Lighter Topic: When card grading invades your daily life

PlayBall · February 10, 2004 2:53AM

Last night in my college library I decided I needed a soda from the vending machine. During this seemingly routine task, I had an experience that I can only look back upon and shake my head. Here's how it goes.....

While standing in front of the machine, I reached for my wallet (wax pack) to pull out two $1 bills (cards). I had about 8-9 cards in my wax pack, and I began thumbing through them to find two that would be accepted by this machine (grader). It's one of those graders that only accepts cards with no dinged corners, wrinkles, or fold marks (PSA 8's). I found 3 that I thought were submittable.

I submit the first one...ACCEPTED! The second one goes in...SPIT BACK AT ME! What?! No way, it's definitely 8 quality. So I resubmit it...SPIT BACK AGAIN! Alright, at least the grader is consistent. Submit the third one...ACCEPTED! Woohoo, my submission was successful, and I can now enjoy my carbonated beverage (cards added to registry set/money realize on E-Bay).

Conclusion: The idea of card grading has become so pervasive in my life, that the simple task of buying a soda has become an emotional investment.

Anyone else out there have experiences where a routine task was invaded by an aspect of the card grading industry?

onegaucho · February 10, 2004 3:06AM

Not as bad, but the other day, I bought some plastic sheets from Costco to store some magazine articles I save from Golf Digest.

As I was putting the pages into the sheets, I noticed that it felt like putting a card into a protective sleeve - something I did last night for another set registry submission. I was trying to be careful in putting the magazine pages into the sheets - until I realized that it didn't really matter if they got 'bent' or not!

yawie99 · February 10, 2004 3:08AM

Yup. Back before I had my teaching certificate, I worked as a teachers' aide. One of the other aides and I would sometimes assign PSA grades to the kids. I think we only had one qualifier: ST, for those kids with poor personal hygiene.

coachh · February 10, 2004 3:59AM

Come on Yawie. I know that a lot of my students would get an OC qualifer. A few are way OC.

thegemmintman · February 10, 2004 4:02AM

Playball - great post! Just remember one thing...

Life is like a box of submissions. You never know what you're gonna git.

yawie99 · February 10, 2004 6:11AM

Yeah, the OC population is my specialty now - heck I've got an MC who's soon likely to wind up in a day treatment facility at the very least - but at the time I guess we were mainly working with NQ invoices.

ydsotter · February 10, 2004 6:21AM

In the past I have had a few kids with evidence of trimming or that turened out to be reprints... but they are now PRO 9's or BVG 9's and seemingly doing fine...
Now, I have a few psa 6 o/c's 1/1's ... but they are truly the highest graded examples from their own issue... so they are somewhat priceless and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Cubfan · February 10, 2004 6:28AM

This is pathetic, but Ive received business cards from people with dinged corners and first thought...Why didnt he/she give me a mint card?

joedel · February 10, 2004 6:48AM

When I use the ATM and get the fresh bills, I'll check the centering and wonder why our modern technology can not cut perfectly centered $20 bills.

PlayBall · February 10, 2004 6:52AM

<< <i>When I use the ATM and get the fresh bills, I'll check the centering and wonder why our modern technology can not cut perfectly centered $20 bills. >>

I'm with ya'. I recently bought a roll of stamps where everyone was off-center L/R.

toppsgun · February 10, 2004 9:53AM

I like my cards just like I like my women:

a little off-centered is OK, but well-worn and handled is not OK.

AlanAllen · February 10, 2004 10:09AM

I like my cards just like I like my women:

Oversized.

jaxxr · February 10, 2004 10:09AM

My wife, who is somewhat "forced" into card collecting and grading with fairly good cooperation, while I was going over some slabbed cards, once commented......

"Well at least I hope you consider Pookie (Daughter's nick-name) and I are a ten !!"

I brightly replied, yeah, sure, two fives.

Tipem · February 10, 2004 10:18AM

You guys are definately a sick bunch and all of you should go out and buy a card or two to treat your addictions!!!! Also,Have a

or

Vic

thegemmintman · February 10, 2004 10:42AM

I like my cards just like I like my women:

Pack Fresh

GoSoxBoSox · February 10, 2004 10:45AM

I like my cards just like I like my women:

Trimmed.

My collection sucks but my teeth are clean

Fuzz · February 10, 2004 10:45AM

I also collect coins, paper money, casino tokens and casino chips as well as cards.
I always take a few seconds to look at change and winnings whenever they are handed to me. I have found that many people take it personally as if you are counting and re-counting to make sure they got it right. In fact, I am inspecting dates, serial numbers, signatures, commerative designs or the like but they can get really snotty really fast.
At least you had the pleasure of the machine not giving you the hateful comment.
Fuzz

jerster · February 10, 2004 11:32AM

GoSox-
Props to you!

scottsusor · February 10, 2004 11:33AM

I have this friend, er uh, acquaintance, that I have thought about having slabbed in plastic.

Scott

shouldabeena10 · February 11, 2004 1:21AM

- No longer popping the bubbles on the bubble wrap.

- getting excited when the mailman comes.

- knowing the exact weight and postage needed on any package... just by the feel of it.

- putting off a utility bill for a week ... based on this months grading submission needs.

- explaining to house guests, when they ask ... "what's inside all of those boxes?"

- running into a fellow collector at the mall ... who yells out my name; "Hey Shouldabeena"

- actually slowing down the car as you drive past certain yardsales

- having to explain to a 5 year old why "that gum is no good."

- spending hours at a time watching the static electricity reaction of ordinary packing peanuts jumping back out of the trash can.

Virtualizard · February 11, 2004 9:19AM

There's a show on FOX called "The O.C." Can't bring myself to watch it, for obvious reasons!

At least it's not called "The M.C." or worse "The EVID TRIM"!

Actually, I probably would watch "The EVID TRIM". Might be interesting.

JEB.

NickM · February 11, 2004 9:27AM

There are 2 shows about card doctors - Nip/Tuck, and Extreme Makeover.

Nick

jimtb · February 11, 2004 11:03AM

ydsotter - your post made me laugh out loud!

ZodiacMindwarp · February 23, 2004 2:14AM

I just received two copies of the same fax here at work. I took a look at both of them, decided which one looked better and then shredded the other. They were both legible and it wouldn't have made a difference which one I used.

Then I remembered this thread.

ejguru · February 23, 2004 4:01AM

"There's somethign wrong with us, something SERIOUSLY wrong with us..."

--Bill Murray
Stripes

KING KELLOGG · February 23, 2004 11:32AM

Great post...

(I'm with GoSox on the "trimmed" issue...)

Larry

Lighter Topic: When card grading invades your daily life

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