PSA & the Impact to Set Collectors

[JustinD]

I can't imagine how anyone could disagree that PSA set collecting is currently DOA in modern and post-war is losing steam now incredibly rapidly.

The higher costs have absolutely killed supply and caused innumerable set collectors to hang it up due to grading costs. You have to look at the financials of trying, on most modern commons anything less than a 10 will net you an automatic huge loss. Unless you have some sort of guaranteed scam to get 75% 10's or more you will lose your shirt.

So yes, it has made a huge difference and I would think that common sense would tell PSA that their set registry cash cow will crash and burn as a collector driver if they cannot return that part of the base.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by JustinD

I can't imagine how anyone could disagree that PSA set collecting is currently DOA in modern and post-war is losing steam now incredibly rapidly.

The 1965 Topps PSA 8 set break last evening via GM cards certainly didn't appear to lose any steam. I need 235 cards to finish the set. I bid on all 235 cards I still need. Every card I bid on, I bid between 10-15% over APR. I won just over a third of my bids. Half of my wins finished less than APR, while the other half were within that 10-15% over APR range. My wins came out 2% below the APR all totaled. Obviously, I can only speak to the cards I needed.

Maybe it is just the 65s, but that was one of my smallest hauls on a PSA set break ever. IMO, post-war is not losing any steam as that basically straight PSA 8 set broke at nearly $46,000.

[swarmee]

Grading card submission costs are rapidly decreasing back to a reasonable price. So this may be short-lived, or the flippers may have finally left the game. But if that were the case, they'd likely be selling their cards to get out.