Random thoughts on 1915 CJS; tough cards, o/c cards, tilt...

[rainier2004]

I have been collecting CJs for several years now and am still obsessed with them. Even after completing my set a couple years ago, I still watch and buy CJ upgrades and even keep a couple dups. I mainly watch cards between Vg and Ex as I think the majority of people look at while keeping an eye on high and low grade cards. I am just curious what others think on a few things.

I do believe there are "tough" cards in the set. If I am looking at the Vg-Ex window that would eliminate all those 7s and 8s and the beaters limiting what I actually will purchase. I believe there a couple cards with pops in the 60s from tpgs and a couple more that max out around 180 so I would think its safe to assume there are 75-200 copies of any given card. Its always highly debatable how many raw cards are locked in private collections, but tons have been cracked out as well as I have de-slabbed around 50 myself...love breaking slabs.

I have always had a hard time finding a couple cards in Vg to Ex including:

102 Fisher
122 Bush
139 Oakes
172 Mayer

These 4 cards haunted me for a long time as I either needed them or mine were pretty rough. I think these all go in cycles as I remember when #90 Smith was getting a low grade HOF premium as none were around and lots of folks wanted him for whatever reason...Marsans was pretty pricey for awhile too. I'd love to hear some opinions on cards folks have struggled with.

Federal leaguers also seem to draw a premium as do cards around 110-130 as they show lots of great uniform poses and I think the higher series (73-144)was harder for me to find than the first series. The additional 32 cards that were added from the 1914 set (145-176) always seemed more plentiful to me with the exception of the Mayer card with a handful of them constantly being for sale like 153 James.

HOFers also seem to go in waves as major HOFers seem to dry up and then emerge in multiples. WaJos have been pretty dry for some time and I don't count the museum pieces on ebay as available. There were no Jacksons in auction for months and then we saw 4 low-mid grades sell in the past few months. Cobbs have also become less available as this is the card I receive the most pms about. With all that said, I still believe the Rickey is the hardest and it has the pop numbers to show for it as the "rarest" card in the set. Alexander is another example that truly moves in waves and believe is the 6th top card in the set, followed by Rickey and then Speaker. When I started collecting the Wags, WaJo and Matty were all about the same price-wise and that has changed. Wagner definitely gets the most and then WaJo followed by Matty. I think Matty is the most available and the WaJo prices might see some growth as the last psa 2 on ebay sold for big cash.

I have also found a couple cards to be very tough centering. The tough HOFer is clearly the 3-finger Brown...always o/c and usually in both directions. #28 Barry is another that I have rarely seen centered in low-mid grade. These are always the first 2 that come to mind along with #25 Simon who is always o/c, thin on the top side. What has everyone else noticed?

CJs also used to sell in larger lots quite frequently and we don't seem to see that anymore. REA sold 100 psa 3s a few years ago, a complete set sold in Tacoma, WA a couple years ago and since then getting 50 card+ lots seem impossible. While collecting the set I bought a 58, 73 and 124-card lots plus a handful of 20-30 card lots...building the set now truly seems like it is from ground up and there are no starter sets which makes things tough. Collectors also seem to be stringent on uniformity to their sets as well changing the whole thing.

I just like talking CJs and wanted to check in on the set guys and see everyone's thoughts to some of my observations.

[Griffins]

I think Jack Barry is the toughest card in the set from a condition standpoint- it's always tilted and/or OC, and I strongly suspect it was stripped up incorrectly on the sheet so when cut it was off.
By far, the hardest card in the set for me and for the 5 or 6 friends I had who collected it at the same time was Grover Cleveland Alexander. Some of the commons in the 120's were tougher than they should have been. I didn't find the high numbers in general any tougher than the others and suspect that might have been misinformation that was passed on as fact for years.
Finding a decent album with string intact was by far tougher than completing the set.

[rainier2004]

Yes, the Alexander is a tougher card and has seen one of the larger price spikes since I started collecting. Is it also one of the common cards with the printing variation. "Cracker Jack" can be printed in the red like most cards or up into the border as seen here. I cant think of another card I have seen this printing variation as much as Alexander.

[GregMitch34]

I come at this from a different angle, as I am only interested in PSA 8s and SGC 88s commons, I think for a couple reasons: you can't really get the 14s graded that high and they are spectacular. Of course, the prices are much lower and, sadly, the SGCs are still way under the PSAs, even though grading standard seems same. Of course, the pop reports at that level differ from the mid-grades already cited here. The high number cards for 1915 tend to be more scarce and earn extra dough if they are. I have one that is "none higher" and two that are "one higher." They all look "pack fresh" and that's hard to beat. Still, I wish the SGCs would climb and I will soon test if a couple can cross to PSA a same level (despite warnings)....

[Griffins]

Greg, FWIW, when I was collecting this set '04-'09 I cracked about 3 dozen SGC slabbed cards and they all crossed over to PSA, a small portion at either half a grade higher or lower, since PSA didn't have half grades at the time.
The only set I haven't been able to cross over at the same level is T200. SGC seems to grade those 2-3 grades higher than PSA, and I eventually gave up trying since it always led to brutal results.

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

Anthony curious if you sent the flips back to SGC to have them removed from pop?

[mechanicalman]

I only have two '14 CJs, so I can't add much value to this conversation, but to the folks who follow these cards, I ask this: did the WaJo PSA 2 sold a couple months ago by Probstein look a lot like the PSA 8 sold by PWCC last week? Not trying to create any conspiracy theories, but the cards just looked a lot a like as I recall. I can't pull up the 2 anymore in my ebay history, so I can't compare the images side by side.