Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Sure, for something like 1962 Topps Sandy Koufax, that's obviously true. But it's certainly not true for T206 Eddie Plank or even 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson.
The percentage of graded vs ungraded copies of any particular card is largely a function of its value. The number of ungraded T206 Wagners still floating around is likely very close to zero these days. Perhaps there are one or three yet to be discovered, but the likelihood that there are dozens of them sitting around in attics is almost certainly zero.
There are still some collectors out there who, as a point of pride or preference, like to keep their prized cards like 52 Mantles and 48 Leaf Paiges raw, but there aren't very many of them left in terms of percentage of the population. And every time those cards come to market, they still get graded (or regraded). And any time you have a vintage card that is so valuable that it must be graded regardless of condition in order for it to be transactable on the market for anything other than pennies on the dollar of its true value, you can be pretty sure that the pop reports for that card reflect something close to it's true population, if not slightly exaggerating it due to resubmissions (which are MUCH higher than most people here realize). So this would work for something like estimating the true population for 52 Mantles, but definitely not for estimating the 53 Mantle population (there are other sampling techniques we could use to estimate that, but that's another discussion and one I'd prefer not to get into here).
And while yes, I agree with those who say there are still plenty of 52 Mantles out there to be graded, the reality is that those numbers are dwarfed by the number of copies that are/were cracked and resubmitted.
1952 Topps Mickey Mantle = 2863 total pop (2040 PSA, 673 SGC, 147 BVG, 3 CGC)
The 52 Topps Mantle likely has a very similar print run as the 48 Leaf Jackie Robinson. Maybe 10% or so higher at most.
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First of all, mad props to you for posting all this data. It's very helpful. Thank you.
Everything that you wrote above is a very interesting topic and worthy of its own thread. Here in Toronto, we have the biggest card show in the country twice a year. I have these American buddies of mine that always come down, and whenever they do, they ALWAYS get a 52T Mantle ... or two. I also have some dealer buddies who live in Quebec and they find this card every now and then as well. And this is just Canada I'm talking about !! Imagine the US ?? Wayyy bigger population and wayyy more cards !! In the next ten years or so, I believe that we’re gonna’ see hundreds and hundreds of these cards come outta’ boomer collections. It's gonna' be wild, bro.
Oh, and in the last REA auction, I was checking out the Leaf Jackies and noticed how most of the PSA-graded examples had new serial numbers. It's starting ... lol