Amen to that no question what your seeing here is a flood of cards with psa causing alot of empty pockets.
Like zardoz said, no unopened leaves you with collections. How were these kept so and so forth lot of variables to obtain high end 8's and 9's. Even most of the raw cards found at the national came from one table in mind. Unfortunatly I showed up on sunday. I know gaspipe showed up to get the 69's, the dealer said he had the same guys at his table for 2 days. Ha everything I saw of this guys collections was high end 7's with not an 8 in the box. The guy made a comment that he sold over 500 commons. I about gagged he had a stack of 68's all in 9's that I was going to gobble up. When somebody walked up and nabbed them in front of my face, made a comment and whamo if you snooze you loose.
Get these now, it'll dry up again trust me. Cash is king..
Over the last few months I've been thinking alot about how many raw NM to Mint commons are out there still floating around ungraded. Since I collect 1963 Topps, I'm more familier with pop numbers on this set than any other. Looking through the pop report, you notice that most commons average around 25 to 50 that have ever been submitted for grading with most falling in the 7 and 8 range with a small amount of 9's. And, then you look at the Pete Rose rookie card #537.....a total of 1,247 submitted for grading with 400 7's...259 8's....and 19 9's, and those are the ones without qualifiers. In 1963, nobody at that time had ever heard of Pete Rose...his popularity rose throughout the 60's and by the 70's this man was a superstar. So, with that in mind.....you have what was really a common in 1963 with 678 total cards graded over Near Mint.......and keep in mind, that Rose was in the high number series for '63...with less cards available than in the lower series. Then you look at populations for commons in the rest of the set, and you can see there are probably literally hundreds of them out there in NM to Mint that have never been submitted because they are not worth $1,000 plus. If the Set Registry continues to grow.....and collectors continue to submit they're raw cards for grading, you can see that in a few more years, you may be looking at sets from the 60's with averages of 400 to 500 NM 7's....200 to 300 NM-MT 8's.....and 25 to 30 Mint 9's.
1963 TOPPS~ SayitaintsoJoe's Fresh from the pack Screamers~ All pictured in living color
"There's no crying in baseball card set building."
One intersting thing I've noticed is that the PSA 8+ populations for some of the star cards have stalled in recent months. For example, the '69 Clemente is generally regarding as a fairly easy card to find in PSA 9 with a population of 53. But there has not been a single 9 graded since February. The population of the 1969 PSA 8 #500 Mantle went from 214 to 219 for an increase of 5 in seven months. Perhaps some people cracked out Mantle 8's and resubmitted hoping for 9's, thus creating an artificially low population but I doubt it. And I highly doubt anyone cracked out a Clemente 9 hoping for a 10.
Then factor in the issue of commons being handled much more than star cards that have been protected in top loaders inside dealer show cases and you can assume the star cards will end up having higher populations of high grade cards than commons. There are definitely still many commons out there that are yet to be graded but there aren't thousands of 8's awaiting grading. For 1969, My guess is there are some tough cards that will end up with populations less than 50. Lou Brock 8's sell for $150-250 yet there are still only 20 8's and no 9's that have been graded. The population increased by only 3 since February.
To say you'll see commons sitting with 300 8's is quite high. I'm not sure what to tell you but if your waiting for that surge of commons. I can tell you this in the past week I've scanned over 6000 63 commons. And like gem mint said people took care of the stars and yankees so on but commons huh. Out of the 6000 I saw all were handled yet not abused just looked at and I maybe pulled 200 high end 8's with another 200 that'll make it.
And as for rose it's a rookie card. Every took care for all the rookies. No matter who they were.
Just some thought. Matt
PS If it was this easy everbody would have their collections at auction houses cashing in waiting for the surge of commons.
Figuring out the supply and demand for these cards going forward is certainly tricky. On the supply side, you have people like Zardoz who think that there are not huge number of high grade cards out there. Then there are people like davalilo who thinks there is tons of stuff available. If you look at the pop of star and semi star cards, there seems to be a potential for bunches more commons to be graded.
in the 1961 topps set, we have gone from 27,500 graded cards, mostly stars, in May 2001, to almost 50,000 cards today. the growth seems to be slowing, and I can attest to the difficulty of finding high grade raw cards at shows. The large majority of the newly graded cards are commons. Interestingly, the number of 10's have only gone from 52 to 59, and 9's have gone from 1334 to 2000. Is this because the commons were not as well kept, or because PSA is grading tougher?? I think both may contribute, but considering that people never submit commons unles they expect an 8, while they will submit stars often for 6 or 7, it makes you think that grading is a little tougher. If it is tougher, it will be very difficult to build large quantities of PSa 9's and 10, in the commons.
As far as the demand side, i am not real sure that there are too many collectors out there for graded cards. Look at the high end cards. the 1961 Aaron PSA 9 has a pop of 15. I bet at least 7 dealers have them for sale, at over $3000, based on my checking out sites, I have 3, and they come up at auctions commonly. Yet the SMR has recently dropped from $3000 to $2250, and still nobody buys them. A similar story holds for the '61 Mays PSA 9. These are superstar players, still living, well know to all, with a very limited number on PSA 9's, yet there is very little demand.
Looking at the common cards, as soon as a common reaches a pop of about 15, it's price drops below SMR. I am not entirely exagerating when I say these two things lead me to believe that the entire vintage graded collecting world consists of 100 dealers, and 10 to 20 collectors per set! Hopefully, the Set Registry and the "safety" of graded cards will bring many more collectors around. I am one of the new collectors who only started because of grading. Perhaps many more will come. If so, prices will continue to rise, and particularly so as the supply does eventually run out. However large it is, it is certainly a limited number.
There are more slabbed set collectors than are listed on the registry, that's for sure. I sell a lot of slabbed cards, many of these commons are going to collectors that we have never heard of.
In addition, many of the dealers who had large stocks of decent commons have been "hoovered" and picked clean by the astute collectors who were slabbing before it became fashionable to slab. Several of them thought that I and the others doing so were nuts in the past for slabbing cheap cards. By the time they got around to it, what was left was marginal at best. I have been into dealers where their stocks of vintage were NM at best.
to qoute Mickey C:
"It's been asked, "why not buy Raw from a trusted source?....why pay such a premium for someone else to tell you what grade your card is in? (besides the obivious authentication reason)."
I thought, yeah, why not? But...how many dealers are viewing their raw cards under a 10x lens and grading on the scale of PSA, SGC, etc...? Just this weekend, I spent an hour at a dealer's table who was selling nice 71's. His prices were high book for everything. I thought, ok, let me take a good look at them. Upon closer inspection (just my 2 eyes), all of them had something wrong with them, yet this dealer wanted high book."
That's because their stocks have been gone through with a fine toothed comb. I'll gladly pay over high book for 71 NM-MT commons. You are just not going to find them.
"It's been asked, "why not buy Raw from a trusted source?....why pay such a premium for someone else to tell you what grade your card is in? (besides the obivious authentication reason)."
I thought, yeah, why not? But...how many dealers are viewing their raw cards under a 10x lens and grading on the scale of PSA, SGC, etc...? Just this weekend, I spent an hour at a dealer's table who was selling nice 71's. His prices were high book for everything. I thought, ok, let me take a good look at them. Upon closer inspection (just my 2 eyes), all of them had something wrong with them, yet this dealer wanted high book."
That's because their stocks have been gone through with a fine toothed comb. I'll gladly pay over high book for 71 NM-MT commons. You are just not going to find them. >>
Not to mention the natural tendancy for one to grade their own inventory slightly higher than it really is. The independant third party aspect is perhaps the most important service PSA offers. Even honest dealers tend to be more generous in grading what they are selling vs what they are buying.
Have been buying raw 1960's football cards on eBay for over 4 years now. Three years ago, there were maybe 20 sellers that I could depend on to offer 8 type quality raw cards. One by one, they fell by the wayside, apparently as their stocks were depleted, and NOBODY is taking their place.
A few are still around selling graded cards, but it's only a trickle, and some nice raw cards still turn up, but again it's but a small fraction of what was available just a couple of years ago.
The yet to be graded hoards of 8's and 9's is a myth as far as early to mid 1960's football goes, but a few years ago, I believed it.
Extrapolate this to the 1950's and prior, and what we have with our vintage PSA 8's and 9's is a finite supply, with a potentially unlimited demand.
<< <i>Looking at the common cards, as soon as a common reaches a pop of about 15, it's price drops below SMR. I am not entirely exagerating when I say these two things lead me to believe that the entire vintage graded collecting world consists of 100 dealers, and 10 to 20 collectors per set! >>
I agree with his last statement.....in many sets there are about 10-20 "hardcore" graded set collectors both on and off the registry....thats why I keep seeing the same people win cards from certain sets. Yes there are others in the registry..but they may simply be either a) listing just because the have some of that set but are not pursuing it or b) people who just list the stars or the favoirte team they collect, or c) people who have actually quit collecting the set but have not gotten around to taking it off the registry.
Im not sure what you guys think overall...but I do not see the Graded Set "community" is as large as we all might think. There are not that many people in or out of the hobby who are looking to spend $15-100k+ on a set from one particular year.
It seems with many sets you have your Teir A collectors who are agressively building the set (say 5-10)....once those guys get their cards...the prices come way down. For example, a 1965 Tony Oliva PSA 8 used to go for approx $150 before the whales got thiers...just this week a example sold for just over $40.00.
Haha, one whale just paid 350 for a psa 8 65'. Was I seeing this correct 2 bidder willing to pay 350 now how will I beviewed if my submission permits to list the same card at 150.
On the subject of pre '75 vending boxes, Larry Fritsch was advertising '75 boxes and '73 Football boxes in his latest summer catalog. He's also got a nich stash of '72 Football hi number boxes, '75 topps baseball cello's, etc. His prices are a little high though.
I went back and looked at that auction which was a 65 Charlie Smith #22 psa 8 which closed for $325. This card is one of the 3 or 4 more most difficult cards in the set. Even knowing that it still suprised me how much it went for. But if you look at the bid history, it was bid up by only 2 bidders so the next should be closer to the $100 range which is where the 3rd highest dropped out. I have never seen the 3rd highest bidder bid on any 65 auctions before so if you drop back to the 4th highest who is a 65 collector it was $40. The last Charlie Smith card sold a couple of months ago on a buy it now for about $80 with about 5 or 6 other 1965 psa 8's. That seller definitely left a lot of money on the table. (but he saved the extra ebay listing fee)
Skipm and duke of mint are both very aggessive in pursuing low pop 65's. In fact, just about everyone else is shut out of buying anything if they need the card - especially skipm. If skip ever registers his 65 set, it should be number 1 on the registry fairly easily. They both have tremendous collections.
Matt, if I was selling the same card again I would just approach the number 2 bidder and try to cut a deal because it won't bring anywhere near that much the next time around on ebay. Most of us whales already have it now. Good luck.
I know the game that was more of a comment then anything. I'm don't even have that one on my submission yet I'm sure I might have overlooked it in the pile. I did send in the the card that sold for 200 though. And I think gates brown rings a bell. I know of one card that won't be denied for a 9 is elston howard blazer.
Yeah I noticed if they need it they pay do they collect any other sets that aggressive. I think if they take this serious down to the wire they'll have thier calculators computing final scores. Because I can tell you this 50 9's are coming back on the 65's no questions that's locks.
At the moment I go under gator05 with my father. Yet he has a bunch of oddball stuff up paper etc. If your interested in 20's and 30's baseball magazine he has a slew up at the moment. Any how we have all the feedback yet I won't wan't to be listing 400 cards looking hodge podge so we'll either shut down his paper for a week or go under Id. I'll keep everyone posted.
Wayne lots of 64 9's will also appear. I gave you those no's yesterday to be modest yet I might as well let the cat out of the bag. Also does jay at quality pay good money or does he mostly trade. I counted out 70 cards he'll be looking at.
I hope Skipm. does get around to listing his set...it will be sight to see. The guys at the top have pretty deep pockets and there have been a some classic bidding wars between Skipm. and Duke of Mint the last several months. The next 2 months should be intersting..with Wayne, Duke of Mint, Zeder, Skipm., Davalillo battling it out. Jay (Qualitycards) is also rising up on the charts as well and just hit 70%. Also, keep your eyes out for CBTO who just listed his set. He has listed only 4 cards so far...but many 65 collectors know he has been an agressive bidder on PSA 9's in the past...so watch out.
Wayne- no offense on the "whale" reference...as you may know it is considered a compliment out in Las Vegas.
First off, I agree that a lot of collectors still don't know about the set registry. I also agree that as we move forward and the registry takes off that the focus will continue to be on vintage cards and sets that are very difficult to complete in high quality (eg, 71T BB). With regard to set completion, until its economical, I think there will be more of a focus towards sets with low card counts ('69 Topps Basketball, etc.) until PSA actually makes a 400-600 card set affordable to grade.
Finally, I can't speak to other collectors but I had all my best 33's & 50's cards graded about six years ago. Only now that its more economical am I moving into having my the majority of my 1960's cards graded and have now just started having my commons graded thanks to some recent specials. Hate to beat a dead horse but IMO the grading standards are more difficult today than they were 6 years ago especially as it relates to getting a "9" vs. an "8".....as a result, the commons that are now being graded are being graded in an environment where 9's and 10's are extremely difficult to come by &, as such, will command a higher premium in the marketplace as they will be rare (how else do you explain a 69T BSKT Jim Washington being sold for $675 on ebay recently). With the set registry taking off, I think we'll start seeing more commons graded & as a result of a (arguably) more difficult grading criteria when it comes to 9's and 10's, a common generating that score will be at a premium. Whether commons in high quality are in abundance remains to be seen. I will say that back in the late 1970s and early 1980's, when I collected basketball, the only players that went into the sheets were the Chamberlains, Alcindors, etc.
JOHN - WAYNE - I do like the "Whales" reference myself, never heard it before, but I'm sure I will here it again. I will happily let all of the Whales, Sharks and Reptiles battle it out to land the Charlie Smiths & Walt Bonds at the crazy prices, i will just swim around the pond like a good goldfish and eventually end-up w/ the scraps I need at MY price. As you both are aware, I was the one that landed the once $150 sacred Oliva PSA-8 under SMR at $40.00, so check one more off and now 175 more to go till I reach the promised land of all 598 ...jay
ZARDOZ - Thanks for the clarification, I guess thats why I never was called a "Whale" although the wife says I eat too much, so she thinks it may be appropriate, I guess it beats "jackass" ...jay
You keep enjoying those donuts and ignore the wife's comments. The only time to really worry about the weight is when a Japanese or Russian fisherman holding a harpoon breaks into a big grin at the first sight of you.
ZARDOZ - Thats why I'm grateful that I live in PA where there are no good hamburger chains, just the same old slop. Now you are a stones throw from "In & Out" , so you better watch out!!!...jay
Alright Jay, no good hamburger stands, but how can you beat Yocco's and Pete's Hotdogs?? Just thought I'd sway the direction of yet another thread into a Yocco's discussion .
<< <i> That is about a 17% to 20% return. Does the market bare this out? Absolutely... six months ago PSA 8 1963 Topps commons could be had for $18 to $25. Recently, when one of the guys on the 1963 Topps registry broke up his set, PSA 8 commons were going consistently in the $23 - $31 range.
Don Base Ball Card Investments (1963s et al.) >>
According to Mickey's, I see the price range is now back down to $18-23, depending on series, with low pops in the $23-31 range.
<< <i>There is a misconception that there are "massive" quantities of raw out there. >>
<< <i>Are we seeing any untouched vending boxes of the pre 75 material anywhere? Forget cases, I'm talking boxes......... Mastro or any of the major houses had any the past year? No!! Have you seen any dealers with any? >>
These two quotes above were made by Zardoz in September of 2002. It's interesting . . . with the veritable orgy of pre-1975 vending boxes that appeared in the last Mastro auction, I think we can safely say that there is an iceberg of vintage unopened material out there. It's unclear how big that iceberg is, but it's there. Because GAI-graded packs are so hot right now, I expect we will continue to see unopened packs and boxes hit the market. Even a finding of, say, four or five 1964 vending boxes has the potential to radically alter population reports.
So I think it's still too premature to answer John's question on the future value of graded sets, particularly graded sets from 1960 - 1975. My guess is that patience will be rewarded; if you can complete a graded set in PSA 8 or higher by being frugal and bottom-feeding whenever possible, wait until an economic expansion that brings new money into cards (like we saw ~1998-1999), you can probably make some money.
"Their NMT-MT may be a PSA NM." - Great point. I feel that much of the 50's and 60's raw FB available today are "rejects" that dealers didn't feel were gradeable. There are on 2-3 dealers I know who sell NM/MT raw cards for high Beckett (which I'll buy all day long). Even then, I find that centering is STILL an issue since I only collect cards which are centered 60-40 or better (which is stricter than the PSA 8 centering requirements).
Regards,
Greg M.
Collecting vintage auto'd fb cards and Dan Marino cards!!
I was just wondering this same thing...1956 is one of my favorite sets. A year ago, if you got a PSA 8 for under $50, you were doing well. Now, you can probably buy 1/4 of the commons in the set for less than $40, and some falling under $30. Same thing goes for other years - '57s can be had for sums in the $20s, when it seemed a year ago it was at least $35 to $40 for the commonest of commons. You can buy 8s from '59 for sixteen or seventeen bucks if you wait. The list goes on and on.
I've always held that the pops on stars can be equalled by the pops on commons, if enough people were to submit. True, there's the "the stars were intentionally kept in better condition than the commons" explanation, which holds some water, but if you can find 350 Mantles that grade 8, why can't you find 200 Hal Browns? I think you can, and the pops of these sorts of cards are hitting numbers that just overwhelm the collecting field. The boom in set collecting has eased - it's still on an incline, but not matching the hundred or so 8s that are added weekly to sets. And with these high pop commons are (rarer) nice lower pops found in the same collections. There's nowhere to go but down a rung or three pricewise. Maybe that's a good thing, because the potential to draw larger numbers of collectors in is there, but for now, I think that NM/MT 8s are settling in at a lower price than we're used to.
While I cannot say that I ever expect to get my money out of my cards, I remain surprised at all of the speculation regarding ungraded high grade sets out there.
I have seen a few that would average a PSA 7 with many 8's and a smattering of 9's but nothing like some of the super sets seen on the registry. Even if it is true that there is this hoard of material out there, you have to ask if it will affect prices. Presumably this inventory is held by collectors who intend on keeping their cards. Every year there is attrition of these cards through handling, fires, floods, theft, poor storage techniques etc. If there are 300 copies of a low pop 8 card out there held by 300 collectors that are sitting on them, what makes anyone think they will suddenly be sold?
If people have a lot of unopened material out there, why would they not be grading it and selling it? We see cards here and there but no flood certainly (with high grade Pre-68 material). We are also seeing dealers buying cards on EBay when prices are reasonable (not just ultra cheap). This suggests to me either they are artificially creating a market bottom (risky), or that they cannot find high quality cards ungraded.
I will grant that we see packs here and there for sale at ridiculous prices. Those prices would bring out the greed in anyone holding similar inventory if it exists.
DrNguyen> "with the veritable orgy of pre-1975 vending boxes that appeared in the last Mastro auction, I think we can safely say that there is an iceberg of vintage unopened material out there."
On a few levels, I disagree with your belief that there's an "iceberg" of unopened materials out there just waiting to significantly alter the pop reports.
1) You called the last Mastro auction "a veritable orgy of pre-75 vending". If you exclude the 1/2 case of 74s, there were a grand total of 13 pre-1975 vending boxes in the last Mastro auction. Even if you include the 74 half-case, that's only 25 vending boxes (12,500 cards). In the grand scheme of the quantities printed from 1960, 1961, 1971, 1972, & 1974, 25 vending boxes hardly makes up a "veritable orgy". Especially in light of how infrequently items like this come to market.
2) You mention that a finding of 4 or 5 vending boxes have the potential to radically alter pop reports. While this is theoretically true, let's look at this for a second. You mentioned a scenario involving 1964 vending, so we'll use those. If there is a find of "say, four or five 1964 vending boxes", would these boxes be each from different series? Or would all boxes be from the same different series? There would be a huge difference in the impact on the pop report depending on what was found.
3) To go along with #2, let's look at the vending boxes offered in the Mastro auctions for a moment. The vending boxes offered were as follows - 1960 - one box - GAI 7 1961 - three boxes - all three GAI 7 1971 - six boxes - two GAI 8, three GAI 7.5 & one GAI 7 1972 - three boxes - all three GAI 7 1974 - twelve boxes - seven GAI 8.5. . .two GAI 8. . .two GAI 7.5. . .and one GAI 7
While the vending boxes offered in Mastro's auction were indeed impressive because they don't often come to market (in any condition), I'm definitely inclined to believe the appeal was to people intending to keep them unopened. I think the condition of the boxes (almost all the pre-74 boxes were 7.5 or lower) made it unlikely that you could pull "population shaking" quantities of submittable cards from any of these, except maybe the 74s. It's tough enough to find pre-75 vending, but to find it in suitable condition for cracking and submitting is asking an awful lot. To dramatically alter the graded populations, you not only need to find a vending box but also to find one that hasn't been shipped all over the country a hundred times and otherwise abused. I honestly don't think there's THAT many pre-1972 vending boxes out there, much less pristine ones. I'm hoping time proves me wrong, but I tend to agree with what others have said that we're down to collections coming to market and circulating. There seems to be many more of these than hoardes of vending sitting around.
With regard to unopened vintage boxes/packs -- Yes, they should yield MINT and NM-MT cards -- But its also worth mentioning that if the vast majority of certain cards that came before them were cut off-center, chances are very good that any of those same cards will be off-centered in these unopened boxes/packs. In other words, such boxes/packs should affect the PSA 8, 9 and 10 population counts in a similar manner to how all the cards that have gone before them have.
Scott> My experience with vending boxes is similar in that most or all of the boxes from the same case tend to have similar problems. But I think more than any other type of unopened material, the condition and handling of an unopened vending box affects the condition of the cards inside. Even with a pristine/virgin vending box, you're going to get a percentage of non-submittable cards because of centering, etc. - and you'll still have a certain number of cards with corner dings. My point is that if you have a vending box that showed enough handling to drop the grade to a GAI7, then the number of submittable cards one could expect would decrease dramatically. I think finding any pre-1972 vending box is fine for someone who wants to leave it unopened, but if you plan to crack it and submit the cards for grading, then the condition of the box becomes much more important. This is why I think the vending boxes in the Mastro auction, while impressive, are unlikely to affect the graded populations much if at all.
Comments
Amen to that no question what your seeing here is a flood of cards with psa causing alot of empty pockets.
Like zardoz said, no unopened leaves you with collections. How were these kept so and so forth lot of variables to obtain high end 8's and 9's. Even most of the raw cards found at the national came from one table in mind. Unfortunatly I showed up on sunday. I know gaspipe showed up to get the 69's, the dealer said he had the same guys at his table for 2 days. Ha everything I saw of this guys collections was high end 7's with not an 8 in the box. The guy made a comment that he sold over 500 commons. I about gagged he had a stack of 68's all in 9's that I was going to gobble up. When somebody walked up and nabbed them in front of my face, made a comment and whamo if you snooze you loose.
Get these now, it'll dry up again trust me. Cash is king..
Matt
In 1963, nobody at that time had ever heard of Pete Rose...his popularity rose throughout the 60's and by the 70's this man was a superstar. So, with that in mind.....you have what was really a common in 1963 with 678 total cards graded over Near Mint.......and keep in mind, that Rose was in the high number series for '63...with less cards available than in the lower series. Then you look at populations for commons in the rest of the set, and you can see there are probably literally hundreds of them out there in NM to Mint that have never been submitted because they are not worth $1,000 plus.
If the Set Registry continues to grow.....and collectors continue to submit they're raw cards for grading, you can see that in a few more years, you may be looking at sets from the 60's with averages of 400 to 500 NM 7's....200 to 300 NM-MT 8's.....and 25 to 30 Mint 9's.
"There's no crying in baseball card set building."
Then factor in the issue of commons being handled much more than star cards that have been protected in top loaders inside dealer show cases and you can assume the star cards will end up having higher populations of high grade cards than commons. There are definitely still many commons out there that are yet to be graded but there aren't thousands of 8's awaiting grading. For 1969, My guess is there are some tough cards that will end up with populations less than 50. Lou Brock 8's sell for $150-250 yet there are still only 20 8's and no 9's that have been graded. The population increased by only 3 since February.
Just something to consider.
To say you'll see commons sitting with 300 8's is quite high. I'm not sure what to tell you but if your waiting for that surge of commons. I can tell you this in the past week I've scanned over 6000 63 commons. And like gem mint said people took care of the stars and yankees so on but commons huh. Out of the 6000 I saw all were handled yet not abused just looked at and I maybe pulled 200 high end 8's with another 200 that'll make it.
And as for rose it's a rookie card. Every took care for all the rookies. No matter who they were.
Just some thought. Matt
PS If it was this easy everbody would have their collections at auction houses cashing in waiting for the surge of commons.
in the 1961 topps set, we have gone from 27,500 graded cards, mostly stars, in May 2001, to almost 50,000 cards today. the growth seems to be slowing, and I can attest to the difficulty of finding high grade raw cards at shows. The large majority of the newly graded cards are commons. Interestingly, the number of 10's have only gone from 52 to 59, and 9's have gone from 1334 to 2000. Is this because the commons were not as well kept, or because PSA is grading tougher?? I think both may contribute, but considering that people never submit commons unles they expect an 8, while they will submit stars often for 6 or 7, it makes you think that grading is a little tougher. If it is tougher, it will be very difficult to build large quantities of PSa 9's and 10, in the commons.
As far as the demand side, i am not real sure that there are too many collectors out there for graded cards. Look at the high end cards. the 1961 Aaron PSA 9 has a pop of 15. I bet at least 7 dealers have them for sale, at over $3000, based on my checking out sites, I have 3, and they come up at auctions commonly. Yet the SMR has recently dropped from $3000 to $2250, and still nobody buys them. A similar story holds for the '61 Mays PSA 9. These are superstar players, still living, well know to all, with a very limited number on PSA 9's, yet there is very little demand.
Looking at the common cards, as soon as a common reaches a pop of about 15, it's price drops below SMR. I am not entirely exagerating when I say these two things lead me to believe that the entire vintage graded collecting world consists of 100 dealers, and 10 to 20 collectors per set! Hopefully, the Set Registry and the "safety" of graded cards will bring many more collectors around. I am one of the new collectors who only started because of grading. Perhaps many more will come. If so, prices will continue to rise, and particularly so as the supply does eventually run out. However large it is, it is certainly a limited number.
rob
In addition, many of the dealers who had large stocks of decent commons have been "hoovered" and picked clean by the astute collectors who were slabbing before it became fashionable to slab. Several of them thought that I and the others doing so were nuts in the past for slabbing cheap cards. By the time they got around to it, what was left was marginal at best. I have been into dealers where their stocks of vintage were NM at best.
to qoute Mickey C:
"It's been asked, "why not buy Raw from a trusted source?....why pay such a premium for someone else to tell you what grade your card is in? (besides the obivious authentication reason)."
I thought, yeah, why not? But...how many dealers are viewing their raw cards under a 10x lens and grading on the scale of PSA, SGC, etc...? Just this weekend, I spent an hour at a dealer's table who was selling nice 71's. His prices were high book for everything. I thought, ok, let me take a good look at them. Upon closer inspection (just my 2 eyes), all of them had something wrong with them, yet this dealer wanted high book."
That's because their stocks have been gone through with a fine toothed comb. I'll gladly pay over high book for 71 NM-MT commons. You are just not going to find them.
<< <i>to qoute Mickey C:
"It's been asked, "why not buy Raw from a trusted source?....why pay such a premium for someone else to tell you what grade your card is in? (besides the obivious authentication reason)."
I thought, yeah, why not? But...how many dealers are viewing their raw cards under a 10x lens and grading on the scale of PSA, SGC, etc...? Just this weekend, I spent an hour at a dealer's table who was selling nice 71's. His prices were high book for everything. I thought, ok, let me take a good look at them. Upon closer inspection (just my 2 eyes), all of them had something wrong with them, yet this dealer wanted high book."
That's because their stocks have been gone through with a fine toothed comb. I'll gladly pay over high book for 71 NM-MT commons. You are just not going to find them. >>
Not to mention the natural tendancy for one to grade their own inventory slightly higher than it really is. The independant third party aspect is perhaps the most important service PSA offers. Even honest dealers tend to be more generous in grading what they are selling vs what they are buying.
Have been buying raw 1960's football cards on eBay for over 4 years now.
Three years ago, there were maybe 20 sellers that I could depend on to offer 8 type quality raw cards.
One by one, they fell by the wayside, apparently as their stocks were depleted,
and NOBODY is taking their place.
A few are still around selling graded cards, but it's only a trickle,
and some nice raw cards still turn up, but again it's but a small fraction of what was available just a couple of years ago.
The yet to be graded hoards of 8's and 9's is a myth as far as early to mid 1960's football goes,
but a few years ago, I believed it.
Extrapolate this to the 1950's and prior, and what we have with our vintage PSA 8's and 9's is a finite supply,
with a potentially unlimited demand.
Hopefully.
"How about a little fire Scarecrow ?"
<< <i>Looking at the common cards, as soon as a common reaches a pop of about 15, it's price drops below SMR. I am not entirely exagerating when I say these two things lead me to believe that the entire vintage graded collecting world consists of 100 dealers, and 10 to 20 collectors per set! >>
I agree with his last statement.....in many sets there are about 10-20 "hardcore" graded set collectors both on and off the registry....thats why I keep seeing the same people win cards from certain sets. Yes there are others in the registry..but they may simply be either a) listing just because the have some of that set but are not pursuing it or b) people who just list the stars or the favoirte team they collect, or c) people who have actually quit collecting the set but have not gotten around to taking it off the registry.
Im not sure what you guys think overall...but I do not see the Graded Set "community" is as large as we all might think. There are not that many people in or out of the hobby who are looking to spend $15-100k+ on a set from one particular year.
It seems with many sets you have your Teir A collectors who are agressively building the set (say 5-10)....once those guys get their cards...the prices come way down. For example, a 1965 Tony Oliva PSA 8 used to go for approx $150 before the whales got thiers...just this week a example sold for just over $40.00.
John
wayne
Haha, one whale just paid 350 for a psa 8 65'. Was I seeing this correct 2 bidder willing to pay 350 now how will I beviewed if my submission permits to list the same card at 150.
Matt
I went back and looked at that auction which was a 65 Charlie Smith #22 psa 8 which closed for $325. This card is one of the 3 or 4 more most difficult cards in the set. Even knowing that it still suprised me how much it went for. But if you look at the bid history, it was bid up by only 2 bidders so the next should be closer to the $100 range which is where the 3rd highest dropped out. I have never seen the 3rd highest bidder bid on any 65 auctions before so if you drop back to the 4th highest who is a 65 collector it was $40. The last Charlie Smith card sold a couple of months ago on a buy it now for about $80 with about 5 or 6 other 1965 psa 8's. That seller definitely left a lot of money on the table. (but he saved the extra ebay listing fee)
Skipm and duke of mint are both very aggessive in pursuing low pop 65's. In fact, just about everyone else is shut out of buying anything if they need the card - especially skipm. If skip ever registers his 65 set, it should be number 1 on the registry fairly easily. They both have tremendous collections.
Matt, if I was selling the same card again I would just approach the number 2 bidder and try to cut a deal because it won't bring anywhere near that much the next time around on ebay. Most of us whales
Wayne
I know the game that was more of a comment then anything. I'm don't even have that one on my submission yet I'm sure I might have overlooked it in the pile. I did send in the the card that sold for 200 though. And I think gates brown rings a bell. I know of one card that won't be denied for a 9 is elston howard blazer.
Yeah I noticed if they need it they pay do they collect any other sets that aggressive. I think if they take this serious down to the wire they'll have thier calculators computing final scores. Because I can tell you this 50 9's are coming back on the 65's no questions that's locks.
Matt
Wayne
At the moment I go under gator05 with my father. Yet he has a bunch of oddball stuff up paper etc. If your interested in 20's and 30's baseball magazine he has a slew up at the moment. Any how we have all the feedback yet I won't wan't to be listing 400 cards looking hodge podge so we'll either shut down his paper for a week or go under Id. I'll keep everyone posted.
Wayne lots of 64 9's will also appear. I gave you those no's yesterday to be modest yet I might as well let the cat out of the bag. Also does jay at quality pay good money or does he mostly trade. I counted out 70 cards he'll be looking at.
Matt
I hope Skipm. does get around to listing his set...it will be sight to see. The guys at the top have pretty deep pockets and there have been a some classic bidding wars between Skipm. and Duke of Mint the last several months. The next 2 months should be intersting..with Wayne, Duke of Mint, Zeder, Skipm., Davalillo battling it out. Jay (Qualitycards) is also rising up on the charts as well and just hit 70%. Also, keep your eyes out for CBTO who just listed his set. He has listed only 4 cards so far...but many 65 collectors know he has been an agressive bidder on PSA 9's in the past...so watch out.
Wayne- no offense on the "whale" reference...as you may know it is considered a compliment out in Las Vegas.
John
Finally, I can't speak to other collectors but I had all my best 33's & 50's cards graded about six years ago. Only now that its more economical am I moving into having my the majority of my 1960's cards graded and have now just started having my commons graded thanks to some recent specials. Hate to beat a dead horse but IMO the grading standards are more difficult today than they were 6 years ago especially as it relates to getting a "9" vs. an "8".....as a result, the commons that are now being graded are being graded in an environment where 9's and 10's are extremely difficult to come by &, as such, will command a higher premium in the marketplace as they will be rare (how else do you explain a 69T BSKT Jim Washington being sold for $675 on ebay recently). With the set registry taking off, I think we'll start seeing more commons graded & as a result of a (arguably) more difficult grading criteria when it comes to 9's and 10's, a common generating that score will be at a premium. Whether commons in high quality are in abundance remains to be seen. I will say that back in the late 1970s and early 1980's, when I collected basketball, the only players that went into the sheets were the Chamberlains, Alcindors, etc.
No offense taken at all. I was laughing about the whale reference.
wayne
Website: http://www.qualitycards.com
Website: http://www.qualitycards.com
You keep enjoying those donuts and ignore the wife's comments. The only time to really worry about the weight is when a Japanese or Russian fisherman holding a harpoon breaks into a big grin at the first sight of you.
Trust me on this one
Website: http://www.qualitycards.com
Ian
Okay...its been a couple of years since this thread was posted......there are some good posts in this thread.
Your thoughts on how the graded set landscape has changed over the past 2 years?
BOTR
<< <i>
That is about a 17% to 20% return. Does the market bare this out? Absolutely... six months ago PSA 8 1963 Topps commons could be had for $18 to $25. Recently, when one of the guys on the 1963 Topps registry broke up his set, PSA 8 commons were going consistently in the $23 - $31 range.
Don
Base Ball Card Investments
(1963s et al.) >>
According to Mickey's, I see the price range is now back down to $18-23, depending on series, with low pops in the $23-31 range.
<< <i>There is a misconception that there are "massive" quantities of raw out there. >>
<< <i>Are we seeing any untouched vending boxes of the pre 75 material anywhere? Forget cases, I'm talking boxes......... Mastro or any of the major houses had any the past year? No!! Have you seen any dealers with any? >>
These two quotes above were made by Zardoz in September of 2002. It's interesting . . . with the veritable orgy of pre-1975 vending boxes that appeared in the last Mastro auction, I think we can safely say that there is an iceberg of vintage unopened material out there. It's unclear how big that iceberg is, but it's there. Because GAI-graded packs are so hot right now, I expect we will continue to see unopened packs and boxes hit the market. Even a finding of, say, four or five 1964 vending boxes has the potential to radically alter population reports.
So I think it's still too premature to answer John's question on the future value of graded sets, particularly graded sets from 1960 - 1975. My guess is that patience will be rewarded; if you can complete a graded set in PSA 8 or higher by being frugal and bottom-feeding whenever possible, wait until an economic expansion that brings new money into cards (like we saw ~1998-1999), you can probably make some money.
POTD = 09/03/2003
"Their NMT-MT may be a PSA NM." - Great point. I feel that much of the 50's and 60's raw FB available today are "rejects" that dealers didn't feel were gradeable. There are on 2-3 dealers I know who sell NM/MT raw cards for high Beckett (which I'll buy all day long). Even then, I find that centering is STILL an issue since I only collect cards which are centered 60-40 or better (which is stricter than the PSA 8 centering requirements).
Regards,
Greg M.
References:
Onlychild, Ahmanfan, fabfrank, wufdude, jradke, Reese, Jasp, thenavarro
E-Bay id: greg_n_meg
I've always held that the pops on stars can be equalled by the pops on commons, if enough people were to submit. True, there's the "the stars were intentionally kept in better condition than the commons" explanation, which holds some water, but if you can find 350 Mantles that grade 8, why can't you find 200 Hal Browns? I think you can, and the pops of these sorts of cards are hitting numbers that just overwhelm the collecting field. The boom in set collecting has eased - it's still on an incline, but not matching the hundred or so 8s that are added weekly to sets. And with these high pop commons are (rarer) nice lower pops found in the same collections. There's nowhere to go but down a rung or three pricewise. Maybe that's a good thing, because the potential to draw larger numbers of collectors in is there, but for now, I think that NM/MT 8s are settling in at a lower price than we're used to.
Now Mint 9s, that's another story....
Groucho Marx
I have seen a few that would average a PSA 7 with many 8's and a smattering of 9's but nothing like some of the super sets seen on the registry. Even if it is true that there is this hoard of material out there, you have to ask if it will affect prices. Presumably this inventory is held by collectors who intend on keeping their cards. Every year there is attrition of these cards through handling, fires, floods, theft, poor storage techniques etc. If there are 300 copies of a low pop 8 card out there held by 300 collectors that are sitting on them, what makes anyone think they will suddenly be sold?
If people have a lot of unopened material out there, why would they not be grading it and selling it? We see cards here and there but no flood certainly (with high grade Pre-68 material). We are also seeing dealers buying cards on EBay when prices are reasonable (not just ultra cheap). This suggests to me either they are artificially creating a market bottom (risky), or that they cannot find high quality cards ungraded.
I will grant that we see packs here and there for sale at ridiculous prices. Those prices would bring out the greed in anyone holding similar inventory if it exists.
Greg
On a few levels, I disagree with your belief that there's an "iceberg" of unopened materials out there just waiting to significantly alter the pop reports.
1) You called the last Mastro auction "a veritable orgy of pre-75 vending". If you exclude the 1/2 case of 74s, there were a grand total of 13 pre-1975 vending boxes in the last Mastro auction. Even if you include the 74 half-case, that's only 25 vending boxes (12,500 cards). In the grand scheme of the quantities printed from 1960, 1961, 1971, 1972, & 1974, 25 vending boxes hardly makes up a "veritable orgy". Especially in light of how infrequently items like this come to market.
2) You mention that a finding of 4 or 5 vending boxes have the potential to radically alter pop reports. While this is theoretically true, let's look at this for a second. You mentioned a scenario involving 1964 vending, so we'll use those. If there is a find of "say, four or five 1964 vending boxes", would these boxes be each from different series? Or would all boxes be from the same different series? There would be a huge difference in the impact on the pop report depending on what was found.
3) To go along with #2, let's look at the vending boxes offered in the Mastro auctions for a moment. The vending boxes offered were as follows -
1960 - one box - GAI 7
1961 - three boxes - all three GAI 7
1971 - six boxes - two GAI 8, three GAI 7.5 & one GAI 7
1972 - three boxes - all three GAI 7
1974 - twelve boxes - seven GAI 8.5. . .two GAI 8. . .two GAI 7.5. . .and one GAI 7
While the vending boxes offered in Mastro's auction were indeed impressive because they don't often come to market (in any condition), I'm definitely inclined to believe the appeal was to people intending to keep them unopened. I think the condition of the boxes (almost all the pre-74 boxes were 7.5 or lower) made it unlikely that you could pull "population shaking" quantities of submittable cards from any of these, except maybe the 74s. It's tough enough to find pre-75 vending, but to find it in suitable condition for cracking and submitting is asking an awful lot. To dramatically alter the graded populations, you not only need to find a vending box but also to find one that hasn't been shipped all over the country a hundred times and otherwise abused. I honestly don't think there's THAT many pre-1972 vending boxes out there, much less pristine ones. I'm hoping time proves me wrong, but I tend to agree with what others have said that we're down to collections coming to market and circulating. There seems to be many more of these than hoardes of vending sitting around.
Mike
Scott
My point is that if you have a vending box that showed enough handling to drop the grade to a GAI7, then the number of submittable cards one could expect would decrease dramatically. I think finding any pre-1972 vending box is fine for someone who wants to leave it unopened, but if you plan to crack it and submit the cards for grading, then the condition of the box becomes much more important. This is why I think the vending boxes in the Mastro auction, while impressive, are unlikely to affect the graded populations much if at all.
Mike