OPC prices vs Topps prices

olb31

I collect a lot of opc as well as topps, but for the life of me can't figure which card from a particular year is worth more (costs more, sells for more). In these cases I will go with rookies. You would think it has to do with scarcity (low pop), but it doesn't.

1983 opc sandberg and gwynn sell for much more
1984 strawberry and mattingly opc higher
1985 gooden and puckett opc higher
1987 bonds opc higher
1989 randy Johnson opc higher
1990 frank Thomas opc higher

1979 ozzie topps
1978 murray topps
1978 ryan topps (pop report is close on this but the topps sells for 5 times more)
1977 fidrych topps (opc more than 50% lower pop)
1976 Eckersley topps
1975 brett and yount topps

in many cases the opc cards are harder to find and the pop report can be significantly different. SO the 70's its topps, the 80's its opc. pop report doesn't seem to matter either. let me hear your thoughts.

tsalems1

More people working on Registry sets for Topps in the 70's is my opinion

miwlvrn

Even though there are more total Topps cards out there, there are also more total collectors of the Topps cards, especially the 1970's ones. Also, the Topps cards fit in both the player basic sets and the master sets, and not every participant is on both lists. The OPC cards are only on the master sets. Even though there are more graded, more printed raw, and more collectors of Topps, the total number of shoppers compared to total available product for those cards works out favorably for the value higher than some OPC's. What the OPC's have going for them is that there are far fewer in many cases, so when a card is listed for sale there is often a higher competition to acquire that particular card since they don't have as easy a chance to just wait for the next one in the same grade to come along.

olb31

so we are wrestling with

1) Demand vs Scarcity

For the 1970's there seems to be more of a demand for the topps cards

For the 1980's it seems to be more about scarcity

What's unusual about this, a little, usually scarcity will win out if there is some demand

ReggieCleveland

If I had to throw out a theory that was based in nothing empirical (something, mind you, I consider myself a bit of a an expert on) I would say it's also due partly to a generational thing. The people that grew up with only Topps (and OPC) I've found to be much more loyal to Topps. The people that grew up with Topps, Donruss, Fleer, UD, Score, etc, have less brand loyalty to Topps and probably view OPC as more of a peer than a redheaded stepchild (like previous generations).

JoeBanzai

DEMAND drives the price! In fact if an item is perceived to be "too scarce" it's demand (and value) can actually drop.

I believe that many people have given up on finding high grade, centered, OPC from the '70's. I am talking baseball only.

A prominent local dealer recently took a look at a bunch off OPC and "oddball" cards I was culling from my collection as well as my wantlist that consists of similar "scarce" (OPC, Bazooka, etc.) stuff. His response was less people (he actually said "nobody") was looking for that stuff any more.

This could certainly change for these particular cards, but I think there will have to be a quantity of high grade product that comes onto the market to stimulate pricing.

The registry has a lot to do with it as well.

mikeschmidt

It really depends.

For Mike Schmidt, interestingly, it works as follows:

1973, 1975, 1977-1978 - Topps > OPC
1974, 1976, 1979 OPC > Topps

I think it really is a function of player collectors and the supply of high grade. 1974 and 1976 are crazy crazy difficult for OPC w/Schmidt

1975 is just a sucky year overall, Topps, OPC, Topps Mini are all very hard for card #70

olb31

i think joe hit on an interesting point about some items being so hard to find that it could actually drive a segment of people away (maybe even a bit hard to find out what its worth because it rarely comes to market).

ClockworkAngel

In the OP's example, the 80's stuff is more expensive because of the scarcity. Compare how many OPC 10 Tony Gwynns there are to Topps? Starting around that time is when Topps really put the pedal to the metal and produced a ton of cards. It's easy to find all the Topps cards in PSA 10 from the 80's. A 1987 OPC Barry Bonds is really tough. In the 1970's, it's pretty close. Ozzie PSA 10's are about as rare in Topps and O-Pee-Chee. The fact that Topps is so much more shows that all things being equal, Topps is still quite a bit more popular.

I am a big collector and buyer of O-Pee-Chee. I think that as the market for high grade RC's continues to skyrocket the O-Pee-Chees will begin to creep up too. Who can afford a PSA 9 Ozzie Rookie? The O-Pee-Chee is half the price and a really cool card. Also, as collectors begin to finish their objectives, many might move on to O-Pee-Chee. That's what Dmitri Young did