First-ever SGC 10 Wilt Chamberlain Rookie Graded
 

Found "in the cabinet of a grocery store", SGC has graded their first perfect 10 Wilt rookie:

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...-earns-sgc-10/

Per the article, an SGC 9 sold for $159k two years ago. Any ideas on what this one will fetch?

I just ended up reading this, interesting - I wish the Mikan RC I found a few years back was a "10" cool story !

What did any of the 3 PSA 10s sell for?

Gorgeous Clean Card!

I had I randomly submitted that there is exactly a .00000001% chance I would have gotten a 10.

I saw the submitters profile, looks like a regular guy. He posted this picture as well of before it was graded, which isn't something usually seen for these crazy finds. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...2290fc6a6d.jpg

What are you "seeing" or perceiving in the card that you feel disqualifies it for a 10? The image is small but what am I missing?

Over the past few years, many 61' Fleer basketball packs have been opened live on YouTube. The reason for this, I believe, is because guys who owned boxes were offered insane amounts of money for the packs during the boom (and they obviously couldn't say no to all that money!) Anyhow, the point I want to make is that if you watch these videos then you'll see how most of the cards that came out of these packs were either off-centered or miscut. So, when I read stories like this ... errr ... I just get bad vibes.

If I pulled that no way could I get it into a card saver......would not have sufficient motor skills

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I'm not seeing any sales of the PSA 10s, but here's what the 9s have been going for:

2018: $33,000
2019: $40,000
2020: $75,000
2021: $375,000
2022: $348,000
2023: $198,000

So, extrapolating from PSA 9 and SGC 9 to SGC 10 and from 2 years ago to today, I'd guess the SGC 10 at auction today would fetch $225,0000 (and would have approached $500,000 a couple of years ago).

Lol. You're about $1 million short there

I put the over under line at $1,250,000

I also think this one crosses to PSA 10. It is without question the nicest example in existence.

No need to even try. That card is perfect in its current slab.

I actually agree with Travis on this one. If this doesn’t break a million, I would be shocked. Not a one of the PSA 10s are this nice. It is perfect.

It also has a rough cut which I always prefer because it is the best indicator of no funny business.

Hard to find that info. Mastronet sold 2 of the PSA 10s in the late 2000s so prob trimmed or whatever. Can’t even find pics of them. At least of 1 them is in a PSA 1961 Fleer Set Registry

Holy cow. I’d guess that’s a 7 figure card for sure. Or it would be in a psa slab anyway. In an sgc slab, still close to a million at the least. Cool card no matter what it’s worth.

Sgc’s announcement-

https://x.com/sgcgrading/status/1826986017460514912

I posted this last Saturday in the basketball section, but there’s only a few of us over there. Lol.

It might be the single greatest basketball card in existence

I agree. Although by sales price it won't come close (which is pathetic when you consider the cards which would finish ahead of it).

What a beautiful card.

No crease(s)..........No dice

I’m only guessing but what Snapolit1 May be referring to is his own personal experience with Grading companies . I use to send raw cards into PSA and with my luck some grader would be confused by the rough cut or decide they need to boost resubmits or whatever .. and give it a 7 .
Probably does help the chances with PSA that it’s already graded SGC 10

Anyone who has submitted can speak to the frustrations of grading but was not sure if snapolit1 actually saw a flaw on the card or if he was doing his usual whining. The card appeared, in the images, to be perfect

SGC has been handing out obviously bullshit fantasy grades to big cards for attention and to pump up the prices (9.5 Mantle, that BN Ruth, the Wagner), but this one actually looks the part for once.

In my opinion the same can be said about PSA. They're both quilty at this!

Love it when TPGs get quilty!

Sewing together a blanket of lies????

Big Dipper rookie
 

What a card! Just beautiful, and I concur with 1 million plus on the value.

Trent King

I think a couple of guys are going to go nuts over this and we’re going to see somewhere between 1.4 and 1.6 million

Yeah, this card is incredible. Definitely worthy of a 10! It'll sell for a few million I would imagine

I'd guess a million on the dot.

If it goes to auction we have to have a contest to guess the hammer price. There would have to be a minimum of $50 or $100K between people's guesses to avoid encroachment.

Guess is the operative word. There's just no basis to value this card, it could go anywhere in a very large range depending on which elite buyers really want it.

Come on and play. There are still lots of numbers not taken. I will give my guess after you so you have more choices.

If someone can put a value on a Stahl Meyer Mantle 9 surely with the data available on Chamberlain rookies, a price point could be reasonably established, no?

I feel like a contestant on The Price is Right. Is it safe to assume PSA declined to put it in a 10 holder? If I had an SGC 10 of this card I would sure try.

I am shouting from the crowd to you...take 1,000,001.00

Yeah, I'm right there with you. I think this lands in the $1.2m range.

My guess is cost.

As it sits the owner is a complete non collector who walked into a tiny card shop in Crosby, Minnesota which is a town of 2300 people. There is no auction house involved and just a bunch reaching out after the sgc video and the shop’s instagram photos started making the rounds. The SGC cost would have been much less and to a guy with zero knowledge you take the savings. For a regular Joe, I am sure he was blown away at likely taking a loan to grade this with no auction house fronting it.

Perhaps the auction house that wins the battle may try. I see no way PSA wouldn’t want their name on this card for the PR, it gets a 10 or they suck worse than I think, lol. At least with the cut, this is one they grade that isn’t trimmed up.

It looks so damn good in that sgc case. Nothing beats proper contrast. Makes nice cards look even nicer and makes you forget the hunk of plastic is around it.
Literally makes the card look like a museum exhibit. Personally can't say the same with PSA, which to me are just inferior cgc cases in terms of eye appeal at this point. What a registry would do..

Wilt
 

Lucas- Agreed. Since the topic was informative about the new grade and a
question about it's potential value, "what if" remarks about hypothetical PSA
grades miss the point. The card looks great in the slab it's actually inhabiting,
and conjecture about the ways PSA would screw up the grade aren't relevant.
Be interesting to monitor this one and see how it turns out! Trent King

IMO nobody is paying $1 million or more based on how it looks in a particular slab. They are paying because they think it's a good value proposition. PSA 10s are just worth more than SGC 10s, much more usually, regardless of some romantic collector notions.

Maybe true, but It just depends on the type of collector. If someone has a million to spend and is a true collector who wants a 10 I don't see why they would care about the value discrepancy. It's funny to me how most people will admit sgc does look better for vintage cards, but also agree psa does/should hold more value. Just weird.

Agree. And while this card looks fabulous, I don't think it comes close to 1 million.

At auction, it takes more than one person, and his personal sentiments, to drive the final price.

I think this could get you 2 mill.


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Wait, aren't PSA and SGC brothers now? At least half-brothers. There's a non-zero possibility that the decision as to which company should grade the card was made higher up the ladder (Collectors Universe) than at PSA or SGC.

Either way, it is a wonderful, unique card. Congratulations to the current owner and future owner.

I don't follow this. If you submit to SGC, it gets graded by SGC, there is no decision as to who should grade it.

Sure, that is true for your and my cards. But this card is unique in the hobby.
I'm just not ruling it out.

The possibility this was submitted to/for PSA and the parent company sent it to SGC instead is exactly zero. That is not how it works and there is no evidence whatsoever that it is and nobody will produce anything but a hot take.

As you wish but it didn't happen.

And we cannot rule out that everything that is going on right now is just some collective dream that we are all part of.

I am with the others that your suggestion is nothing more than fantasy. No secret behind the scenes meeting with the top brass at Collectors making these decisions. Hate to rain on your parade but this was nothing more than the owner deciding to submit his find to SGC.

If I sent this card to PSA:

-It would take three weeks for them to open the package;

-The grade would be in progress for three months; and

-They would upcharge me before telling me. I'd wake up to a maxed out credit card.

All to get a nine.

But seriously, if I was a rich man I would bid well north of a million dollars to get this card. Goliath is my favorite player of all time and this is the nicest rookie card I’ve ever seen.

I don’t think it’s weird. One, PSA has a registry that a great many people care about a ton (I don’t). Two, I think the general consensus or at least my thought is that sgc is a bit more lenient at least when it comes to recent grades. There are opposite examples of course but for the most part if you seek out a card in a specific grade the new grade psas are better looking than their sgc counterparts with the same grade.

I agree that PSA may have been a better choice as 1961 is such a huge registry set.

I also agree that mint 1961s look 10 times better in an Sgc slab.

I think we may soon see it in one because this is honestly a Ken Kendrick level card and we know there are a couple buyers like himself that would change it for the registry. I also know that if Kendrick sends it and I send it, the 10 is a slam dunk for him. For me…maybe.

This is for vintage bball collectors like myself a choice I would take over a 52 Mantle, Joe Jackson, pick your poison. This is a hobby changing card in my mind. No one is going to sleep on it because you want this one. I honestly think a better example will never be found, this is the complete holy grail/needle in a haystack.

Would it be a PSA 9 with the lower right corner? Guess so.

I guess what I find amusing is a fuzzy cut supposedly doesn't lower the grade but centering does. Why should one factory flaw be acceptable and another not acceptable? The way some people feel about centering I feel, to a lesser degree, about fuzzy cuts. I really dislike them.

Also someone mentioned they like fuzzy cuts because it means the cards weren't trimmed. Unfortunately at least one doctor has become very good at mimicking fuzzy cut cards.

Great point! I was wondering the same thing. The fuzzy cut edges are significant. I always thought sharp edges and corners were important for a 10.

Agree with this. The fuzzy/rough cut is original to the card, and is not considered a flaw. So why do TPGs have the double-standard of downgrading for centering, but not for a rough cut? PSA also does not downgrade for poor registration/focus. All of these traits are completely original to the card.

To produce the rough cut, the cutting blades were not as sharp as new, due to prolonged usage. With off-centering, the cutting blades were not perfectly aligned and produced an off-center or diamond-cut card. So why punish the grade for one and not the other? It makes no sense.

If they simply graded the card based on its proximity to original condition, there would be no contradiction. People who prefer centered cards could simply use their own eyes to determine which ones they want to buy, and obviously there would still be a premium for well centered cards. Bottom line... their numerical grading scale is contradictory.

It is not designed to make sense, it is designed to make cents.

:D

Good one! 👍🏻🤑

Here I always figured it was designed to make scents.

The bottom of the right corner is soft, along with the fuzzy cut on the edge

Question for our resident centering savant:

Does this one seem shifted just a hair to the right? One of your famous 51/49 centering jobs that you can spot from across the room?

And for that matter, to what extent do the rough edges on left and right help to obscure the centering?

If you can find just one single o-pee-chee psa 10 from 1978 to 1982 without a rough cut, that ones been doctored. Look up the pictures of every opc Gretzky 10.

This is the 10 that sold for 3.75 million in 2021.

I wouldn't want this card, considering what the price would end up being for it. Fuzzy edges left to right alone bug me for a 10. I wouldn't be satisfied with it. I want a perfect 10 if I'm paying big bucks. However, after looking at other graded cards, they all have the same fuzzy edges from that year. Guess that would be acceptable then as a 10. I still don’t like the look.

After looking at a bunch of other graded 1961-62 Fleer Wilt Chamberlain cards, I get it now.

Thanks for your post!

Neither SGC nor PSA have any "smooth edge" criteria for Gem Mint cards. The cut is the cut...if it's not to your liking, that's your thing.


.

Yes, it's shifted right obviously. A bit more than 51/49 too. Probably about 47/53 maaaybe 48/52? Bit it's shifted. Still well within specs for a 10 though, and given how difficult this card is, I can't imagine a nicer copy exists overall. The registration of the red background is also really tough to find like this. Most have a noticeable shift downward.

The grade on this Gretzky is a crime against humanity, or at least against my friend who sold it to me.

Perhaps worth noting is that rough cuts, in general (at least the heavily frayed one's we're referring to above since most vintage cuts are technically "rough" somewhat), should only appear on the left and right edges. The only exception to this rule that I'm aware of are the OPC hockey cards where all 4 edges have rough cuts. I'm sure there are other sets I can't think of off the top of my head, but generally speaking, rough cut edges are only on the sides. The reason is because those were caused by the rotary sheets cutters that they ran the full sheets through. After they ran the sheets through those, they would end up with long strips which they would stack together and then used guillotine-style ream cutters to slice the stacks and create the top/bottom cuts. This is also why there is much more variation in card sizes from top to bottom than there is from left to right. Cards came short and tall with extraordinary variance from factory (upwards of 1/4" at the extremes), but they had very little variance from left to right (usually 1/64" or less for Topps). The majority of trimmed cards are trimmed top to bottom for this reason. Although there is certainly no shortage of trimmed left/right cards in slabs.

Could be due to registration (look at the centering/placement of the colors in the Oilers logo, and the red bleeding into the border toward the top). But ya, looks fairly harsh overall.

I think more likely some kid used to gradng Panini Prizms didn't know how to grade OPC hockey.

Gorgeous card but by looking at the pictures I don't think this is a 10 because look at the left and right edges.

You've got some studying to do, my friend.

Not all Fleer are fuzzy cut. While obviously not a 10 (though we thought it would grade an 8) this was in our auction a couple years ago, along with what Travis acknowledged was the nicest centered West rookie he had ever seen.

https://thecollectorconnection.com/i...88_1_43345.jpg

I get that, I just don't understand the decision that one factory flaw is cool and the other is the kiss of death.

I had an amazing Clemente card a few years ago that was a PSA 9. Thought it might cross over so sent to PSA. Got at 7. Great. Resent it to SGC. Got a 7.5.

Direct from Merriam-Websters

scam

noun
ˈskam
Synonyms of scam
: a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation

It might feel arbitrary but I think there are collectors out there who prefer rough cuts (fuzzy cuts, as you refer to them) but not sure anyone prefers an off center card, though many will accept off centered cards.

Oh it doesn't FEEL arbitrary...

I get it and don't get it all at the same time. To me if a factory flaw can affect the grade then all factory flaws should affect the grade and so if the highest graded OPC Gretzky rookie is only a NM 7 so be it.