settling down around $75 over the next year.
Sets - 1970, 1971 and 1972
Always looking for 1972 O-PEE-CHEE Baseball in PSA 9 or 10!
lynnfrank@earthlink.net
outerbankyank on eBay!
I agree that the Schaal IA is a very tough card within the 1972 series but in light of the sheer magnitude of 1972 Topps production, it is by no means scarce in NM/MT condition. To prove my point, I went through about 10 high grade sets and found one in NM/MT condition (better centered L/R than the one in the eBay auction but more oc T/B) and another that was close. At this rate, or even at a lower rate, I can only imagine how many NM/MT or Mint examples exist around the country. Quite a few, that's for sure. If anyone would like to pay me $128 for mine, they're welcome to PM me. I'll even guarantee a PSA 8.
Yes, perhaps $10 was a low estimate but anything north of $100 (or even $50) for a NM/MT common from 1972 Topps is silly.
From my experience and the experience of others who have looked through truly mass quantities of 72s, the Schaal IA is still one of the 5 toughest cards in the set. I'm confident that the population of the Schaal IA will increase. I would argue that relative to the other cards in the set, it will maintain its relative condition scarcity. That is that as the other cards in the set increase in population, the truly tough cards will also increase but less rapidly than the others.
I would also argue that population numbers alone doesn't make a card a "low pop" card. I think demand plays an underrated role in determining when something is "low pop". If a card has a population of 30 in a given grade while other cards in the set have higher populations - but you have 40 or 50 people actively pursuing that set - then couldn't that be considered a "low pop" card? Conversely, if you have only 1 person building a set anything with a pop say 3 or more would be "high pop".
Right now, there are 12 sets above 40% but not yet complete. I don't see this card selling for $10 any time soon. But the price will obviously fluctuate depending on population and demand.
Mike
Some excellent points and for the most part, I agree. I do think, however, that the supply of each card in the 1972 Topps set in NM/MT condition is far greater than the demand....unless, of course, we're talking hundreds of years and thousands of new 1972 Topps collectors into the future...but then it's anyone's guess as to the pricing structure.
I'm quite sure the unopened treasure chests of this hobby hold more than enough NM/MT Schaals to satisfy all the current set registry collectors.
<< <i>You said you went through ten high grade sets from 1972. Out of curiousity, how many raw examples of each card were looked through to acquire the 10 best of each card? Most high-grade sets are assembled from pulling the best examples from a large mass of lesser cards. >>
A good question. I cannot say for certain but I've had all of the sets in stock for quite some time and I doubt any of the constituent cards, save a Clemente or Ryan (etc.), were assembled with centering as the foremost consideration. In other words, I find it unlikely that one of the sets would have been assembled using a large quantity of Paul Schaal IA cards. Perhaps this might have been true for some of the prominent star cards, but not card #178.
edited to say: the schaal posted in this thread is almost as good as it gets in regards to centering.
Mike
But on the other side of the coin, I think there are a lot of collectors who fall into the trap of "the regression to the mean fallacy", which means they believe all things will average out the same at some point in time on these population numbers. I'm certain that will never be the case for many of those cards like the Schaal IA since many of those cards were consistently cut off center while many others were consistently cut on center.
For each series true uncut sheet (264 cards), the IA cards were always positioned in the bottom right hand corner, hence the reason why they are subject to being o/c.
PM with your email address if you would like photos of any 72 uncut sheets. John.
Current obsession, all things Topps 1969 - 1972
As I indicated in my original post, $128 is too much to pay for a NM/MT card from a set as plentiful as 1972 Topps. The final selling price of this second copy -- $105.50 -- should be a clear sign that you were wise to pass on the first auction.
As always, exercise common sense when bidding for a NM/MT card from the 1970s and don't succumb to uneducated hype.
Good point. Many times, it's hard to decipher exactly which cards are hype. For example, I paid a few hundred for my 1967 Topps Demeter card a few years ago. 18 months later, a less desirable 8 went for over $1100 on EBAY. Is the card worth $1100? It was at that particular moment to a couple of people. If I offered my nicer example to the underbidder for his bid price, would he buy it or would he give thanks that he didn't get stuck with the $1100 tab?
Usually, dealers will pick up on auctions like the Schaal IA and submit their inventories to meet the demand. Let's see if we have a bunch of this card show up on EBAY in the next 3-6 months.
Regards,
Alan
having said that , the population of "tough" 72's in 8 or better has grown markedly over the last month or so i'm curious to see if the trend continues.
when dealing with "tough" commons it 's almost never about resale/investment, it's about getting to 100% on the registry, sometimes at any cost ....
In the last month or so, the population of PSA8 Barton IA has gone from 10 to 13 - plus one PSA9. The population of the Jones IA in PSA8 is now 22 - which disguises how tough a card it is to find. It's almost always off-center.
I think the better you know and understand the set you're dealing with, the easier it is to decide how much to spend on certain cards. I think most set builders are going to overpay for some cards. But I think if you have a choice, you overpay on the tougher/toughest cards rather than something that's easy.
Mike
My fiance just closed on our first house a week ago and most of our stuff has been moved, but is still in boxes. I seem to remember a nice raw McRae IA in there. When I get everything unpacked, I'll be sure to check.
Mike
<< <i>Usually, dealers will pick up on auctions like the Schaal IA and submit their inventories to meet the demand. Let's see if we have a bunch of this card show up on EBAY in the next 3-6 months. >>
A perfect example of this seems to be the current trend with the 1961 Houk.
Currently collecting.....your guess is as good as mine.
One thing I noticed in the 1969 set was the price fluctuations for low pop commons. At one point, several Mike Shannons appeared in PSA 8/9 and SGC 88/92 in a short time on eBay. The first PSA 8 sold for $499 by MintState. The NM-MT examples on eBay started out in the $200+ range. Eventually they fell to around $100. Then none hit the market for several months. The next one sold for over $150. It didn't achieve the lofty levels of the initials sales, but the market did recover to some extent.
My conclusion is that the best time to acquire low pop cards is when several hit the market in a short time (like is the case with the Schaal IA). Is there a risk that the market will get flooded with more of that card and the prices forever decreased? Yes. However, for vintage cards the likelihood is that the tough cards will always sell for a significant premium over the high pop cards and the market will eventually recover after a prolonged dry spell.