What is oldest Topps basic set with all PSA 10's

[gymrat]

Curious :)

[bethanyb1201]

1984 topps football 1 psa 9 and the rest 10s. Won award of best modern set on psa registry.

[sbfinley]

Good question. I didn't know for sure off the top of my head and had to look it up, which is cool because I like learning new things. Before I looked I guessed 1978 to myself. If you're asking what is the oldest Topps set in which at least one of every base card has graded a 10 with PSA the answer is.....ahem....1978. It was kind of an educated guess because I knew no 50's or 60's sets had graded gem completely and I can list off a handful of key 1970's and early 1980's Topps cards that have been elusive in a 10. (If your ever lucky enough to get a 76' Brett or an 81' Fernando Valenzuela to pop 10 congrats, you just paid off a majority of your house and and paid for a new car respectively.) 1978 is also the oldest base Topps set in which one collector has put together an entire PSA 10 set. Which is simply f&*^#$g amazing. You can ogle Hatch Graham's perfect 1978 Topps set here: PSA Card Set Registry - Hatch Graham Registry Collection (http://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/alltimeset.aspx?s=45915)

What I didn't guess and left me utterly surprised was that 1978 is the ONLY base Topps baseball set to have at least one of each card grade gem throughout the entire checklist! So not only is the 1978 set the oldest currently possible set, it is currently the only possible set to acquire in PSA 10. While all of the early to late 80's issues have a handful yet to pop 10 - most of the sets post 1991 have yet to even pop all cards in any grade. (Which isn't surprising, because unless you have succinct love affair with the 2003 Topps set why would you spend upwards of $5k-$10k subbing thousands of cards to complete the set?) 1987 surprised me the most, as it is a bit of a nostalgic 80's set. In plain terms, if you amassed any post 1978 Topps base set in PSA 10 you would have accomplished the feat of owning the second oldest Gem Topps set in history! Get on it folks. I'm going to bed.

[exitmusicblue]

Good question. I didn't know for sure off the top of my head and had to look it up, which is cool because I like learning new things. Before I looked I guessed 1978 to myself. If you're asking what is the oldest Topps set in which at least one of every base card has graded a 10 with PSA the answer is.....ahem....1978. It was kind of an educated guess because I knew no 50's or 60's sets had graded gem completely and I can list off a handful of key 1970's and early 1980's Topps cards that have been elusive in a 10. (If your ever lucky enough to get a 76' Brett or an 81' Fernando Valenzuela to pop 10 congrats, you just paid off a majority of your house and and paid for a new car respectively.) 1978 is also the oldest base Topps set in which one collector has put together an entire PSA 10 set. Which is simply f&*^#$g amazing. You can ogle Hatch Graham's perfect 1978 Topps set here: PSA Card Set Registry - Hatch Graham Registry Collection (http://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/alltimeset.aspx?s=45915)

What I didn't guess and left me utterly surprised was that 1978 is the ONLY base Topps baseball set to have at least one of each card grade gem throughout the entire checklist! So not only is the 1978 set the oldest currently possible set, it is currently the only possible set to acquire in PSA 10. While all of the early to late 80's issues have a handful yet to pop 10 - most of the sets post 1991 have yet to even pop all cards in any grade. (Which isn't surprising, because unless you have succinct love affair with the 2003 Topps set why would you spend upwards of $5k-$10k subbing thousands of cards to complete the set?) 1987 surprised me the most, as it is a bit of a nostalgic 80's set. In plain terms, if you amassed any post 1978 Topps base set in PSA 10 you would have accomplished the feat of owning the second oldest Gem Topps set in history! Get on it folks. I'm going to bed.

As always, very interesting + thanks for the historical enlightenment. :D Night.

[VeedonFleece]

Good question. I didn't know for sure off the top of my head and had to look it up, which is cool because I like learning new things..

Great post. Glad you looked it up because I like learning new things too!

[Mrpokey]

I've always wanted to do a 1987 and/or 1988 Topps Set in PSA 10 as those were the 2 sets I started making as a kid

[jewcer2k5]

Someone has an 83 set with like 98.8 PSA 10 and the rest PSA 9. Pretty impressive. A few very low pop commons in the set and I think 1 that a 9 is the top grade.

[gymrat]

Good question. I didn't know for sure off the top of my head and had to look it up, which is cool because I like learning new things. Before I looked I guessed 1978 to myself. If you're asking what is the oldest Topps set in which at least one of every base card has graded a 10 with PSA the answer is.....ahem....1978. It was kind of an educated guess because I knew no 50's or 60's sets had graded gem completely and I can list off a handful of key 1970's and early 1980's Topps cards that have been elusive in a 10. (If your ever lucky enough to get a 76' Brett or an 81' Fernando Valenzuela to pop 10 congrats, you just paid off a majority of your house and and paid for a new car respectively.) 1978 is also the oldest base Topps set in which one collector has put together an entire PSA 10 set. Which is simply f&*^#$g amazing. You can ogle Hatch Graham's perfect 1978 Topps set here: PSA Card Set Registry - Hatch Graham Registry Collection (http://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/alltimeset.aspx?s=45915)

What I didn't guess and left me utterly surprised was that 1978 is the ONLY base Topps baseball set to have at least one of each card grade gem throughout the entire checklist! So not only is the 1978 set the oldest currently possible set, it is currently the only possible set to acquire in PSA 10. While all of the early to late 80's issues have a handful yet to pop 10 - most of the sets post 1991 have yet to even pop all cards in any grade. (Which isn't surprising, because unless you have succinct love affair with the 2003 Topps set why would you spend upwards of $5k-$10k subbing thousands of cards to complete the set?) 1987 surprised me the most, as it is a bit of a nostalgic 80's set. In plain terms, if you amassed any post 1978 Topps base set in PSA 10 you would have accomplished the feat of owning the second oldest Gem Topps set in history! Get on it folks. I'm going to bed.


Nice work and a great reply. The fact that '78 hits the bulls-eye between scarcity vs. cost of grading cards, is interesting. I think we will see a mid-80's set have graded all 10's in the checklist in the near future as those cards become more valuable and are "worth" grading. Definitely a graph worth watching. This also hints at the "supply" curve, which is a separate more complicated topic.

when I originally asked this question (actually, it was my young son who asked me, and yes, he's brilliant), I was thinking more PSA set registry, probably what you originally thought also. However, you enlightened all of us on the fact that post '78 sets don't even have ALL 10's graded yet. Certainly not scarcity reasons for the post 80's cards, but cost reasons.

Maybe we have to combine PSA and Becketts/BVG to come up with a post '78 set that is all PSA 10/BVG 9.5/10? :p

[base set]

maybe the answer is … the one from which someone steps up and submits for grading a large new lot of cards. A couple boxes of 1975 wax hit the market after last summer's National, for example. Or in other words, the answer should be a moving target, going forward.