Notes: PSA Grading Tallies; Son Sues Mom; $10,000 Jackie Photo
PSA says it graded and shipped over eight million cards in 2021.
While some have been submitted since the company shut down most of its lower cost service levels at the end of March, the number should put a sizeable dent in what was once an eight figure backlog. In December alone, the company graded 811,863 cards–about 235,000 of which were basketball.
Quarterbacks accounted for nine of the ten most popular cards that were submitted last month and 19 of the 20 most graded individual cards were quarterbacks. The top five cards of QBs that were submitted were Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady.
A man in New York is suing his mom over baseball cards.
File image of a 1953 Topps Paige.
Christopher Tencher, who is also a top backgammon player, filed suit in Mahattan Supreme Court just before Christmas, against Carol Ivanick, stating the 1953 Topps cards of Satchel Paige and Ralph Kiner were gifts to him back in the 1980s and she won’t give them back. Trencher says they’re worth more than $25,000–which isn’t true unless they’re among the best known examples.
Ivanick, now 82, says her son gave them to her as a gift since she was a fan of Paige.
Tencher’s attorneys claim he wrote a letter to his estranged mom in October, asking her to give them to him but she didn’t.
Attorneys for the defendant responded to the suit with a filing of their own, stating:
“The per se brazenness of sending this letter to an 82 year old lady with two baseball cards, worth maybe, at most, a thousand dollars, is worth noting. This is just thuggish, overbearing behavior.”
A 1949 photo of Jackie Robinson sold for $10,078 late Saturday night as RMY Auctions closed out its first sale of 2022. The 8×10 black and white photo was originally taken by Dodgers team photographer Barney Stein. The same image was used to create Robinson’s 1950 Bowman baseball card.
A rare 1920 photo of Babe Ruth–one of the first taken of him in a Yankees uniform–sold for $6,187 while a 1929 image of The Bambino showing him wearing his famous number 3 for the first time, netted $5,892.
