1975 Topps mini - John Milner is finally upgraded

[cesarcap]

Won an auction lot of about 200 cards cheap (for a change) with the idea of upgrading my EX/Ex+ mini set.

I never collected the mini-set as a kid and bought this set at a decent price (not cheap but not expensive either). The regular 75's were the 1st set I really collected. Flipping through the binder while watching college football and sipping some whiskey brought the OCD out in me.

The set, either in mini- or regular size, is really tough. So many cards have fish eyes, print defects, diamond cut, off center left to right or offset top to bottom. Slight chips on the corners or sides really show even w/o my reading glasses.

The auction lot was good-I upgraded about 70 cards including said John Milner, who I saw play at Shea. But I realized I was more critical about the cards of Mets and Yankee players (I grew up in NYC and then in NJ burbs). So now I will have to upgrade Sparky Lyle (pink border is washed out), Seaver is mis cut. Thankfully, the major RCs are fine, but too many all star cards are are miscut.

I originally thought that I could grade one of the sets. But now besides throwing money away, I simply enjoy paging through a binder full of (raw) cards even if not perfect. Way easier than hauling out boxes and boxes full of slabbed cards.

[swarmee]

The size of slabs is a huge reason to not grade complete sets anymore. I fit about 170 comfortably in a USPS Priority Board Game box when I started selling them through COMC. Plus, for the vast majority of early 1970s commons, PSA 8-9s are no longer the $50-100 they used to be, they're $15-30. So they're no longer profitable to grade.

1975 Mini is an interesting set; I found a group of them a few years ago that I thought were worth consideration for grading. However, I decided to sell them on eBay and lost money on them. Most of the crazies who collect that set in PSA form have already upgraded everything they can and are no longer really buyers. It's one poised for a crash, IMO.

Selected five at random from the PSA Auction Prices tool and found:
#6 Mike Marshall: PSA 8s under $10, 9s around $90
#19 Koosman: PSA 8.5s for $10, 9s around $45
#33 Baker: PSA 8s and 9s for under $20
#51 Forsch: PSA 8s and 8.5s for $10
#74 Belanger: PSA 9s under $20

So if you really want to upgrade your raw set, buying graded and cracking out may be worthwhile to you.

[cesarcap]

Right. I'm not going to upgrade many more cards (famous last words).

I'm about 200 cards into a 1967 PSA graded set after completing that one mostly raw (the big RC's I had already). It's mid-grade but I stopped this summer--waiting to see if anything happens. Buying commons for less than what someone paid is fine. But that also makes me wonder...