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Why Aren't Low Pop Cards Worth More Weight?
psychump
Posts: 1,378 ✭✭✭
Seeing high grade low pop cards going for hundreds of dollars that add very little weight to one's set is concerning to me since one grade (or a half) lower is purchased for a fraction of the cost and barely moves the set. If those low pop cards had a higher weight it would seem to make the investment more palpable. Hundreds of dollars for a card that brings little weight to the set? I do not understand.
Tallulah Bankhead — 'There have been only two geniuses in the world. Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare.'
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What would your criteria be?
Arthur
In my opinion low pop is very overvalued as a factor in value, it can mean there are few instances of that card at that grade (obviously) but can also mean nobody cares about the card so nobody has submitted. If there are 1000s of submissions and a handful of 9s and 10s that means something but if their are 17 total submissions pop 1 of a 10 means nothing. I see eBay listings all the time promoting "POP 1" - who cares if your 1987 Topps common PSA 10 is pop 1??
Scotty sort of makes my point. There's no way to standardize what low pop is. Low pop to '59 Morrell Meats is totally different to what low pop to '79 Topps is. What happens when the pop gets blown up? What's the formula for automating this? There's thousands of sets on the registry. If enough people in a given set want a particular card to be weighed more, just send in your weight suggestions.
Arthur
Within a given company set (insert set/parallel set), there would need to be a minimum submissions requirement both on total set (25 x # of cards in set?) and individual card (25-50?). From set total submissions, it should be fairly easy to create a profile for a 'typical/average' card of that set, say 9s are 8% of submissions and 10s are 2%. Compare individual entries against the average in top 2-3 grades possible for that set and define a rating system (example below off the top of my head, would need to work through a sample to see how reasonable this is).
Easier than average - 10% more difficult + any cards that don't meet the individual min submissions requirement = 1.00 weighting
10-25% more difficult = 2.00 weighting
25-50% more difficult = 3.00 weighting
50-75% more difficult = 4.00 weighting
...
Pop 1 in top grade where average is 3 or more = 9.00 weighting
Pop 1 in top grade where average is 5 or more = 10.00 weighting
Some sort of adjustment for star factor (should be easy to determine by individual submissions vs. average profile).
It would be much more complex to do with player/HOF type sets, but I'm sure it could be done.
I think that would work for large, mainstream sets like yearly Topps but for it would cause all sorts of problems for all of the other smaller sets.
Arthur
Agreed, but standardized, automated weighting on sets that meet the minimum submission quantity criteria (satisfying the 80%) would be better than the system currently in place and could encourage more submissions to get a set/card auto-weighted.
That's true. They could just do it for all sets that have a minimum of X amount of cards. I like the idea.
Arthur
It’s also difficult to accumulate across TPGs. A card may be relatively low pop at PSA, but significantly more may have been submitted to SGC. Low pop isn’t always an indication of issue scarcity, or condition sensitivity.
If a registry set is active and the card is low Pop at PSA it is indicative that the card is low pop in general. It is no secret PSA dominates in the registry element so you aren't going to find many if any in other third party graders holders that would be deemed an equal grade. If there are few submitted than as stated above it might not actually be that condition sensitive to begin with.
In terms of low pop cards not being worth more money. I personally don't judge an item's value on what I think it should be worth but what the open market does that encompasses a large pool of market participants. With the market on a daily basis proving that so many low pop cards sell for much higher prices than they otherwise would how do you reconcile that? Do you just ignore the obvious simply because you don't agree with the market?
POP1 or POP 15,302.. same value to me. I don't think there should be any added weight to population.
I just see the 1963 Topps auction for example and notice in between the Rose,Mantle and Mays are Joe Cunningham and Larry Burright! I guess people pay to have the high end card regardless of the weight. A 1963 PSA Cunningham went for as much as a '63 PSA 8 Willie Mays! A PSA 7 of Joe Cunningham can be had for under thirty now your set will barely move.
Then why bother buying graded? Buy a card with great eye appeal and be done.
If you’ve ever looked at a card and thought of buying it to improve a set of yours be it on the registry or not it doesn’t matter. If a 5 to a 6 or a 9 to a 10 matters to you then Pop matters. PThat’s why it should carry more weight.
Supply and demand. If no one demands it then supply doesn’t matter. But if the inverse is true, look out.
If your happy not getting in the game that’s fine. Zero judgement from me. Just don’t dismiss those that choose to.
Kevin
Kevin
We should have Wes Spece spearhead this committee.
The big issue is that a card's weighting is tied to the card itself, not the card in a specific grade. Thus, I'm not sure how you could tie a weighting to a population report.
The solution to me, at least for mainstream vintage sets, is obvious. We now have several years of sales data for these cards. Tie a card's weighting to its price in the given grade (using, for example, the PSA auction price data). As prices fluctuate due to population changes and other factors, set ratings would automatically fluctuate. With today's technology, this does not seem difficult.
At the very least, it's time to recognize that a 1-10 weighting system is silly, as there is just way too much variation in value between cards in a set. A 1952 Topps set in all PSA 6 would rate nearly 3 times as high as a 1952 Topps set in all PSA 2 with a PSA 10 Mantle, but which set would you rather have?
I've always been a bit surprised that in something as heavily competitive as the set registry, more time hasn't been spent to truly "rate" the quality of a set. The move to give bonus points for having the highest graded example among other thing was an attempt at this, but to me it didn't make a lot of sense mathematically.
Some sets are hard to get a higher grade in anyway, then you throw in the popularity of the player and how many submissions of that player compared to a backup second baseman. The percentages are probably close, but the star has 1,000 submissions and the backup has 100.
Supply and demand. Anyone who thinks there are not low pop cards is not paying attention.