What is the RAREST Pre War COMPLETE PSA graded set??

whiteymet · #1 05-04-2022, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobC

Fred,

It is an interesting question, and one I see you asked on the Post-War side as well, and got virtually the ultimate answer on (1954 Blossom Dairy Charleston Senators), given your parameters. As others have pointed out though, your question does ignore cards graded by other TPGs, and has no way to take into consideration the number of raw cards that may be out there.

Plus, I think you may be ignoring a fundamental difference between Pre- and Post-War baseball card collectors. In all my years in the hobby I've noted that Pre-War collectors tend to not be as caught up in PSA's registry as their Post-War counterparts. Plus, the Pre-War crowd may not always be as concerned with set collecting, given the extreme rarity and difficulty in finding many cards and sets from the Pre-War era. Also, Pre-War collectors tend to be more of a true collector nature, and often prefer raw ungraded, cards. An additional issue in limiting your question to just PSA graded items is that PSA doesn't grade every recognized Pre-War issue out there (1928 Fro-joys, S74 silks), or they haven't been grading them continuously or for as long as the other TPGs (M101-2 Sporting News Supplements).

I think when it comes to Pre-War items and determining rarity, you are better off going to the PSA, SGC, and Becket sites (and I guess now add CSG to that mix as well) and simply seeing how many graded examples are being shown, in combined total, that are out there. You can then ask around if there are any known complete sets, just not necessarily all graded, or at least not all graded by just one TPG. When it comes to old, rarer cards, I'd be less likely to want to break out cards from one TPG's slabs so as to have them re-graded and slabbed by another TPG, simply to have the entire set graded by just one TPG. The potential for accidental damage to a card, or the potential for downgrading of it due to the perceived tougher grading standards of today, would leave me inclined to leave Pre-War cards as I found them.

Oh, and the cost and time factor of getting everything graded by PSA may be another deterrent, especially over the last couple of years.

Still a very intriguing question though.

Bob:

The funny thing is I agree with all you say. And I am now a post war collector with all the characteristics you describe for Pre War collectors.

This has gotten more out of hand than I expected. I figured using only PSA for reference would make it easier. Adding other TPG's will only confuse the situation more.

Wonder if we will find a complete set on the registry in either Pre or Post war sets with NO other cards in the POP report? That would be the ultimate.

BobC · #2 05-04-2022, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whiteymet

Bob:

The funny thing is I agree with all you say. And I am now a post war collector with all the characteristics you describe for Pre War collectors.

This has gotten more out of hand than I expected. I figured using only PSA for reference would make it easier. Adding other TPG's will only confuse the situation more.

Wonder if we will find a complete set on the registry in either Pre or Post war sets with NO other cards in the POP report? That would be the ultimate.

LOL

Fred,

I hear you. I went the other way and started Post- before going more Pre-War myself. Still, like you, I tend to follow Pre-War collector attributes overall.

And because it seems the investing side of things keeps growing so much, and other factors like Ebay's evolving authentication requirements, I expect even more and more vintage cards in the hobby will continue to be graded in the future. So that 1954 Blossom Dairy set may only be the correct answer to your Post-War question for now, and can change down the line.

Seems to me, based on your parameters, the only way to definitively know for certain that someone has the rarest possible complete, graded set out there, is if one person could somehow acquire every single card of a set where only one of each card in that set exists, and they have all the cards in that unique set graded by PSA. Off the top of my head, the 1904 Allegheny Card Co. and 1921 Herpolsheimer card sets would be perfect. I'm probably forgetting, or am unaware of, some others.

The problem though would be finding someone with enough time, patience, connections, and probably most importantly money, to eventually be able to acquire every single unique card in either of those sets. Whoever did try to do that would most likely have to pry some cards out of the cold dead hands of some very dedicated type card collectors, to have any possible chance of ever completing such a goal. I know I actually have a card from each of those two unique sets myself, and am not looking to sell either one of them.

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