T-206 Wagner PSA Question

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Posted By: DD

Hi,
I was perusing the T206 set registry, and noticed Steve Soloway has the only PSA graded complete set. I was curious about his Wagner, but found something strange while I was looking. Steve has a PSA 2, and it indicates there is no Wagner graded higher than that.

Most likely this is an error, or explained by something I can't think of. On the other hand, how wild would it be if the latest owner of the card cracked it?

Can anyone who is familiar with the POP reports clarify this?

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Posted By: Adam

I believe the current owner of "The Card" did crack it (well, he/she probably did not do it themselves) and got it re-slabbed without the Gretzky/McNall name on it.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

regardless how "the card" is now slabbed...there are a few others inbetween a "2" and "the card"...

scott ireland owns the PSA 5 example. and i do believe there is a 3 and a 4...

maybe someone can check the pop report quick...

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Wagner Pop report:
1-2 3-4 5
HONUS WAGNER 21 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 26

HONUS WAGNER PSA 8 Gretsky/Mcnall


Be well Brian

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

In addition to the 26 T206 Wagner cards graded without respect to back type, as listed by Brian, PSA shows 2 additional examples graded 1-2 with Sweet Caporal back. These would be under the new system that labels the slabs (and compiles the pop stats) by back type. Steve Soloway's PSA 2 is probably one of these Sweet Caporal Wagners, which would explain why his Wagner card entry in his T206 set listing in the set registry shows that there are none graded higher.

(PSA's mixture of generic back and back-specific population stats for T206 is very confusing. At the set registry luncheon at the National last year people were grilling PSA's Joe Orlando about this problem; he didn't really have an answer but said something about hoping that people would send in their old slabs to be re-holdered under the new system, so that over time the back-specific data would represent more of the total population.)

SGC shows 2 10's (PSA 1), 1 30 (PSA 2), and 2 40's (PSA 3).

GAI's web site is back up and running but I don't see any population reports. I do remember seeing a Wagner in a GAI holder at some point; I think maybe it was a GAI 3.5 (VG+).

Beckett hasn't graded any T206 Wagners.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

eric- the GAI 3.5 was put into an SGC 40 (3) holder...it used to be frank nagy's.

i am surprised that SGC has only grade just a few wagners, i thought they have slabbed more...

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Posted By: barrysloate

It's interesting that PSA has only graded two cards above a 2, and that there are at least a couple of raw ones out there that would easily surpass everything graded to this point (except the 8). You would think the better ones would have found their way into a slab.

Edited to add I know one that has been graded and I am pretty certain it is a PSA 5...so why doesn't it show up on the pop report? That's one of the reasons why I am leery of the whole pop report phenomenon. I think some important information at times is left out.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

barry, you read brian's pop report wrong...

1-2 = 21
3-4 = 4
5 = 1
8 = 1

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

I'm very surprised the backs were not fully identified since day one at PSA and SGC. It's such a big part of collecting T206.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Michael- maybe I misread it.

It reads 21-4-1 followed by all zeros. I assumed that means 21 graded 1, four graded 2, and one graded 3. So where is the 5?

Okay, I see it now. He mixed 1-2 together, and 3-4 together. Got it!

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Posted By: MVSNYC

oh barry...did you have your cheerios this morning?

please go back up to brian's post and see how there are dashes in between 1-2...3-4? psa pop report groups 1-2's & 3-4's

1-2 = 21
3-4 = 4
5 = 1
8 = 1

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

Barry -- as Michael said, PSA does not distinguish between 1 and 2, or between 3 and 4, in their population reports. They group these together. Brian reported it just the way it shows up on the PSA web site. Obviously this is not an ideal way to roll up the stats when you're looking at something like a T206 Wagner, where the difference between a 3 and a 4, for example, is enormous. For something like 1960's Topps, where probably 95% of the cards are graded 5 or higher, it probably makes pretty good sense to do it that way, to save space or whatever.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Raisin Bran...I had Cheerios yesterday.

I think I am becoming the Cheerios kid!

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Posted By: Jeff Shepherd

One of those PSA 3's on the pop report has been cracked and regraded by SGC, which garnered a 40 (3) as well. The pop numbers will be less valid as time goes on.

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Posted By: barrysloate

It also seems silly to lump 1-2 together, when a 2 adds 50K value, and likewise lump a 3-4, when a 4 might add 100K value. Knowing which is which seems awfully relevant.

I don't know about these pop numbers...

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

Barry -- as I just said, the differences in the lower grades is very relevant for something like a T206 Wagner, but not so relevant for most of what PSA grades. That is probably why they chose to group the lower grade data together. They were probably trying to save space (i.e. the number of columns) in the pop reports. I would prefer that they just show the data for all of the grades for everything, and find a way to fit it all in, but that is not what they chose to do.

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

Dave H. -- SGC does distinguish T206's by back type (on the slabs and in their pop reports), and as far as I know they have always done it that way. Their pop reports also show the totals in each grade across all back types, which is useful for those who don't care about backs.

PSA only recently started doing holdering by back type, and now they have a mess, at least as far as pop reports go, because of the mixture of the two different schemes in use at different times. Maybe they should adopt a hierarchical pop report scheme, like SGC uses, that allows you to see the totals for all backs as well as the individual back stats. For PSA this would still be confusing, since the back stats wouldn't sum to the totals (i.e. the totals would still include the old generic back data), but it would be better than what they have now.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Eric, I agree with you. These numbers are pretty important at all grades so why not figure out a way to show them all? What is most troubling about the pop reports, obviously, is that due to the crack outs/resubmissions, etc. the numbers are certainly higher than what reality is. Considering how the values of cards go up as the pop numbers go down, a false reading will cause the value of a particular card at a particular grade to go down due to the falsely inflated number, perhaps to never recover. Other than typos, you don't have situations where the pop reports underrepresent the population of a card at a particular grade. It's a shame that such an important factor on certain significant cards might be forever skewed, thus forever falsely impacting values.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jeff- that's why I have always taken pop reports with a grain of salt. You can't always be sure what you are reading is accurate.

I also think the pop report is being abused in many cases. I just saw a listing, and I don't want to name the seller because he's a good guy ( and others probably know my reference), but he described a card as follows:

"One of only twelve copies graded a 2, with only five graded higher."

Please give me a break...now I know I am buying one of the seventeen highest graded by PSA, and when you factor in SGC, GAI, and raw examples, I may be the proud owner of the 28th finest known copy.

I think the pop report information should be used only in cases where it suggests the offered example is among the highest graded.

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

Yes Jeff and Barry, and to compound the problem, it is undoubtedly the more valuable cards that get cracked out and re-submitted the most, because of the higher economic stakes involved.

I think the pop reports are still useful, though, to get a feeling for the relative scarcity of various cards within a set. But it is certainly dangerous, say if the report says there are 5 examples in a certain grade, to take that figure literally.

<edited grammar>

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Barry, one seller will list his cards this way: "PSA 3 1 of 2". Of course, failing to mention that there are 19 cards graded higher in PSA. I suppose literally "1 of 2" is accurate -- within the grade of PSA 3.

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

I may have been thinking of pose ID's when I posted about SGC. I do recall having trouble with their pop reports in ID'ing cards such as Elberfeld Portrait-Wash. Then again, I am sometimes a total Dexter.....might have been my bad.