PSA basics - grades shown online, best membership level, what price card justifies submission

jefferyadams

I have been interested in baseball cards and sports memorabilia for 30 years. In late 1980's i bought a number of collections that allowed me to trade for some vintage cards, complete a few sets, etc. I didn't focus on condition, because I didn't know any better and just enjoyed the cards. Most of my collection is 1950-1990 and i don't intend to sell much, but would like to start grading to prepare to sell in 10-15 years or pass on to my children.

Just entered my first submission on cards i have had in my collection. Some questions:

• My order is in grading process. Will the grades be posted online before the cards are returned?
• My initial membership was for 15 vouchers which allows for cards under $499 value. in future, what is best membership level and why?
• Trying to figure out what value the card must hold to justify grading if it isn't going to be a high grade. For example, with postage and insurance cost and membership it seems like you would have a minimum of $10 per card if not closer to $15-20. I have been looking for a 1963 Fleer Ron Santo and cards in Ex condition have been going from 8-12 on ebay or at shows. However a psa 5 is valued at $14. It seems like the seller of a card in Ex condition or likely psa 5 would be better off listing raw. I know some just grade for preservation of card and for enjoyment which i appreciate. I have a number of Jerry Rice rookies that i doubt are 9 or 10's. If it costs me $10 to grade am i better of listing raw.

Thanks for any insight.

Dpeck100

Yes

I have been known to buy multiple platinum memberships in a single year to sub at that level of price and speed. If you plan to submit some cards each year this is definitely the way to go.

Many people submit cards for different reasons. I have sent in a few for sentimental value and in that case a break even point is irrelevant but if you are looking for economic benefit you naturally want the card once graded to sell for the fees plus a premium above what it would sell for raw. This is where if you have a card that is a slider where it could be a 5 or a 6 or 7 or 8 you will have to make the tough decision to remove it from your grading stack.

There are lots of people who collect sets and so one strategy that many use is to look for cards from the set that might grade high and if so really jack up the value. An example would be just last week some commons from the 1985 Topps WWF set went for around $90. These cards raw would be lucky to sell for $2. Generally speaking these aren't cards you first think of to get graded but there is a market and so you might want to look through your sets and see if there are any super high grade bumms and check and see if that set is active on the registry or any have low population totals. Larry Bird is far from a bumm but his 1986 Panini Supersport sticker isn't exactly at the top of all collectors want lists and I nailed a 10 on one of these years ago after opening a box. I was able to sell it directly to a guy with a monster registry set and pay for a 1/3 of the box that I pulled two PSA 9 Mike Tyson's out of. Earlier this year I did something similar where I sold a PSA 10 1985 Topps Roddy Piper and once again was able to pay for nearly a 1/3 of the box and grading fees for the project. Piper raw is a few dollars so there are many cards where nailing a top graded can increase the value 100 fold.

I just sold a card last week for $140 raw. It was extremely off centered top to bottom. I don't believe this card would have sold for as much graded and therefore didn't spend the money to have PSA asses it but had this same card had better centering it would be making a trip to CA. If you are concerned about rate of return on your grading venture you definitely want to look at completed sales on EBAY and see if grading the card is even worth it.

Good luck on your sub.

tonylags

Dpeck, good info, this is something I struggle with too; at what value is it worth grading? How do I know which sets are very active on the registry? With pSA's turnaround time, it makes it difficult at best to capitalize on momentum. I am thinking mostly vintage major hof's, although do you think even low grade ones are worth grading? Do you have any specific guidelines you look for in determining what to grade?

JoeBanzai

@jefferyadams said:
I have been interested in baseball cards and sports memorabilia for 30 years. In late 1980's i bought a number of collections that allowed me to trade for some vintage cards, complete a few sets, etc. I didn't focus on condition, because I didn't know any better and just enjoyed the cards. Most of my collection is 1950-1990 and i don't intend to sell much, but would like to start grading to prepare to sell in 10-15 years or pass on to my children.

Just entered my first submission on cards i have had in my collection. Some questions:

• My order is in grading process. Will the grades be posted online before the cards are returned?

Yes.

• My initial membership was for 15 vouchers which allows for cards under $499 value. in future, what is best membership level and why?

Platinum membership is the best, 15 vouchers for $249.00=$16.60 per card. Of course it depends on if you are going to submit a lot of cards worth much more than $499.00.

• Trying to figure out what value the card must hold to justify grading if it isn't going to be a high grade. For example, with postage and insurance cost and membership it seems like you would have a minimum of $10 per card if not closer to $15-20. I have been looking for a 1963 Fleer Ron Santo and cards in Ex condition have been going from 8-12 on ebay or at shows. However a psa 5 is valued at $14. It seems like the seller of a card in Ex condition or likely psa 5 would be better off listing raw. I know some just grade for preservation of card and for enjoyment which i appreciate. I have a number of Jerry Rice rookies that i doubt are 9 or 10's. If it costs me $10 to grade am i better of listing raw.

The issue with listing raw is, will they sell at all? I am in the process of selling part of my collection and am facing the same questions. Generally speaking, just looking at the numbers, it's silly to grade your Ron Santo card if it's only worth $15.00, you will break even at best. The other side of that coin is will it sell at all raw? Of course once you decide to grade a card, if it sells for under $10.00 you are losing money, a raw card that goes for $2.00 is pure profit. Since you didn't seem to purchase the cards for resale, I am not considering the original "investment".

I am only submitting cards that have a history of selling for $20.00 at the lowest. If you put together a bulk submission of 100 cards (cards under $100.00 value), the grading cost is $8.00 per card, my goal is to find 100 cards worth $20.00 or above and hope for the best. I'm subbing cards from about 1990 and figuring if they don't get 10's, I'm in trouble. I kept my cards in immaculate condition, but a lot of them came out of the packs and were not 10's.

Thanks for any insight.

The only thing I see you haven't mentioned is the fact that a graded card has been authenticated. I know there's a lot of people screaming and whining about a few cards that were altered and still got graded. There's no denying it happens.

The VAST MAJORITY of collectors trust PSA over the sellers opinion and themselves.

Graded cards might also be a little easier to deal with as you won't get many (if any) buyers who dispute the condition of your cards, you also shouldn't run into any problems with people switching cards. These things don't happen often. It really boils down to how bad do you want to sell the cards, how much are you "worried" about maximizing your profit, and how easy do you want it to be?

Without more information from you, it's going to be impossible to be very specific. You said you "didn't focus on condition", how worn are the cards and how well centered?

What cards do you want to sell? What condition are they in?_ Need years and players._ How many do you want to sell and how many do you want to keep for 10-15 years (and then sell?) and how many do you want to leave to your children?

It might be smarter to sell all the cards and just leave them the cash.

Higher grade (PSA & and above) cards from the 1960's can be worth nice $. 1970's the prices generally drop and not much is worth anything below an 8. 1980's gets worse (with a few exceptions) this is when the "Tiffany" cards start, some regular issue cards are now worthless unless a 9 or 10, and even then. 1990's on is a hot mess, a few cards in PSA 10 and a couple of error cards are money makers, but now it almost always is some kind of limited issue card.

Hope that helps.

Dpeck100

@tonylags said:
Dpeck, good info, this is something I struggle with too; at what value is it worth grading? How do I know which sets are very active on the registry? With pSA's turnaround time, it makes it difficult at best to capitalize on momentum. I am thinking mostly vintage major hof's, although do you think even low grade ones are worth grading? Do you have any specific guidelines you look for in determining what to grade?

An easy way to see what is heavily collected is to look through PWCC or Probstein's auctions. Any sets you see where non mega star cards bring what appear to be good prices are generally going to be active on the registry.

There are a lot of player collectors too and so just because a card isn't their rookie doesn't mean it can't have big value. I generally do a Google search for the name with PSA registry behind it and it goes right to the set.

I also do a search from time to time on EBAY under completed listings with just PSA in the search and start from highest to lowest. You will see cards that stick out and then you can go to the PSA set registry and search for that set and see if there is some action.

Many sets where there is a landmark rookie are highly collected so that is an easy one.

In terms of vintage commons I am not an expert there but I would say that low grade ones are probably not going to give you a lot of bang for your buck.

I generally collect wrestling cards but the philosophy is the same. You want to submit cards that you think you have a shot to boost the value in most cases. I am looking to double my investment or more when I do a sub. I am going to send in some cards soon and it will cost a little over $1,100. I have a very good chance of increasing their value by this amount or hopefully more. We shall see.

Most wrestling cards are fairly cheap and so for some sets I am hoping for at least an 8 but for others a 9 or 10. I look at the value potential and go from there. If the additional capital invested in the card has a shot to take it higher by that amount and then some I will consider submitting. I collect some lower value sets too and so I don't mind losing a couple bucks but I won't take a total bath on any card from them on purpose. Every once and awhile you miss something like a wrinkle or softer corner that doesn't appear damaged but I try and keep that to a minimum.

There are also cards that are very condition sensitive with very few in high grade so those you can get 5's, 6's, or 7's and still do okay. Just do some research and you will find it really isn't very complicated.