Observations while hunting for a Ryan rookie....

[Dandor]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

I'm down to needing one card for my '68 set, and there can be no doubt about which on it is.

What amazes me about what I've seen during my hunt for #177 is:

1) The number of sellers who SERIOUSLY over estimate the condition of their card.
2) The sheer number of cards there are for sale. I have it on my saved searches and every day at least a dozen pop up. At any given time an eBay search returns about 500 of them - some, yes, are reprints or other mistakes - but still there must be 450+ genuine articles out there, and a lot are in PSA 6 or equivalent or better.

It strikes me that with this sort of supply, the prices wouldn't be quite as high as they are.

Are most buyers looking to simply get one they think they can resell for more the next week?

As frustrating as it is, it's also very curious.

I remember buying my first Ryan rookie in about 2000, raw and in EXMT+ for $200 - boy, those were the days.

P.S. Which grading companies tend to be most conservative? I'm looking at an SGC 3 right now that looks for all the world like it should have been a 5. Is SGC more conservative? I've only ever purchased PSA slabs, and then only a very few.

I am looking for this card as well, but I am being super patient until I find one at the price I want to pay. A lot of the flippers have gotten into vintage after a lot of modern and junk wax graded cards crashed. I have been trying to put together all of Hank Aaron's base cards together and everything is super inflated right now. I am hardly buying these days unless I see a lower graded card that is perfectly centered for a great price.

SGC right now tends to be the toughest grader for vintage right now and IMO it isn't even close. SGC hammers centering and recently they have been hammering every aspect of the card. However, if it is a SGC 3 and looks great, there are probably surface wrinkles or a surface issue that you can't see through an image. This wouldn't stop me though if the card was perfectly centered at a great price.

Below is an image of a Bench rookie I recently bought from BO forums. The card looks much better than most PSA 7's I was looking at buying. I have been only looking at SGC's recently since the price is cheaper and the cards in the slabs look better for the same grade the majority of the time for new SGC slabs.