Which Grading Service Best Fits Our Needs?

llafoe

My son just started collecting pre-1975 Dinosaur/Prehistoric Animals cards. We'd like to have them encapsulated and here is a list of our needs:

Accurate/Consistent Grading
Durable Holder

We don't care about any registry/resale value, etc... all we care about is an honest opinion in long-term holder (lots of handling/storage).

Which Grading Service Best Fits Our Needs?

dbj77

First I would check out all the major grading companies.......PSA, SGC, GAI, Beckett........and see which holder looks good to you aesthetically speaking. They all are pretty secure and all pretty durable since they are all made of similar plastic. Check out the prices it would cost for each company to submit the cards you want encapsulated. Some charge a fee in order to submit (psa comes to mind) whereas others don't, just the fee to holder and grade the cards.

llafoe

I guess there are two more needs: Consistancy of packaging and longevity of the Grading Service.

llafoe

Opps... one more: Flexibility of the holder, e.g., small/medium/large cards fitting properly in the holder (i.e., not in a mylar bag loosely fitted inside the holder).

carew4me

You seem to know alot about the variences of holders to be asking.

If you know about mylar bags in holders then you must have seen a fair number of holders.

You are asking the question on a PSA board. While there are many objective folks here, you could
make the grand assumption that most of us have made a selection in terms of the holders we like.

Go with PSA.

llafoe

I've owned SGC & PSA... lots more PSA than SGC. However, I was collecting for resale. not for longevity. I've never submitted cards for grading before and I've never owned graded non-sports cards (all my cards have been the standard sized cards, except for the 1970 Kelloggs... i.e., mylar). I've never owned GAI or Beckett. I posted here because of the posts I've read in the past... less biased than I would expect on other message boards. I'm just looking for direction from those with more experience than I have.

1420sports

How bout scanning one in? I have never heard of those type cards. All of us probably had the actual dinosaurs/animals as kids, I would like to see the card. Thanks in advance.

Vargha

Pre-Jurassic, I'd use SGC. After that, I'd use PSA.

srs1a

I'd agree with the advice that dbj77 gave you -- PSA, SGC or GAI would all be pretty safe bets. I don't have any experience with Becketts...and haven't seen any "odd ball" issues in their holders, so you might want to check and see if they would grade these cards.

To be honest, I don't know exactly how each of these grading services handles off sizes. Certainly, they all have standard holders / inserts to cover the common sizes...and I've seen mylar inserts used by PSA for 'tweeners,and BVG/BGS uses the mylar baggies...but don't kinow what GAI or SGC do for these.

I'd also like to see a scan of some of these cards!

rjeff34

P S A
P S A
P S A

PSA PSA PSA !!!

PSA PSA PSA !!!

PSA PSA PSA !!!

P S A
P S A
P S A

llafoe

This is better than any scan I could provide:

The Dinosaur Fan

Vargha

This one is for you Kellogg's kollectors.



(oops . . . typo)