The curious case of the 1985 Topps Clemens PSA 10...
bounce
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I realize this is only one auction, but there's just no explanation for this.
The only reason I noticed is this is a card I track, as I own a few of them and have always felt like that for the money, Topps PSA 10 was the best value when you analyze the pop reports. There are certainly lower pop cards, but based on overall submissions, this is probably the toughest 10.
VCP is currently at $323.25 as I type, the highest price in the results back to June 2017 is $450, with one other in February 2018 at $449.
And yet this one is at $980 with an hour to run? With three bidders over $500? Did PSA create an 11 or 12 now that this could bump to?
Small sample size, but something is CLEARLY wrong with this auction and there's is nothing to dispute about it.
HOWEVER - in case I'm just totally wrong and there is nothing wrong with this auction...I'm going to go ahead and put my cards where my mouth is.
RIGHT NOW - I will save you 10% and give you the choice of any of these three PSA 10s.
$900 per card - $1100 per card DELIVERED! YOU PICK YOUR CARD! Act fast before the prices go up!
Comments
Consign one to them
Sarcasm on
Sorry, but it ended at $1247 (with a fourth bidder who topped them all), so unfortunately I need to raise the price
You had your chance - but hey there's at least one bidder who still has a chance to save some money here!
$1100 each now
The buyers group is at it again.
That is a head scratcher. PWCC auctioned one off two weeks ago that went for $360. I guess it could just be that one-time perfect storm where a handful of new buyers got in at the same time and they all "had to have it."
Arthur
It could be that people are seeing the high prices as of late of the tiffany rookie and are inflating the price of the regular topps. Is this a short term blip or the beginning of a new normal as Clemens and bonds are edging closer to the hof?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
280 plus PSA 10 graded '85 Topps....thats plenty and growing.....vs. 43 Tiffany PSA 10's? All it takes is for that competitive drive to kick in however and you do get outliers from time to time....Both are quite handsome RC's .... I like the Tiffany fade better but sometimes you get bidders (NEWBIES) who maybe thought they were getting a deal on what they mistook for a Tiffany....no telling really.... as long as the sale goes thru...its legit. ~***One thing to keep in mind~ LAST SECOND BIDS ARE typically earnest, serious bids to win.
Russian hackers!
Growing? Ehhh....
November, 2014 (PSA 10s):
Reg: 235
Tifff: 36
Arthur
Thought about a lot of the points that have been brought up...
1) The bidders that were north of $600 had feedback of 2629, 109, 2142 and 78. Those certainly aren't newbie eBay bid totals, and at least three of them had dozens if not hundreds of bids on cards.
2) While I believe someone could have mistaken it for a Tiffany, I don't believe that FOUR people did. It only takes two to set a high number on an auction, but in this case there are FOUR. That doesn't add up.
3) If this were a "new normal", why did it just start now with basically a 3-4X increase? That's not just an outlier. Doubling maybe could be considered an outlier. I'll give some stats for that in my next post. Interestingly enough, one of the lower priced ones (sub $500) did sell last night on a best offer - I imagine this auction might have had something to do with that.
Don't want to lose track of it, just in case it comes back into the auction pool soon.
This was something north of a 5 sigma event? Whoever bought it should have it reholdered as part of the "Black Swan Collection".
I think the standard deviation of prices on this card was around $40 before this auction, meaning the overwhelming majority of sales were between about $320 and $400. Now it's like $180 I think? For the statisticians, that's pretty meaningful to the extent of total unbelievability.
It increased the VCP to $339.38, which is over 5% on one sale for a card that trades very frequently.
While I realize this was happening a couple years ago on the vintage rookies in say PSA 9 (sometimes each sale was way more than 5% higher), those cards also have pops that measured in the one or tow dozens, not multiple hundreds. It makes sense that individual sales could escalate prices quickly, based on low supply if nothing else. That's not the case with this card - there is plenty of supply.
Again, I realize I'm picking on one auction, but I suspect there are probably some others. We know it happens pretty frequently on some of the low pop commons for registry sets, but this is something different.
dupe post - sorry - stupid internet
Herein lies the problem; Is it possible the previous consignor has a shilling pool? What happens when he consigns one and it sells at $360 or $400? {a 1/3 rd the price} What does that mean or prove? I am just playing devils advocate here.
I have to much S**t; so if you working on sets or are a player/team collector, send me your want list, with conditions desired. Keep in mind I have a another job so please allow me a few days to respond.
A shilling pool is effective if the “rabbit” .. or non shiller chases the stupid bait to the sky ... otherwise the shiller or shillers are stuck grossly over paying. Four sophisticated buyers all bid ... and we are all scratching our heads at how this could have happened ... the wild card is emotion .... that is never given enough credence cuz we all arent privy into the locked four walls of a persons head ... emotion or insider garbage ... I don’t have the time to uncover the truth... maybe someone can. But last second bids are typically earnest ones.
Ever seen a father who has his son one weekend a month ask the boy what he wants more than anything? ...the son says “to see my daddy more often “... well the father says “that can’t happen” but else would u like ? “I want a Roger Clemens rookie”... so guess what Clemens rookie is going down to that father at any price .... yup. What a lot of us don’t know can fill books at times ... just saying.
I agree. I follow the sale of 1972 PSA 9 commons very closely, and I often get beautiful cards at decent prices via buy it now.
But lately when cards are offered in auctions there will be a wild bidding frenzy culminating in a card selling for three times what it went for buy it now three days earlier. And they are typically not way better examples either.
Not even close to the same thing. Some of the low pop commons in 9 from 1972 are in the low 20s. There are 7 complete registry sets with GPA of 9, and 25 complete sets of at least 8. As a registry set collector myself, when the pops are that low its much easier to understand how the price could fluctuate pretty wildly. Supply can be a real problem in that scenario.
The 85 Topps Clemens is pushing 300 10s, and it's traded at least a couple times a month that we know of based on VCP. That's not a supply problem.
Yes, could emotion work into it at some point? Sure, and maybe it did here at some level. If this had ended at $600-650, emotion would be a very reasonable explanation.
But that's not what happened. It went for $1,247. The bidders had at least some experience. Chalking this is up to ignorance is...well, fill in the blank. Something else happened here.
Must be that PWCC High End seal of approval.
Dave
There are 2 or 3 PSA 10’s on eBay right now for a fraction of that ridiculous price
I had thought that same thing initially, but this one is a just a "regular" 10.
I don't watch bond's cards as closely. Has there been a similar run up on 86 traded tiffany?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
This wasn't a run up, this was a single outlier that has no logical explanation. Any theory put forth can be debunked by precedence and logic. We are left to scratch our heads and wonder.
Arthur
I guess I was looking at both the tiffany 10 and regular 10 for my example. The tiffany had been selling at right around $3000 then two big sales. Then we had the big auction the other night where the regular sold for three times normal. Those three sales could be the beginning of a trend. If it was just one sale it may be different
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Perhaps someone got inside info that this card is one of the 500 on the Baseball Card Index and they're manipulating the indices?
I am curious as to why these situations always cause so much discussion. If it truly is a one-off sale, then who cares how a couple of guys with more money than sense ended up butting heads? If it's a legitimate sale, and you already own at least 3 examples of the same card in the same grade, then walk around for days with a smile on your face. And if you don't already have this card, but can find similar items for hundreds of dollars less elsewhere, and that card is something you want to own, then certainly go knock yourself out.
It's strange to me how these sales with outlier results cause so much consternation and analyzing and theorizing. Especially for cards at a reasonable population level. There are always more fish in the sea. Just wait for the next one. Those guys with more money than sense will have moved onto something else by then.
I think -- and I'm just spitballing here -- it's because this is a sportscard message board and that tends to lend itself to discussions on all things in regard to sportscards and the hobby. The item in question here is a sportscard. We come here to talk about sportscards. Perhaps I'm misreading the tone of some posters but I didn't get the sense that anyone was upset over the sale. I've taken the thread's tone as a curiosity and something to possibly watch for in the future.
It's clearly an extreme end-of-the-spectrum sale and so it's natural that some will take a stab at theorizing why that took place. We do that all the time here. Spotting trends and understanding why they happen is one of the things many people enjoy about the hobby. I don't see any harm in the conversations and I don't see any arguments or disruptive discourse either. I think, if I may, that the only person in this thread that is displaying consternation might be you.
Arthur
ETA: Heck, the OP was completely jocular!
I apologize for offending anyone. With words like "curious" and "theory" and "no explanation" being tossed around, I thought I was contributing by offering a reasonable explanation. I understand now that this situation involving Clemens is much more nefarious than my simple mind can comprehend, what with the buyers group and the Russians and the indices manipulators all involved now...
Well, I certainly hope you all get to the bottom of it, then. Carry on with your discussion.
That's the spirit!
Arthur