What Percentage of Vintage Cards Have Been Graded?

[Touch'EmAll]

Little twist - How much percentage of investment type pre-war cards have been graded? Y'know, the T206 HOFers in PSA 5 or better? HOF Cracker Jacks, Goudey HOFers in PSA 5/6 or better, early Dimaggio and Ted Williams' in nice condition, 1920's semi odd ball Ruth's and Gehrigs. etc. ?

[irv]

Originally Posted by 100backstroke

Little twist - How much percentage of investment type pre-war cards have been graded? Y'know, the T206 HOFers in PSA 5 or better? HOF Cracker Jacks, Goudey HOFers in PSA 5/6 or better, early Dimaggio and Ted Williams' in nice condition, 1920's semi odd ball Ruth's and Gehrigs. etc. ?

Although I don't have my high value cards graded. (I know I should, maybe?) I believe that number is definitely higher.

The only graded cards I own were purchased but I know if I lived Stateside, I would definitely have my Mick, Mays, Robinson and likely all of my high numbers graded by now.

[2dueces]

Less than 10%. We have no idea how many treasure or old time hoarders never heard of a graded card. Just recently a hoarder, collector was uncovered with countless ungraded cards. They might not have been pre war but still new to the market find. No telling how many T206's (maybe millions) are still out there.

[steve B]

I think the 10-15% graded may be about right for prewar. I've only graded a few, and that's about the range for my collection. The majority of it is probably not worth grading. There's maybe 10-20 cards I should grade, and maybe about double that that I think I'll eventually grade. I've been very down on all grading companies lately, so it may be a while before that happens.

The stuff in better condition or with higher value will naturally be higher, although there are still plenty of nice cards out there. Maybe a third of the T206s I graded were bought with grading in mind.

When I was looking at Population reports as flawed as they are, one thing that I noticed was that At least for T206, HOFers and the less common varieties were slabbed about twice as often as the commons. For a handful of cards where I could tell, they were probably slabbed far more often. For example there were more Magies than Magees.

Steve B