SGC N172 Population Report - a little history

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Posted By: Joe_G.

As most know here, I'm strictly an Old Judge collector, specifically Detroits. I've been grading my collection along the way with SGC and started tracking their population report last September. The number of submissions over the last year has been steady and trending higher as time goes on (generally more submissions every month). The population report lists nearly 50% more cards today than it included one year ago (1671 vs 1175). How do the 1671 cards stack up?

There is nearly a 25%/50%/25% distribution about SGC10-30/SGC40-60/SGC70+.

The average grade has held near SGC 50, although has been dropping as of late. I believe the high volume of recent cards originate from some of the larger recent sales (Oregon Find, Mastro, etc.) which in most cases are beautiful cards but back damage keeps the grades low like demonstrated in a recent Hal Lewis thread. The grading standards at SGC also seem more stringent than they used to be and could be contributing to a lower average grade.

Date & Average N172 SGC Grade:
09/24/03 => 50.46
10/25/03 => 50.14
01/22/04 => 49.94
02/20/04 => 49.90
03/09/04 => 49.81
05/12/04 => 50.00
06/03/04 => 50.28
07/24/04 => 49.76
08/20/04 => 49.33
10/22/04 => 48.59

As expected, the HOFers as a subset are well represented. There are many factors that can influence these numbers versus actual card rarity. For example, I have inflated the 3 Detroits HOFers as shown below. Others may submit their HOFers more than once trying to get the next grade. I've also noticed that a re-submission that is successful, ie an SGC40 upgraded to SGC50 will remain on the population report as both a 40 & 50 (old grades are not deleted from database). With that, here is how the HOFers stack up:

HOFer / # Graded
Tim Keefe => 18 (including 2 DP cards with Richardson)
King Kelly => 17
Monte Ward => 15
Tommy McCarthy => 14
Sam Thompson => 14 (I've inflated this with 4 submissions)
Commy Comisky => 13
Dan Brouthers => 12 (I've inflated this with 4 submissions)
Jim O'Rourke => 11
Ed Delahanty => 10
John Clarkson => 8
Hugh Duffy => 8
Old Hoss Radbourn => 8
Jake Beckley => 7
Roger Connor => 7
Buck Ewing => 7
Clark Griffith => 7
Amos Rusie => 7
Cap Anson => 6
Ned Hanlon => 6 (I've inflated this with 2 submissions, soon 3)
Kid Nichols => 6
Smiling Mickey Welch => 6
Pud Galvin => 5
Connie Mack => 5
Harry Wright => 3
Sliding Billy Hamilton => 2
Wilbert Robinson => 2
Bid McPhee => 1

Again, many factors can distort these figures. I'd trust Jay Millers ranking first and simply suggest that this supports his experience.

The current count of 1671 cards graded account for 419 different subjects (albeit SGC sometimes has double listings for same player due to double player poses, misspellings, etc.). Everything considered, roughly 80% of the known Old Judge subjects can be found in the SGC population report. At this point, if a card doesn't show in the registry, it's safe to assume it is among the more difficult cards to obtain. The opposite, however, is not true. There are many cards listed in the population report that are rare, sometimes one of a kinds.

Lastly, I've never had the opportunity to look at the PSA registry. Anyone by chance have similar information?

Regards,
Joe Gonsowski