A Glance At Different Sets--Percentage in High Grade

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Posted By: JimCrandell

A look at 10 different sets picked randomly finds some significant differences in the percentage found in PSA high grade. The results are as follows:
Set PCT Graded in PSA 8 or Better
1887 Old Judge N172 4%
1887 Allen & Ginter N28 9%
1915 Cracker Jack 27%
T205 1%
T206 3%
E121 American Caramel 4%
1933 Goudey 9%
1939 Play Ball 23%
1952 Topps 14%

Would be interesting to see SGC numbers. Sample size is large for most sets. For example 80,797 T206 and 41,000 1933 Goudey.

My conclusions are:

1)Pct of PSA 8 and better is still very low in most prewar sets
2)1915 CJ is almost off the charts high(explanation?)
3)T205 psa 8s or better are exceedingly rare. In fact, only 4 psa 9s and no 10s on a total pop of 17,226.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Jim

For the 1915 Cracker Jacks, my understanding is that collectors could send away for complete sets. I would think this is the reason for the high percentage.

Max

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Max is right about the CJs.

Jim, how do these numbers compare with postwar sets? It's interesting information to look at.

-Al

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Posted By: jay behrens

There was also a huge find 1915 CJs in the 80s. I still regret not buying one of those set when it was offered to me.

Jay

The richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Al,

I looked at 5 popular sets and the evidence suggests the percentage of cards graded psa 8 or better shoots higher as you go through the 50s and 60s.

1951 Bowman--29% PSA 8 and beeter
1955 Topps 20%
1957 Topps 32%
1961 Topps 48%
1967 Topps 61%

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Posted By: BcD

opps! not Vintage but modern vintage in some of our lifetimes.

I had an SBC 9 common of a T-206 some time back. Wonder what kind of holder it is in now!

BcD

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Posted By: barrysloate

It's no surprise that T205 is toughest of the bunch, but look how much easier it is to find high grade Allen & Ginters vs. T206. That is because the A&G's were made using very high quality paper stock.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

75 Topps Mini--67% psa 8 or better.

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Posted By: cmoking

I think the T206 comparison is very interesting.

SGC: 0.7% SGC 86 or higher

Jim, you wrote that PSA has graded 3% PSA 8 or higher.

So why the big difference?

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Posted By: Joann

That is really interesting. There are definitely some differences that appear large enough to be cause-driven instead of random.

Weren't the M116's also a set you got by sending in via mail, and therefore relatively easy to find in higher grades? Can someone report the info on that set?

J

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Posted By: JimCrandell

King,

I think the proper comparison is SGC 88 which would make the difference even greater.

For PSA we are talking about 2221 8s, 257 9s and 13 10s on a total of 80,797. I am not as much surprise that PSA is 3% but that SGC is so low. Perhaps it can be explained by the Set Registry and that there is a bigger market in 8 and better PSA cards.

Jim

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Joann,

Its surprisingly high for M116s. 3,494 graded of which 607 8s, 112 9s and 2 10s or 21% graded 8 or higher.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

JIM

Where did you get 3% for T206 sets graded (overall) PSA 8 ? ?

There are 133 registered sets (most incomplete) and there is ONLY one near complete that is graded PSA 8.

That translates to 0.75%

And, there are NONE (of the 72 T206 sets) in the SGC registry that approach an "8" grading.

That fact further reduces the percentage to less than 0.5% (1 in 205).

Let's see your numbers ? Where are you getting your information ?

Why should we believe anything you posted in this thread ?

TED Z

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Posted By: cmoking

Jim, I think two plausible explanations that two reasonable people could believe in that explains the difference between SGC 86+ (or 88+, no difference in the comparative numbers really) and PSA 8+ pop numbers are:

1. Sellers know that PSA 8 buyers pay more, so there's more incentive to send the card to PSA for grading to maximize profits.

2. PSA grades more leniently than SGC, thus there are fewer SGC 88s than PSA 8s.

Maybe it is a little of both. I don't know about pricing for SGC 88 / PSA 8 cards - is it clear cut that PSA 8 T206s sell for more $ than SGC? It may be difficult to compare, but if anyone has info on that, it would be interesting.


As for the Goudeys - the last Mastro auction showed that SGC 88 / 92 cards were in very high demand...maybe more so than PSA 8s of the same cards.

On the 1933 Goudey pops:

if we counted SGC 88 only, then it is 2.2%
if we counted half of the SGC 86 - then it is 3.1%

either way, that's signficantly lower than 9% PSA.

The pricing phenomenon where SGC 88 Goudeys are the same or higher than PSA 8s is recent, and unclear if it will continue.

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Posted By: cmoking

Ted, I think you can be forgiven for your lack of knowledge in the pop numbers since you aren't into graded cards like Jim and I are. The pop numbers are clearly stated on PSA's website (you need to be a member to access it though).

PSA 1-2: 12,826
PSA 3-4: 33,013
PSA 5: 16,722
PSA 6: 8,638
PSA 7: 4,043
PSA 8: 2,221
PSA 9: 257
PSA 10: 13
Total graded by PSA: 80,797

(numbers may not add up perfectly because of grades with qualifiers).

PSA 8 and higher account for 2,491 cards or 3.1%

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Ted,

Calm down. There is something called a PSA population report which has the number of cards graded by grade by set. You have heard of "low pop" right--this is what we are all referring to.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

King,

Fascinating that 1933 Goudey is also significantly less.

I think its likely that a big part of it is that people for some time have been trying to build high grade sets on the PSA Set Registry. Thus if you have a raw card which could 8 you could get more for it if you had PSA grade it.

Another explanation is that SGC seems to have a greater following among collectors who collect low-to-mid grade cards like a lot of people on this board(the armpit collectors)

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

1915 Cracker Jacks, 176 card set, available 3 ways...

One at a time with Cracker Jacks,

All 176 at once by mailing in 100 Cracker Jack Coupons,

And all 176 at once with one coupon and 25 cents.

Furthermore, an album was available for 50 coupons or 1 coupon and 10 cents. I've seen the set of 176 flour-pasted into a scrapbook. Having the cards all at once would make them less susceptible to individual wear. Having them pasted into the album or a scrapbook would save those corners for 80 years, so they could be soaked off and then graded.



What would interest me is the breakdown of 1914 and 1915 graded CJs, in all of their grades. See if the 1914 cards are skewed toward the lower grades.

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Posted By: Joann

I don't think Jim was saying that X% of SETS were 8+. I think he is saying that X% of cards in any given set are 8+. So it would be X% of all T206's, but not X% of all T206 sets.

And I think what is interesting is the difference in high grade cards from set to set, not so much the difference in number of high grade PSA versus high grade SGC.

WRT the difference in high grade between sets, I would love to hear more speculation. The cards that were obtained by mail-in would logically be higher grade, and therefore have more 8+ cards. One down. Maybe the later cards (starting with the PB's as shown in Jim's numbers) exist in higher grades because improvements in mass communication made following the games, teams and players easier so fewer cards were dismissively tossed aside? Or cards in general, after 30+ years, were more on people's mental radar as collectibles?

I don't know - I'm just spraying buckshot around hoping I knock something out of the trees.

In a generic sense, it will be harder to find higher grade thinner paper cards than thicker cardboard stock, and caramel cards compared to tobacco. Alos, sets that are condition sensitive for very specific reasons, like the T205 gold border chipping, will also be on the low end.

But some of the numbers posted are less obvious as to reason, and I can't think of why they are so different. Why would AG's be twice as high as OJ's?

Thanks for posting the numbers Jim. I'll be following the responses to see what the various theories are.

Joann

Oh, and on a related topic: Doesn't it seem like HOFer's would definitely have more high grade cards than commons? Because they were the stars, the famous players, so I would think they were saved more carefully and preserved better than others. It seems like their average grade would be significantly (in the statistical sense) than commons. Unfortunately, pop reports would not be helpful here, since the tendency to want to grade HOFer's more than commons would create a bias.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Frank:

1914 Cracker Jack 2,002 graded

psa 1-2 478
psa 3-4 694
psa 5 374
psa 6 183
psa 7 109
psa 8 78
psa 8Q 16
psa 9 3
psa 9Q 1

A lot different than 1915.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Joann,

It seems that no matter what set you look at there are more high grade HOFers than commons as a percentage of those graded.

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Posted By: Joann

1914 CJ: Thin paper. Avail in boxes of CJ only.
1915 CJ: Thicker paper. Avail via mail order and in boxes.

J

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

JIM

Don't insult my intelligence....even though I don't give a crap about "hi-end" graded cards, I'm familiar with these "misleading" POP reports
and I do scan them occasionally.


KING

How can you have any confidence in these numbers for the PSA7 to PSA10 categories ? Since cards in these categories are being constantly
"crossed-over" up and down this Hi-end grading spectrum ?

A more realistic representation is looking at partial to near complete sets, as this analysis averages out the "re-cycling" error existing in POP
reports....and, yields a truer picture of what really exists.

And, of course, there is always that great unknown....of collections that are out there, that will never be catalogued, because the owners of
these collections don't subscribe to the grading phenomena.

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Posted By: Joann

Jim,

So how do we decide if that's a real number/fact or not? Rhetorical question. I would think that in the general population of all cards of a given set, the HOFer's should be more prevalent in high grades than the commons.

But with the pop reports, doesn't the fact that people would be more likely to grade the high end HOFer's kind of skew the numbers? So it might be right-answer-wrong-reason? Or am I just twisting myself right into the ground here trying to spin logic?

J

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Your not "spinning".....that has always been part of my argument against taking these POP reports too serious.

TED Z

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Posted By: cmoking

Ted, I agree with all the crack-outs, resubmissions, that some numbers will be faulty. If the reader believed in the numbers completely, then he'd have to believe that all numbers were accurate, but as we all know they aren't. But in the end, I think they are still useful to get a ballpark number. I know I have put it to good use myself.

Joann wrote:
"Doesn't it seem like HOFer's would definitely have more high grade cards than commons? Because they were the stars, the famous players, so I would think they were saved more carefully and preserved better than others. It seems like their average grade would be significantly (in the statistical sense) than commons. Unfortunately, pop reports would not be helpful here, since the tendency to want to grade HOFer's more than commons would create a bias."

I ran the numbers for the 1933 Goudey set. A whopping 25% of the cards are HOFers (60 out of 240). The Lajoie gives it a little twist, but at least it was replaced by another HOFer (144 Ruth was double-printed in Lajoie's place), so it shouldn't change the HOF percentages.

HOFers in PSA 8 and higher: 7.9%
Non-HOFers in PSA 8 and higher: 9.0%

This is a bit surprising as it doesn't mesh with Joann's theory (that HOFers would be cared for more). But the twist of the grading game may have gotten in the way. I don't have any proof, and PSA would deny it, but I bet they are a bit more careful giving high grades to HOFers than they are to commons, mainly because of the big money involved.

But the other problem is that people are more likely to get HOFers graded, even in low grade. A Ruth sells better in PSA 2 grade than raw, but a lowly common may not. So looking from a percentage basis of all cards graded may be misleading.

So...another way to look at it is what percent of PSA 8 cards are HOFers and commons? PSA 8 commons sell very well, even the highest pop PSA 8 Goudey commons routinely go for $400. So there is little reason not to get a common graded if it was such high grade. Here are the PSA 8 comparisons:

HOFers: 1,125 or 34.2% of all PSA 8s
Commons: 2,165 or 65.8% of all PSA 8s

As mentioned before, HOFers account for 25% of the 1933 Goudey set. I believe this is the right comparison to look at, and it does mesh with Joann's logic.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Relax Ted--nobody is insulting your intelligence--it was obvious from your response that you did not understand--King and I simultaneously explained it to you.

King and Joann,

I think that while there is nore high grades for the HOFers in part because of the reason that Joann suggest, there is of course a more compelling reason to get a low-grade HOFer graded thus explaining why the percentage is lower. King, I also agree with your point that PSA is very careful about giving out high grades for the big cards such as Ruth.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

I would also add that when buying cards from a dealer(prewar and postwar) price is entirely dependent upon the pop.I am trying to close a major purchase of some 70 psa 8s from a prewar set--the pop 7s go for a certain price, the 6s a premium to that and so on. You start with SMR for the high pops and the price can escalate materially as you get to the real low pops.

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Posted By: dennis

i think that star players would be in worse condition as they would be handled more than a common. when i bought cards as a kid i looked at and handled the stars much more than commons. how many kids in the 50's carried around or proudly displayed mantles and mays compared to jim greengrass and solly hemus? same would be true 50 or 100 years earlier. kings 7.9% hall vs 9% common goudey seems to support this and you got to figure people "grade" stars much more than commons.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

I don't understand ? ? ? ? ?

Look, I initially responded with T206....SET....info from the current Registry's data that shows your percentage (as miniscule
as it is) is exaggerated.

Is this Thread not titled...."A Glance At Different Sets...." ?

Your word...."SETS"....not issues, or cards....but "SETS". Baseball SETS are defined as a collection, or series, of cards making
up a complete or partial aggregate......Not a single BB card imprisoned in a plastic capsule that is just a number.
Or, are you going to Clintonize, and tell us what the definition of "IS"....is ? ?

Oh, I understand alright.....at this narrow window in time your PSA 8 cards are going for "big $$$$".....but, in 5 years (or less)
down the road they might just go the way of Enron or Lucent.

If I were you (and I'm very glad I'm not), I suggest you take what ever gains you have made and sell your PSA8 plastics, be-
cause this economy (by 2010) might not be so kind to you as it is currently.

TED Z

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Posted By: JimB

I think that what accounts for PSA's higher % of NM/MT + T206s is simply that they cornered the high-end market on those before SGC was really in the game. Compare the number of high-end registry people collecting T206s in PSA holders to SGC. If you had a high-grade T206 to sell, who would you have grade it. SGC has taken over many of the other pre-war sets, but T206 and probably CJ are dominated by PSA. That may change. It may already be changing for mid-grade sets. And if high-grade SGC T206s continue to bring high prices at auction, it may even change for the high-grade market. But to this point, this explanation makes the most sense to me.
jimB

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Posted By: Jack Rudack

I must wonder if Joan's star card preservation theroy is truly accurate ?

Baseball cards were mainly saved by children, prior to the investment awareness, starting perhaps in the 70's.
The importance of condition, may likely have been of very little concern.

Their cardboard heros were displayed and shown-off to friends quite often.
The cards were also items to play with, something of a toy substitute.
Were not the kids much more likely to be handling the Cobb, Sisler, and Gehrig cards instead of Lobert, Devlin, and Chapman ?
Perhaps the common, average players were tossed, or simply put away, while imaginary games were played, using mostly star or well known fellows.

Itis probably impossible to tell for sure, how most collectors from 60 to 120 years ago, saved their cards, but to feel "stars" had the same significance as they do now is perhaps incorrect.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I sold a few of my OJs. The ones I sold were graded by SGC before they went into the acution. 3 HOFers were sold. I still have one HOFer and a few others. My point is that Grading doesn't randomly happen to all cards out there. Some collectors grade all of their cards. Some collectors only grade cards they're about to sell. I was selling the 3 HOFers because the time was right, in my mind, to sell them. When I considered what I had in acquiring the cards, and what I could sell them for, it was no longer any fun to have them. I think this skews the graded population toward HOFers... and also toward better condition cards.

Similarly, resubmissions skew populations. To further mess things up, I've bought a bunch of graded cards that I broke out. They have not been resubmitted. They're in the population report, but no longer in the population of graded cards.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

I've always done a mental 66% total when looking at the pops. to allow for cracking out/resubmisissions and crossovers. I think with PSA you can also throw out any cards that fall under the qualifier catagory, as they over grade the card by at least 1-3 tiers. An st qualified card should probably never grade higher than a 5-6, an mk no higher than a 4-5, and oc no better than a 7. Overall, real numbers are probably closer to 50% of those stated for high graded cards by the grading companies - if a true and fair analysis were done.

Having said that, all this means is that collectors of such material actually hold an even MORE important cache of top condition cards that is probably UNDERVALUED because actual rarity and scarcity are not actually represented.



Daniel

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Posted By: cmoking

JimB - that's a good and logical explanation.

I also wonder about the affect of GAI's half-grade on PSA 8 pops. When GAI first started business, some people crossed their PSA 8s to GAI 8.5s thinking the half-grade upgrade had value. In recent times, with GAI down in the dumpsters, those same cards may have gone back into PSA 8 holders. For example, I can see this:


In 2003:
Dealer buys PSA 8 Goudey.
Dealer crosses it to GAI 8.5
Dealer sells GAI 8.5 to collector, makes a few dollars.

In 2007:
Collector decides to sell GAI 8.5. Sells it in open-market and gets a price sub-PSA 8.
Dealer buys GAI 8.5.
Dealer crosses it to PSA 8
Dealer sells PSA 8 to collector, makes a few dollars.

I would imagine this would happen more for HOFers than commons.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

"If I were you(and I'm glad I'm not)"--classy move Ted.

King and I immediately respond the same way as you obviously did not understand what we were talking about and I get this in response--done helpin' fella--good luck with your cards.

As far as my cards are concerned, I have no concern about a downturn in values in high-end graded cards. If there is an economic downturn, high-end graded card collectors are generally not sensitive to this. On the other hand, I would be concerned about the values of low end beaters in such an environment.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

E, Daniel,

Can't say I agree with your numbers--I have 25,00 PSA vcards and have never resubmitted a one of them

King,

I am sure what you just described has happened several times.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

You are comparing an incomplete and skewed sample. Of course later sets have higher % in higher grade; no one bothers to send in a beater from the 1950s. Also, there are soooooo many resubmits among the post war cards that the pop reports are a joke. My 1954 Aaron went through PSA multiple times before the dealer finally gave up and sold it as a 7.

As far as CJ's go, one factor no one mentioned is the rep CJs had (have) for being doctored, primarily stains removed.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

How do you know the grading history of all those 25,000 cards BEFORE they entered your collection???
And after.......should you suffer an irreversible stroke or other malady? Because you know, most cards change hands at some point or even get re-graded during the current owners collecting 'period'.

Seems your being a little over focussed on your own cards in this exact moment in time, and not the continuence that is ownership of baseball cards.
But what the heck, whatever.


Daniel

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Posted By: JimCrandell

E Daniel,

Just saying there is a big chunk that I have never resubmitted and since the significant majority of my collection I have submitted raw, I would say almost all have not been resubmitted.

Just think your numbers are off based on my experience.

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Posted By: PAs

I don't think the number of crack out/resubmits is anything close to a third.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Peter,

I think maybe 5% or less.

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Posted By: PAs

I think that is probably closer, although obviously there may be individual issues where it is higher. One, it only happens on borderline cards, two, most collectors probably don't resubmit even borderline cards, three, on most cards there just isn't that much incentive. I think the more likely scenario, which would not affect the pops, is REJECTED cards getting resubmitted.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

Fair enough Peter, but I would have to say that over 50% of my cards have either been re-submitted once or crossed over as I'm hard core SGC.....At least 35% of the cards I've bought have been in PSA holders and I automatically cross over regardless of the resultant grade, I've resubmitted at least 10% of my collection for re-grading because I truly felt the card deserved better (once worse), and the 40-50% I purchased raw - I'm guessing at least some portion of those were cracked out of low holders and sold naked because they presented significantly better than their flip grade. And all of those of course ended up in the svelt black dressing that is the SGC holder.

I know this is only my experience, but I don't even consider myself a heavy trader - certainly I don't cross over or re-submit for selling which many many do. I guess I could be completely wrong, but as grading tends to represent the 'better condition' segment of card collections, often done for selling purposes or competitive nature, with many many higher end cards going through aution houses etc. multiple times in 5 year periods....I thought I was being conservative .

Ah well, it's only an opinion - and you know what they say about opinions .


Daniel

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Posted By: E, Daniel

If the majority of the cards you have in PSA8 were submitted raw and purchased that way (otherwise you too would be cracking out/resubmitting and skewing the pops), I'm guessing you have been a serious seller over the years.......In buying cards for grading, I'm thinking you wouldn't do better than 1 in 2 actually making the grade you're reaching for.
So, it would be fair to say you've bought 50,000 cards, and that 25,000 of those have passed into other hands who probably thought they looked nrmt-mt much as you would have to buy them in the first place.
Do you think some of those buyers of your 5's 6's and 7's that didn't meet your minimum requirement of 8 - in turn re-submitted or crossed over to another grading company similarly hoping to land an 8?

Just wondering.


Daniel

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Posted By: PAs

Daniel not sure how one would account for a card that is crossed from PSA to SGC. Say it's a PSA 7 T206 Cobb just for sake of example. On the one hand, the pop report would now be overstated by one, in terms of the number of cards out there, if you didn't send in the flip. On the other hand, the pop report would not be affected in terms of accurately capturing the number of cards submitted to PSA that earned a 7 grade. That sort of inaccuracy only happens when cards are cracked out and submitted back to PSA because there would now be multiple entries that in fact are the same card.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

The pops are'nt there to be a historical representation of any and all cards ever submitted that might have reached a certain grade.....after all, what exactly does that mean? Is it a future research paper of some sort of merit that PSA graders once looked at a card and determined it a 5, even though that card/slab combination no longer exists?
As far as I can tell, the pops are there for one purpose only, and that is to show how many cards currently sit graded at a particular tier. Anything else seems immaterial.

Your original statement is exactly correct though. Population reports that show two cards existing where only one does in actuality, double the true numbers. Much as I orginally suggested.


Daniel

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

is 33% either. BUT.......there should be a bell curve type distribution of crackouts and resubmits starting in the 5's ending in the 8's. Just my opinion but the benefit of cracking and resubmitting to get the higher grade goes up with time. But at a certain point, not many are cracking 8's to get 9's (in older stuff). Hence the trimming argument too....

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Posted By: JimCrandell

E Daniel,

I have not bought an ungraded card in 14 years. Prior to that, I tried to buy mint centered cards to build mint sets. Virtually all pre-1970 sets have been submitted to PSA and the significant majority of cards have come back 8 and better. The 5s, 6s and 7s I sell as I obtain an 8 on the market. I suppose that some of these could be resubmitted by the buyer.

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Posted By: peter chao

In general, people are more likely to get near mint cards and stars graded simply because there's a lot of money involved. But that's the same reasoning that justifies having the cards regraded on the off chance that they will get a better grade. Or simply keep having them regraded until you get a satisfactory grade. So these pop reports are not very accurate.

So the pop reports are probably totally inaccurate when it comes to commons.

Also, the pop reports are a relatively new developement. I'm not sure whether PSA and SGC kept track of the number of 8s and 9s before they had pop reports.

Peter C.