Theories About the Existence of High Grade Vintage

[jsq]

Peter,

i banged out the article relating what was found on the hotel buying trips and did not take the time to CLEARLY describe everything related to older cards condition. i will try to clear up a point on condition related to your question.

you are correct, their was not much in the way of 8 and 9 e and t cards ie pre 1930 stuff. from talking with knowledgable people i gather that the printing technology left something to be desired as the first problem. lots of cards from pre 1930 but the condition was much lower ie most stuff peaked out as best i can recall compared to today in the e 7 and 8 range. with lots of stuff psa 2 - 5.

the cards from if i would guess 1955- 1965 had tons of psa 8,9, and 10 material available to the hotel buying groups. you have to remember also, the cards the hotel buying groups sold in 1976, 1977, and 1978 were to collectors NOT KIDS. as such the stuff found in great condition ie pre 1960 era cards stayed in the condition they were found for the most part from those 1975 era hotel buying trips. they were saved for posterity by the hotel buying groups. as you drop back in years that grade availablility did of course continually slip. the older the card the weaker condition as one would expect.

nonetheless i have looked at the psa site and stats and would say i am not the least surprised by what they report. and then you also have sgc who has graded a lot of cards.

since i got out of cards for the most part in 1978 or so my knowledge of psa grades comes from the vicarious thrill i receive from viewing auction catalogs and looking at cards for sale on ebay. i am not a grading expert but have spent many hundreds of hours viewing cards online and in auction catalogs besides occasionally attending a national and meeting up with old acquaintances and have some understanding of modern grading.

my wife and i have donated the bulk of our wealth to charities including some non bb card related collections to various museums. we do not wish to own stuff anymore. been their done that. but that is not true with most people. some of the great bb card collections put together in the mid 70's are still in those collectors hands. i am talking about people who assembled primarily 1933 - 1965 sets in 1976 - 1978.

in regards to the comment that it was extremely rare to find e and t cards in psa 8 grade, i would say back in 1975 "seldom" to encounter what today would be an e or t card as a psa 8 would be an accurate description. but not extremely rare or even rare occasion to those who did a lot of hotel buying trips. some groups did upwards of 100 cities. in regards to hotel buying trips i was peanuts i did 3 as i got into it at the very tail end. the volume that was brought into the hobby was incredible and took years to work off. their was no way to sell all the cards for years to come that these hotel buying trips uncovered.

another thing many do not realize is that many great collections built in the 70's from these hotel buying trips are still in collectors hands and have never been slabbed. my friend mike, long since passed to the great bb diamond in the sky, sold what were likely his duplicate sets to mr mint and those were hailed as one of the great buys for condition of all time at the time in the 1990's.

my stuff was sold before the hobby took off, i needed the money and fortunately life worked out for me.

many others kept their cards that they purchased from the hotel buying group buyers and those cards, which were old cards in 1976, have not been seen by the hobby, ever! i have visited with some of my old friends over the years and some of them still have those cards they bought back in the mid 70's.

hope that helps clear up a bit.

jsq

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

So why is it that old time dealers who have handled countless thousands of T and E cards have told me they NEVER encountered cards that would grade 8 or 9? Or that it was an extremely rare occasion?