Looking at the average selling prices of Topps Star Wars #1 is basically an example of how I decide if a card is worth getting graded.

10 $50,000
9 $6,500
8 $1,500
7 $500 - $600
6 $300 - $400
5 $150 - $175
4 $90 - $120

Obviously I want to get as close to 10 as possible but if I end up with a 5 or 6 I am still in the plus column with a clear grade no one who comes after me needs to wonder about. I even saw a grade 2 sell for $150. There are probably only about 5 or 6 cards in that first blue series I would even consider getting graded unless I just knew they were a 10.

What is interesting is that the Luke Skywalker sticker doesn't command anything near the range of the card. I would think those to be far more rare. Not only because of insert ratio but also because we used to actually stick stickers on stuff back in the day.

The wonder bread cards seem to drop off to "is it really worth paying for the grade?" when it hits under 7 depending on the card.

Since you have an idea of the average price range per grade, what did you find to be the population report numbers on the ones graded?

I find it hard to believe that people would pay hundreds for that card once it goes below a 7 unless they think they can resubmit for a higher grade. Yes, many of them may be in lesser condition now, but we're talking about a whole lot of cards sold retail all over that a lot of kids and card collectors were keeping from the start. Those population numbers can soar once it becomes the thing to do.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

Now the debatable part is that in 1977 there were no non-sport rookie cards.

This isn't so. I was working in a comic store that sold baseball cards as far back as 1976, and we used to to talk about Batman (1960s Topps) cards being "rookie" cards.

Also, Witcraft was a company owned by a guy named Ron Wilson. He had some money behind him, and was able to buy quality material and turn around and sell it. He often had bulk food issues in mint shape (as mentioned above, usually it had never been inserted into the products). He mostly worked mail order only, as he was disabled and in a wheelchair and going to conventions was not simple for him.

I went by his office once, when going to a National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago, and was amazed at the material he had. Multiple copies of all the tough Wacky Packs stickers; nice examples the Hitler Horrors of War cards; mint Mars Attacks sets; etc. He was able to find and break up a hoard of Civil War News cards -- a case or two of mint vending boxes and rack packs. He was selling complete mint sets with the money.

I bought a lot of stuff from him while he was active. I've often wondered what happened to him, and how he is doing now.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bill Mullins,

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

Now the debatable part is that in 1977 there were no non-sport rookie cards.

This isn't so. I was working in a comic store that sold baseball cards as far back as 1976, and we used to to talk about Batman (1960s Topps) cards being "rookie" cards.

Well, that's the debatable part, isn't it? I say No, you say YES.

I have had many a wild conversation in a card store and if you guys picked out Batman rookies 40 years ago that's fine. For me, the concept of non-sport characters and real people being designated as having rookie cards in non-sport products only came to my attention a dozen or so years ago. It's tied to hyping up sales of common cards and grading as far as I can tell.

The only proof I have that there were no official non-sport rookie cards in 1977 is that I don't think you will find one listed as such in a price guide back then. The other thing is that, from a practical standpoint, if a character appeared on numerous cards in the set, which card would be called the rookie? First number? Best photo? Is every card a rookie?

So we shall have to disagree on this one, for all the difference it makes.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Since you have an idea of the average price range per grade, what did you find to be the population report numbers on the ones graded?

Without putting too much stock in pop reports what I generally look for is if the graph is healthy or sick.

A healthy graph will show graded cards of all grades that begin at 1 and generally peak out at 7 or 8. When you get to 9 and 10 there is a significant drop.

A sick graph shows no graded cards between 1 - 5 and then ramps up with 10 having the most cards in that grade level.

For the Topps Star wars #1 the graph begins at 6 grade 1 and peaks at 213 grade 8. Grade 9 drops to 73 and 10 falls to 9.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
I find it hard to believe that people would pay hundreds for that card once it goes below a 7 unless they think they can resubmit for a higher grade. Yes, many of them may be in lesser condition now, but we're talking about a whole lot of cards sold retail all over that a lot of kids and card collectors were keeping from the start. Those population numbers can soar once it becomes the thing to do.

I get what you are saying but in spite of the high production level these were trading cards in the truest sense of the word. I still have mine from 77 and they look bad. This isn't like the Marvel craze where just about every card still in existence is a 7 - 10. I get they can submit for a higher grade but you're not going to make a 6 into an 8. Plus there is always the chance something will happen to make the grade go down. It's a lot of money to spend for a maybe.

Your statements about rookie cards seem to be founded on the premise that there is a consistent definition for "rookie card" that the entire hobby accepts as standard. And there never has been, and never will be.

For example, by any objective measure, the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card cannot be his rookie card, because he had cards the previous year. But it is routinely called that, and has been for decades.

The only way that what you say about non-sport rookie cards not existing can be accepted as true is if we first agree on your definition of non-sport rookie cards. We don't. "Non-sport rookie cards" means whatever the speaker means when he is saying it. In 1976, it meant "this is the first Batman card we know about."

And the same thing comes up with promo cards -- many on this forum will refer to food and product inserts as "promo cards", which, to my way of thinking, is wrong. A promo card has to promote a card set, not just any generic product. Otherwise, classic gum card sets like National Chicle Sky Birds would be promo cards, because the product being sold was the gum, and the cards were a bonus.

So Bill, you are confuting a bunch of different things to make your argument that "non-sport rookie means whatever the speaker means when he is saying it". What does that even mean? Card collectors rarely agree on any terms, but that's not even a term. That's a free for all.

Look the problem is simple. "Rookie card" is a sports card term, not a non-sport card term. The sports card market had and still has specific rules for what qualifies to carry the designation. They changed the rules because every product line was putting out multiple rookie cards in the same year and there were too many to count, so they cut it down. When the card makers lost the licenses, the number was slashed just because most competition disappeared.

What you are talking about for non-sport cards is "first appearance" and if you put it that way there would be no conflict with rookie cards.

You can discuss the promo thing with the promo card collectors.

BTW the Bowman 1951 has always been Mantle's rookie card and everyone knows it. The TOPPS 1952 is his more popular card because of the maker and the iconic picture, even though it was double printed and not rare at the time. Someone may call it the TOPPS rookie because different sports lines were allowed their own rookie, but it isn't his true rookie and that is also well known.

Both of those Mantle cards will sell in ALL grades, even right down to a 1, for tens of thousands of dollars and the high grades are right up there with the record breakers.

Regarding the argument of grading or not , I think that we are all of the age that when we purchased our cards regardless of what they were there was no thought of grading in our minds
We only wanted the best that we could get
After all these years and our cards have possibly degraded in some way along comes grading with all its expenses and fish hooks.
Regardless of what our cards were purchased for the end result is that one day we are going to or our decendants are going to try and recover our investment and also make some money
Now here is a method even though it will cost us more than our original investment to get some cards graded so we can now possibly obtain higher prices here we go.
If half the cards in a set are gradable what about the other half I suppose that you have recovered your initial investment may be by 200% and we can not get rid of the other half, what happens now as said anything under 5 is not worth the effort or cost and a set with half graded and half not graded looks ridiculous
My opinion only, grading is only for 21st century cards and that is it.
Regarding the non sports Rookie title given to them as said it is only a method of trying to up the price but I think it is from Sports cards collectors coming into the Non Sports side and bringing their rookie card saying with them I think I have brought this up before
But in the end grading only makes the grading card companies owners richer and because of prices being asked limits the number of buyers and makes your raw cards mostly unwanted .
I am not for grading but for single rarer cards if you think it is worth it go ahead we can not decry any one wanting to increase their investment.

On a footnote just go to the Blowout Forum and see the trouble sellers have regarding selling raw cards and buyers purchasing them to get graded it is eye opening as to the antics that go on and are tried it even goes to scratches on the case being used as excuses for buyers remorse for cards that are already graded

Wouldn't it be great if a player could only have one official rookie card no matter how many first year cards were produced? That would send the manufacturers into a production tizzy!

quote:

Originally posted by piko:
My opinion only, grading is only for 21st century cards and that is it.

If every card is a 10 is a 10 really all that special?

Obviously we are on the opposite sides of this idea. I personally believe a card needs to be 25 or 30 years old before accepted as an item to be graded.

Cards are like comics it often takes time for some to develop any significance while the majority of them never do. Why are we grading insignificant cards? So we can sell them for less than what it cost to get graded? Check the low side of PSA10 on ebay there are hundreds.

I don't think there have been any general print run non-sports sets created in my life time where it is worth it to get even half the set graded. I have at least 4 sets of the 1st series 1977 Star Wars in various condition and there are probably no more than 20 or 25 cards I would pull from all of them for grading. Mostly due to significant images that pretty much every Star Wars fan has embedded into their brain.

In spite of the stupid antics be played by some collectors in a quest to make the grading companies rich I will probably need to leave a basic instruction page with my collection explaining how collectors hype functions and what to watch out for. I'm not about to start filling my collection with unnecessary slabs

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Wouldn't it be great if a player could only have one official rookie card no matter how many first year cards were produced? That would send the manufacturers into a production tizzy!

For anyone who has ever collected sports cards, especially Baseball 1981 - 2000, you know that hot prospects were the big lure in every set and that the same card maker might put out upwards of 4 different lines of sets per season. Early sets would miss rookie cards that might come out later in the season and appear in other lines. The more hot rookies, the more sales money.

In any given season, the same player could have multiple rookie cards from the same and/or different manufacturers. It was sometimes permitted to have official Rookie cards of the same player in two different years, if a maker missed a late appearing rookie in an early set.

Baseball had a step ladder of cards. Minor League card, Pre-Rookie, Rookie and sometimes an EX-Rookie, if they appeared for the first time in a late extended edition. Minor league was in a minor league uniform. Pre-Rookie was wearing a uniform scrubbed of all logos and team names. Finally, the Rookie in the Pro uniform after the player got on the team and appeared in something.

It wasn't that there were no rules or standards for sports cards of new prospects. The confusion came from having too many rules and standards, with the card makers trying to get as many possible new stars into their products any way they could. Many of these accepted rules have changed in the last 20 years because too many hot prospects tanked, there were way too many Rookie cards of differing values, and the number of licensed card makers in every sport has dwindled down to just a couple anyway.

It's an interesting conversation to have, but it's a sports card conversation.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
I personally believe a card needs to be 25 or 30 years old before accepted as an item to be graded.

Cards are like comics it often takes time for some to develop any significance while the majority of them never do. Why are we grading insignificant cards?

I agree with you, only certain cards should even be considered for grading, but the realities of a wonky card market now have expanded the field beyond what I myself would do. I don't grade anything.

However beyond those vintage cards that would benefit because of rarity, condition and price are all these modern and newly released non-sport cards that are coming out at already stupid prices. I don't agree with it and I'm not looking to sell anything, so I wouldn't have a card I'm keeping graded. Yet there is no denying that a big premium hit like a Gadot, Ford, Clarke or RDJ autograph card would go for more, maybe a lot more, in a high graded slab than if it was sold raw.

The key really is, do you intend to sell? If you don't, most non-sport card collectors have no need for a third-party opinion. They have their own.

I had a friend who worked in a local comic shop in the early 80's. I remember buying card packs there along with William Stout's book "The Dinosaurs" and some comics. "Rookie card" wasn't used back then for non-sports with anyone I knew there. I'm not saying it couldn't have been used - just something that doesn't strike me as something I heard. We're all more connected now so terms get spread across oceans in the same day. Back before the mid-90's, unless you made an expensive phone call, you wrote a letter and you got a response after the week it took to reach Europe, Japan, or Australia/New Zealand and another week after your friend put it in the mail. It might be interesting to see if anyone can find instances where rookie card was used for non-sports in one of the magazines (or on Card Talk) even if as a joke because other people might have been thinking about it seriously as well by that time.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

Now the debatable part is that in 1977 there were no non-sport rookie cards.

This isn't so. I was working in a comic store that sold baseball cards as far back as 1976, and we used to to talk about Batman (1960s Topps) cards being "rookie" cards.

Also, Witcraft was a company owned by a guy named Ron Wilson. He had some money behind him, and was able to buy quality material and turn around and sell it. He often had bulk food issues in mint shape (as mentioned above, usually it had never been inserted into the products). He mostly worked mail order only, as he was disabled and in a wheelchair and going to conventions was not simple for him.

I went by his office once, when going to a National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago, and was amazed at the material he had. Multiple copies of all the tough Wacky Packs stickers; nice examples the Hitler Horrors of War cards; mint Mars Attacks sets; etc. He was able to find and break up a hoard of Civil War News cards -- a case or two of mint vending boxes and rack packs. He was selling complete mint sets with the money.

I bought a lot of stuff from him while he was active. I've often wondered what happened to him, and how he is doing now.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
So Bill, you are confuting

I think "conflating" is the word you are looking for (but you have confuted conflating and confusing into a single word )

quote:

a bunch of different things to make your argument that "non-sport rookie means whatever the speaker means when he is saying it". What does that even mean? Card collectors rarely agree on any terms, but that's not even a term. That's a free for all.

A literary reference: ""When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less." " Lewis Carroll, in Through the Looking Glass. It was a little facetious, but there's truth in it -- When you say "promo card" or "rookie card", you mean one thing, but when I say it, I mean something else. Unless we have a common frame of reference, we can't efficiently communicate.

This is getting perilously close to an argument, and I'm sure neither of us really feel argumentative. I'll just say two things, and leave it there:

1. "Non-sport rookie cards" have been around since the mid-1970s, at least. I was there, I saw it. The fact that it doesn't meet someone's "official" definition of what a rookie card should be doesn't change that, for this reason:

2. There's no "official" definitions. There's no "rules" about what rookie cards are. And the reason is, there's no one who can enforce them. There can be "official" treatments for Covid, because the FDA regulates that. There can be an "official" sponsor for ComiCon, because ComiCon owns the right to designate one. But there's no one in charge of trading cards. The market is too loose and diffuse to say otherwise. If I say that whatever the first Comic Images card that SpiderMan appears on is his rookie card, you can disagree, you can offer counter-examples (like 1960s Marvel cards, or Impel Marvel Universe), but you can't say that there's an official definition that makes it clear that no, the Comic Images card is not his rookie card.

quote:

The sports card market had and still has specific rules for what qualifies to carry the designation.

No, it doesn't.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bill Mullins:
This is getting perilously close to an argument, and I'm sure neither of us really feel argumentative./QUOTE]

Not at all, just point and counterpoint from two people who aren't going to change each other minds. I respect that.

I hope it gave other people something to read and think about. And I will conclude my end of it by saying that one of the big reasons I quit my sport cards collection for the greener pastures of non-sport a long time ago was to get away from those damn rookie cards.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:

I think "conflating" is the word you are looking for (but you have confuted conflating and confusing into a single word )

I'm conflutyflating just reading it all. I think the point that was made about what constitutes a promo or rookie card can be misconstrued depending on who you talk to is correct.

Hey Wolfie,

I didn't expect a quote from Lewis Carroll here yesterday. Did you? I think Chesspiece once quoted Shakespeare. Are you going to see that kind of book learnin' on Blowout?

Jess

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:

I think "conflating" is the word you are looking for (but you have confuted conflating and confusing into a single word )

I'm conflutyflating just reading it all. I think the point that was made about what constitutes a promo or rookie card can be misconstrued depending on who you talk to is correct.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Hey Wolfie,

I didn't expect a quote from Lewis Carroll here yesterday. Did you? I think Chesspiece once quoted Shakespeare. Are you going to see that kind of book learnin' on Blowout?

Jess

Only if there is a profit to be made from it.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
BTW the Bowman 1951 has always been Mantle's rookie card and everyone knows it. The TOPPS 1952 is his more popular card because of the maker and the iconic picture, even though it was double printed and not rare at the time. Someone may call it the TOPPS rookie because different sports lines were allowed their own rookie, but it isn't his true rookie and that is also well known.

Respectfully, I disagree that everyone knows that the 1951 Bowman is Mickey Mantle’s Rookie Card and his 1952 Topps is not. To a novice, the 1952 Topps is so overwhelming popular that it overshadows the 1951 Bowman by so much that it is etched into the populous psyche as the one and only Rookie Card of Mickey Mantle.

Here’s a confusing read about the “RC” logo that Major League Baseball wanted to be used starting in the 2006 season. The “RC” logo was to be used after the player has appeared in a MLB game.

https://www.cardboardconnectio...aseball-rookie-cards

But recently in some releases like the online print to order Topps Now, Topps saved the “RC” logo for the following season and used a “Call Up” logo instead.

To me, Rookie Cards in non-sports are more along the lines of the comic book first appearances. But for the simplest commonalities of reference, it seems that most casual collectors just use “Rookie Card” as a more colloquial reference to try to determine the first card(s) of a particular character or person so they can follow the established pattern of sports cards.

quote:

Originally posted by Heroes For Hire:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
BTW the Bowman 1951 has always been Mantle's rookie card and everyone knows it. The TOPPS 1952 is his more popular card because of the maker and the iconic picture, even though it was double printed and not rare at the time. Someone may call it the TOPPS rookie because different sports lines were allowed their own rookie, but it isn't his true rookie and that is also well known.

Respectfully, I disagree that everyone knows that the 1951 Bowman is Mickey Mantle’s Rookie Card and his 1952 Topps is not. To a novice, the 1952 Topps is so overwhelming popular that it overshadows the 1951 Bowman by so much that it is etched into the populous psyche as the one and only Rookie Card of Mickey Mantle.

You've sort of answered your own argument there HH, "to a novice". I guess that means someone who never did a little research or read anything about Mantle cards. It's not a secret and the Bowman goes for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As for the rest, in the 80s and 90s baseball rookie cards had the RC or XRC written right in the price guides. I haven't look at a sports card guide in years and I know that there was a reevaluation of rookie cards, so I don't know if they cleaned it up a little or made it worse.