Acquiring high grade vintage raw cards - your experience

mattinglymint23

What's the consensus out there? What are the options out there for picking up lots of high grade raw vintage, aside from roping unopened?
Gotta believe we are passed the tail end of the boom years when there was plenty around to submit for grading. Or do you think there a lot of closet collections out there still waiting for TPG?

Griffins

depends on your definition of vintage.
Fritsch has a massive warehouse of pristine '59 up Topps. I'm sure there are hundreds of collectors with binders of raw in high grade post war. A lot of people just don't believe in grading or don't believe in spending $10 to grade a .50 common.
Lionel Carter's collection was all raw and went back at least til 1909. Much of it was high grade. Same with the Tango Egg and Black Swamp finds. I met a collector a few years ago that had binder after binder of E cards that were pristine- E92, E93, E94, every set complete.
It's out there, but certainly takes some digging and some luck.

LarkinCollector

<< <i>What's the consensus out there? What are the options out there for picking up lots of high grade raw vintage, aside from roping unopened?
Gotta believe we are passed the tail end of the boom years when there was plenty around to submit for grading. Or do you think there a lot of closet collections out there still waiting for TPG? >>


+1 Grif

I've had some good luck on Craigslist, but also wasted a lot of gas driving all over for busts as well. Once I found a good seller though, I've kept hitting him up for mostly gradable vintage near sets/singles/autos, tobacco-late 70s, 99% raw. I just wish I could get past the middleman, he's selling for an old guy who supposedly has a storage unit full as the guy needs some extra cash.

gemint

If we're talking pre-1970, high grade raw sets/cards are not as common as they were 10 years ago. When Mastro was cooking along at full speed, they usually had at least one high grade mostly raw set from every post-war year in every auction. Then they started offering sets where they graded a few of the high grade key cards. These days most auction houses only offer up sets from the registry or raw EX grade collector sets. I'm sure there are still a lot of high grade raw sets sitting in collections but they aren't hitting the market with nearly the frequency they were 10 years ago.

itzagoner

the option these days is kinda like that dude you see wandering along the shoreline with a metal detector who finds an assortment of keys, bottle openers, coins, bullets, fridge magnets, bent spoons and the unclaimed precious gem.

ok wait. no. it's more like the prize out of a box of Cracker Jack. and the occasional peanut.

hyperchipper09

My eyes were better 5, 10, 15 years ago than they are now, and I don't trust them as well . Having said that, I buy from who I trust and try to get as good a description and the best scan of a card I can get. The standard m.o. I reckon.

fkw

Griffins is 100% correct, I also know a few oldschool collectors with shelves and shelves of bindered and boxed set (1950-1980 Topps/Bowman).. many put together the year of issued and never touched again... thousands of centered sharp cards... all raw ... Pre-PriceGuide Era, thats all we did why change its still thought of as a simple kids 'Hobby' to them, not an investment

one guy I know has his Mantles/Mays/Williams/etc. in an oldschool Photo Album (even a midgrade 1952T Mantle), the kine with the clear page that sticks to the other. Years ago I told him he should take them out and put them in toploaders/cardpages/etc.... at least...
he still hasnt 20 years later...

know another collector who has his 1955 Bowman set all mounted in a scrapbook (done in 1955 as a kid) with those black corner mounts used for old photos postcards etc.
its still that way today...

95% of my cards are raw, and 95% are PreWar

cjaccardi

there is a ton of it out there , I would say 99 percent out there is not graded. Lot of people just dont care about psa or anything else

gemint

<< <i>there is a ton of it out there , I would say 99 percent out there is not graded. Lot of people just dont care about psa or anything else >>



That may be true but they aren't hitting the market like they were 10 years ago. Also, the low pops haven't moved a whole lot in the past 4-5 years with a few notable exceptions.

Raulsmaster

It's out there. You just have to be savvy enough to know the market for a lot of variety. I'm still surprised by the high grade material I'm able to find at shows.

fiveniner

I am the old school collector who likes building older sets and grade only a few of the hall of famers now.I retired several complete graded sets but sold them all when I temporarily lost interest in the hobby.Now I look for the best raw examples I can find and enjoy the hobby more.

Unknown

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otwcards

There are only 3 ungraded cards left prior to 1987 . . . Just 3!!! Might as well give up trying to find them as they are in the glove compartments of separate Volkswagen Beetles and they randomly roam the country . . . never settling in one place for more than 6 hours.

corncobb

I can appriciate the graded cards and have enjoyed building a couple graded sets, but I became dissillussioned
with the whole TPGing thing and came to realize how difficult it was to store and enjoy your set.
The first problem is that it weights darn near 100 lbs! And its just not enjoyable trying to look through a
handful at a time. the "flow" of the set just gets lost in the chore of trying to keep all the slabs in order.




My obcession for high grade raw sets has led me to crack cards from slabs, as one of the previous posters mentioned.

I have cracked 100's of cards for many of my sets. Thankfully I had amassed many of the high grade cards
for my sets over the years and before the TPGing thing came about. STILL, i have a wantlist and will crack them from slabs if need be.
Yes, Yes I know and am well aware of of all the "value" and cost of doing this, but I need the CARD more than Im worried about any monetary
value.

Maybe I can recoup some of the cost on the empty slabs. LOL Hey if their good enough protection for everyones trusted cards, I don't
see why they can't be used for store and display purposes. Anybody need some nice storgae slabs?
I don't endorse any misuse of the slabs and I have used them to display special sets and cards.