Condition vs Rarity

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Posted By: Phil Garry

Do you Baseball Hall of Fame card collectors upgrade your collections based on condition or scarcity when acquiring new cards of a particular player?

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Posted By: peter chao

Phil,

Demanding collectors do both. Everybody wants the scarce rookie of the Hall of Famer. But the preference is to obtain the scarce card in the best overall condition.

However, as to which is more important. Scarcity is clearly more important. The reason is that scarcity has always been primary. As a matter of fact scarcity is even more important than obtaining a rookie card. Just witness the recent jump in Mantle's '69 Topps White-Letter.

The White-Letter is known as Mantle's scarcest regular issue. Real Mantle collectors need one and I'm lucky enough to have two. Also, Mantle collectors are only now starting to obtain Mantle's last regular Topps card, so there is potential for the white-letter to keep going up.

The same with condition, even 5 years ago, condition was no big deal. Now it is virtually the Alpha and the Omega.

Peter

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Depends on the card, the issue, how I feel that day, how much money I have, and about a million other factors.

Speaking (or writing) in generalities, I prefer scarcity over condition. However, there are some times where condition IS the scarcity. And there are other facets of my collection where I need to own something that is not particularly scarce - in that case, I'll try and go for condition.

Example: I collect HOFers. I want to obtain at least one card of every HOFer. For Rabbit Maranville, I have an E121 Herpolsheimer - one of a kind card, graded SGC 30 because of the pencil marks. For Paul Molitor, I have a 1989 O Pee Chee SGC 98 because it's so plentiful.

-Al

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Posted By: Paul

It varies from collector to collector. I don't usually upgrade condition unless the card I have is abominable. And I'm not particularly obsessed with obtaining the scarcest card of a player. I collect the cards of a particular player that I happen to like, and I usually have more than one card of each player, some scarce and some not. I generally like rookie cards, but have no illusions that I'll be picking up rookie cards of Cy Young and Hugh Jennings any time soon.

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Posted By: fessgreg

i usually don't upgrade. but i definitely check pop reports and use them heavily when making a decision to buy a hofer. that and popularity of the player keeler vs. cobb etc. of course condition of the card is important but the lower the card grade is the more likely a new find that has a better card is increased.

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Posted By: fkw

Some issues, condition is not a factor. Some cards are only offered once every 10 years so you jump at the chance to pick it up in any condition.

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

ding ding ding ding ding.... good call Frank...