New to PSA. Totally lost when it comes to submitting cards

Stacocakes

Hey whats up everyone?
Have been collecting cards for a long time but have never actually got any cards graded myself. From a review of the prices, approximately $15 a card at least, I am guessing that if someone has a baseball set, say 1982 topps, that it is pretty much useless to get the whole set graded right?1)there may not be any particular interest in that set or 2) grading the common cards would make it so that you are actually losing money.

I have the following cards that I was thinking about grading but after looking at the prices I am not sure if its cost effective.

Baseball - 1979 topps, 1982 Fleer and Topps, 1983 Topps, 1984 Topps, 1985 Topps and Fleer
Basketball - 1979 topps

For all of these I have at least one complete set and at least 3 of each major player listed in the SMR online guide. If I was to get the cards all graded, I am guessing that most of the cards would be PSA 9 cards with the odd PSA 10 since I recieved all of them case fresh.

My main question is for these sets would you recommend I just grade the players listed on the SMR online for each set and just leave it at that or should I grade the entire set? Don't know if I would recover the $15 cost per card for grading by getting a PSA 9 of some common nobody in a set.

Does the price per card for grading make it only cost effective to grade a very old set?

Thanks for the help in advance.Hope I posted this on the right board

Boopotts

Hi there,

One very important point to remember is that just about every mainstream post-1974 issue has a ton of NM-MT or better raw cards still out there floating around, and the current market prices reflect the fact that most bulk dealers/submitters can flood PSA with mint cards from these years whenever the mood hits them. As such, you need to have a REALLY good eye for grading, or some high-grade HOFers and star RC's, to make it worth it. If you're looking to get a bunch of Bo Diaz's and Kurt Bevaqua's into PSA 9 holders my advice would be to not even bother, since you can buy this stuff for essentially the price of grading+postage off Ebay.

Submitting cards is really a lot of fun, but you will pay--and pay big time--for that entertainment if you try to flip post-1974 graded commons. It's one of those gigs where 'many are called, but few are chosen'.

Stacocakes

Thanks for the quick reply Boopotts.
I noticed that there is a special now on the site for January that is $5 per card for the years I have in question here so that makes things a bit better.
One of the things that I don't get is that they mention that to use this system the card must be valued at under $100. What happens if you don't know how much the card is worth?For some of these rookies I have if I get a PSA 10 they are valued around $500 or possibly more but if the grade becomes a PSA 9 the value for that same card can be like 30 bucks. With that in mind would you just include a card like this as part of this deal since there is a likelyhood it will be valued at under $100?Thanks

jay0791

Read what boopotts said and do exactly that.
first, do an ebay search of the card you might want to sub..then look at the cost to get it graded.....I bet in most cases you can easily buy it cheaper on ebay. stores like 4_sharp_corners_2 are subbing 1000's each month and getting good grades. Buy from them in bulk to save shipping costs.
If you do want to sub...take your very best 10 cards and do that 1st.....see what grades you actually get. I bet you will be dissapointed.
Or do a special and send in a few more...........
People are collecting whole graded sets. You can see them on the psa registry...and from there you can get the population numbers of just how much is out there. 1970's stuff is not rare.

The only way you will make out grading 70's is to get a few psa 10's. Look and see how many of them are around.

When you do look at you cards..YOU MUST HAVE a lighted magnifier of at least 3x. Many use 10x.....to see the edges and corners better than the naked eye. Remember centering plays a big role...as a oc qualifier lowers the value at least 2 grades.

EarlsWorld

I'm a beginner myself in the whole scene of graded cards. I have found that it is cheaper to buy graded cards than to submit them myself. The only time I would consider it is if I have something of REAL value --- like a HOF 50's or 60's - early 70's card(s) that are in great condition. The monetary trade off just to get your own cards graded sometimes just isn't worth it!

EARL

viking7

Hi, I built the 82 Topps set in mostly psa 9/10 over a number of years. If you want to join the registry, and you have a good eye for grading, sending in your own cards makes sense. You could however keep a nice set in raw form, be happy with that and save on the money. I wouldn't say that buying already graded cards on ebay is the way to go if you go the registry route. I never would have come close to completing my set if I was just buying on ebay. The shipping fees alone are ridiculous, not to mention the time you will spend trying to accumulate over 790 cards. The low pop cards aren't found on ebay often either, at least not the 82's. A good way to get a fast and reasonably priced start to say an 82 set is to buy a bulk amount of 82's in psa 9/10 from another collector, then start building from there. I bought around 25% of the set from two collectors that stopped building the set. Most of the rest came from cases. One thing to note is that 82 topps is not an easy set to build in high grade. It was a costly venture.
Also, the really nice psa 10's, low pop cards etc.... can go for good money, but most of these cards never hit ebay. So if you do a sold search or use a service that tracks solds, you won't see these sales. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

Stacocakes

Thanks for the advice everyone. I think I am just going to take the cards from those sets with the most potential value and send them in to get graded with that $5 per card special for this month.Just going to pick the best conditioned card for each and see what I get.If the results are very good I will send in more.

viking7

There you go. Sounds like a good plan. Good luck with the grades!

Estil

I would personally love to get my set of 1993 Finest jumbo All-Stars all graded, but I'm afraid the cost will be WAY too much.