208: Timeless Moments - How To Use The PSA Population Report

 Welcome to another episode of Timeless Moments, brought to you by the You Can't Comp This Podcast!

In this week's edition, Russell and Adam walk you through how to use the PSA Population Report.
 We break down how to navigate the site, how to search for specific cards like the 2023 Stephen Curry Prizmania, and what to look out for when analysing pop counts.
 We also chat about why platforms like CardLadder make accessing population data easier — but why sometimes, the raw data from PSA is still necessary.
 Lastly, we run a second example looking up a 2016 Studio Steph Curry Downtown insert.

Whether you're new to the hobby or a seasoned collector, this guide will help you better understand the PSA system and what gem rates can tell you.

Listen now!

Hashtags:
 

Thank You to our Primary sponsor:
Check Out My Cards Australia and US Sports Cards Australia

Sponsor PROMO: Fast Break Trading Cards
Use the promo code 'YCCT10' for 10% off all Fanatics Memorabilia.

Game Time International: Best Mags In The Hobby

The Hobby Hangout XL: June 1st Click Here For Tickets

Reach out to us on socials and tell us what we got right or wrong!
All of our Socials can be found on our Linktree

You Can't Comp This YouTube - we stream episodes LIVE!
You Can't Comp This on Facebook - join our community

Transcript

00:04.18
Adz
Welcome everybody to episode 208 of the You Can't Comp This NBA Trading Card Podcast. We are your hosts, Adam, Amy and Russell Gibson, and we are back with another timeless moment.

00:18.42
Russell Gibson
Hello everyone. Hope you're all very well.

00:21.95
Adz
Let's hope this truly is timeless given the dominance of PSA. So so so today's today's topic is we're going to teach everybody how to use the the PSA register, which is the the where where all the the numbers and the the pop counts and everything are held.

00:35.77
Russell Gibson
Yeah, we did.

00:41.52
Russell Gibson
We did talk off the air about doing the BGS registry also, but we basically said FBGS, they're irrelevant at the moment. So what's the point of...

00:49.12
Adz
Well, everyone cracks their BGS things for PSA anyway, so they're pretty much here here anyway.

00:49.67
Russell Gibson
That's

00:53.82
Adz
yeah.

00:54.58
Russell Gibson
all right.

00:55.20
Adz
Yep.

00:58.74
Russell Gibson
All righty.

00:59.02
Adz
but yeah

00:59.22
Russell Gibson
So... What we were planning to do today is to provide a step-by-step guide on how to do this. And if all of our technology works, you can listen to this as a podcast and then follow along at home on your laptop or your desktop or your phone, whatever's best for you.

01:17.40
Adz
yeah

01:17.62
Russell Gibson
And if you're watching on YouTube, Adam will be doing a screen captures, then you can use that as a bit of a visual cue too. So to start off, we're going to go to psacard.com.

01:28.46
Russell Gibson
p s a c a r d dot com

01:32.12
Adz
Nice and easy. Yeah.

01:33.37
Russell Gibson
And you'll be presented with the PSA card website. so there's a whole bunch of stuff on there. And I think where I get a little bit confused or not get confused, it's like, well, where do you start? and You know, where do you find this information?

01:45.59
Russell Gibson
And a lot of this stuff is really based around how to grade and what their pricing is. so

01:50.64
Adz
yeah

01:50.87
Russell Gibson
and the set registry is a different set of information altogether if you're just looking for pop count. so go up to the top where it says research and click on population report.

02:04.68
Russell Gibson
And once you've done that, it'll take you to psacard.com forward slash pop.

02:04.92
Adz
Okay.

02:10.75
Russell Gibson
And from there, there's actually a ah search tool. And if you know how to use that and you can use that, like feel free to use that. There's absolutely no problems at all using it.

02:24.32
Russell Gibson
The problem I have with that is that I find i get a lot of data from it or I don't get enough data from it.

02:31.32
Adz
huh

02:31.37
Russell Gibson
And then you have to sort of cycle through it anyway. So what PSA have done is I think they're quite aware of this.

02:34.28
Adz
okay

02:39.02
Russell Gibson
They've then categorized a whole bunch of stuff underneath that. So baseball cards, baseball coins, hockey, golf, da, da, da, da.

02:45.06
Adz
It's

02:46.59
Russell Gibson
And there's also basketball cards there. So you can click on that. And I think we should probably just caveat this a little bit. This is why CardLadder is so good because they've taken all of this data, they've cleaned it up, they've put it into beautiful graphs and they've made it so accessible for you. And so, you know, I think the question might be is, why don't you just use CardLadder all the time?

03:12.31
Russell Gibson
The problem is it takes a lot of time and effort for CardLadder to do that and not every single card is in the CardLadder database.

03:12.79
Adz
a good question.

03:20.37
Russell Gibson
so there's going to be times when you...

03:21.16
Adz
Ah. Mm-hmm.

03:23.49
Russell Gibson
So my first stop is always cart letter because it's easy to use. Everything's linked in beautifully. It's got sales data. It's got population data. It's got graphs. This is just like hardcore data.

03:35.21
Russell Gibson
And I suppose the other comparison you can make against this too, this is gem rate stuff, right? Like this is what I say to, if I, it's been a while since I've sat down and had like a long conversation with Ryan, but it's like Ryan's website is so amazing But it's so goddamn hard to use.

03:50.06
Russell Gibson
And this is how I feel the same about PSA.

03:51.26
Adz
ah

03:52.49
Russell Gibson
Like, it's exactly the same thing. So, all right.

03:54.62
Adz
Yeah.

03:55.73
Russell Gibson
Anyway, we've clicked on basketball cards. Now, we were talking offline.

03:59.59
Adz
We have.

04:01.39
Russell Gibson
The first card we were going to find was the Prismania. Is that correct?

04:05.45
Adz
That is correct. We're gonna look up the, what's the the card?

04:06.48
Russell Gibson
All right.

04:10.05
Adz
2023 Prism, Stephen Curry, Prismania.

04:11.74
Russell Gibson
Great. So what you need to know is you need to know when the card was printed. So the other easy way to think about that is if it's, depends what it says on the back of the card. So if it says 2324, in that instance, you're looking for 2023.

04:24.49
Adz
and

04:26.51
Russell Gibson
twenty twenty three That's ah another way to do it too.

04:29.86
Adz
Yep.

04:30.95
Russell Gibson
So then just scroll all the way down to the bottom and click on 2023. Okay, once you've done that,

04:36.79
Russell Gibson
okay once you've done that

04:36.85
Adz
OK.

04:39.13
Russell Gibson
you will go to psacard.com forward slash pop forward slash basketball cards forward slash 2023 and then 23, 1995. I'm not too sure what that last digits mean, but that's what will come up.

04:51.91
Adz
Yep.

04:52.25
Russell Gibson
Then you're presented with a huge list of stuff there. So when you look at the page on the right hand side, there's a search tool. There's actually, there's two, but use the one

05:03.15
Adz
Search the pop report and the gray, there's a blue one and a gray one, isn't there?

05:06.24
Russell Gibson
Use the one that's got the gray magnifying glass. That's the one that you want to do And then put in the the card that you want.

05:11.55
Adz
Yep.

05:14.82
Russell Gibson
So not the player, the card. So for us, it's Prismania.

05:18.16
Adz
Prismania, yep.

05:19.19
Russell Gibson
So that will filter it down almost instantly to Panini Prism Prismania. So when you click on that, it will actually bring up all of the cards that's in that Prismania set.

05:29.82
Adz
Yep, so 195 total

05:34.75
Adz
Is it?

05:35.36
Russell Gibson
So for me, I've got 20 people that's in this set.

05:39.65
Adz
Oh, 20 people. Sorry, I've got i've got the the total Prismania. I haven't got into the set yet.

05:44.07
Russell Gibson
Oh, right, right. Yeah, sorry, right. So, yeah, you've just, that's totally fine.

05:46.29
Adz
Yep.

05:47.22
Russell Gibson
Yeah. So, in in the set, there's 20 different athletes.

05:50.73
Adz
Yep.

05:50.75
Russell Gibson
And then what you've looked at, at that bottom number there is 195 Prismania cards have been graded in total.

05:57.78
Adz
Yep.

05:58.23
Russell Gibson
Yeah. So, we wanted to use Steph Curry.

06:01.64
Adz
Mm-hmm.

06:01.81
Russell Gibson
So, for this particular set, it's easy. it's It's number two on the list. But what you can do, you can press Control F and then type in Steph.

06:09.16
Adz
There's actually a, it?

06:10.68
Russell Gibson
Okay. And then that will bring it, it'll take you straight down to it. So for example, if the list was much bigger than this, so think about a base set of Prism where there's 300 different cards.

06:19.42
Adz
Yeah.

06:21.65
Russell Gibson
You don't want to sit there and like scroll through them all.

06:24.27
Adz
The, um they have a live, it has a live search bar.

06:24.43
Russell Gibson
And also

06:27.91
Russell Gibson
you can use that search tool too. That's exactly right. And that's another thing you can do too. If it's not on that page, you can use that to search it through.

06:32.96
Adz
Yeah.

06:34.47
Russell Gibson
So so what this shows is, sorry, I had after you.

06:35.76
Adz
Yeah. that's Yeah, that that live search bar, if I write Steph, it actually brings up Stephen Curry.

06:41.11
Russell Gibson
Yep.

06:43.36
Russell Gibson
Perfect. Yep.

06:44.14
Adz
I don't even have to press search on it. It's already everything I type.

06:46.26
Russell Gibson
Yep.

06:48.19
Adz
If I put S-T-E, I get Steph Curry.

06:49.89
Russell Gibson
They're definitely putting some polish into these websites now.

06:50.66
Adz
Yeah.

06:52.73
Russell Gibson
I think that's, it's very fair to say.

06:53.11
Adz
Sure. Yep.

06:54.54
Russell Gibson
yeah So if we're just looking at straight population numbers here, there's one eight, there's eight nines and there's three 10.

06:55.41
Adz
Yep.

07:00.53
Russell Gibson
So in total there's been 12 being graded. So I wanted to see this particular card because, oh, it was on,

07:03.75
Adz
Yep.

07:08.97
Russell Gibson
It wasn't a card letter, wasn't it? What was the one that wasn't on card letter?

07:11.92
Adz
oh

07:11.99
Russell Gibson
The micro, the micro mosaic. That's the reason why I came onto the PC.

07:14.00
Adz
Micro Mosaic. Yep.

07:16.46
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

07:17.66
Adz
Yep. So yeah, this this one is on card ladder.

07:18.29
Russell Gibson
All right.

07:19.96
Adz
jeff If you want to go and check out the card ladder for this one, um this is the Stephen Curry, Prismania.

07:23.04
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

07:30.71
Adz
Current, last sold, 2615, time of recording, obviously.

07:34.55
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

07:35.62
Adz
last sold in march twenty twenty five Awesome, if you click on, on um it says POP3 because we're looking up the PSA 10. If you actually click on the little booklet on Card Letter, it brings up the full POP count.

07:48.86
Adz
So there are 13 in the population report. One of those is a dirty BGS9. But the other 12 are, as we've just recalled in the in the in the PSA database.

08:02.86
Adz
Which is 1.8, and ah eight nines and three tens

08:06.47
Russell Gibson
It's pretty tough to get a 10 on that card, isn't it?

08:09.18
Adz
It is, gems at a rate of 23%. Which

08:12.07
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

08:14.57
Adz
is also something to to to take in, I guess, when you're you're looking and analyzing pop reports and seeing how easy card is. But that is that is definitely for another video.

08:24.94
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

08:25.14
Adz
Do we wanna do one more card?

08:26.88
Russell Gibson
Yeah. Why don't you tell me a card and I'll try my best to to find it in the registry. How about that?

08:33.30
Adz
Alrighty, I've got the basketball registry up and I will pick the 2016 Studio, Steph Curry from downtown.

08:46.69
Russell Gibson
All right, so I've gone back to PSA.com, pop, and I've clicked on the basketball cards picture. And then you said it was 2016. All right, so I've gone Control F, typed in 2016.

08:56.74
Adz
twenty sixteen yeah

09:01.69
Russell Gibson
Now I've clicked on 2016.

09:04.46
Adz
yeah

09:06.07
Russell Gibson
All right, and you said it was Studio Downtown, didn't you? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to type in Studio first.

09:14.09
Adz
Okay.

09:15.06
Russell Gibson
All right. So when you type in studio, it actually brings up a whole bunch of stuff. So Panini Studio, breakout signatures.

09:20.99
Adz
Mm.

09:21.89
Russell Gibson
Okay. so I feel like I'm relatively on the and the right track here.

09:25.47
Adz
Mm.

09:25.62
Russell Gibson
And then I've just written in down. And the reason I sometimes write less instead of more is sometimes I feel like if I get the spelling wrong, or if I write downtown as two words instead of one word or you know vice versa, that can sort of muck stuff up.

09:38.05
Adz
Boys versa.

09:39.12
Russell Gibson
So that's why ah just wrote studio and then down.

09:39.63
Adz
Mm.

09:42.35
Russell Gibson
And actually it's brought it up for us.

09:42.53
Adz
Yeah.

09:43.93
Russell Gibson
so Taking from your little lead earlier, the total population graded out of all these cards is 1,427. And if we're comparing that to a Wemby silver PSA 10, that's absolutely nothing.

09:58.62
Russell Gibson
And actually card number one is Steph Curry. So that's made it pretty easy for us. So there's been one eight, 17 nines and 68 tens that have been graded with PSA.

10:13.42
Russell Gibson
That's,

10:13.52
Adz
68 10s, that's a lot of ten

10:17.02
Russell Gibson
Interesting set, this.

10:18.81
Adz
Hmm.

10:19.74
Russell Gibson
Iverson, Gary Payton, Kobe, JJ Reddick, Dirk Nowitzki, Wiggins, Booker, Durant, Kyrie, Isaiah Thomas, Ben Simmons, Porzingis, Jimmy Butler, LeBron, Damian Lillard, Westbrook, Yogi Farrell.

10:31.87
Russell Gibson
That's one to forget. Carl Anthony Towns, Harden, Steph Curry.

10:39.13
Russell Gibson
Now the LeBron James one, that caught my attention for a second.

10:39.27
Adz
That's

10:42.51
Russell Gibson
Where's LeBron?

10:43.52
Adz
ninety four

10:47.62
Adz
I noticed there's a lot of 10s this set.

10:49.13
Russell Gibson
83 10s. That's a very high 10 rate.

10:53.22
Adz
So in the total pop count of 1,422 cards graded, ah five five autographs the border.

11:01.28
Russell Gibson
That's wild.

11:03.75
Adz
or almost twelve hundred of them matens

11:06.65
Russell Gibson
That is wild, isn't it?

11:08.05
Adz
maybe it's cause of a lack of a frame on the border So centering is not as difficult to hit?

11:14.91
Russell Gibson
Maybe it just a really well-produced card.

11:17.36
Adz
Yeah, okay. Except for the two PSA 4s.

11:22.47
Russell Gibson
Now you wanted to keep this to a 10 minute video. What's your final thoughts on this?

11:25.92
Adz
Final thoughts, um once again, we really, really like having a variety of tools at our disposal. This is just merely finding out more information about the population.

11:37.34
Adz
And we thought PSA was the best one to do of the lot, because that's where we're over 90% of cards graded come from, seems like these days it's PSA.

11:37.88
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

11:45.79
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

11:48.09
Adz
So yeah, that's a ah quick tip on how quick tips on how to use the the PSA register.

11:55.62
Russell Gibson
Thank you, Adam. Thank you to everyone at home. we will see you next week.

12:01.12
Adz
We'll see you in the next one.