Price Comparisons 1980-1996-2006

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

I used the mint prices because the 1980 Beckett guide used mint, vg/ex & fair/good as their three columns of pricing. As we know, SCD uses NM, EX & VG which I believe makes more sense.

It was a different world back then. Lots of odd quirks in the system. The 1914 Cracker Jack of Chance was worth $125 in 1980 while the Joe Jackson was worth $100.

You could also get a table at The National (the very first one) for $50 for the entire show and $40 if you stayed in the hotel.

My original point in digging into these numbers was a theory I had that while we have seen strong prices across the board in pre-war stuff, and extremely high growth in certain "hot" issues, generally the increases in post war stuff have not been nearly so strong, with the exception of the NM-MT and higher categories.

To cite one example, I have a PSA 6 1953 Topps Mantle. In the 1996 PSA SMR it booked for $1500. Ten years later it books for $1800. A 20% increase over a ten year period.

Issues like Breisch-Williams, E93 and others have obviously done far better than that.

Some of the issues in the 1980 Beckett which contain prices for each card in the set included 1952 Wheaties, W517, W711-1&2, W573, and C46 but not N28, N29, N43, N403, N172, N173, E91-thru E99, etc. Certainly a different emphasis these days with more and more collectors seeking out issues of all types and going after back variations, tough poses and other exotica. Overall, collectors have more information available and many members on this board continue to add to that knowledge base as we speak - or rather, as we post.