Vintage Undervalued Roookies

[Great Winfield]

There are two that stand out to me in a relative sense (making no judgement on whether the overall valuation "tide" is too high or not):

1. 1965 Topps Joe Morgan - There are only 80 PSA 9's and 2 10's. Sure, it is a two-player card, but the 9 at ~$2500 is almost certainly among the very cheapest high-grade rookie cards for any top 20 all-time player.

2. 1939 Play Ball Ted Williams - There are only 88 PSA 8's, 1 8.5, 12 9's and 1 10. Given the soaring prices of other top players, how is the PSA 8 not a six-figure card?? A mythical figure and American hero. His Baseballreference.com page is pure stats porn. Almost 5 prime years lost to military service. Most folks likely know about him not winning MVP in either of his triple crown seasons (not to mention the 1941 0.406 avg season) - but how about posting a 190 OPS+ in his final age-41 season, better than Joe D's BEST ever such figure. Pretty good final AB too!

[rman444]

Originally Posted by Great Winfield

His Baseballreference.com page is pure stats porn.

This made me smile

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Great Winfield

There are two that stand out to me in a relative sense (making no judgement on whether the overall valuation "tide" is too high or not):

1. 1965 Topps Joe Morgan - There are only 80 PSA 9's and 2 10's. Sure, it is a two-player card, but the 9 at ~$2500 is almost certainly among the very cheapest high-grade rookie cards for any top 20 all-time player.

2. 1939 Play Ball Ted Williams - There are only 88 PSA 8's, 1 8.5, 12 9's and 1 10. Given the soaring prices of other top players, how is the PSA 8 not a six-figure card?? A mythical figure and American hero. His Baseballreference.com page is pure stats porn. Almost 5 prime years lost to military service. Most folks likely know about him not winning MVP in either of his triple crown seasons (not to mention the 1941 0.406 avg season) - but how about posting a 190 OPS+ in his final age-41 season, better than Joe D's BEST ever such figure. Pretty good final AB too!

With due respect to Bill James, I would not rate Morgan in the top 20 players of all time. Anywhere south of 2 I would not argue with Williams though.

[rats60]

It seems like all the guys who lost prime years to the war are underrated. Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller, Hank Greenberg, Johnny Mize, etc. Even though Musial only lost 1 year, it still could have made a big difference, such as hitting 500+ HRs. With Williams spending 5 years in the service, people used to give him credit, but not really anymore.

For Williams just give him 154 game averages for those 5 seasons and he has 2400 runs, 3550 hits, 700 2b, 700 HR, 2450 RBI, 6500 TB, 2700 BB and 160 WAR. He is now top 5 in all those and 1st in runs, RBI and BB. If he happens to break Ruth's HR record first then his profile goes higher. As time goes by people just forget and not having those numbers suppress his card values.

[Illustrious]

Originally Posted by Great Winfield

There are two that stand out to me in a relative sense (making no judgement on whether the overall valuation "tide" is too high or not):

1. 1965 Topps Joe Morgan - There are only 80 PSA 9's and 2 10's. Sure, it is a two-player card, but the 9 at ~$2500 is almost certainly among the very cheapest high-grade rookie cards for any top 20 all-time player.

2. 1939 Play Ball Ted Williams - There are only 88 PSA 8's, 1 8.5, 12 9's and 1 10. Given the soaring prices of other top players, how is the PSA 8 not a six-figure card?? A mythical figure and American hero. His Baseballreference.com page is pure stats porn. Almost 5 prime years lost to military service. Most folks likely know about him not winning MVP in either of his triple crown seasons (not to mention the 1941 0.406 avg season) - but how about posting a 190 OPS+ in his final age-41 season, better than Joe D's BEST ever such figure. Pretty good final AB too!

One of the first things I did last Spring when I saw the sports card market was about go into a boom period, was look at the vintage cards I had on my want list and pick 1 or 2 that I knew would probably explode if I didn't get them asap. For me, the number one card I thought would get out of my reach if I didn't make a move was the '39 Play Ball Ted Williams RC, and I was fortunate enough to be able to win a SGC 1 for around $1200. The number two card I on my list, which technically is not a RC, was the '52 Topps Willie Mays, which I bought from Dean's at a inflated price at the time, but in hindsight was quite a deal.

[BRoberts]

Originally Posted by Illustrious

One of the first things I did last Spring when I saw the sports card market was about go into a boom period, was look at the vintage cards I had on my want list and pick 1 or 2 that I knew would probably explode if I didn't get them asap.

Congratulations on being able to forecast this boom period just before it happened. You probably wish you had bought more.

[Illustrious]

Originally Posted by BRoberts

Congratulations on being able to forecast this boom period just before it happened. You probably wish you had bought more.

Well I wouldn't say I forecast it before it happened, I just saw the frenzy in modern cards happening, especially in basketball with the hype from the Last Dance documentary pushing things up, and I knew it would eventually reach the vintage market. Of course I wish I could have bought more vintage cards then, but I was pushing it as-is with what I could afford, and I was more concerned with just having the cards in my collection before I was priced out, over buying multiples for future resale.

[dio]

Congrat. I feel the same way. Vintage has been undervalued for so so long. We just starting to pick up a little and ppl are already claiming we're in a big bubble.