Here's a weird one: 1969 Topps #88 Rich Nye PSA Pop Report

[ALR-bishop]

I bet Bob thought this post out over a bowl of Rice Krispies this morning.

[rsdill2]

Maybe there's someone out there with a really high end 10 that keeps resubmitting hoping for an 11 thus skewing the population report

[stlcardsfan]

I got a bunch of '69s from my cousin many years ago. Probably about 500 cards. I think there were about 9 Rich Nye's in there. Also centered pretty well and in good condition.

[ALR-bishop]

Given the fact he became an exotic avian specialist after baseball despite graduating initially with an engineering degree makes this all very suspicious.

Best we check Ron Brand as well.

Edited---adding to the mystery, Brand was a catcher who later played 22 games at shortstop. I think there is more to this card oddity than appears at first glance

[savedfrommyspokes]

In seeing that this Nye card appears in a column/row that was not near an edge, it is not surprising at all there are so many high end copies of this card. The Lou Brock card is tough to find in higher grades (only 6 9s, 0 10s) and it is located on the upper left corner. What is strange is that the card right below the Nye card on this sheet is the Boog Powell card, a card that I have always considered tough and has a much lower pop ( x94 9s/ x4 10s) than the Nye card. There are some other tough low-pop cards from this column also, IE Joe Niekro on top edge.

Also, the cards that are in the same row as the Nye card I have stacks of as compared to cards in other rows such as the top row. The Lonborg row is repeated twice on this sheet with different rows above it each time, but the same row below it. I suspect that the two rows (including the Nye row) below the Krausse row are also DPs base on the large quantities of those cards that I have, however, they are just not repeated on this sheet as the Lonborg and Krausse rows are.

[GasHouseGang]

I'm a conspiracy theorist at heart, so I think PSA takes into account who's on the card (superstar/common), and who submitted the card for grading (auction house/regular guy), and hands out the grade accordingly. If you have a superstar, but you're a regular guy you can't get higher than a PSA 8. If you are an auction house, you automatically get a 1 to 2 point bump from whatever the regular guy would have gotten for the same card. The only way for a regular guy to get a PSA 10 is to submit a 1969 Rich Nye.

[ALR-bishop]

David--- see the 59 thread here. Don is not normal. He is weird just like the rest of us collectors here, but he is pretty much a "regular" guy with an eye for 9s and 10s

[RayBShotz]

As a kid I can remember pulling tons of Rich Nye's from 1st Series packs. Sometimes 2 in one nickel pack.
RayB