But seriously. . . .

[MattyC]

Originally Posted by Dpeck100

A lot of these top sets don't offer scans not because they are concerned with someone like you not thinking their cards merit the grade they were assigned but to simply keep everyone who is chasing the set from knowing exactly what they own.

I posted the 1952 Topps set and only one of the top ten have photos available for viewing and I have to assume in many cases they also don't want to spend that much time scanning the cards.

I feel confident that Charles Merkel rests his head easy at night knowing he has the best 1952 Topps set out there regardless of what any of us think.

Just out of curiosity I picked another actively collected set and only four out of the top fifteen in the 1975 Topps set has pics available.

I'm not saying anyone should necessarily care what anyone else thinks. I just feel confident that I can't say Merkel's or any high ranked set is the best or nicest unless I can see the actual cards that back that up.

Unless the cards merit the grades, all someone is actually showing is that they have accumulated cards with sticker grades that PSA's formula ranks as the top.

One interesting related anecdote, I know one "PSA HOF" collector who used to have several top Registry sets, and he freely admitted to me that several of the key cards in his Registry sets were not the ones he would call the best quality; he would just keep them for his rankings as he liked the competition aspect— yet he would retain another specimen of the card that was a half or full grade lower, which he thought was the better card.

We can't say in all cases why scans aren't provided, but when a set's contents are already viewable, the cat is already out of the bag, in terms of what someone owns. In such cases, scans of a key card or three wouldn't be divulging any further information in terms of what grade was in that slot of the set. Rather, the scans could be offered as a sampling/indicator of the eye appeal of the set's contents, since all cards in a grade aren't necessarily the same quality.