Prices of complete sets relative to singles

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by GeoPoto

Does anybody else question the OP's premise that "complete sets are regularly cheaper than the equivalent summed singles pricing"? I've never purchased a complete set, so I don't have a lot of relevant experience, but my recollection of the half-a-dozen-or-so instances where Mile High has run auctions that allowed bidding on the individual cards and the set is that the set won more often than not. My memory could be wrong, but I certainly remember "winning" a lot of individual cards only to be trumped by the high set-bidders.

Your memory is correct. Especially with graded sets, the sets seem to sell for more than the singles would cumulatively. Occasionally a bargain can be found. There was a near 1968 PSA baseball set with BP that finished around $20k (sans top 10 cards) in the recent Memory Lane auction. Obviously, over the past year, the cost/value of graded sets has increased due to the grading costs of commons.

Over the past year raw set prices seem to have doubled. For example, mid-grade 72 baseball sets could be had for around $1500, today the same set would bring $2500-3000.