2 Cents about Basic Player Sets

paigowmichael

Maybe I think of “Basic” meaning something different than most?

To me, “Basic” means cards that were readily available to everyone across the country. “Basic” should not include regional issues or redundant issues like OPCs or Topps Tiffany cards that are virtually identical to their regular Topps counterparts.

I embarked on a Ken Griffey Sr Basic Set without checking the set composition first and thinking it would be relatively small and simple. It was a fairly long career (1974-1991), so I figured maybe 50 cards would make up the basic set (18 Topps, 11 Fleer, 11 Donruss, a few Kellogg’s, Hostess, etc.)

But, no! The Basic Set includes 76 cards including every variation of those stupid (my opinion) regional discs from 1976 & 1977. 17% of the Basic Set is these discs. Buckman, Carousel, Crane, Dairy Isle, Isaly, MSA, Orbaker, Towne Club. Eight different versions of the same freaking card! And that’s just the 1976 list! There are 5 more for 1977.

If they offered different photos or significantly different designs, I could understand that.

Sure, these variations belong in the Master Set. No argument there. But the Basic Set? I would say absolutely not. What’s the point of a Basic Set that includes multiple variations of relatively obscure regional cards?

Personally, I also think it’s a stretch to include Traded/Update cards, Stickers and Scratchoffs, too. But I can at least appreciate the argument for including them even if they don’t appeal to me all that much.

What criteria is PSA using to differentiate the Basic Set?

How does anyone justify telling us we need a 1976 Towne Club card to finish a Basic Player Set? I don’t even know what Towne Club is. Is it a country club? A bridge club? A chess club? A big piece of wood? Some Palm Beach condo project? All I know is they paid to put their name on a “card” 30 years ago. So now I need to get my mitts on one just because they printed some insignificant number of them?

OK. That’s my 2 cents. Just had to vent a little. Sorry.

jeffcbay

I notice that with the Ripken Basic Set, but my beef is mostly cards that SHOULD be in it. For example, then don't have the 1992 Pinnacle in it, or the 1994 Sportflics, or the 1991 Studio. Another very strange one is the Master Set is missing the 1994 Stadium Club base card, but it's IN the Basic Set! I sent in a request to add it to the registry, but I had no reply.

When I think Basic, I think the base card of every set in his career. PSA doesn't do all that bad at declaring shich cards belong in which sets. Everything can be debatable, so why not let them set the standard.

Salinas

I agree with you on the basic premise: what is a basic set if it includes regional or limited cards or even cards outside of what we think are the major sets: regular issues of Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck? In the Al Oliver sets I am completing, there is not much difference between the Basic and Master sets. They both include the discs and Kelloggs cards as well as Scratch-Offs and Stickers. I asked PSA about this last year, and they said that the definition of what would qualify a card for the Basic set is:

The basic player sets will include all cards defined as a "Main Set" cards, but will not include cards from Parallel Sets, Insert Sets, or Parallel/Inserts Sets. Special cards and league leader cards will not be included. The cards listed below fall into the parameters for a basic player set, as they are defined as cards from “Main Sets”.

So I guess "Main sets" include the discs, Kelloggs, Scratch-Offs, Stickers, Food sets (such as Drake's), and Cloth cards.

Pittfan

Didn't at one time they not allow a these cards in the basic sets?

paigowmichael

Ah, but they aren't consistent with it.

Look at the Carlton Fisk Basic & Master sets.

The Basic DOESN'T include the discs. The Master does.

That's the way it should be (IMO). And all I would expect is for them to be consistent with it.

I have the same "nowhere to be found" problem with the Griffey set. It doesn't include his 1991 Score card - a very common and plentiful issue. I submitted a request to add it, but I hear it takes a while to get done. I don't mind the wait.

jeffcbay

My Ripken Basic set excludes Tiffany, Glossy, and Drakes, but includes OPC. Maybe they try to add some cards to the smaller player sets to try to make them harder to complete. Who knows...

paigowmichael

Beating a dead horse, but here are some more examples of sets where the Master includes the discs but the Basic doesn't:

Steve Carlton
Bake McBride (somebody needs to start a Basic. Want to be #1 for a day? Register a Bake Basic and you're King of the Hill)
Thurman Munson

I need to stop before I start looking at every set out there. )

MeteoriteGuy

Basic sets should not include what we general term as "Odd-Ball" cards. It would make more sense to include the All-Star and Record breaker like subset cards (not bonus cards) then a disc.

How are Sportflix not considered a basic card? They were (and are still) everwhere.

Mark

Alfiewt

PSA recently changed the standards for basic player sets. Basic sets used to be just the base set cards of the regular issue sets. Now they are everything except insert cards. There really is no point to the basic sets anymore. Basic sets were created for people just collecting the regular issue cards of a player and not chasing down all of the oddball issues. No one collects a player just excluding inserts. Also insert cards weren't real common until the mid 90's, so any player who retired before this time will have virtually identical basic and master sets.

calaban7

I recently noticed a change in the Randy Jones set that I collect. I contacted gayle at registry help. She was very helpful , but sent the same rule explanation as show above. I realized that although the rules had changed, I was not going to be able change it back, even though I had made numerous calls. This is not life or death and simply made some registry addition requests to get the cards I had in the master set moved over to the basic set as well.

I'm sure glad that I don't collect one of those modern , 500 card , monster sets. Now the basic set that others and my self collect will have about 30 cards.

RedRomad275

I can address this as I am the one that requested the set in the first place. I sent a list of cards that I thought should be on the basic list and I think it was around 40-50 cards. When the set hit the web page I couldn't believe that all the oddball cards had been put in there. I emailed set registry and was told basically the same thing. What really made me upset was that the 74 Topps card wasn't even on the set originally. They included all the discs and such but left off the Rookie card. I don't agree with it as I collect several Reds player sets and the Foster is the same way. It's a new standard that PSA has imposed.

Red

mkg809

When the Sprortflics Decade Greats was added to the Reggie Jackson Basic Set I lost all faith in the Registry. I assumed Basic meant only only the main issues, and I don't consider Sportflics as main issue.

paigowmichael

It looks like the Randy Jones was probably changed due to a request to add the 1 disc, which is sad because what it reinforces is that, in time, every Basic Set for a player who retired before the advent of inserts will become a mirror image of the Master.

So a Basic Set is now a meaningless endeavour and the data is merely taking up space on the PSA servers.

It's sad that PSA will never realize that their moves to appease a few collectors by changing the rules of what constitutes "Basic" ruins the whole concept for the masses. Being able to have that Basic Set as a goal was my only incentive to send in my 1991 Donruss card for grading.

I would be ticked off if I had a Basic Set at 100% with a dozen Topps cards and then somebody added another card to the set composition for no useful reason.

Oh well. Just one more disincentive for the small-time collector.

AlanAllen

There have been a few threads on this since PSA's paradigm shift, and I don't recall seeing one person in support of including oddball cards in the basic set. At a minimum, 90%+ of registrants oppose the move. It's clear why they made they change, but perhaps if they read this, and perhaps if there is enough outrage, they'll reverse the decision. I, for one, have stopped adding to my basic set because of this. Anyone else?

Joe

mkg809

The only registry set I am continuing to update is my E91C set. I don't think they will add anymore to it will they???
As for my player sets, I give up. I was 1 card short on the Reggie Jackson Basic Set and now there is junk being added that I wouldn't waste my money on.

Darin

I'm going to do the Willie Stargell basic set and at 26 cards I even think that's too many. Basic to me means, one card per year. Nothing else. Stargell's should be just the run of topps cards from 1963-1982, and the donruss from 1983 since topps didn't issue one that year.

I want to do the George Brett basic, but its complete bull crap. 85 cards for a basic set, are you serious PSA? What's all this Leaf, Score, Flair, Studio, O Pee Pee chee finest BS? You call that basic? Call it what it is, you have a George Brett complicated set and a George Brett master complicated set.

MeteoriteGuy

Why don't you consider Sportflix as basic cards mkg809? They were released in packs and sold nationwide.

Although in your Reggie Jackson case, a Decade Great card, should not be included. Your post sounds more that all Sportflix should not be included.

I know they are not included in some sets.

Mark

mikeschmidt

I argued strongly for the inclusion of Sportlics a few years ago with the Schmidt Basic set, and it met with much resistance from PSA, with PSA ruling against it.

Funny, because at the time, Sportflics was widely available in supermarkets across the East Coast -- probably moreso than Fleer or Donruss.

~ms

mkg809

For some reason I see Sportflics as a gimmick, not a regular issue card. To me it's the same as the discs and other oddball stuff.

mikeschmidt

<< <i>For some reason I see Sportflics as a gimmick, not a regular issue card. To me it's the same as the discs and other oddball stuff. >>



I think maybe that is an appropriate way to look at it historically, but as an eleven year old boy in 1987 -- Sportflics were very cool and they had a much larger following than some other issues of the time.

Did they stand the test of time? Perhaps not. But they were definitely a very premium product for the time -- and you may suggest that that focus on premium helped prove a business model for Upper Deck in 1989, and then the baseball card market changed forevermore.

Morgoth

Sportsflcs came in packs alot of food disks did not. I am a player collector and this makes me upset and alot of people upset because PSA is basically forcing people to buy or grade all of these stupid disks and other trash that would never be graded except to complete a registry. It was done out of greed. The original basic set idea was for collectors now they are using this as a cash cow to get people to grade trash.

paigowmichael

I think the distinction of whether something should be eligible for the Basic Set is fairly simple:

Test #1: Was it distributed nationally – either in packs or as a premium along with some product? Remember, what Topps was trying to sell wasn’t baseball cards. It was gum. So just because something is distributed with food doesn’t necessarily make it oddball.

Test #2: Was it issued as a simple rebranding of a more common issue? For example, OPC often were no more than Topps cards labeled under a different brand. Same photo, same design, same card number. The only difference: it had the OPC emblem instead of Topps’.

Test #3: Was it part of a larger ‘main set’? (Not a parallel or special insert)

Test #4: Was it issued while the player was an active (non-retired) player?

Test #5: ‘Market Share’: Is the issue’s share of PSA population for that sport for that year greater than 5%?


Someone brought up MooTown Snackers cards in an earlier thread: The key test in that case would be Test #5. Does it represent 5% of the PSA grading population for that sport for that year? I don’t know what year they were issued, but for the sake of argument let’s say it was 1990. Look at how many cards from 1990 have been graded. Let’s say it’s 100,000 total. If 5,000 MooTown Snackers cards are included in that 100,000 then it’s more mainstream than I would have guessed and I would argue to include it.

5% is a subjective choice. But it’s measurable. Maybe it should be 10%? Maybe 1%? My basic thinking is there must be some threshold that indicates ‘acceptance’.

I won’t go so far as to say the inclusion of these oddball cards is motivated by PSA greed. It could just as easily be a product of giving 1 person what they asked for to appease them without thinking the consequences all the way through.

five7teen

I think PSA would benefit from adding more "Basic Topps Sets" to the player registry, and it's something I've requested. There's a Joe Montana Basic Topps set, and it's pretty popular - I also think that it is more like the standard basic player sets for players with careers ending before the multi-company card boom. I think more and more people would work on player sets if there was a more realistic goal completion goal. As much as I like to collect certain players, as was mentioned above, I don't think I'd want to pay (to buy, or to submit) some obscure cards just to complete a set. Of course, maybe that's just me. I do like the idea of an achievable, yet difficult quest for a player set of 20-25 cards (in the case of players with longer careers).

NickM

When you make the Basic Set a near-duplicate of the Master Set, you really have no reason for a Basic Set any more.

It doesn't affect me much. I collect Master Sets.

Nick

Bighurt4

I liked the Basic set concept with the Master set only for my all time favorite players. After the debacle of the Roger Clemens set, I have dedicated myself to a couple of my faves and sold off or are selling off the rest. I have also let my membership lapse. I hope the powers that be will correct this.

Brent