Team Issue Postcards

redlegs

Does anyone know of a good source in being able to identify and date team issue postcards?

I submitted a TallBoy order last month and all of the postcards came back ungraded due to PSA being unable to verify the years that I had listed that they were produced. Some of the postcards I submitted were a 1979 Pete Rose Phillies team issue, 1975 Johnny Bench Reds team issue, 1969 Johnny Bench Reds team issue, and a 1968 Bob Gibson Cardinals team issue.

What is so frustrating is that in the past I submitted two 1975 Johnny Bench postcards and they were both graded. Now all of the sudden PSA is unable to identify it.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

1966CUDA

I had the same thing happen recently with a 1957 Frank Robinson team issue postcard. They graded one for me a couple months ago so I sent in another (bought 6 raw last year). The grades for the submission popped in the morning and I saw that the Robinson did not get graded. I immediately called and spoke to someone. They pulled the order and I also gave the the cert. # along with a scan of the previous one. They ended up grading it I assume due to the info. I sent them. Just looks like sometimes they don't research enough to find out if the DO grade some issues and just say they DON'T instead of doing some leg work. In the end it worked out for me, maybe if you have scans of the previous Bench's that they graded you could call someone and get to the bottom of it.

-Claude

redlegs

Claude,

Thanks for the response. Yes, that's what I was going to do on the 1975 Bench is to just include a scan of the one that they graded previously. I have a complete set of 1975 Reds postcards that I wanted to eventually get graded, however, I don't have any documentation proving that these are from 1975 and not from an earlier issue. Not sure where to go from here.

Phil

RedRomad275

I had the same issue with a Concepcion Reds Team card. I found no reference in the POP report but used the Tony Perez #1 Master Set as a reference. Mine was returned ungraded and after sever emails to customer service, got confirmation that it could be graded. I sent it back and now waiting for it to pop. I talked to Kristie Gallant at customer service. She was very helpful and gave the reason for it not being graded as it was a new grader. I have tried to be proactive and send scans of cards in question before sending them in. The response I have gotten was a link to the PSA page listing the cards they grade, which in my opinion is very general. I have made the suggestion several times to make the page more specific but have been given a brush off anwser. So I guess it's hit or miss. Just my two cents.

Red

mikeschmidt

I think one of the key "problems" is that there is not a good source for this information. The team issue postcard sets are a) not widely collected, b) not identified on each postcard, and c) can be very similar from year to year, and even d) in some cases (1973 Phillies), the team issued two different poses of a player within a given year.

As such - it can be very difficult for PSA, or others, to properly assign a year to these postcards. Although there may be many benefits and good plans going on - I think the near-to-medium term solution is that there will be a lot of inconsistency as to a) whether or not the postcards get graded and b) if they get graded, if they get labelled correctly.

I've spoken with some advanced team-issued postcard collectors [none of whom, incidentally, seem to be in favor of PSA grading their postcards...], and even some of those advanced collectors seem to have disagreements as to issue years of particular poses, etc. Sometimes a photo evidence comparison is the only way I've been able to make any sort of educated determination on my end -- and this is easier for the beginning of a player's career.

FWIW - I had a submission of a large number of Phillies Team Issue postcards of stars and HOFers from 1958 through 1974, and PSA did label/grade all of them.