I hope they livestream the opening of these packs. I would watch it. Even though the climax will be off camera. We know just due to the odds that they're likely to find 27 Gretzky rookies in there. So with random variance taken into account, somewhere between 20 and 35. There's not much exciting about that, it's definitely going to happen. The key part is what will they grade for. Most of them are going to be no better than 8 even fresh out of a pack. Any speculator buying this is definitely counting on getting a few 9s (last I heard, worth 600k each) and that elusive 10 (only 2 exist). But the moment that those are graded will be weeks later, and off camera.
10 minutes later.... jeez, completed sales on ebay only show two PSA8 OPC gretzkys (I remove the topps ones from comparisons) and they seem to have a market value of "just" 9000-15000. One went for 35k inexplicably, so must have been a bidding war, but given other sales it appears that they weren't necessarily justified going that hard after that one.
So if the best you can usually hope for right out of the pack is a card worth about 10k (I imagine flooding the market with 20 of them would bring that down a little), that's just 200k worth of Gretzky rookies. A speculator is buying this playing the odds that they can find 2-5 in PSA9 condition (I have a friend with one and he says he'll get 600k for it one day, but this article
https://allvintagecards.com/wayne-gretzky-rookie-cards/ seems to suggest that they might only be in the 40k range, and I have no recent confirmed sales to point to, to prove which range is correct. Let's say 100k, and that's still only 200k-500k worth of PSA9s. So we're not even really close to a $1M value at this point. The key really is the percentage likelihood of finding the world's 3rd known PSA10 card.
Only 2 out of 820 cards graded 8+ have graded at 10 by PSA. My assumption is that anything graded 8+ was fresh out of a pack. if it sits in a pile for years, or in a box or whatever, it's topping out at 7. So right out of the pack each card is, like, a 1-in-400 chance of being PSA10. So that's like a 27-in-400 chance that you find one, or about 7%. What would you pay for a 7% chance of winning $4M? That's the big question here. It's nice that you'll recoup about a million on the rest of the Gretzkys, but it's that chance at the PSA10 that is bringing speculators in.
That's not to downplay the overall historical importance of this set in general. 1979 was a decent year for rookies. Here are the next 10 most important rookie cards in this set, in order:
Bobby Smith
John Tonelli
Charlie Simmer
Ken Linseman
Brian Engblom
Thomas Gradin
John Quenneville
Gordie Roberts
Morris Lukowich
Dave Semenko
ok, so it wasn't a great year for rookies, as it was the year after this that the Messier, Gartner, Bourque and Goulet were produced; even though they debuted the same season Gretzky did, unlike him they did not merit a card until they had played.
...plus the last ever cards of legends Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and Ken Dryden. A number of mid-career cards of HOFers are worth something too, as well as the checklists which we all know become pretty rare unmarked.
With thousands of those to go through, you're going to find many 9s and surely a handful of 10s. How many and which ones grade at 10, is the key.
I think you have to have money to burn if you're buying this for the expected $3M, because it will take time and effort to recoup your money if you don't get a PSA10 Gretzky, and odds are you won't.
regina.ctvnews.ca
