The increasing commoditization of vintage PSA graded sets

mikeschmidt

Well:

As the years have passed since PSA began its PSA Set Registry in 2000 - much seems to have changed.

There are seemingly increasing numbers of collectors clammoring for scarce cards.

There are hoardes of previously-thought 'uncollectable' sets being graded en masse to support set collectors

There are huge rises in population of certain former 'key' cards with many sets fluctuating between an almost hysteria-like demand and a final settling in of prices after commons largely outpace stars.

Finally - as five years of Registry has settled in, I believe that the true 'commoditization' of completely-graded sets is becoming a staple of the hobby, with numerous high-grade sets transacting in the fully-graded form every year, from smaller sets like Red Hearts, to many of the behemoth Topps sets of the 1960s. An interested collector today could very easily purchase a very high-grade completely-graded set from almost any year during a calendar year of auction cycles, it seems.

So what are the implications and conclusions of these developments? I'll throw out some thoughts:

The increased liquidity of a completely-graded set seems to benefit all. Surely most of these sets are put together by collectors - and to be able to sell in one fell swoop is convenient and attractive to many.

There is still unclear data as to whether or not it is advantageous to break-and-sell individually or to sell as complete sets. Data suggests pros and cons of both methods. Clearly, though, this is a shift whereas in the past it seemed almost always better to break-and-sell, there now seems to be ample examples of premiums being paid for complete, high-grade vintage material.

There seems to be a general 'raising of the bar'. In the past, much focus was on the PSA 8 as the gold standard of the hobby. It seems like that is still largely the case. However, a straight PSA 8 set does not seem to have the allure that it perhaps once did, simply because massive amounts of submissions have mitigated the difficulty of achieving such status in many sets. Certainly there are some sets or certain cards within some sets that provide exception - but largely there a straight PSA 8 set is only a 'starting point' and might not get you into the top 5 or top 10 completely-graded sets listed on the Registry. For example, a PSA 8 1968 Topps set would only rank #12, even a 1952 Topps PSA 8 set would only be #5. 1957 Topps would be #12, 1961 Topps would be #13, and 1954 Bowman would be #5. I wonder how this affects the 'value' of a straight PSA 8 set if it no longer ranks within the top 10?

It does seem, though, that there are probably generally fewer examples of #1, #2 or #3 sets being sold in the marketplace. Perhaps there is increasing set specializiation, perhaps this is why premiums are being paid for 'the best of the best'. Certainly the break-up of John Branca's many high-grade sets plus some of Charlie sets [1948 Leaf, for example] have added some fabulous upgrade opportunities for other set collectors. Maybe there will simply be more of these top-tier sets being broken up in the future. It is hard to say, of course.

Just some thoughts on completely-graded sets and their impact on the marketplace. Would be interested in other feedback and thoughts. Obviously the two main areas I have not talked about are pre-war and modern. With pre-war -- PSA 8s seem to be as strong as ever, although the preference largely still seems to be in the SGC realm. With modern - the slew of completely-graded sets is amazing, although that does not take away from the spectacular examples of some sets that have been graded. For 1972 Topps, there are nearly a dozen sets >90% complete, with frank Bakka's 100% at an astounding 9.34. And some truly modern sets like 1989 Upper Deck, 1990 Leaf, and 1993 Finest Refractors are now completely graded and registered. The market value of such sets is probably too early to be seen, though.

~ms

dgbaseball

Very nice post. I agree with just about all your comments and think this one is especially dead on accurate:

There seems to be a general 'raising of the bar'. In the past, much focus was on the PSA 8 as the gold standard of the hobby. It seems like that is still largely the case. However, a straight PSA 8 set does not seem to have the allure that it perhaps once did

That a straight 8 1957 set doesn't land you in the top 10 is a staggering reality. And it's especially impressive for the massive 60s and 70s sets.

Davalillo

Marc,

Some comments around what you spoke to:

1)The competition for low pop commons on true vintage sets is intense although it does vary set by set. The 52T Wehmeier or the 51B Overmire has fallen but the 55T Fowler has risen despite its pop going higher and even the tough 59T psa commons are up near $1,000. I still advocate patience here on the low pops but new collectors with deep pockets seem to be coming in all the time. Pop is important but increasing demand also key.

2)Speaking of deep pockets, there are certain collectors that if you see their name appear as bidders forget about winning. The one that immediately comes to mind is Don Spence who bids very aggressively on everything he needs--he has been able to build several high-grade sets quickly--time will tell whether this is a good investment strategy. There is also a 60s FB collector named shoppinglucy that has been winning everything lately.

3)Prewar is on fire but still in my opinion represents the best area for investment. T206 commons--even the higher pop ones--are going for over $2,000 and the 39 and 40 Play Ball are very hot as Spence and Louchios butt heads.

4)Relationships with dealers are meaning less. While there are some dealers that will hold stuff off ebay for me, vintage card dealers are generally happy with ebay and with the market going higher are content to just put all their cards there. Look at
Greg Bussineau(Legacy). I think he comes to shows just to buy. He used to be mail order and auctions--now its all ebay.

5)PSA 9s are becoming plentiful for 60s sets. Not a bbig deal anymore to have a psa 8 set from the 60s. While it varies by year, top sets are moving above 9.0 set ratings in many instances. Would observe that 60s and later collectors less committed to their sets and as Marc says over a year almost every set comes up for sale from that era.

6)Resale--still think breaking it up is the way to go for most vintage sets but as long as guys like MOSH are out there, there is a strong market for sets he does not have.

Jim

calleocho

I wonder if there are any coin collectors that could share light on any parallels between the PCGS resgistry and the PSA registry...since the coin one is much more evolved i wonder if we could predict future changes that might happen to sportcards.

The specialist set builder seems like a true force right now ...i am amazed that some collector could beat such heavy hitters.

IJustLoveCards

As a collector that has built a few psa registered sets in the 50's, I have a few thoughts on the subject.

Everything goes in cycles, the economy, the weather, and collecting.

It wasnt long ago that the 65 set was so hot that people were paying 3 -5 times smr for commons. In the 55 set the "tough" pops Hegan, Fowler, Keegan, et all. are all selling in psa 8 for well in excess of 1.5K to 2.5K for a 1 point common.

Now its safe to say as the players who are buying the low pops at these prices have filled their stomach with the cards they need, the price will fall. When, I am not sure, will it go down to 90.00 prob not, will it go to 600.00 yes, it prob will.

Anything that you collect that has a value is only increased due to rarity and a desire by someone else to have your item at a price they deem worth paying. If 2 or more desire your item then the value increases to the point at which one party is left standing.

I dont want to equate this to the stock market but for analogy purposes I will. If a stock is going higher it is because more people are willing to buy it than sell it at the price it is currently trading for, once all the buyers have been satisfied it begins to fall until buyers are willing to step in.
The stock will continue to fall until a price is realized that is fair market in a buyers eye.
The same holds true for cards, does the current sale truly represent the market? It depends on certian factors, to lengthly for this discussion, but for arguments sake lets say it does. But that is only one snapshot in time.
I personally feel that a collection is just that, a collection, I enjoy looking at my sets and hope that the value just stays the same and If I am fortunate 20 years from now when I sell that I make a few dollars, then I did well.
I am happy accumulating what my budget can afford, if that means a psa 7 set in 54 topps vs a psa 8 set, well than so be it, because the way I look at it is, the amount of raw vintage that is out there unslabbed is drying up. and my set just took 300 cards in nm psa 7 out of circulation.
purley a numbers game, if there are 20 psa 8's in one card, then there can only be 20 psa 8 sets in that year.
and one of 20 is still pretty rare when you think that a 1995 w silver eagle (proof) with a circulation of 30K is considered rare in the coin world.

Mantlefan

Pop is important but increasing demand also key

Very true Jim, as illustrated by the battle for 1957 PSA 9 Topps Baseball. There has been a big increase in the pops of these cards, but the influx of new big time spenders has raised the price of many 57 commons from the $500-$700 range to the $2K to $3K range.

Love of the Game

Marc, your posts are always so insightful, and I just couldn't help responding to this one.

I think there will always be set collectors, and there will also always be people who want the finest complete sets. But I think there has also been a slight backlash against the concept of "low pop commons", bidding wars over cards that are still readily available in raw, high grades, and paying insane premiums for 10s over 9s, and 9s over 8s, when the technical differences at those grade levels are often imperceptible.

The backlash, in my opinion, has taken a few different forms:

1) An increase in the amount of set builders who will readily liquidate a 10 or an expensive 9, replace it with a 7 or 8 and use the profits to fund more card acquisitions.

2) An increase in the number of set builders who have migrated to smaller and, in some cases tougher, sets. Rather than working on completing an 800-card 1972 Topps set, or a 600-card 1961 Topps set, they're more inclined to work on a 200-card set or even less. In many cases, these sets have an element of true scarcity, rather than condition scarcity. In other words, a 1961 Topps Jim Gentile may still be tough to find in 8 or better, but it's not tough to find in general. Conversely, a 1968 Topps 3D common is a LEGITIMATELY tough card, in any grade, and some collectors are becoming more interested in seeking out truly scarce cards and tougher sets.

3) An increase in oddball and type card collectors. I know of a good number of collectors who have elected to move away from traditional set building, instead choosing to focus on becoming experts in oddball and regional sets, seeking out the best possible examples of each.

4) An increase in baseball card collectors migrating to other sports. How many people have we seen that have begun collecting boxing, golf, even non-sport tobacco issues? I wonder if this is due to the escalating expense involved with collecting high-grade vintage baseball sets.

5) Hall of Fame collecting. It seems that there are more and more people who have elected to walk away from set building altogether, in favor of focusing only on members of the various pro sports Halls of Fame. Many that I know have done this specifically in response to the difficulty and in many cases unnecessary expense involved with paying ridiculous prices for vintage commons. Which card is truly more valuable and scarce - a 1953 Ted Lepcio in PSA 8, or a 1933 Worch Cigar Hall of Famer? A 1962 Topps low-pop common in PSA 8, or a low-grade Cuban issued Martin Dhigo?

Ultimately, I've moved in both directions - I've narrowed the sets I collect, and begun focusing on building smaller sets. I am building a run of sets from years the Yankees won the World Series. In the case of 1962, for example, I've elected to do a high-grade 1961-62 Fleer baseball set instead of the more obvious, but much larger, 1962 Topps set. It allows me to get to know the cards better, collect higher grades, and not repeatedly bang my head against the wall trying to track down hundred-dollar commons.

At the same time, I'm focused heavily on Hall of Famers. One of my goals for 2006, in fact, is to liquidate EVERY common I have from a set I'm not collecting, and replace them with Hall of Famers. Right now, I am working in selling off about 1500 cards from 1959-61, with a goal replacing them with a single, low-grade 1952 Mantle with strong eye appeal. I think in my case, the chances of Hall of Famers retaining their value, and my interest, are much greater than having a collection filled with Don Mossi and Tex Clevenger cards. After all, when you're showing your collection to people, are you showing them Hector Lopez, or are you showing them Ted Williams?

This is not to begrudge any set collector who gets joy out of doing what they do, it's just a few observations that I've noted over the past year or so.

-Al

carew4me

1) An increase in the amount of set builders who will readily liquidate a 10 or an expensive 9, replace it with a 7 or 8 and use the profits to fund more card acquisitions.

Thats me. If I get a high grade/low pop, I target the players and go for profit. I have sold a complete 55 Bowman FB set, 54 Bowman FB set and some
tuff FB singles and never looked back.

paleocards

This is the kind of thoughtful, provocative post that brought me to the PSA message boards in the first place. Thanks for the great read.

Even though I just joined PSA this past summer at the Chicago National and I don’t collect sets, I found myself agreeing with most everything stated in the thread. I especially related to the comments by Al (“Novocent”). When I returned to collecting baseball cards at the beginning of the millennium (after a ~25 year hiatus), I decided to focus on raw, NrMT or better HOFers produced by Topps between 1955-1975. By my count there are just over 1000 of them including base cards, league leaders, combos, All Star, World Series, MVP and In Action subsets, but not including team cards and checklists. I’m about half-way there, and I’ve slabbed close to 100 of my best (focusing on my “Big 5” of Aaron, Mays, Clemente, Mantle and Koufax – I have registered basic and master sets for all 5).

I can understand paying hundreds of dollars for cards of these all-time greats, but forking out similar amounts for high-grade, low-pop commons is something I have no desire to do with my hard-earned cash (although I perfectly understand and respect the motivations of high-grade set collectors).

Al mentioned a trend he’s noticed of some collectors moving away from the mega-sets and starting to focus instead on smaller, rarer issues. I’d like to suggest a related idea for HOF collectors: how about new PSA registered sets composed of all of the cards featuring at least one HOFer from each of the basic Topps sets (e.g. “1965 Topps HOFers”)? For example, for the years I’m focusing upon (1955-1975) these registries would range from a minimum of 16 HOFer cards (1955) to a maximum of 73 (1961). Registrants of these HOF sets would focus on only the biggest and most important of each year’s cards and the much smaller set sizes would allow easier completion. Of course, depending on the average grade desired, collectors could still invest many thousands of dollars even on these small sets. One obvious deficiency of my idea: the biggest collectors who have already completed the mega-sets would be able to re-register their sets’ HOFers in these smaller sub-sets as well and will automatically take the top spots in BOTH registries. But that wouldn’t prohibit other collectors who prefer to invest all of their funds exclusively on HOFers from ultimately competing with the “big boys” (since they wouldn’t be spending any money on the hundreds of non-HOFers and the low-pop, high-$$ commons).

Just an idea that’s been kicking around in my head since I joined PSA, would be interested in any feedback/reactions you may have…

1967topps

>There is still unclear data as to whether or not it is advantageous to break-and-sell individually or to sell as complete sets. Data suggests pros and cons of both methods.>

Using 1967 as an example, would you want to create 609 separate auctions, risking that 609 different
people will win one card each,thus 609 packages to send out? I'd prefer to risk getting a little less return
and not have the shipping of my 609 sales dominate the entire month, especially this month.

and then he said "in 1967 i went downtown with the dreams of ....." (breaking into tears) "becoming a major league
baseball player card collector"