Pretty large turnaround on the Ripken minor league market

ripkenintheminors

To set this up, the 1981 WTF Company card of Cal Ripken, Jr. is the third toughest minor league issue to find of Cal. It was an edition of some 1,800 sets and there have been 24 to grade at 9 or higher by PSA (23 9's). Since October, the cards have ranged in price from $180-$270 for a PSA 6-7.

A month ago, a PSA 9 came up for auction. Since I have a PSA 8, I thought it would be great to upgrade until the bidding went through the roof. Final sale price: $1,924.00

Another copy of the card comes up at auction towards the end of April in Mint 9. Still wanting the upgrade, I place a bid and win the auction at a price that I couldn't be any more thrilled with. Final sale price + shipping/insurance: $302.00

Just goes to show that you never know what will happen once a card hits the auction. If I can sell my PSA 8 for what I gave for the 9 I'll be extremely happy.

CDsNuts

It all has to do with who sees the auction while it's up. I'm sure if the number 2 bidder on the other PSA 9 saw the auction, you wouldn't have gotten it nearly that low.

This is why my new strategy is to let a card sit in my store for a few weeks at what I think is it's ceiling price, then let it go to auction if it doesn't get sold. If that guy put the PSA 9 Ripken in his store for a month at $1000, he probably would've sold it. Instead, he gives it a week window, the right people don't see it, and it's Christmas time for ripkenintheminors.

Lee

jeffcbay

NYCE!!

I just marked those Ripken minor league cards as unattainable for me, at least for now. I can't afford them yet. Maybe some day, but I'm too preoccupied with building my Basic Set right now.

"ripkenintheminors", do you have a set registered?

Edit: By the way, your website is a fantastic read!!

ripkenintheminors

<< <i>NYCE!!

I just marked those Ripken minor league cards as unattainable for me, at least for now. I can't afford them yet. Maybe some day, but I'm too preoccupied with building my Basic Set right now.

"ripkenintheminors", do you have a set registered? >>



I don't have any sets on the registry, although I have been trying to get the 1980 WBTV set added to the registry.

I would love to see a Ripken Minor League Master Set added to the registry as well. Since there are 6 cards that feature Cal in some way among the 1980-1981 issues, I think it's a possibility. The Master set would look as follows:

1) 1980 Charlotte O's Police Cal Ripken, Jr
2) 1980 WBTV Charlotte O's Cal Ripken, Jr
3) 1980 WBTV Charlotte O's Team Photo
4) 1981 TCMA #15 Cal Ripken, Jr
5) 1981 WTF Company #1 Cal Ripken, Jr
6) 1981 WTF Company Checklist #20

I would love to see the Minor League Master set go live in that it would also help in the confusion with the 1980 cards. Despite my efforts, PSA still lists the 1980 Police card as the team issue and slabs the card with the words "team issue". There's also no real way of knowing which card is which among the 1980 issues when you check the population reports. With that being said, I'm not 100% on how many 1980 cards exist in which grade. I have 5 of the 6 in a PSA slab so I guess it wouldn't hurt to get the Minor League Master set up if PSA is willing.

ripkenintheminors

<< <i>It all has to do with who sees the auction while it's up. I'm sure if the number 2 bidder on the other PSA 9 saw the auction, you wouldn't have gotten it nearly that low.

This is why my new strategy is to let a card sit in my store for a few weeks at what I think is it's ceiling price, then let it go to auction if it doesn't get sold. If that guy put the PSA 9 Ripken in his store for a month at $1000, he probably would've sold it. Instead, he gives it a week window, the right people don't see it, and it's Christmas time for ripkenintheminors.

Lee >>



I can agree with that assessment. For what it's worth this also affected another auction for the same card in PSA 7. The card had an opening bid of around $220 and didn't get an opening bid. For the record, that's a good price on that card IMHO.

The other thing that may have helped my cause is that the other sale was no longer on the completed auctions page. With that being said, there was really no way for anyone to track the sales on that card unless they had previously had the auctions marked.

envoy98

Keep in mind, when that PSA 9 hit, it was the exact same time the article came out in the SMR about that card, giving it tremendous exposure. Heck, I even went and checked it out and thought about tossing a nice bid on it but it was well over the $500 or so I planned on bidding.

ripkenintheminors

<< <i>Edit: By the way, your website is a fantastic read!! >>



Just saw that. Thanks for the input! I have to admit that it has been a lot of fun running the site. It certainly wouldn't be what it is without the help from a lot of great folks. Hopefully it'll continue growing over time.

Thanks again!

itsinthegrade

great card & especially for that price

ripkenintheminors

<< <i>great card & especially for that price >>



Thanks.

I'll admit that I haven't done a great job keeping up with all of the population reports and stuff until this morning. I took a look to see how the WTF card compares to the likes of a 1982 Topps Traded. After looking, there are 1/3 of the number of WTF cards in PSA 9-10 as there are PSA 10's in the TT issue. Granted, there is a huge differential in submission totals but there's only 1,800 WTF sets. Maybe it shouldn't have been such a shock that the other WTF went for nearly $2K.