I've been trying to come up with realistic values for cards that are rarely offered for sale. I had some time on my hands and I spent it checking PSA Population Reports. This is what I came up with:



1. 1937 Ripley's BION High Nos. have had a total of 95 cards graded. Every No. between 25 & 48 has been graded with between 2 to 9 of each.



2. 1936 Strange True Stories have had a total of 27 cards graded. Nos. 4, 14, 19, 20, 22, 23 & 24 have NO graded examples. Pops range from 1 to 3.



3. 1941 USHD High Nos. have had a total of 11 cards graded. Nos. 122, 124, 125, 127, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 141, 142, 143 & 144 have NO graded examples. Pops. range from 1 to 2.



Out of the 11 graded USHD cards, I submitted six ( I had to sell them in 2006 when I was in financial distress).



The cards I had & sold were: No. 126 (PSA2MK), No. 128 (PSA5), No. 129 (PSA5), No. 131 (PSA2), No. 137 (PSA1), & No. 139 (PSA1). - I can provide Cert. & Submittal numbers to anyone interested.



Intuitivally it seems that the most common of these 3 sets is BION & the scarcest is USHD, or is it simiply a matter of popularity?



Any thoughts, opinions, insight, or just a Buffalo Nickels worth of common sense would be appreciated.

Jerry, those PSA population numbers are probably only indicative of the number of submissions made to PSA (not the total slabbed population for each card).  And how they relate to the larger general population of the subject specific cards is, well, probably pretty random.

Remember that:

- some cards have probably been cracked open and resubmitted to seek a higher grades, meaning there may be fewer slabbed cards than in PSA's population

- there are probably other cards which were submitted to SGC or other grading companies; and

- there should be still others which remain in the raw state . . .  in attics, collections of non-slabbers, etc.

==> Meaning, I think, that the PSA card population number can really only tell you, for sure, the number of times PSA has graded a specific numbered card, but not much else.  How this correllates with overall popultion of graded cards with that number, or the entire universe of cards out there (slabbed or not, in collections or not, etc.) with that number . . . Well, would expect there is a weak correlation, not much more.

If you want much better information, you may wish to send in some money to Les Davis and get the reprints from Chris Watson's seminal articles on the 1930s card populations, printed in The Wrapper in the late 1990s.  Chris polled as many of the known 1930s card collectors as possible and found out how many cards existed in each set, by number, in those collectors' accumulations.  Logically, this gave good insight into the known quantity of surviving 1930s cards in those sets, and could probably be extrapolated to form an impression about the entire universe of those cards.

Chris:  Seems a great time to do an update, no?  So many cards have now come out of attics, via eBay, and into the hands of us collectors.  Relative scarcities may have altered a bit and some sets may not be as difficult as we'd previously thought . . . .

Cheers!

Ralph makes a lot of good points (did I really put that in print?)

Since the current Board posting volume is low, maybe we should consider having our own survey? There were a few of these over the past few months, so an extension may be appropriate? Maybe we could start with the "scarce" card series mentioned in the original post.

Survey sounds like a good idea. I think the numbers are too low in the population reports relative to the actual numbers of cards out there to make a conclusion from them.

Is give you a base line over time as to how many of these cards have been submitted. If you see tons of submissions and tons of higher grade ones you know the set is easy. If you see marked differences in submissions within the sets you can somewhat validate analyses of short prints or scarcities within sets. It is some data, but obviously not comprehensive. I'll give you two examples from research I did:

E78: a 25-card very tough boxing set. SGC has graded about 95% of the submitted cards. It has graded at least one of every card, no more than 5 of any particular card. Mostly 2-3 graded examples of each card. What this tells me is that the set is rare (under 100 cards graded despite two registry sets and known high value of any example) and that there are no identifiable short prints.

T220 Silver: another 25 card group. 22 of the 25 cards are clustered with known populations of around 10-15 cards each. One card has only one known example, another has only a few. A third is in between on graded examples but is typically offered in the near sets that come up for sale. On the registries, most sets are missing the two cards that have low pops. Tells me that the set is very tough overall (relatively few cards graded despite the existence of at least 6 registry sets in both TGPs) and that there are significant short prints within it.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

I did this mainly out of curiosity.



I'm aware of how crackout & resubmittals of cards can render the TPG pop reports inaccurate, but in the case of USHD High numbers I'm sure the pop reports are correct. This is why:



Nos. 121, 123, 126, 131, 137, 139 & 140 have exactly one graded example of each number.



Nos. 128 & 129 have two graded examples of each (Each number has a PSA5 & a PSA6).



The only USHD High numbers NOT submitted by me are: Nos. 121, 123, 140 and No. 128 & 129 in PSA6.



I agree that the raw numbers are not indicative of true scarcity. I was just amazed that I had submitted over 50% of the USHD high numbers graded by PSA.



I had to sell the cards in 2006. I also had a No. 141 that PSA would not graded - "MISCUT" was the reason.



Since then I've picked up Nos. 123, 126, 127 & 134 which have not been graded.



Based on my limited experience I've seen USHD high numbers come up for sale the most often, followed by STS and BION High numbers the least often.



Maybe the above data could be the start on a census count on this series of cards.

PSA won't have any of my STS cards on record, 'coz I'm afraid if radicals from the LCCC find ANY slabbed material on my shelves, the entire house could be destroyed (although I hear they rescue the cards and raise them as their own).

for getting an idea of how many are out there. Stuff on ebay lists in spurts, often as a find comes to market from an unknown source. When I first started buying on ebay, I saw quite a few cards from a number of boxing sets, so I figured I'd just get them later. Of course what I saw was an old time collection being liquidated. Many of the cards have not surfaced again or have come up only once or twice in years.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc