How Scarce Are BGS 10 Young Guns?

[RiceBondsMntna2Rice]

Upper Deck for all its foibles still occupies a special place in the hearts of many hockey card collectors. It's no wonder. After all, when it arrived on the scene some 23 years ago, today's 30 and 40-year olds were 7 and 17 respectively. That means most collectors between the ages of 30 and 40 remember the fanfare surrounding UD's debut when they kids in the midst of their most enthusiastic years of collecting. And every kid since could expect an Upper Deck set like clockwork.

So it's no big surprise that Upper Deck has been a matter of (hobby) life in the same way that O-Pee-Chee and Topps were for previous generations. That may be why in 2013, with all the super premium products being released annually, UD Series 1 and 2 remains one of the (if not THE) most popularly collected sets across the industry. And it's probably why Young Guns rookie cards are considered by so many to be the purest rookie cards made, so heavily sought-after even though there are by some calculations at least 5,000 and as many as 10,000 copies available of every player.

Sure UD, ITG, Topps, OPC, you name it, have all lent the strength of their brands to more expensive releases. Many high-end sets consistently draw great interest but many more have gone the way of the Dodo bird. As a core brand Upper Deck somehow survived its contemporaries including Donruss, Fleer, Pacific, Score, and Bowman just to name a few. And Young Guns continue to populate the flagship set on an annual basis.

Anyways, for the first time I recently sent in some cards to be graded by Beckett Grading Services (BGS) including these YGs: my Crosby earned a 9, my Ovechkin a 9.5, and my Tavares a 10 (pictures to come when they are in hand). I got to thinking about the scarcity of mint-condition YGs and having looked at the BGS population reports, I began to wonder what the numbers say about our hobby. Let's have a look some of the most coveted RCs since the 2005-06 season (plus an underrated star/prospect or two for comparison's sake). These figures are as of August 22, 2013 (taken from http://www.beckett.com/grading/pop_report), and they're rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent:



Some random thoughts and questions...

1) Do you think BGS manipulates grades to artificially create scarcity? What about to appease customers? In other words, are collectors that good at screening or does BGS want to make you happy by returning a very high percentage of 9.5s?

2) Are these percentages representative of all raw YGs with a little skew or a LOT of skew? Basically, do you believe nearly 4% of all Crosby YGs would earn a 10 or do you think the sifting process means that if you grade the other 8000 copies, you'd get a way way lower percentage?

3) Which years are most condition sensitive?

My opinion: 07-08, 05-06, 06-07, 09-10, 08-09, 10-11, 11-12. Card condition has markedly improved every year since 09/10 based on every metric and 07-08 is clearly the most dinged-up year. But depending on how you measure condition sensitivity, 06-07, 08-09, 09-10, and even 05-06 are interchangeable depending on whether you think 9.5+s or 10s is a more accurate indicator.

4) Has BGS recently been more and more generous in order to one-up the previous year and create buzz...or has quality control actually improved over the last few years?

5) How much does a BGS 10 boost value against higher BV cards? Like, would you trade a Toews BGS10 (#d to/16…and counting) for a Crosby BGS9.5 (#d to/1269…and counting) or vice versa?

6) Random fact: there are more "Pristine" RNHs (110) than all the Pristine Malkin, Toews, Kane, Price, Stamkos, Giroux, Tavares, Duchene, Doughty, Pietrangelo, Karlsson, and Subbans combined (107, by my count). I'm not a numbers/statistic guy so I'll await more rigorous analyses but is there more trivia to be found in these numbers?

Discuss!

[Estovia]

I don't see any gain in manipulating grades to create scarcity. There's no benefit for Beckett to do so. 10s have always been hard to come by and I'm really surprised to see so many RNHs pull that grade. 9.5s, not so scarce.

I think 4% is a fair number for BGS10s, and I think the other players would normalize toward that number if people submitted nearly 2000 copies as they have with Crosby and Ovy.

As far as condition sensitive goes, I would actually think that the 05-06 would be the worst of the crop since raw copies of those cards would have been changing hands the most.

If anything I would say BGS has probably been lazier, as I imagine demand for their services - especially at lower turnaround - has increased. My tinfoil hat does wonder if money talks in the evaluation room, and certain submissions get a pass when they shouldn't, or a positive rounding on a borderline grade. But again, I think BGS has reached the point where they don't need to 'create buzz' to get people to use them, but rather make submissions easier and less expensive.

Value is, as always, in the eye of the beholder - I doubt anyone would move a 9.5 Crosby to get a 10 Toews without exceptional circumstances, but it does historically increase sale value and trade value - Just not enough to bridge the gap between a $300 Crosby and a $75 Toews.

[Cunnuc]

That's very interesting information I would otherwise never have found.

I did not collect 05-06 and 06-07 years. I was off doing contract work. But in my personal experience 07-08, 08-09 and 09-10 were awful cards compared to the cuts of 10-11 and 11-12. 07-08 is a very interesting year judging by those statistics. More Kane and Price sent away than Toews but only Toews cards get 10s.

That having been said, when looking at the Crosbys, does Upper Deck produce and handle the cards of common-knowledge super stars a little differently than others? Everyone knew 05-06 would have a phenomenal rookie crop. Can we expect similar treatment for the upcoming 13-14 rookies? Especially as the cards have been getting better in recent years? I personally preached Toews to be a super star but I can't necessarily say Upper Deck would give those cards more treatment than others. Just an odd year I think.

I am not one to analyze statistics, but I would think that with the lesser rookies people would take a better look at the cards and judge it for themselves before sending it away, especially since it costs money. Anyone would send a Crosby/Ovechkin to get graded hoping for that 9.5+ grading.

4% 10's does sound fair. What I gather from this though, the high % of 9.5+ in the last two years and quite possible future years will in-turn make the 3.9% Crosby 10s increase in value over time.