Auction psychology

[raulus]

Originally Posted by BobC

What is even more surprising to me were the final hammer prices. Both PSA 9s, but the older '54 Topps Mays card going for exactly 30% less than a '62 Topps Mays?!?!? They are both not always found well centered, but if anything, I would have expected those prices to more likely be the other way around. Possibly a case of two determined collectors fighting for registry improvement or superiority in regard to the '62 Mays?

The PSA pop reports show a total of 16 '54 Mays cards graded as 9s, with three of them having qualifiers, but none graded higher. Meanwhile, the pop report shows a total of 9 '62 Mays cards graded as 9s, with none having any qualifiers, but in this case there is 1 single higher graded '62 Mays card graded 10. Though there are actually fewer '62 Topps Mays cards graded 9, or higher, I can't see enough of a difference in the numbers to justify and explain the big difference in those final auction prices being based on these pop reports alone.

1962T in high grades tends to sell at a pretty good premium. Wood borders can be a real issue with getting dinged up pretty easily, and I think that’s what’s coming into play here with the prices.

If you look historically at those two cards in PSA 6, 7, 8, the 1962T consistently sells for a lot more than the 1954T in the same grade. And often the difference is 2x or 3x.

Also, we’ve seen a few of the 1954T in PSA 9 come onto the market over the last 5 years. I think this might be the only 1962T in PSA 9 in that span. So there was probably some pent-up demand for the 62T.