The Risk of Half-Grades: the sell factor

Buccaneer

(I know it's yet another thread...)

After sleeping on it (after reading a comment that there is no risk), I believe that the risk of half-grades will show up in selling. All cards that are the whole grade will be tagged as "low-end" and thus, contrary to PSA's claim, they will sell for less than they currently do. The half-grade bump will generally sell for more than the whole grade but not at the half-way point, if you are willing to spend more money to get them "review" the card.

sagard

Yep. Cards that are straight for the grade are going to take additional beatings.

Wish I hadn't sold this for 7 money.

ledsters

Just Buy 9s and 10s if your worried about the money factor. There are no treener grades between those grades.

WinPitcher

Each card will still stand on its own merits. All cards have some flaws. I am certain that we will see some whole grade cards better then the .5 counterpart. As it is now, we see some 7's that look nicer then some 8's and some 8's that look nicer then some 9's. Technical grading does that. What we ll need to do is allow the market to work. It always does.

If I had 10 PSA cards of Mickey Mantle. All of the same yr and grade I could still find one that would be IMO the best and one that would be the worst, with the other 8 filling in the other spots! Rarely are 2 cards the same.

The market will tell us what the spread will be between grades.

It will also tell us what the spread will be between 2 identically graded cards too. The one that has the nicer 'eye appeal' will out sell it's counterpart most of the time.

I have no idea how the market will react to this and I doubt anyone else does too.

Steve

Morgoth

It will be very interesting to see how the hobby reacts to 1/2 grades. I know alot of dealers were pushing the idea so it might help them. I can't help to think it will be big yawn for a majority of the cards out there. If your already having trouble moving PSA 8 commons I doubt the half grade is going to help much.

Steve's example is a good one and one you can put to the test if you visit 707's table at a show. However, I would say that if you put 5 of the same cards all with the same grade on a table I bet it would be hard to get a consensus from a majority of collectors which card is the "best". I might be a corners guy, another might like gloss and color and another might like centering.

daywalker2029

its going to be horrid trying to buy graded cards at any major shows for a long time b/c ALL the dealers are going to be saying that their straight 7 should be a 7.5 and such

PSARich

Gosh there are a lot of threads going on regarding a singular topic. Since I collect mostly PSA 9s, I'm thinking the impact for buying and selling won't be much, but it will be interesting to see where the values of 8.5s land and if it does impact the value of a 9. I believe this will mostly impact vintage cards and HOF cards. I do have quite a few 8s in vintage baseball that I will evaluate and perhaps send some in if I think they might be 8.5s, but probabl;y not too many commons, if any. I won't consider this for baseball from say... 1968 and up. For example, you can now but hundreds of 1975 baseball commons in PSA 9 for $10-$12 each and PSA 8s for easily under $5. Why would I submit an 8 to get an 8.5? The cost of the regrade does not increase the value accordingly. However, I can see that when you look at the value of a PSA 8 1956 Mantle compared to a PSA 9, the difference is big time, so I might just submit my BGS 8.5 (formerly a SGC 92) 1956 Mantle to hopefully have it in a PSA 8.5 holder.

We all have "high end" PSA 7s or 8s that we believe are close to the higher grade. This gives you a chance to get the 7.5 or the 8.5 if it is important to you and worth the cost. To me, it might be important for a few of them but in most cases not. I am foremost a collector, not a seller. I won't even buy a PSA 9 if I don't like the centering or the print dots or the color or the edges. So if I like the looks of a PSA 8.5 better than a PSA 9, I might just buy it.

By the way, I have been at several meetings/luncheons at various Nationals where Mr. Orlando was questioned about half-grades. I don't ever recall him saying it won't happen as some have implied. I do recall him saying that it has always been a topic that they evaluate and get lots of feedback on, but at that given time, no they weren't going to half grades. It appears PSA has determined that the time for half-grades is now. As for me, I won't lose any sleep over it.

WinPitcher

What we will see is this:

Lets say a card goes for 100 in PSA 8 and 400 in PSA 9


Bet your butt that sellers/dealers will be trying to push the .5 card for double the price of the straight card. I do not see the straight card going down in value I see it staying the same. Of course I am talking about properly graded cards with decent centering.


Dogs for the grade will always command less.


Many seem to think that the straight 8 will go down and the .5 will replace the 8 in value. Do you really think dealers would allow that to happen??



Steve

edited typos

rube26105

<Just Buy 9s and 10s if your worried about the money factor. There are no treewer grades between those grades.>

only one problem with that for me,there ar 7 10's in 50 bowman fb and not a whole lot of 9's,mostly 8's

WinPitcher

Rube choose the nicest 8's you can find, regardless of the cert.





as for the Banks pictured above, to me that is not a 7.5. It does have nice bottom color and corners, the centering knocks it back down to the 7 IMO.

Steve