1971 Topps Super Clemente PSA 10
 

Did this card sell in the 90,000 plus range ? If so at what auction house?

Yes, $92K by Memory Lane in February: https://www.psacard.com/auctionprice.../values/260951

Pop 1, none higher!

Wow!
 

Two PSA 8 examples on eBay right now asking ~ $750 with no takers.


That is a STEEP curve up!

It is a pretty card though...

At the risk of stating the obvious, for PSA set registry collectors, getting the top spot is a big deal, particularly for pop 1. $90k seems like a pretty freaking big deal for a card that is widely available all the way up to PSA 9.

My guess is you got a couple of hard core Clemente collectors who are planning to keep it in their PC for the next 30 years, probably lost out on it when it last came to market, and took a blood oath that they were going to get it this time when it came to auction.

I think the memory lane auction closing format also allows bidders to keep climbing the ladder, since the auction doesn’t close until about 7am Eastern the next morning. So with a couple of really determined bidders for whom money is no object, they could go nuts to make sure that this one ends up in their collection, and the other guy pounds sand.

The money people are willing to pay for PSA 10s like these is of course insane when you could stack the card up against a big pile of 9s and even the most discerning card guy wouldn’t be able to call it out as the best in the bunch. PSA 10 is really an ego and money thing. This is why PSA manipulates the ten grade to such a huge extent. There’s a lot of cream up there for them and their favored dealers to squeeze out of people with deep pockets.

In fact...
 

There was a "newly graded" PSA 9 that sold on Ebay a month Earlier for ~$1400 that imho had considerably stronger eye appeal than the "older graded" PSA 10 - At a point a guy is paying for a plastic slab with a number on it that happens to have a card in it. Buy the card - NOT the holder! My head EXPLODED when I saw that sale - I couldn't believe Memory lane wasn't shouting it from the rooftops! I know the consignor - he took losses on a bunch of other items, glad he made up for it on that one.

Just out of curiosity, when did you drop out of the bidding, Howard?

I figured a savvy collector like you wouldn’t have paid this much for it, but I would expect that you were in it up until a point…

But maybe that’s proprietary information that your fellow collectors can use to outbid you on future items, so you’d rather not share publicly!

I play my own game...
 

Easy answer - I didn't place a single bid on it. I do the registry - my way. If you read the intro I have to my master set it more or less says the same thing I am about to share here (in less detail). 1) I buy cards not holders (not without exception here or there, but that's the rule) 2) My goal is NOT 100% completion by PSA's definition - I find it utter stupidity that they include things like single, panel and box for Bazooka issues - when imho it should be a single slot with the highest point value awarded to complete boxes as they are clearly the hardest to get. Similarly that they include Transograms completely cut up - 1"X1" side panel - really!? Then they arbitrarily exclude things like the Salada 180 back variants, and a 1956 Jay publishing (for Clemente) among many others. I was collecting Clemente way before the PSA set registry and if it ever went away, I would be collecting Clemente after it. I probably have at least half as many career contemporary issues that aren't in the registry as are (PSA has once again arbitrarily opted not to grade a bunch that I have asked about). My focus has also been on the rare and obscure (many of which PSA arbitrarily relegates as "optional". I've got at least 7 items in my set that NO other set in the registry has (1967 Giant stand up, 68 Topps disc, 1960 Complete bazooka box, 1972 NY Friends fan club card, 1969 super proof, 1957 Salesman sample panel, 1962 Salesman sample panel).
I am working on filling in some of the regular Topps cards. Originally set out with a grade parameter of 7-8.5 (focusing more on the card than the holder). I found a raw 1960 that "should" be a "7" all day, every day. PSA returned it as a 6. I actually went through a whole thought process during which I was actually considering selling the card that had every quality I was looking for in a 1960. It was a frustrating process, but again I sided with - you know what - screw the 7-8.5, the 1960 is exactly the card I want - it happens to reside in a 6 holder.
The only consistency I see in the grading process is it is inconsistent (on a good day). There are many that are willing to duke it out with their wallets for numbers on a slab -if that's what makes them happy, more power to them. I choose to collect differently - I like the registry more as a place to share my collection - I think mine is the only set with every item I own scanned. I know most of the top Clemente set holders (and the guys ahead of me have worked really hard and spent a lot of $$ and have INCREDIBLE sets). I am friendly with them all. I have sold items to each of them that are higher grades than some of the ones I have in mine. Where I do focus some time and $$ again is on the nice condition (happen most of the time to be higher grades) of the rarities (Think PSA 6 gray backgroud Topps punchout, PSA 5 1958 Kahns Weiners, PSA 5 1967 Venezuelan, etc).

At the end of the day, to each their own. Grateful to share an incredible hobby with many who are passionate about collecting!

Thanks for sharing, Howard. Always interesting to learn more about how different collectors approach their collection.

I share your bemusement with PSA's system for building out the player master set checklists. And as you noted, it's particularly confounding how a single larger item can turn into as many as a half dozen different items depending on how it gets sliced and diced. PSA does have published guidelines, but then seem to take disparate approaches when it comes to variations and their willingness to make things optional or not. And then when those disparate approaches vary from player set to player set, it drives us all a little more batty. Luckily, I have had some success with getting them to add or delete pieces, but it tends to be hit or miss for sure.

Unfortunately, when it comes to my own Mays set registry, I lack the imagination, not to mention the deep understanding of some of the nontraditional items necessary to really attempt to do the set registry in any special fashion. So I'm resigned to basically spending vast sums in a neverending chase to find the highest graded items that money can buy. Although truth be told, the price on this Clemente item would be more than I would be willing to pay for a similarly situated Mays item. So even some of us set registry lemmings like myself have some limits, although obviously not so much in this case - assuming it was one of my fellow set registry collectors who picked it up.

Maybe someday I'll get to the point where I'm more nuanced in my approach, but for now at least, about the best I can do is be constantly on the lookout for unique pieces that I haven't seen before, and rely on others like you who are able to help me to discover those rare and wonderous pieces.

I can acknowledge I bowed out well before it reached new car prices (any new car, not just the nice ones... actually, even most half-decent used cars for that matter). Other gem pop 1s in the past half decade have generally sold at 1/20th to 1/40th that price, and for issues much scarcer in real terms, as others have noted. Including several others since that one. So I agree this one outlier is really hard to fathom.

Pop 1 Clemente's or Pop 1 of mediocre players?

Clementes. Some stamp subsets, team photocard-type stuff, exhibits. Stuff like that that are a bit even odder-baller than the Supers. There aren't an overwhelming number of examples obviously since there aren't that many issues in the list that are exactly pop 1 10s as opposed to pop 2, or alternatively pop 1 9s (w/ no 10s). But in May MLI itself sold the gem pop 1 '64 baz stamp for $3k. Maybe not as sexy or interesting as a big Super card, but it's a pretty wide range between two secondary issues that aren't otherwise that difficult to achieve. But I don't have near the experience as others on this forum to know that part for sure.

Maybe weirder than the Super sale is the MLI May sales also of a '58 ylw Clemente for $113k and wht for $90k, both just 9s, for which there are about 2 dozen copies total and have had fairly stable value of I think $8k-20k for a long while. Maybe those were particular pretty copies? IDK. Many of the '58 9s seem a little ugly for the grade.

I agree that the Clemente 1958Ts in PSA 9 from Memory Lane's May auction seem to be particularly strong prices given the pop counts for those items being at or near double digits each. I'm not sure that they would count as particularly pretty versions, especially the yellow team letters copy. Add to it that they both appear to be early graded examples, which is usually code for generously graded, which is further code for over-graded.

At the same time, when you're talking about basically the highest graded level for mainline cards (ignoring the 2 copies at PSA 10 out there), even for 4th year cards, between Q2 of 2021 and Q2 of 2022 it seems like the sky is the limit. While the frenzy has abated a little bit since then, I bet that these items would still be very strong if they came back onto the market tomorrow. There's certainly no indication that they're going to come right back up for sale again, but if they did I wouldn't be surprised if they both reached $75K+, and they might even challenge $100K+ again.