Grading Info: Basketball Collection - SCAN HEAVY

ldferg

Some good weekend work ahead. I'm helping a friend pull together some pricing info for his collection for resale. He has some very nice items IMO. Currently, nothing is graded and all appear to be in stellar condition from the pack, to the holder.

I'm a huge grading advocate, but I don't have much experience with auto's and patch cards. For this era cards, do you lean toward BGS or PSA (yes, I know this is a PSA site)? If graded, is the bigger return for grading the auto, the card or both? As I'm researching, are there any baselines for the patches (i.e. if it doesn't grade an 8 or higher, keep it raw for similar return value)?

GOAL: sell as a lot. Determine which items to grade to maximize value. There's over 20k cards with hundreds of autos and patches, refractors along with many base rookies of Curry, Durant, Harden, Prizm rookies of Kawhi and Lilliard.

Here's a snippet of some of the nicer items.

erikthredd

Good Stuff! Love the MJ autos and that Celtics 4 jersey card with Rondo,Pierce,Allen & Garnett is pretty cool too.

Kepper19

that there is some fire...

AANV

Do not sell it all as a lot. You are leaving way too much meat on the bone by not selling the cards individually. I suppose it comes down to how much effort you and your friend are willing to put into this venture, or if he wants the money immediately or can wait 6 - 10 months.

80sRockNut

Good Lord ... what a fantastic collection. I agree with AANV, if you have the time to sell separately, my experience has been not to sell as a lot.

ldferg

Thanks for the input. I'd like to take some time and grade a few items (the jordan autos) to get the best return. I hope to have a better idea after this weekend. It is already taking more time than I had planned and I'm having a difficult time finding comparables on some items (example: There's a BIN/OBO for $30k on the Jordan/LeBron auto...it is graded vs the raw one I have). What type of price would you put on this for grading purposes?

When grading cards with autos, does the higher sale typically occur when grading both the card and the auto?

AANV

@ldferg said:
Thanks for the input. I'd like to take some time and grade a few items (the jordan autos) to get the best return. I hope to have a better idea after this weekend. It is already taking more time than I had planned and I'm having a difficult time finding comparables on some items (example: There's a BIN/OBO for $30k on the Jordan/LeBron auto...it is graded vs the raw one I have). What type of price would you put on this for grading purposes?

When grading cards with autos, does the higher sale typically occur when grading both the card and the auto?

On a card like this, you'd likely want to use dual service card and autograph grade at the Walkthrough level for $500.

blurryface

check each auto. if on card auto, make sure the sig stays on the card. if it's a sticker auto, make sure it stays on the sticker. make sure there's no smudges or ink skips in the flow and the boldness of the ink stays the same throughout.

if so, dual grade.

example: the rodman & durant williams dual auto, just card grade those.

erikthredd

@ldferg said:
Thanks for the input. I'd like to take some time and grade a few items (the jordan autos) to get the best return. I hope to have a better idea after this weekend. It is already taking more time than I had planned and I'm having a difficult time finding comparables on some items (example: There's a BIN/OBO for $30k on the Jordan/LeBron auto...it is graded vs the raw one I have). What type of price would you put on this for grading purposes?

When grading cards with autos, does the higher sale typically occur when grading both the card and the auto?

Are you a member over on the Blowout forum? You might get a better idea on pricing some of the rarer cards by asking in their basketball section.

ldferg

@erikthredd said:

@ldferg said:
Thanks for the input. I'd like to take some time and grade a few items (the jordan autos) to get the best return. I hope to have a better idea after this weekend. It is already taking more time than I had planned and I'm having a difficult time finding comparables on some items (example: There's a BIN/OBO for $30k on the Jordan/LeBron auto...it is graded vs the raw one I have). What type of price would you put on this for grading purposes?

When grading cards with autos, does the higher sale typically occur when grading both the card and the auto?

Are you a member over on the Blowout forum? You might get a better idea on pricing some of the rarer cards by asking in their basketball section.

I was years ago. I'll see if my account is still valid and give it a whirl.

slum22

No way you should sell this as a lot. You should definitely piece out the larger value cards. The MJ/Lebron Dual Auto and the MJ Exquisite Auto should garner great money. The collector who is buying those cards is probably not going to be the same buyer of the Larry Bird Brilliance Auto. At least if your goal is to maximize value. As Erik mentioned, the basketball forum on Blowout cards is quite active as is the B/S/T section there. I sell quite a bit of modern cards on there. Chances are you and your friend could sell quite a bit of the collection there. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

ldferg

@slum22 said:
No way you should sell this as a lot. You should definitely piece out the larger value cards. The MJ/Lebron Dual Auto and the MJ Exquisite Auto should garner great money. The collector who is buying those cards is probably not going to be the same buyer of the Larry Bird Brilliance Auto. At least if your goal is to maximize value. As Erik mentioned, the basketball forum on Blowout cards is quite active as is the B/S/T section there. I sell quite a bit of modern cards on there. Chances are you and your friend could sell quite a bit of the collection there. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Thanks Steve. I'm going to cross post this in BO. I've been able to pull quite a bit of comparables this weekend. The Jordan autos have me stumped and they appear to be the most valuable. There are so many nice cards in this lot with grading potential vs the raw prices realized (Exquisite samples, Durant rookies, LeBron rookies, etc...). Now does look like the time to sell basketball.

blurryface

honestly the best thing to do is just bite the bullet and grade any card worth $100+. that pretty much makes it all of them, but there are a ton of modern fakes in basketball. much more than any other sport. collectors realize this and many of them wouldn't touch raw cards, particularly from this era, period.

RustyShakleford

Cool collection for sure! Interested in what you plan to do with it all. I've always been a Jordan/Shaq/Kobe/Rose fan for life. Good luck with your sorting!

uncbuddha

I’m assuming your friend purchased all of these and not many of them were pack pulls (unless he ripped a ton of stuff or got insanely lucky). If he purchased them hopefully it was several years ago so he can make some good money.

ldferg

@uncbuddha said:
I’m assuming your friend purchased all of these and not many of them were pack pulls (unless he ripped a ton of stuff or got insanely lucky). If he purchased them hopefully it was several years ago so he can make some good m

According to him, aside from a handful of the pre2k Jordans (not shown), all cards were pack pulled by he and his sons. I have no reason to doubt him as there are thousands of cards in this lot with many many no-name autos and patches out the wazzoo. He has a tremendous story with his sons and the Orlando Magic and have a close relationship to Adonal Foyle and JJ Reddick. This sparked the basketball card collection.

uncbuddha

Wow, he was either really lucky or bought a lot of cards. The Jordan/LeBron dual auto was a nice pull. It would be interesting to see the comparison if he added up what he spent on all the packs and compared to what it would have cost to purchase those cards individually at the time. I hope he buys a nice boat. . . . Or one of JJ’s watches.

Ahmanfan

I’d like to make an offer on the Tiger auto. Will send a PM.

halosfan

Some great cards there!!!

ldferg

@uncbuddha said:
Wow, he was either really lucky or bought a lot of cards. The Jordan/LeBron dual auto was a nice pull. It would be interesting to see the comparison if he added up what he spent on all the packs and compared to what it would have cost to purchase those cards individually at the time. I hope he buys a nice boat. . . . Or one of JJ’s watches.

Haha, it's funny you mention the 'boat' scenario. He actually purchased a Porsche and this triggered a potential "sell the collection" to help offset the cost. He indicated he has spent much more then he can recoupe.

I've not had much input on the BO forum and have only used eBay as a comparable pricing metric to help determine current ungraded value.

I was using the auction below as an ungraded comparable to the Jordan/Lebron? I'm in no way affiliated with this seller/auction...it is for comparison only. Thoughts?

https://ebay.com/itm/2005-06-UD-ULTIMATE-COL-LEBRON-JAMES-MICHAEL-JORDAN-DUAL-AUTO-AUTOGRAPH-25-25-/313213237132?hash=item48ecf6b78c%3Ag%3AmeMAAOSwO5lfWY2E&nma=true&si=IPH0dyuXSHo6TfEXstLlohZQYo4%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Ahmanfan

Nice card, not sure why it wouldn't fit in the same ballpark.

ldferg

I've had several requests about the golf cards. In addition to the Woods auto, here are the scans of all golf cards in the collection. I'm continuing to parse thru ebay sales putting a current value on the collection.