To grade or not to grade?
Jkbeyer79
Posts: 4 ✭
Hello Folks
First off, I’m totally new to the PSA grading of sports cards and I’m here for all the info I can get and it seems I have came to the right place. What’s you guys take on, At what point is grading not worth it? As in, condition of cards? I have lots of HOF’s and rookies from 60’s thru early 90’s. I have quite a bit of cards and would like to down size some. Graded cards seems to be what everyone’s after and I’m just uncertain, whether or not it’s worth it for me to spend $20 a grade and have it come back a low grade, placing it in a $7-$13 price range. Its obvious that mint 10 is worth it but I’m guessing the majority of mine are a 5, at best. One that comes to mind is a 1975 Topps #5 Nolan Ryan ‘74 highlights, MN10 is around 2k but mine is probably a 4 or 5 and would be worth about $14 lol. I’m just looking for input from you guys that know more about it than I do. Thanks in advance!
Comments
Use bulk submissions. Much cheaper that way.
It’s 100% your choice. Honestly it works both ways, some guys recommend getting cards graded while others like them raw. For higher dollar cards it’s my personal opinion but I think they should always be slabbed. #1 rule is to have fun and do what you like and can afford.
If there are some pre- 1980 in your collection that you believe would likely grade 8 or above, I'd put those in a bulk submission and get them graded. This would especially be true for popular players or cards from the early 70's and 1960's. I think you would find that pre- 1980 cards in condition less than 8 are plentiful and not in high demand(some cards and years are an exception, obviously). Anything after 1980 that is not going to grade 9 or better, its a waste of money and time. This becomes more true the further you move into the late 80's and 1990's. Again, there are some specific cards that may be limited in certain grades and could fetch a high price if the right conditions are present; but as a rule, you're probably not going to come out in the positive by having late 80's/early 90's cards graded to re-sell.
I actively collect Kirby Puckett. I have collections of Michael Jordan, Emmitt Smith, Roberto Clemente, Dwight Gooden, Tom Seaver, Errict Rhett and Evan Longoria.
Welcome to CU family
Thanks for the responses guys. I appreciate them all! My quest is to downsize and not get rich or make a living lol. I have early to late 50’s cards as well but they’re just destroyed beyond disgust. Holes punched in them and folded 30 times to the size of a dime probably! Most cards are nicely centered, probably corner wear and loss are the biggest issues. So I believe I got the gest of it. I’ll go through and pick out the ones I believe to have the best chance and hope for the best.
Are there any absolute “do not send in, if.....”? Say a corner or 2 are missing or a cigarette burn on the back lol. I have a 1916 M101-4 #169 Charles Stengel that has a real bad corner and the cigarette hot spot on the back. It’s a super cool card IMO and I’d like to have it look at but not sore if they accept them like that.
Pictures, pictures, pictures. This group is very good about opinions, however pictures provide a better idea
I agree with dan89. Pick out some and post pictures (front and back) and a lot of people will jump in and tell you their opinion on grades. That'll also help you get a better understanding of what a certain grade would look like when evaluating the rest of your collection.
Outstanding idea. I’ll get some gathered up and posted. Thanks guys
There are 2 main reasons to grade:
You just like it. If so, do what you want - no one can tell you how to collect.
Resale. For this, the calculation is: (value of graded item) - (cost to grade) vs. (cost of item raw). If the left side of the equation is greater than the right, grade. If not, don't.
To fill in the blanks of the equation:
a) check PSA APR and eBay complete sales to determine values of the cards in various grade
b) pre-grade the cards yourself to come up with a reasonable expectation for results
c) explore various grading options to determine what will be lowest cost. As others mentioned, you should probably go with Bulk ($8 per), and not regular ($20 per) to preserve the margin on lower valued items.
d) determine the sales value of raw cards using eBay completed sales
You probably want to have a decent margin to survive the shipping costs and delays of grading, along with the risk that you'll overgrade when pre-grading (much more likely than undergrading).
From your description, I would not grade them.
Buy a small 10x lens/magnifier and look at cards under good lighting. Very hard to see corner/edges and determine whether to grade without. I have been pretty accurate since I started doing this and it saves money. Good luck.
If you have any cards that are at least worth the grading fee or above based on your assessment of "most of the grades are 5", I would do some of those under a bulk submission. For one, you would have results to analyze your accuracy on grading. Learning more about condition never hurts, even if you don't grade the rest, you can learn to accurately describe the remaining ungraded cards. Key rookies, top-tier Hall of Famers (Mantle, Mays, Aaron) can usually be graded, with a few exceptions. Based on the span of years you mentioned 60's through 90's, you can probably skip anything from 80's-90's, there are some exceptions of course. 60's and 70's is where I would begin to focus. If you have cards like :1960 Yaz, 1961 Mantle, Aaron, Clemente, 1963 Pete Rose, 1967 Carew or Seaver, 1971 Munson, etc. those are some examples where mid to low condition would still be okay to grade.