PSA Population

jparchitectus

Question for the more experienced folks...Do you feel that as time goes on and populations of graded cards increase...value will have to decrease also. I notice when building my 1968 Topps set I can't help but bid on some of these 9's that go for what 8's used to. Obviously there are the low pops that will probably always be low pops....but the trend seems to be that the graded market will flatten out. I am afraid that the graded cards will one day be the value of ungraded cards. The exception being the graded cards will be inventoried by PSA and so on.

I think this has been talked about in the past, but I couldn't find any of the related threads.

Thanks for your time in advance.

imafishinnut

My opinion is that you will see prices of high grade (e.g., PSA 7 to PSA 9), graded cards from about 1960 to present going down over time whereas graded cards from pre-1960 will stay about the same or maybe even go a little higher. I think you have to throw PSA 10s out of the discuss because there should never be lots of them. My logic is: Post-1960 = many high grade raw cards out there = significant increases = prices goes down; Pre-1960 = few high grade raw cards out there = cost population = prices stay same or increase. The year of 1960 is just an educated guess on my part and where that changeover line actually falls is almost impossible to predict.

That being said, I feel that graded cards will always sell for a premium as compared to non-graded cards. Grading gives buyers at least some security that a card is of a certain grade without actually being able to handle the card and examine the condition closely for themselves. As such, all things being equal, the same card in graded form should always hold a premium with respect to the card in ungraded form.

My two cents worth,
Mike