Low pops question

leadoff4 · July 10, 2009 9:05AM

Which of the following has cards with the lowest pops: 88 Fleer, 89 Fleer, 88 Topps, 89 Topps, 90 Topps, 91 Topps, 88 Donruss, & 90 Fleer. All baseball by the way.

digicat · July 10, 2009 9:15AM

1988 Fleer = 6,747 total graded (34% PSA 10s)
1989 Fleer = 54,378 total graded (9% PSA 10s)
1988 Topps = 6,396 total graded (30% PSA 10s)
1989 Topps = 12,543 total graded (26% PSA 10s)
1990 Topps = 32,186 total graded (11% PSA 10s)
1991 Topps = 4,673 total graded (24% PSA 10s)
1988 Donruss = 4,917 total graded (20% PSA 10s)
1990 Fleer = 16,951 total graded (21% PSA 10s)

DavidPuddy · July 10, 2009 9:33AM

I'm really surprised that 88 Donruss has 20% 10's. Must be from factory sets.

Nathaniel1960 · July 10, 2009 9:42AM

HMMM..the 89 Fleer is interesting to me. I've always felt Topps is the hardest in PSA 10 for any year pre-1992, because of card stock and quality.

VitoCo1972 · July 10, 2009 9:47AM

Do we think those stats indicate that PSA grades star rookies tougher or that more bad examples of star rookies are submitted. Check out the PSA 10 percentage on 1989 (Griffey, Sheffield, Biggio, Johnson) - it's WAY lower than other years. Very interesting.

digicat · July 10, 2009 10:15AM

<< <i>Do we think those stats indicate that PSA grades star rookies tougher or that more bad examples of star rookies are submitted. Check out the PSA 10 percentage on 1989 (Griffey, Sheffield, Biggio, Johnson) - it's WAY lower than other years. Very interesting. >>

I think it's probably tougher "pre-grading," rather than PSA grading. If you're going to submit a common, you're probably going to be a lot more careful about which card you submit, than if you had a stack of Griffey rookies.

You can break even with a PSA 9 Griffey rookie.
You've lost money if you get a PSA 9 on your Chris Sabo.

leadoff4 · July 10, 2009 11:08AM

Thanks for the info. digicat.

otwcards · July 10, 2009 11:50AM

There's another reason for the higher pecentage of PSA 10's for these issues...

Bulk submitters with PSA 10 ONLY prescreens. Bulk submitters may submit hundreds and hundreds of cards from these issues with the stipulation that ONLY PSA 10 cards are slabbed. They typically pay a minimal fee per card and an increased fee for those that are slabbed. This would explain the high percentage of PSA 10's versus other issues, especially among the commons. Assuming that 1000 cards are submitted and 300 are slabbed PSA 10, you would have the population of PSA 10's grow by 300 as would the total graded. The other 700 that did not meet the minimum grade would NOT count towards the total graded and thus would actually skew the population percentages.

Just some food for thought...

WinPitcher · July 10, 2009 11:50PM

And in some cases it would appear that the submitter had a great eye as only the cards that graded 10 would get a cert.

Steve

otwcards · July 11, 2009 4:14AM

<< <i>And in some cases it would appear that the submitter had a great eye as only the cards that graded 10 would get a cert. >>

I actually recall a thread or two quite awhile back where some found a few of these "prescreen" submissions and tried to make a big deal out of it claiming that the submitter got ONLY PSA 10s on the submission and must've bribed PSA or made some "other" deal with them.

Simply put, too many on these boards will be quick to criticize without knowledge of the facts. Then when presented with the facts, they will spin them into some other sort of conspiracy or suggestion of preferential treatment.

Low pops question

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