And the hits keep comin. Great stuff. Total pop 4 is insane rarity!
Here's a good value, in my opinion. There was both a gorgeous 7 and 6 offered in this PWCC auction. Such centering as these two had is rarely found on a Koufax RC. I was on the fence about which to go for. My late grandfather was a huge Brooklyn Dodger fan, and my mother and uncle idolized Koufax. So I always missed the 8 I'd sold last year to fund my Ruth M101. Yet I also always knew that 8 was a condition-valuable card and I could find equal eye appeal one day for less money. Anyways, I debated the 7 vs the 6 hard the last few days.
The 7 had much sharper corners, and what really drew me to it was that rarely seen clean yellow background, free of print smudging we see on the 6. But there was a spot on the upper left white border, which is clearly why the 7 was not an 8. I knew my eye would always go to that spot when admiring the card. I also felt there was a mild tilt to the centering along the left side to the 7, so the 6 had the centering edge-- albeit by a fine hair. I decided I would pay, at absolute maximum, $500 more for the 7. I felt any wider spread than that, and the 6 was a much better value-- in terms of eye appeal for the money.
I also noted that the 7 had a much more prosaic and salesman-y write up, which I felt might tempt the bumpers out there or those who love a sexy hard sell. Whereas the 6 was accompanied by relatively little fanfare. Lastly, it seemed to me that the 7 was not completely free of print smudge in the yellow; I could detect faint traces, some of which might be more pronounced in reality, as opposed to the scans.
Sure enough, the 7 hammered at a whopping $900 more than the 6. So I feel like it's a great value, not being a $900 lesser card by any stretch; I would not have blinked were it in a 6.5 holder at all, as it looks to be in identical condition to another 55 card in 6.5 that I own.
