1976 Johnny Bench Psa 9 sold for $96.00

sayheykid54

Last night a great 1976 Johnny Bench Psa 9 sold on Ebay for $96.00. The card has a SMR price of $160.00. Is this the start of the downward spiral of prices for 1970's high-grade material. I've noticed alot of 1970's Psa 9 Hall-of-Fame cards selling for alot less than the SMR price(Some less than half). Any thoughts on this trend??

julen23

Power to us people, we have power to purchase for less than SMR value and I like it.

Asides from psa 10 70's cards and '71 topps, nearly 99.9% of 70's psa cards are bargains these days. I have no problem enjoying my cards through a card saver that doesn't have a psa 9 or psa 10 rating on it, at least when it comes to 70's cards.

Julen

sagard

<< <i>...Is this the start of the downward spiral of prices for 1970's high-grade material.... >>



The start? These types of cards have been dropping consistantly for quite a while. I'd be shocked if that Bench can hold a $50-$60 for another year or two.

ndleo

SMR really has to do a major update on the 1970's baseball. The prices have been falling all year, even for stars like Nolan Ryan.

softparade

<< <i>Last night a great 1976 Johnny Bench Psa 9 sold on Ebay for $96.00. The card has a SMR price of $160.00. Is this the start of the downward spiral of prices for 1970's high-grade material. I've noticed alot of 1970's Psa 9 Hall-of-Fame cards selling for alot less than the SMR price(Some less than half). Any thoughts on this trend?? >>



I just sold a 1978 Topps PSA 9 #200 Reggie Jackson for 95% of SMR. I have another one up which is already past 50% SMR with 3 days left ..... also, at least in 1978 Topps, the Nolan Ryan # 400 exceeds SMR in PSA 9 condition all the time. I am not trying to debunk the initial point of this thread however. In general high grade 70's cards can be had on the CHEAP and that is fine by me!

RonBurgundy

I rarely buy anything - 50's and 60's included - for full SMR. If you look long enough, you can get bargains, and apparently the Bench was a bargain. I picked up several things last night on Ebay for good prices.

softparade

There will come a time that the average collector just won't be able to afford any 50's and 60's sets anymore, let alone pre war. Sooner or later, these classic 70's sets will become more appealing to the average collector who wants to collect a complete vintage set. Yes, pretty soon these sets will be 35-40 years in the fold and will be considered vintage by more and more collectors in the next 10-15 years. I'm not saying prices will increase much, but these cards will most certainly be collected more than they are now....

alinchitown

2 '74 Ryan's sold on the 4th and 5th one for $460 the other $455 SMR is what $415.

I'm in the middle of doing a 74 set 7 or better and while there are bargains to be had in 7/8's the 9's seem to be going for around SMR except for the ocassional ones that slip thru unseen.

Axtell

<< <i>There will come a time that the average collector just won't be able to afford any 50's and 60's sets anymore, let alone pre war. Sooner or later, these classic 70's sets will become more appealing to the average collector who wants to collect a complete vintage set. Yes, pretty soon these sets will be 35-40 years in the fold and will be considered vintage by more and more collectors in the next 10-15 years. I'm not saying prices will increase much, but these cards will most certainly be collected more than they are now.... >>



I'm sure they've been saying the average collector won't be able to afford 50s and 60s sets anymore for a long time, yet they still are in demand. 70s sets will never get to the desirability of the 50s and 60s as a whole simply because (a) there is a whole heck of a lot more inventory out there of the newer stuff, (b) there isn't the superstar power in most of these sets like you do in the earlier years, and (c) most people (that I know, at least) are quite adverse to a lot of the designs of the 70s...whereas the 50s and 60s cards are timeless classics in design.

And wouldn't the 70s cards, 30 years or so after the fact, be collected by those now who wanted to collect them?

softparade

I never said that 70's sets would ever be consumed by the collecting community like 50's and 60's cards are. All I said was that they will, IMO, be collected more in 10-15 years than they are now for the main reason that the average collector will be able to collect a vintage set without breaking the collecting budget.

I will say this too, I submitted 175 1978 Topps cards last month. Out of them I kept 67 for my set. The rest went on e-bay and sold in side deals. I have already made the entire submission cost back plus some and still have some auctions listed. So, basically I got these 67 cards for my 1978 Topps set graded for free and then some. Point being that these 70's cards (at least 1978 Topps anyway) are not dead wood

sagard

I agree that the '70s cards will gain in popularity in the future. It is cyclical. Hard to say if that will drive prices up significantly or not. I suspect there tons of guys like myself that are in their 30s who make good money, but have MANY other financial obligations to meet and can't jump into too many projects at once. In 15-20 years when the kid(s) are done with college or making there way on their own I'd certainly have more money and time to put into the chase.

I still think it is hard to justify a 25x to 100x price differential on a nrmt vs. true mint card from the '70s, and cards that are currently seeing that type of gap are most likely to drop in value in my opinion.

CollectorChris

1970's cards will lose -- not gain -- value in the near and distant future. It has to do with a four-letter word called glut.

Boopotts

I think what needs to be remembered is that the primary value of a company like PSA is in verifying that a high end card has not been altered. It makes sense that blue chip cards like the '52 Mantle, etc., get slabbed, since a guy spending 5 figures on a card would like to know that it's not counterfeit or trimmed. The PSA set registry, along with the lemming effect, has provided the market with a metric ton of cards that were never really meant to be slabbed, and I count virtually all (but not entirely all) post 1960 baseball cards in that catagory.

My feeling is that everything slabbed that wasn't produced pre-1959 is going to keep dropping in value, and that the end isn't even close.

softparade

<< <i>1970's cards will lose -- not gain -- value in the near and distant future. It has to do with a four-letter word called glut. >>



that is fair, I guess a collector like myself is unique. I don't care one bit about "value". My opinion remains the same. 70's cards will be collected more 10-15 years from now due to factors other than "value". To each his own ....

I collect the cards I do becuase I enjoy them. I enjoy looking at them, I enjoy the players from my youth. If I was concerned with "value" I would collect MONEY instead of spending it on my cards.

Boopotts

<< <i>

<< <i>1970's cards will lose -- not gain -- value in the near and distant future. It has to do with a four-letter word called glut. >>



that is fair, I guess a collector like myself is unique. I don't care one bit about "value". My opinion remains the same. 70's cards will be collected more 10-15 years from now due to factors other than "value". To each his own ....

I collect the cards I do becuase I enjoy them. I enjoy looking at them, I enjoy the players from my youth. If I was concerned with "value" I would collect MONEY instead of spending it on my cards. >>





That's a reasonable stance, although it doesn't explain why you would get the cards slabbed.

BugOnTheRug

<< <i> 1970's cards will lose -- not gain -- value in the near and distant future. It has to do with a four-letter word called glut. >>



The four-letter word is 'ebay'..........

Buccaneer

<< <i>

<< <i>There will come a time that the average collector just won't be able to afford any 50's and 60's sets anymore, let alone pre war. Sooner or later, these classic 70's sets will become more appealing to the average collector who wants to collect a complete vintage set. Yes, pretty soon these sets will be 35-40 years in the fold and will be considered vintage by more and more collectors in the next 10-15 years. I'm not saying prices will increase much, but these cards will most certainly be collected more than they are now.... >>



I'm sure they've been saying the average collector won't be able to afford 50s and 60s sets anymore for a long time, yet they still are in demand. 70s sets will never get to the desirability of the 50s and 60s as a whole simply because (a) there is a whole heck of a lot more inventory out there of the newer stuff, (b) there isn't the superstar power in most of these sets like you do in the earlier years, and (c) most people (that I know, at least) are quite adverse to a lot of the designs of the 70s...whereas the 50s and 60s cards are timeless classics in design.

And wouldn't the 70s cards, 30 years or so after the fact, be collected by those now who wanted to collect them? >>



(a) agree
(b) agree
(c) agree

I grew up collecting 70s cards and spent the 1980s putting those sets together. During the boom period of the late 80s and early 90s, they did have some nice "values" before they all crashed. I agreed with all of the points above because I should be a classic 70s set builder (the 50s and 60s baseball were before my time for the most part). But I purposely chose to put my interest, my love and my money into 50s and 60s sets because they are better "values", much better looking designs and far superior quality. Even Topps management has admitted to a failing quality of products during the 70s and much like baseball itself changed from the "golden age" to the "modern age", so did cards. I think that has carried over and will continue to carry over in collector's mind where a Bench, Ryan, Schmidt, Morgan, Carlton, etc. will never, ever see the values compared to Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Clemente, etc.