Opinions on graded cards
omgjedi
Posts: 111 ✭✭✭
I have been going through the archives reading on grading and it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth personally. I know a lot of people on here are all for them, some even only for them, but I just don't get it. I will follow with a comment explaining my views further but just curious as to the community here's opinions on the current state of things with the hobby specifically with how important grading has become over the last decade and more so since the recent pandemic resurgence. It seems to me their are a lot of mixed feelings about various era's of grading, the cost to value balance, and now with the slightly fading but still hot resurgence, the wait times to even get graded. What makes those of you who only want graded cards to need that slab covered cardboard? Does anyone buy raw without the eventual plans to have them graded? Even just your feelings on how much professional grading has changed the market, for better or worse.
Comments
Grading is like marriage. Some are for it, some against it. It has great benefits, but also has it’s draw backs.
Always been a casual hobbyist in card collecting, never was the super collector that had to complete sets or would go buy singles, the fun was always in the chase of ripping packs. The local mall had a pretty cool card shop that had a deal where you would buy a mystery pack of cards for a buck a pack and usually had around 30 commons of varying sports in a paper bag with a chance of a lottery ticket that would win you a card off a prize board in the store, so I took what I could get and would spend all my Holiday/Birthday money on usually cheap packs or I remember Kay B Toys having these repack boxes that would usually have a few packs and loose singles for cheap. As a let's say 6-12 year old from a working class family, I didn't get an allowance, and having 3 siblings money for things like sports cards weren't a high priority purchase. I never had intentions of selling and rarely traded because I just couldn't part with any of my treasure. Usually took good care of them, excluding being a kid and wanting to bring your favorites to school/friends to show off. And yes I would buy the beckett magazines and sit around flipping through to see if I had any cards that may be worth some money, but mostly just because this was around the time of the Gretzky Wagner sale and being a kid you think well maybe one of my cards could be worth that!
As I got a little older though the cards went into storage, I would still on occasion be in line at the store and see a rack pack and snag one up just for that old thrill of the hunt. Then, the common resurgence story for most, mom was moving so the "hey get this crap out of here or it's going to the dump" call came in about 2012. The one card store nearby where she lived at the time said they wouldn't even take them as a donation pointing me to a mountain of boxes they told me would either be recycled or donated to local orphanages and the like. So packed up my boxes and flew them home with me and digging through reignited the flame a little more than the occasional pack or two here and there. One thing that surprised me though was the popularity of graded cards. Growing up I might have seen one here or there, but for the most part collectors sort of knew how to judge condition and that was that. No loupes or magnifying glasses and microscopes. If corners were crisp, image was clear, crease free, and mostly centered you had a good card card. I could grasp this concept easily enough and a naked eye is all that should really matter anyways. Then the hobby boost from the pandemic just made it even more prevalent it seemed.
It seems at this point, even a great looking raw card gets snubbed if it's not graded. I get that in todays unscrupulous world being wary of fakes and not wanting to spend some big money on non authenticated cards, but then I just don't see the point in getting cards graded that aren't the gems of collections. In my opinion this resurgence has sort of killed the fun of the hobby with it becoming almost more of a stock exchange than the childhood memories of just wanting to get a fresh pack for a buck or two and that feeling when you hit a favorite player, star, rookie, or whatever else. Even slightly pre-covid surge I was finding boxes and packs for what seemed a little high at the time but was fair with how much the hobby has expanded into insert, relics, signed cards and every other marketing ploy they can think up next. It is starting to sort of get back down in prices for stuff lately I have noticed, but still ridiculously overpriced in my opinion.
I bring all this up since I have been thinking with the hot prices lately of unloading some cards to move away from stacks of heavy boxes that sit in a dark closet to getting more memorabilia to display. Will always have a love for cards and would obviously keep the ones that had sentimental value. But as someone who never sold a card before, was just surprised at how important those grades are when determining value. To me not worth the headache of sending in cards to get graded and so will most likely hold on to them all as I have been for the last 3 decades and let someone toss out my childhood when my time comes. Thought about doing something like repacks on ebay, I like those almost like a little nod to the childhood memories of those paper bags. You knew it was 99% junk but the shot at getting something like the 1954 Phil Rizzuto I hit off that board for a buck years ago, makes the gambler in those of us that enjoy that aspect of the hobby feel like you just won the lotto. But selling through ebay and having to ship and again the costs of seller's fees and mail getting damaged or lost just seems to have lost the sould that made me fall in love with the hobby.
Love the feel and look of raw but if its worth more than 5k I need to know its legit and graded by PSA.
If you're collecting a set like 1989 Upper Deck, you'll find for the overwhelming majority of cards there is little difference in value between a 7 and a 10, and there is little interest in altering or counterfeiting. Unless you are competing in the set registry, few people will want more than ten or twenty cards graded. Not to mention the weight of 800 slabs. Also, the other 780 cards are unlikely to be worth noticeably more slabbed than raw, and definitely not worth the cost of grading..
In smaller, rarer sets it can make sense to get them all graded. There is just little reason to get $5 cards graded.
Yeh. Again I personally don't see the point in grading to begin with. I could understand, like previously mentioned, wanting a high value card authenticated. And then, being that it's harder to judge in the slab, having a grade along with the auth would make sense. But that's where I find it strange when people get stuff graded that isn't even worth the shipping let alone cost of grading. Maybe I am over (or under) thinking this and it's just people who want to preserve the cards they think will someday be worth more. Or maybe even they just were thinking their card would carry a higher value than it does slabbed, which I have read many posts where that is the case, but at least they had the smarts to ask around before submitting in most cases here.
I also get the set collectors like you mentioned, and have noticed some cool threads on here of a few people trying for full mint sets. If you have the money and time and just want to have your favorite set encased forever, then power to you. But then with the backlog the way it's been from what I understand, isn't getting "junk" cards graded just to see if it comes back graded high sort of a slap to the face to those who have to wait longer for their turn on more deserving cards? Then the storage aspect with the extra bulk of it. Plus, I have noticed a lot of people don't spend the extra few bucks for a pack of slab penny sleeves or whatever your choice of protection is, so then the slabs end up getting scratched or just dirty and the card loses that wow factor anyways. Like trying to look at it through a dirty window.
Just my opinion, not trying to offend anyone. Like I mentioned I haven't ever sold cards, and I get that it's a hot topic recently, and plenty of people out there look at their old junk wax and thinking they are going to strike it rich. Where I feel a good portion of the regular posters on here, while maybe even making a living on selling or reselling, are into this more for the love than the profit. I am more outside looking in at the hobby from a simpler time. Or maybe I have that wrong and it's simpler now with internet and the community that comes along with being connected and the assurance that what you are buying is real and is in a certain condition according to trained professionals. Just looks to me though like the collector community drank the kool-aid and bought into this idea that it is something that is needed rather than wanted.
Short version: up through the '80s many people couldn't grade. OK, that's always and forever, but in the '80s or even earlier grades started to really matter. So dealers would sell a card as EX-MT but, when you went to the same dealer to sell it back, the dealer would call it VG. So, sell at EX-MT retail, buy at VG wholesale. This is the market PSA was created to address. So if you bought a 6 from a dealer, fifteen years later the dealer would at best be able to argue that it was a weak 6. At least when you bought the 6 you'd have a strong TPG standing behind the card as a 6. Believe it or not, that is a ton of value.
I buy raw cards and I do send some stuff in to PSA. I do it for fun and have done it less since prices went up. I do it with more valuable cards to protect them and to create greater liquidity should I ever need to sell them. The very same card will get more money faster when graded than the raw card almost every time.
I think this is a very nice looking card…
…but I think potential buyers feel better about a card holdered, as it gives them greater assurance that it is not trimmed or altered.
Grading standards have tightened over the years and I think that’s a good thing; it creates marketplace value and forces people to evaluate the card themselves, too.
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/987963/1951-wheaties-premium-photos-set-registry#latest
Near perfect front centering on that Mantle. Love it.
@1951WheatiesPremium very nice card, and completely understandable to have that graded. Preserving the history and giving you peace of mind. I see grading more for cards that are auction worthy. I can even understand with ultra modern cards that may not be worth much now, but are most likely going to be desirable enough in the future, and learning from the past, wanting to protect it in as pristine as possible condition. But the modern/ultramodern cards that aren't ever going to be highly sought after like non-rookie/HoF/All-stars just make me scratch my head. Maybe I am missing something these slabbers are onto though.
@daltex I remember seeing some graded cards in the 90's and there were even graders before PSA in the 80's. But probably due to people like me, that didn't see the point in sending off your card to get entombed in a bulky plastic slab, it didn't really catch on until the late 90's with the good old internet and online sales becoming more popular. So of course you would want a way to tell what you are getting. And I remember very well the shady card dealers that would sell something at high market and then try and lowball every person looking to sell. I never dealt with reselling, but could see your point in wanting a baseline evaluation to determine the cards condition, but again if we are talking your commons and highly produced junk wax then it wasn't like you were going to get a big payday anyways most likely.
Then another topic I feel should be brought up is how long will grading be reliable with more and more fake slabbed cards hitting the market lately. Between people being accused of breaking cases and swapping cards out, or swapping tags. I know most of the grading services are taking steps to deter this, like putting the labels in as stickers instead of loose paper and the online database you can check to compare against the serial. but if there is money to be made, people will find a way to counterfeit.
Or a fake, or hiding some deficiency.
When I was a kid I liked the big screw downs that were like 1 inch thick. Then put it in a zipper case.
People spend tons on supplies to take care of their cards. I could buy a really nice freakin card, or car maybe, if I had never bought a 9 pocket or case.
I like the idea of being able to buy a case from PSA with their opinion of the card on it. For a reasonable price and reasonable turn around time. I like having my cards in similar holders.
I can't tell the difference, for certain, between a real Jerry Rice RC and a reprint looking at pictures on eBay. If I were a noob I don't know how I would proceed.
Every time I go to Target I see Cards Against Humanity. I've been playing trading card games since MTG was released. I've never seen anyone play Cards Against Humanity. It's interesting to me though that every time I go in to Target that big black and white display is in there with Cards Against Humanity printed on it a dozen times. Cards Against Humanity has been around for a long time now. I used to just think it was a card game. Now, I think it's a statement.
I still have a few of the old screw down holders, The magnetic ones that replaced them are still cool. I remember getting, I want to say from Kay B Toys, some plastic briefcase type deal that had these graded slab type holders that would lock into the briefcase/carrier thing. Wish I had kept that and used it, but only held about 30-50 cards as i recall and wasn't easy to find the card holders. I will have to look around and see if I can find pictures of those things or maybe someone else remembers them better. I am sure it wasn't a Kay B exclusive deal.
haha yeh, lot of us learned the hard way that what we thought was protecting cards was our worst enemy. Espcially in a large 3 ring binder.
Here one is, a Pro Index System
https://www.ebay.com/itm/324747625404?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=324747625404&targetid=1263433206614&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9032727&poi=&campaignid=14859008593&mkgroupid=130497710760&rlsatarget=pla-1263433206614&abcId=9300678&merchantid=116329677&gclid=CjwKCAjw7cGUBhA9EiwArBAvoqumCTj4VAQxp7b_l5NhZfn64j3aJaGsTT8-FtmJNrAZTrCuHxugJxoC2KcQAvD_BwE
I am pretty sure is the same type of card holder that snapped into the case and then the cards could be flipped through in the case.
On a side note, going back to my comment on getting "graded" cards that are still fake, one of the bottom related products for me on the ebay listing I snagged this photo from, was none other than empty slabs ready to be loaded up. I am sure this is only meant for people wanting to start their own grading companies