1968 bb vending boxes--how many psa 10's inside?

summerof68

I've been considering starting a 1968 topps baseball high-grade psa set and when studying the pops one quickly sees an almost rediculously high number of psa 10's in existance--almost 2700. In the past two weeks alone another 30 were graded by psa. I've read some older posts and board members attribute this inordinate number to the existance of large amounts of '68 vending boxes. Some members suggest they originated from the Fritsch warehouse. It makes you wonder how many vending boxes and cases he and others still have out there. I'm trying to get a feel on whether the value of '68 psa 10's will (as a whole) drop in value as their pops continue to rise. I'm curious as well as to how many psa 10's a '68 vending box might contain? I'm trying to get a feel as to whether the psa 10 pops will start to slow down in the near future or will they continue on with full steam whereby lowering the desireability, luster and value of '68 bb psa 10's

mikeschmidt

how can one answer a question like that? It is hard to say what is out if, if you don't know what is out there. It is like trying to estimate how many more tombs are undiscovered in Egypt. You simply don't know what you don't know.

Obviously, as time passes, pops will only increase.

That said -- I think the vast majority of the high population PSA 10s from 1968 Topps can from one specific find...which is why there are some cards in particular that have myriad PSA 10s graded, like Grant Jackson, for example.

You can have a vending box with zero PSA 10s -- in fact, I think most pre-1970 vending boxes may have zero or close to zero PSA 10s. Any mishandling of the box over 30 years, a bad print run (think off-center....), water damage, etc. can lead to much less than MINTINESS on most/all cards within a vending box. I've heard of people open vending cases from the 1970s without hitting a single star card in PSA 10.

Just like anything else, it is all about supply and demand. There are a number of 1968 cards with PSA 10 populations of one or two (some with even zero) and those cards command high premium for them.

~ms

summerof68

Thank you MS for your in-depth reply. The gist of my thread was to hopefully hear from people who have opened pre-70 vending and to get a feel for how many 10's (on average) a vending box contains. I'm glad you stated that 10's are tough to find even in vending boxes and that most existing 10's were from a single "find". This gives me hope that current low pop 10's have a legitimate chance of staying low pop for some time. One always fears purchasing low pop 10's only to see their value drop 50+% when a couple more 10's of a particular card appear. I would guess that when buying '68 psa 10's to fill a set both time and patience is on the buyers side

mikeschmidt

You probably won't hear from too many people hear who have opened pre-1970 vending boxes in the past few years and gotten them graded. I will cross my fingers that you do, but I'm guessing you likely will not.

Also, remember the scale perspective. PSA has graded over 122,000 cards from the 1968 Topps baseball set. And also remember that supply is just part of the equation. There is a strong argument to be made that the ready availability of high-grade 1968 Topps cards (PSA 9 and 10 quality) has actually increased demand for the set, as there are definitively a number of graded set collectors who only like the 9s and 10s that are putting this set together that otherwise may have shied away. So it is never just strictly about supply...

~ms

theczar

1968 is a quirky year. You are right about an abundance of top of the line cards especially of certain players. What I always thought was odd was that the 1st series had the "big dots" and the rest of the set small dots. The Ryan rookie does wonders for this set.

Now back to your vending question. I would venture that those cards would be not grade well. Vending is always a speculation and being nearly 40 years old doesn't help either and who knows how many times these cards have been shuffled about.

There are more 10's out there, but don't let that prevent you from going after it. The best buying strategy I see is from Larry Mayer. What patience that man has. Never snipes, puts in his top bid and if he hits great, if not it is very likely the card will be back again. I have blown tons of money to have a card right now, and seen in a few months down the road he picks up another copy in the same grade at a fraction of what I paid.

That is a big set. Have fun chasing it and be financially prudent and you won't lose money.

summerof68

I want to thank TheCzar for the great advice about being patient as a buyer. It can be very fun and enjoyable putting together a vintage set but none of us want to take a financial beating in doing so. For the past two months I have been logging the final ebay sale price of '68 bb psa 10's and I have noticed one buyer in particular who is very patient and when he does win he gets them at very good prices--his user id is (kepplerenterprises). The person is a very disciplined buyer. Perhaps I will try to pattern myself after him. I just threw on a new thread detailing when in burned 20,000+ '68 & '69 topps singles in 1974. This is the basis for my desire to put together a nice '68 set--it brings back all the fond memories of my childhood!!

mikeschmidt

<< <i>I just threw on a new thread detailing when in burned 20,000+ '68 & '69 topps singles in 1974. This is the basis for my desire to put together a nice '68 set--it brings back all the fond memories of my childhood!! >>



Please remind me to stop by your house at Halloween-time...you can relive your childhood by handing me your newly acquired 1968s!

dude

summerof68,

I've been working on my '68 graded set since 1999 (and I'm still working on it) and could talk to you for hours about what I've come across in that time in regards to vending. Yes, there definitely were a lot of surplus vending cases floating around the past several decades. Most of my collection was built out of a Houston dealer's vending hoard. He bought a case of each series in 1968 except for the last one - the 7th. I cherry picked his hoard in 1999 with a 10x lighted magnifier, submitted around 1500 cards over several months to PSA and received 45 - 10's, 36 of which are still in my set. I also received about 1200 - 9's. I sold most of the 9's but kept about 400 for my set and then later sold about 89 low pop commons for a fairly substantial sum to one collector (and later bought most of them back from that same collector for about 20 to 30% of the original sales price). The remainder of this Houston vending hoard was sold to Bill Goodwin at the Chicago National in 2002.

Off the top of my head, I've known other dealers who had '68 vending cases including Andy Madec, Joe Delgrippo, Bob Cacamese, the Baseball Exchange and a shop in Oregon and I know I'm forgetting several. So all that I'm aware of didn't come from Fritsch - at least in the last 10 years. You also have to think that mega-dealers like DSL much have been sitting on a case or two from each series.

WinPitcher

Keppler is a dealer and thus will only pay wholesale for cards.

Good luck in building your set.


Steve

gaspipe26

I actually had 10-15 vending boxes but 14 cut card cases from 1968. I still have stacks of 7th series cards , literally several hundred of most numbers with the exception of the stars and some of the tougher numbers that all were sold over the years. I cant really expalain why there are so many 1968's graded compared to say 67 or 69, but there are. I stopped sending them in to PSA. I remember when most of the high numbers were POP 1 in 9, I sold them to Ron Ritt years back.

Fuzz

68,
I have opened a 64 high number box and graded it out a few years ago that I had won in a Lelands auction. The outside of the box was in very good shape and the box probably would have graded an 8.5 or 9. A few of the cards had been taken out and photo'd or used for ID for the auction and you could clearly see those but in general it was untouched. I bought it because the price was compelling to play PSA roulette. I graded a total of about 80 cards. O/C was the biggest problem by far. I do not remember rejecting a card for a corner which does testify as to how good it was as one drop of 40 years could have fixed that corner thing. I received two PSA 10's with the remiander split between 8's and 9's about evenly or maybe a little bias to the 9's. The distribution of the graded cards was terrible.
The cards were placed in numerical order in the box. So it was five to nine of each number all placed together. If the first card of each numer was o/c, the rest would be o/c. A slight variance as to how much but clearly similar. If the first was off left, they were all off left. If the frist was good, they would all be pretty good. So the 80 cards might only represeent 20 to 25 different cards grading the best several of each where any were gradable. Obviously most numbers had no gradeable cards. In my case, all the stars were basically o/c to bad to bother.
If I were going to do research on a series to open, I would look at every card I could find with an eye on percentage of poorly centered cards. The people that I knew that bought complete series from Fritsch in the day he use to sell tham that way complained heavily about the centering so I suspect that this problem is/was fairly common.
Opening a vintage box is almost always a losing proposition financially. There are so few of the relatively and so many that like to play lotto that the market will price them above the average break up value. If it didn't, the owner would open it. There is no easy money there. It is fun though to see "new" cards from that era. If you are going to buy a box, condition and authenticity first to insure you get a shot at as manufactured cards. Secondly price. If you get in right there is still money but it is hard to find boxes that sell cheaply. Good Luck and let us know how it goes.
Fuzz

summerof68

Nice sense of humor MS. Actually the amount of cards burned that night more closely approached 25,000. During my freshman year in high-school, 1971, my fellow card collecting neighborhood friends gave me all their cards from the late 60's as they too lost interest in cards when they started high-school. Those cards were burned as well that fatefull night.....

Arsenal83

gaspipe, your PM is turned off. I was wondering if you had any NM-MT 68's still lying around that you'd be willing to part with. If so, PM and maybe we can work something out.

Brian

GlynRParson

Call Joe Delgrippo and ask him he sent in many of the 1968 PSA 10s from a vending run he had.

gaspipe26

All I have left are high numbers.

Arsenal83

gaspipe, do you want to part with any of those high #'s?

SOM

RonBurgundy

"Opening a vintage box is almost always a losing proposition financially. There are so few of the relatively and so many that like to play lotto that the market will price them above the average break up value. If it didn't, the owner would open it. There is no easy money there."


Truer words have never been spoken.




Ron

MorrellMan

<< <i>
The cards were placed in numerical order in the box....If the first card of each numer was o/c, the rest would be o/c. >>



This was my experience with 64 vending as well. I have a friend who bought one (I forget the color [blue? red?], but it was the one where high numbers were mixed with semi-highs), and was so dissatisfied he sent it back. It would be nice to think that intact 40-45 year old vending boxes are untouched immaculate treasures, but I'm pretty skeptical about that.