Current state of the hobby-Vintage Cards

[WMfan25]

Originally Posted by bk400

+1. Anecdotally, this is what I've found as well as I've tried to complete a couple of post-war vintage HOF player sets. Spreads are widening on prices of well-centered, strong eye appeal cards graded 2-4, versus lower quality cards of the same grade.

I agree. Pop counts are pretty high these days for most post-war vintage, even at investor grades PSA 6+. Eye appeal (and its surrogate, centering) is playing a greater role as people seek to differentiate their PSA 7 from the other 500 PSA 7s graded. Dead centered vintage is still a rarity (I venture to guess that well less than 4% of vintage is dead centered) and is commanding higher and higher premiums (30%-100% from my observations) over off centered cards of the same grade.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by WMfan25

Eye appeal (and its surrogate, centering)....

Centering?! I don't give a damn about centering! (I didn't when I bought packs of cards as a kid so why should I now?) But I want white and bright cards that look pack fresh. Meanwhile the grading companies penalize off center cards heavily but they ignore toning. That's why I have no use for their "grading".

[sadieblue]

Balticfox….i love what you said about not caring about centering when you were a kid. That’s how I feel as well. Toning is often underrated.

[jchcollins]

To me, problems related to the image - coloring, toning, fading, focus - have long been under represented in grading. It makes no sense that a card can be EX but not NM due to a few fractions of a mm on centering; but the worse centered card can be brilliant and beautiful while the "NM" card in some cases can have worse color and image focus, but yet still technically be the better card.

Technical grading was never meant to equate apples to apples with eye appeal. This is a perception problem now with many collectors, much as it was 30 years ago. I think some would say we still have to do our homework on what cards we want in our collections. Many hobby newbies anymore can't even be bothered with learning how to grade raw cards themselves. They want the (notoriously less than super consistent...) TPG's to do everything.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

To me, problems related to the image - coloring, toning, fading, focus - have long been under represented in grading. It makes no sense that a card can be EX but not NM due to a few fractions of a mm on centering; but the worse centered card can be brilliant and beautiful while the "NM" card in some cases can have worse color and image focus, but yet still technically be the better card.

Technical grading was never meant to equate apples to apples with eye appeal. This is a perception problem now with many collectors, much as it was 30 years ago. I think some would say we still have to do our homework on what cards we want in our collections. Many hobby newbies anymore can't even be bothered with learning how to grade raw cards themselves. They want the (notoriously less than super consistent...) TPG's to do everything.

I fully agree on all your points! The card must look "good" to me regardless of the number on the label.

[Belfast1933]

My observations about buying and selling vintage baseball:

1. Raw is making a comeback; priced right, they WILL sell
2. People pay up for highest end graded cards (waay over comp)
3. Softer prices for mid grade, mid tier HOF
4. Modern collectors coming into vintage all the time... tons of buyers under 40 online and at recent Shriners show.

And it's still a joy for most first, above $$...