72 Topps Baseball Collectors - Please look

CoachHouston247 · November 16, 2003 2:13PM

I just found out that one of my friend's father has a ton of mint ( in his eyes) 72 Topps Baseball cards that he bought in 1972 and put them in binders and has not touched them since. I talked to him a little and he would like me to look over his cards to see which ones that he should send in for grading. He said that he has multiple doubles of cards 1-about 250 ( I guess the first series)

My questions are the following:

1. Are there many low pop commons from this era that anyone would want me to look for when I go through them?

2. Should I have him send in all the stars that I believe would grade 8 or better or 7 of better.

3. Should I only send in perfect commons?

4. What are some issues that 72's have in general?

Thanks in advance

Houston

Coachhouston247@msn.com

FB · November 16, 2003 9:29PM

Coach,

If he has what he thinks he has - then he's a VERY lucky man. Its a big beautiful set with a number of people working quite diligently on it right now in PSA 8 and better. The downside is the most of the people who are building it right now fall into two categories... Those who already have 65 - 70% or better or those who are building it casually when the price is right. I would also look the set over VERY carefully.... I have bought somewhere betwee 15 and 20 - 72 sets that were MINT, MINT, MINT or ONLY TOUCHED ONCE TO PUT THEM IN PAGES IN 1972 and generally, peoples memories are somewhat off. Most people didn't worry about centering very much back in the day and if a corner got slightly dinged on its way inside a page - it was no big deal. Also remember... MINT in 72 is generally considered EX-MINT now.

The real money can be made on the PSA 9's. I won't even talk about 10's because the odds of getting them from anything other than an unopened pack are slim. The tough 9's are the low pop ones... To this point, the following cards still don't have a PSA 9 from the 72 set.

32--- CLEON JONES IA
40--- BOB BARTON IA
170-- VIDA BLUE IA
178-- PAUL SCHAAL IA
453-- BARRY LERSCH
519-- TED ABERNATHY
524-- REDS ROOKIES
551-- OLLIE BROWN
588-- JIM HOLT
655-- JERRY GROTE
698-- JERRY KOOSMAN IA

If you get one of these, you'll have three guys seriously bidding on it on eBay. EOMINT, myself and PSUINNYC. The price should climb over $200... probably more... If a card has a PSA 9 population of 10 or better, you can bet that the price will not climb much higher than $25. So, a number of the set builders have been patiently picking these up when the price is right. Don't expect big money on cards where the pop is high. Cards with a PSA 8 population of 10 or more usually won't sell for much more than $8.00 apiece. A number of the more completed sets have been broken up lately and that has caused somewhat of a glut - The Downey Collection, Mickey's Sportscards, Ron Crane's set, etc.

There are some other cards where the 8 has been so hard to get that its almost as expensive as a 9 would be. The following cards have 9's anywhere from a Pop 1 to a Pop 3, but are considered tougher than many other cards with the same Pop in 9, because the population in 8 is still relatively low. These cards are in numeric order - not order of difficulty.

22--- ROB GARDNER
36--- JERRY JOHNSON IA
292-- HAL McRAE IA
296-- DICK DIETZ IA
300-- HANK AARON IA
304-- JOE PEPITONE IA
306-- KEN BOSWELL IA
377-- TERRY HARMON
409-- FRANK BAKER
438-- MAURY WILLS IA
457-- PADRES ROOKIES
482-- JOE HOERNER
496-- BUD HARRELSON
527-- DAVE LEONHARD
533-- RALPH HOUK
582-- EXPOS TEAM
627-- MOE DRABOWSKY
670-- KEN HOLTZMAN
687-- DEL UNSER
708-- TIM FOLI IA
737-- LENNY RANDLE

The 6th series cards always sell well. The average price on 8's is between $15 and $20. Collectors will also pay $25 to $30 for even the highest pop high series in PSA 9 because its registry factor is a 3 and helps the GPA. Fifth series cards sell pretty well in PSA 8. The last set that I had graded and sold on eBay (I started all commons at $8.00) had the 6th series - 100% sold. 5th series - 75% sold. 4th series - 44% sold and then I stopped listing them. By that point, I had 4th series cards that were amongst the top 30 most difficult cards in the set selling for $9.00. So, I saved the fees and offered up the 3rd, 2nd and 1st series cards to Registry members at reduced rates.

Don't pay any more than $10 apiece to have the stars graded. Some of them won't bring in more than $18 - $20 in PSA 8. The best PSA 8's that you can get are the Hank Aaron In Action and the Willie Mays In Action. Both of these cards generally sell for $150 or better because of centering issues which has kept the pop down.

Hope this has helped! Good luck!

CoachHouston247 · November 17, 2003 2:27AM

Frank

Thanks

I will let you guys know what I found when I go down there next week and look at the set

Houston

CoachHouston247 · November 27, 2003 9:00AM

Frank

I went and looked at the cards yesterday and they are about what you said. He has many cards that would grade 8 and some that would grade 9 - Centering is the biggest issue - his corners are almost immaculate but I showed him how to look at them through a loupe and start marking the only that he thinks have great potential

He only has cards from the first series (I guess). They only go through 240 or so.

I am going to go back down ther in a couple of weeks and start sending some in to grade, but he also wants to know if anybody will buy a lot of the cards so he doesn't have to have them graded. If you or anyone you know would possibly like to do this, let me know

Thanks again for all your help

Houston

He also has incredible 8-9+ sets of 1971-72 Topps Basketball if anyone is looking for these type cards

aro13 · November 27, 2003 9:07AM

CoachHouston247 - Just sent you a pm.

FB · November 27, 2003 10:46AM

Coach,

If he's louping them to send the best ones in to PSA, then I'll be waiting to see what grades he gets back. It sounds like the ones that will be left ungraded will be the second line cards (even though many may still grade PSA 8). Since I have the set in 8, 9 and 10 already - I'm only looking for 9's and 10's now.

So, if he posts them on eBay, I'll be happy to bid heavy on the ones that I need or if you want to sell privately, I'd be happy to offer a fair price. I have to be honest though.... if EOMINT and I both need a 72 lately - he's usually been the winner and I've usually been the underbidder. I don't go as deep as he does because I'm only upgrading from an 8 while he's filling a hole.

So, please keep me posted when he gets his grades back! And good luck to both of you!

72 Topps Baseball Collectors - Please look

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