How accurate are population reports?

[wolterse]

We are all aware of stories where a card is cracked & submitted to PSA/SGC three times b/c you or someone else didn't like the grade it received the first couple times. I can definitely sympathize. But how many times every day does this go on? I would suspect hundreds if not thousands of times over the course of a year. How many times has a card been undervalued based on an artificicially inflated pop because it or one like it has been submitted multiple times? Who knows? Prices may not be affected as often for low pop cards (around 10 - easier to keep track of) but there must be instances where a higher pop card (around or over 25) may have been submitted multiple times and realized lower prices because of an inaccurate pop report.

What does the board think about this? I can't think of any way to prevent this from happening and it's concerning as a collector.

[JP]

Like with facial recognition software, if hi-Res scans of every card ever submitted was kept in a database, then maybe something could be done to keep an accurate report. Otherwise, no chance.

[Peter_Spaeth]

It's an imperfect world, what can you do? Equally troubling are reported sale prices of cards that didn't actually sell.

[wolterse]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It's an imperfect world, what can you do? Equally troubling are reported sale prices of cards that didn't actually sell.

Can you share an example of this?

[Peter_Spaeth]

There have been several posts, for example, about Bill Goodwin's cards that were reneged on, yet as far as I know the prices were reported.

[FrankWakefield]

I used to just throw away the slips when I busted slabbed cards out of the holders. But after a few years of that I started saving the slips, most of the time. I haven't sent them in, just held them... With me doing that a few dozen times, and with other contrarians like me doing it, it would add up. Add to that the crossovers, I'd think the pop reports are somewhat accurate, but not absolute. A bit diluted, still of some meaning and merit.

One aspect that is sometimes not considered is that some cards are more likely to be graded than others.... HOFers in T206 more so than commons, 460 series cards are slightly more likely to be graded than series 150 cards, eg for just T206.

[Bridwell]

Population reports are definately overstated by crossovers and re-submissions. However, there are still a lot of raw cards out there. I'd say the number of raw cards is much greater than the number of duplicated cards in the pop reports. So using the pop reports of graded cards is still very helpful in estimating the total number of a particular issue that may be out there.

Ron R

[carrigansghost]

I know of two player's cards that are not well represented.

Rawn

[Jantz]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

I'd think the pop reports are somewhat accurate, but not absolute. A bit diluted, still of some meaning and merit.

I think what Frank said hit it right on the mark.

Jantz

[camlov2]

If all of the pop reports are inflated about the same then the distortion shouldn't be a huge issue. However if there is one type of card that seems to be resubmitted more frequently than it might be a problem.

Those of you who have re-submitted, was it random material or did most of the items fall under a certain category?

[Bosox Blair]

Aside from the crack/resubmits and the large number of raw cards out there, no TPG is very good about variations. I've seen many, many problems in this regard. The pop reports are a terrible way to judge scarcity of variations.

As for PSA, for years and years they did not track the backs of T206. So for back collectors, using a PSA pop report is just foolish.

I collect C60 Lacrosse cards. These are pretty tough cards. The later set C59 (which looks very much like C60 from the front - different back) is not as scarce or valuable. I just saw on Ebay a bunch of C59 cards slabbed by PSA and identified as C60s. Now these C60s are low-pop cards according to PSA...5 to 10 graded each subject. But clearly some of those pop numbers are inaccurate. Leaves you to wonder exactly how many others are wrongly recorded in their pop report...

Summary - there are lots of problems with these things, and you should never bank on them.

Cheers,
Blair