Are people dumping E98's?

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by pcoz

Blair, I respectfully disagree with them being anywhere near as plentiful as E90-1, Cracker Jacks, E95, E92, E91 or E93's. I'm probably missing some sets too. All of those are without question much easier to find. The National had a gazillion of all of them, and less than 20 E98's/E94's. As I previously mentioned, the Philly show had almost no E98/E94's. There are obviously more E98's now than before after the BSF. But, the BSF cards will end up in high end collections, and the low to mid-grade ones will probably remain extremely difficult to track down. I've been after E98's for years, and I'm sure some of the other fellas on the board can back me up on this.

Hi Pete,

You might well be right. Just to put it out there, I have no horse in this race...I own one nice E98 HOFer as a type card, and I'm not looking to add more.

I just found the whole Black Swamp thing fascinating (as a lot of other collectors did). Back when that was going on - about 3 months ago - I wrote the following post elsewhere in a discussion of the BSF. You might find it interesting, or not:

I have no doubt collectors will absorb these. But I'm not confident the prices will stay up, or rise later.

Let's stay with Wagner. After the Black Swamp find, the PSA pop report shows 75 E98 Wagners...and 38 of those grade PSA 7 or higher!

In terms of caramel cards, 75 PSA slabbed examples is a very high number. And the grading distribution is almost unheard of for caramels - more than half grading over a 7!

Even using 1915 Cracker Jack to compare (in the world of E-cards, these are some of the easiest to find - and highest graded) when we look at Wagner, PSA has graded 86 examples with 26 of those grading 7 or higher (30%).

People like to mention M116 as a set that has remained low-priced because it is so easy to find high-grade examples (I'm not arguing). But look at Wagner in M116. There are two Honus poses - pastel and blue. Both poses combined, PSA has graded 88 examples. Only 14 of 88 have been graded 7 or higher (16%).

How about some other pretty "easy" Wagner E-cards:

E93 Wagner? PSA has graded 66 with 5 achieving 7 or higher (7.5%).

E95 Wagner? PSA has graded 87 with 2 grading 7 or higher (2.3%).

E92 Dockman Wagner - the easier throwing pose? PSA has graded 46 with 1 grading a 7...none higher (2.2%).

I think these comparisons show how this find has destroyed any thoughts of E98 being generally tough...and certainly not tough in high grade for the cards represented in significant numbers in the find.

Cheers,
Blair