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Interesting mystery....

1123581311235813 Posts: 610
in Trading Cards & Memorabilia Forum
Was doing some research on a card I noticed on Ebay (a 1952 Bowman Casey Stengel PSA 9) and noticed that the PSA 9 Stengel population is really high compared to other cards in the set. There are 40 PSA 9 Stengels out of 298 submitted, which is an almost unheard of 13% (the average for the set as a whole is about 3% PSA 9's). Then did a little reasearch on PSA's website and noticed that there are 44 consective 1952 Bowman Casey Stengel cards in the database, #40623273 all the way up through #40623316, all of which graded either PSA 8 or PSA 9.

Seems very strange to me. They can't be crack and resubmits because they certificate numbers wouldn't be consecutive. It can't be that the Stengel was double-printed because it's the percentage that's much higher, not the number of cards submitted.

The cards in the set with double-digit PSA 9's are:

#101 Mantle (11 out of 1407, 0.8%)
#156 Spahn (12 out of 344, 3.5%)
#166 Adams (10 out of 111, 9.0%)
#193 Young (16 out of 174, 9.2%)
#194 Porterfield (29 out of 198, 14.6%)
#196 Musial (32 out of 823, 3.9%)
#203 Gromek (16 out of 189, 8.5%)
#217 Stengel (40 out of 289, 13.8%)
#232 Slaughter (13 out of 268, 4.9%)
#240 Loes (27 out of 209, 12.9 %)
#248 Werle (12 out of 148, 8.1%)

So there are a total of seven cards with abnormally high PSA 9 percentages....

Any ideas?

Comments

  • AhmanfanAhmanfan Posts: 4,380 ✭✭✭✭
    maybe someone found a nice group of those particular cards? 50 of each or something that had been stashed away?
    Collecting
    HOF SIGNED FOOTBALL RCS
  • mikeschmidtmikeschmidt Posts: 5,756 ✭✭✭
    I think the lot of forty Stengel PSA 9s was auctioned off in REA, Mastro or one of the other big auction houses within the last 12-18 months. It had been a really tough card up until that peculiar find.
    I am actively buying MIKE SCHMIDT gem mint baseball cards. Also looking for any 19th century cabinets of Philadephia Nationals. Please PM with additional details.
  • CDsNutsCDsNuts Posts: 10,092 ✭
    That's probably the case, AhmanFan. I was in a random Philly card shop and found over 100 sharp looking 1968 Topps Richie Allen, of which I cherry-picked the best 5 and got 9s on all of them. The shop owner said they were bought for an autograph signing that Allen never showed for. I've seen similar sharp lots over the years of random players from random sets, so you never know what's out there. There was probably a hoard of pack-fresh 52 Bowman Stengel's somewhere that were uncovered and graded.
  • jrinckjrinck Posts: 1,321 ✭✭
    The guy who dumped that boatload of '52s into the East River was a Stengel fan. image
  • RipkenRipken Posts: 559 ✭✭✭
    The explanation is in
    this story.
  • Stone193Stone193 Posts: 24,393 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Mr Mint found a hoard of really nice '32 US Caramels in superb condition.

    Thus - if memory serves - there's a disproportionate amount of high grade cards in the population?

    mike
    Mike
  • 1123581311235813 Posts: 610
    Ripken,

    Thanks for digging up the story!

    Now the question becomes why did that person have so many high-grade Stengels, but not of any other cards?
  • CDsNutsCDsNuts Posts: 10,092 ✭
    If people weren't stupid enough to pay 20 times the price for a PSA 9 than what a PSA 8 goes for, we wouldn't run into these situations. I really can't wait until 20 years from now when the market has finally corrected itself and the most miniscule of condition differences doesn't change a card's value by multiples of 10.

    Nice find in that article Ripken.
  • BuccaneerBuccaneer Posts: 1,794 ✭✭
    ""We had a 1952 Bowman Casey Stengel which was a low pop card and we got a ‘9’ on it. It went for thousands of dollars in our auction," Allen recalled. The buyer called Mastro shortly after the auction after buying the card as a 1 of 3 and then seeing the pop report inexplicably shoot up as Mastro graded the remainder of the Stengel cards in the Bowman lot.

    "We wound up with 43 Casey Stengels in a nine grade," Allen said."

    Bet that would be one pissed buyer.
  • WinPitcherWinPitcher Posts: 27,726 ✭✭✭
    That was lame of mastro to do.


    Steve
    Good for you.
  • larryallen73larryallen73 Posts: 6,062 ✭✭✭
    The shop owner said they were bought for an autograph signing that Allen never showed for.

    Not a shock there, eh!? I found his book interesting and him intriguing but Dick Allen missing a signing is not surprising! image
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