Advice on Early 70's sets

[theseeker]

Well your view of UD and all the premium cards that followed is the majority opinion on this board. I, however, still say the negative feelings towards these cards has everything to do with how they ended up as investments and little to do with their overall quality. I'm sure if they're honest, there are some board members still stuck with a case of 1991 series 1 Leaf.

It's all about perception and opinion. One man's simple design is another man's clean, classic look. As for those "silly" holograms, I wish they would have come around decades earlier. Would have thwarted most of the dead serious counterfieting that still casts a dark shadow over the hobby.

And speaking of silly, 1981 Donruss cardboard Vs. 1989 UD, you can't be serious with that one. You never bothered comparing picture quality. As a true collector, I honestly wish UD, Stadium Club, and Leaf had come about a generation sooner. That way, the cards of my youth would be a vastly superior product and now obtainable at a tiny fraction of the cost. A bargain in my book.

[chris6net]

I have a soft spot for 71,s 72,s. I don,t really see a dip but I have seen a stagnation in the prices especially for low number cards. I know I can buy a complete set for $1000 but I would rather pay double to put together a set by buying some large lots and piecing the rest together.

[Exhibitman]

1970-1973 cards are common. No denying it. You can pick up a set or assemble a set every day of the week. That said, I don't think you can go wrong with pre-1974 cards--even in lower grades--if you can get in at the right price. Since the supply isn't short enough to create true scarcity-based demand [like for an E107], the whims of collectors will dictate the pricing. I happen to believe that given the rotten economy of the last few years and the uncertainty going forward, that lower grade cards are where a lot of collectors will go when it comes to the 1970s stuff. It is the "safe" way to collect--if everything turns to crap economically, you won't be out a fortune on them. I know I've sold off all of the high grade stuff from the 1950s-1960s and will probably do the same for the 1970s cards, and replaced it with lower grade versions that cost a small fraction of their prices. And I find that I can enjoy them just the same. I have never been a condition bug, though, so a crease or worn corner has never been an issue for me anyway. I collected higher grade cards simply because I had the opportunity to acquire them.

Also wanted to chime in on the 1981 Donruss v. 1989 UD debate, aka old school vs. shiny stuff. One of the things that I most enjoy to this day about busting packs of 1981 Fleer and Donruss is that there are very few 'perfect' cards as compared to more modern product. Although it is really nice for a collector not to get a bunch of o/c cards in every pack, I find the experience of busting pack after pack of 'perfect' cards to be oddly less satisfying. Now that may be the conditioning over the recent decades to think of everything as chase card oriented, but I tend to think that the issue is more that if nearly every card is nearly perfect, there isn't much challenge to finding a better card, except for the asinine gradations that the TPGs try to convince us exist between the 9-10-11.

[mintacular]

While early 70s cards are pretty available, complete sets are not. Currently there are about a dozen each from the years 1970-73 and most of these are priced at high retail and have been sitting on eBay for months...In other words, it's not like there are tons of these complete sets available for sale at realistic prices...When they are priced at 1K or under they usually sell very quickly or get tons of offers.

In terms of condition, I disagree with Exhibitman in that because 70s are not all that old I and are relatively plentiful I feel collectors are more choosy about condition whereas T collecting for example you have to take what you can get in terms of condition...

[Exhibitman]

That may be true, Patrick, but there are a lot of active collectors out there who are piecing together collections in the lower grades. One of the things I've noticed in attending shows [local and the National] is that the guys with the tables overflowing with mid and low grade stuff from pre-1974 down do very well.