population reports on prewar commons vs. pricing

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Posted By: scott

i apologize if i'm revisiting a common subject.looking on ebay for 1915 crackerjack hof's i noticed a number of high grade commons ranging from $600 -800.assuming the large price tag is based on population reports,this got me thinking...what would happen if a large collection of high grade cards were found ,graded,and suddenly the population doubled or tripled?or maybe the population increased due to more "slabbing activity".part of this question was based on reading a previous post about the high quality raw collections out there.has there ever been an instance where a find has increased population such a degree to decrease a commons value?
i'm not interested for my own collecting purposes in buying high end commons ...just interested in opinions.
i wonder how much these cards would go for unslabbed?
thanks,
scott ps.my question applies to all pre-war not just
CJ's.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

I've bought a number of high grade (PSA 8) 1915 common CJ's and they usually run about $550 to $650, in my mind, a ridiculous price. Should the population suddenly double or triple I think eventually the prices would drop to some extent but it would be a slow drop in my opinion as there's such a frenzy for these cards - the CJs are such popular sets. I think that the slow drop in price would reflect the fact that collectors, who have such a thirst for these cards, would be scrambling to buy them if they suddenly became available and pay probably anything. In addition, so many collectors don't even bother to check pop numbers when buying cards they desperately want or need. How else can you explain the fact that a 1958 Topps Mantle in PSA 8, a card with the second highest pop in the set (other than the Mantle All-Star card), is by far the most expensive in the set? So, while the prices for some cards would decrease as the pop increased, if the set is popular the prices won't drop in a corresponding manner.

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Posted By: Nick

The fact that the pop report on the Mantle is so high is not fully inconsistent with its high SMR price.

Mantle is the most expensive card raw from that set (I'm going by the last Beckett baseball monthly I have, which is a year old), but in PSA 8 condition (I'm using the March 2005 SMR, which is in the handiest one I have), Aaron Yellow Letters is the same price as Mantle, and Clenente Yellow Letters is more expensive than Mantle. In PSA 9 condition, not only are those two cards more expensive than Mantle, but so is Ted Williams, and the World Series Batting Foes (Mantle/Aaron) is the same price as Mantle. Plus, PSA 9 Mays is almost the same price as PSA 9 Mantle. In this case, the higher pop. numbers on Mantle dovetail with a higher demand to keep its price high.

I expect that the same holds true for the most collectible stars in widely collected pre-war sets as well.

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Posted By: Greg Ecklund

Also, keep in mind that the generation of kids who grew up idolizing Mantle makes up a major portion of the card collecting population today, and many of them have a great deal of disposable income. Thus, Mantle is still one of the most widely collected players, if not the most widely collected.