How many complete sets of 1954 Wilson's Franks?

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Posted By: Richard

Greetings, does anyone know how many complete sets exist for the 1954 Wilson Franks cards? Look forward to some replies.
Thanks

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Posted By: pat

richard,

it looks like there are about 13 sets on the registry at psa. there is a start point. hope this helps. i myself, know nothing about this issue.

pat

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Posted By: Richard

Pat, thanks for checking for me. I appreciate it.
Thanks

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Posted By: dstudeba

My guess would be at least 40. There are probably double the number of people on the registry who have actively collected this set in the past 3 years, plus you figure all of the raw sets that have been complete for years, it is really hard to estimate. I recently finished mine and it took almost 4 years.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I would say there are hundreds if not thousands of complete Wilson Franks sets out there. I know a guy here in town that has a complete set raw and he probably has never heard of PSA and I know another guy who has a near set that is also raw. Both guys are non-collectors today, but have held onto their childhood collection.

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Posted By: shane

I have the number two set on the registry right now. Finding cards that are in exmt condition has been a difficult task. I finally got a Williams in a PSA 6 last year to properly match my set in condition. I have maybe three other cards that I want to upgrade before I will be satisfied. The Stephens is one of easier cards in the set that I have a PSA 4 in that I would like to upgrade. The Hack and Jablonski are extremely rare and few in high grade have sold over the past six years.

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

I'm new to this board (a month or so) and am enjoying it immensely. One thing I've noticed quite a bit when it comes to questions about "How many exist ..." are references to population reports from PSA or other grading services. Considering how long people have been collecting baseball cards, the amount of time that grading services have been a part of the hobby is relatively short. Add to that fact the reality that many collectors wouldn't even consider having their cards graded, it seems like using a population report as a starting point to determine the number of cards or sets in existence is a flawed practice. I make this point only because it seems like the majority of the members of this board are proponents of graded cards (and for good reasons). But because of that, it might be easy to forget the huge number of people who own tremendous collections and couldn't care less about having them graded.

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Posted By: shane

There is no doubt that there are old time collectors still sitting on a bunch of high end raw material. I don't think many of those collections include a run of Wilsons. I have known two large collection go to auctions over the past three years and neither one of them had a complete set. I have a friend of one of the guys who consigned $2M to Mastro and he sold me his Wilsons (8 of 20) before Mastro came over to his home. Neither guy had a complete set.
I have tried making this set for many years along with a couple of other collectors here on the board. Every year we meet up at the National to find very little on the floor except for 707's booth.
The other issue about this set that turns big collectors away from the Wilsons is that they can't make the set in all high grade. An example would be Jim Crandell, he would not dump $30,000 into a set of all PSa 5/6/7's. His goal is to have all PSA 8's which is almost impossible to achieve.

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Posted By: pat

rob-- no kidding it is a flawed practice to use the pop report. i used it as a start point for the guy. as i said, i do not know anything about the issue. so what is your start point there slick?

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

Pat, sorry you took my post as a personal affront. As I said, the quoting of population reports seems to be a common theme here. I was merely presenting another opinion, something I can assure you I thought twice about doing to avoid provoking a response such as yours. Please accept my apologies for any perceived questioning of your knowledge and/or expertise.

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Posted By: pat

rob,
no problem. i was just trying to help the guy as i mentioned. naturally the pop report is just a fraction of what is out there. i didnt feel it necessary to mention that initially. now what fraction it is, you got me.

pat

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Posted By: fkw

Ive never actively collected Wilson cards as a set, but over the years have owned 3/4 of the set. Not all at one time (at most about 10), but It would be easy to put together a VG set. The only thing that is a bit tough on most collectors is the price of a couple key cards, and thats only in high grade.

The set gets most of its value from their attractiveness, not so much their scarcity. In the late 80's when I was more into 1950s oddball issues, I used to find them all the time for under $50.

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Posted By: dstudeba

I agree with Frank, but that is because my definition of rare/hard has changed over the years. For the issues that Frank pursues it is an easy set. However for the average collector it is a difficult set. As Shane said, very few dealers outside of Levi and Marty have a single one for sale. Also a few keys just don't come up more than 1-2 times a year. However the complete set is offered 1-3 times a year through the major auction houses, so it isn't too hard to acquire that way.

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Posted By: bruce dorskind

We only collect very high grades examples, when possible the
highest grade available.

The Wislon Franks set presents an extrarordinary challenge.

Six of the 20 cards have 2 or few examples known in PSA 8 (NQ)
and above. Two of the cards have do not exist a grade above PSA 7.

Whilst it is possible to acquire a middle grade set, a set with an average
grade above 7.5 would require either remarkable good fortune or
a small fortune

Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: leon

Hey Bruce,
A small fortune shouldn't be an issue for a high roller like you, should it? Chump change, huh? Check your left pocket I am sure you have spare change that would cover a set in nrmt and above......

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Posted By: Richard

Is the Nelson Fox card more difficult to obtain then most of the other cards? With the exception of Williams.
Thanks

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

It's one of the more expensive cards, but it is not hard to find. There are 8 available on ebay as we speak.

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Posted By: shane

The Fox can be found in PSA 1-4 all day long (Levi collection), however if you are looking for this card in a PSA 5-7 is very difficult. Three guys on the registry need this card in a PSA 5 or higher, so I believe it is not an easy card to find in this condition. There has been three sets available through Mastro and Drent over the past two years. One set in Mastro had a PSA 1MK Williams in it which hurt the sale of this set and the other (Drents) set was a low end set containing a mixture of SGC and PSA cards which hurt it as well. The other set in Mastro was a very high end set which sold north of $40k containing a couple of PSA 8's (Pafko, Hodges and White). The set was listed as one lot and then also individually listed in 20 lots as singles. The single lots sold for more than the one lot complete set. I believe the Hodges went to Scott (interchanges) and sold for $3800. A collector with lots of money can always buy a complete set in high grade when it comes available. My point here is that a collector with an unlimited budget can NOT put together a high grade set in todays market. As Bruce said, not many exist in PSA 8 form to assemble a set. Most of these are already in Louchious' set and belong in long term collections.
I have one PSA 8 in my set (White) which is the easiest card in the set (last one sold for $3100-Mastro). I think Keppler has a PSA 8 Slaughter for $4995 and a eBay seller had a Hodges for $5500, but never sold.

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Posted By: Harry Wallace

There have been several small finds of these cards over the years of certain players. Slaughter, Campanella and Feller were definitely in the small finds.

This is one of my favorite sets.