Where do You Draw the Line?

markj111

I have complete baseball sets from 59 forward, except for 62. Over the years I have been attempting to upgrade them to PSA 8 through 71. I am complete in one year (61) extremely close in others (59, 60, 64, 65, 66, 67, and 71) and not very close in some (63, 68, 69, and 70).

I eventually realized that I will never complete the project, as grading commons in 68-70 is throwing money away. I then decided that there are other cards I am just not willing to spend the money for. I will not pay $800-900 for a 1971 Claude Raymond. I then started thinking about other cards. Do I want to spend $300 on a 71 Phil Regan? What about $300 for a 64 Curt Flood? How much should I pay for a 65 Charlie Smith (one of two cards below PSA 8 in my set)?

What do other set builders think? Are you willing to live with certain cards (especially non-HOFers) in a lower grade than the rest of the set-or does it drive you crazy?

cards651

There have been articles in SMR recently on two of the most prolific set-builders out there, Steve Soloway and Donald Spence. Both of these collectors really hit on the theme of completing the set as opposed to focusing on the grade of the card. Obviously, these guys have the means to build nicer sets than others but the general theme should hold. I have a few complete sets where I have filled the difficult cards with lower grade examples and I am generally very happy with those sets.

mcadams

I tend to agree. On entire sets, I would not worry too much if some unimportant cards in the set were graded below 8. Focus on the cards in the set that really matter to you b/c those are the ones you'll pull out and look at most often.

I tend to get more picky on grades in my player registry sets, where I wouldn't want anything below 6 on some vintage guys, or below 9 on some modern players.

54topps

I would be perfectly happy getting a PSA 7 of a common and saving hundreds of dollars. completing a set is a fantastic accomplishment. To have some scattered 7's or even 6's theres no shame in that at all.

cpamike

<< <i>I would be perfectly happy getting a PSA 7 of a common and saving hundreds of dollars. completing a set is a fantastic accomplishment. To have some scattered 7's or even 6's theres no shame in that at all. >>



Completely agree. PSA 7 is just fine to complete your sets. There are a lot of PSA 7s that look better than PSA 8s out there and they don't take a bite out of your wallet. I have a wife that does that.

PowderedH2O

This was just like reading my mind. I sat down about a week ago and calculated how much (in today's dollars according to VCP) it would cost me to go after the sets I wanted in the grades I was currently pursuing. I determined that if I didn't eat or have a house payment, I could do it. So, then I lowered the standards just a little to 6's and 7's on vintage and suddenly, I can eat and have a place to live! And a lot of them look great. A lot of low pop vintage 8's that run $300-$1000 are frequently under $50 for a 7. In these cases, the 7 just seems like a smarter move for my budget.

KeepItWarm

The 'Raw Gods' are calling you.



<< <i>Come back.....come back.... >>

CrazyMind2017

The only reason to be a stickler for having every card in at least a minimum arbitrary grade is if you are actively competing on the registry, which in my humble opinion is completely stupid. It's the card collecting version of war, where the only reasons for fighting are either two sociopathic politicians arguing over who has the bigger d*ck, or two rival groups claiming, "My god is better than your god."

If you collect because you enjoy having the cards, don't be afraid to buy lower grade examples. Even a nicely centered 5 in many cases is better than some higher graded cards that are poor examples for their respective grades.

itzagoner

you could have yourself a '71 Claude Raymond PSA 7 for a micro-fraction of what folks pay for PSA 8s and the only difference would be more border on one side of the card than the other, so essentially you could be paying 100's of times the amount for a card which happened to have been cut better that day......if ya wanna.

alnavman

to be honest the only sets I've tried to complete in 8 or 9 were smaller ones....I just can't afford doing it for 5-600 card sets.....now if I had more $$$$ it might be a different story.....good luck in whatever your final decision is. al.

Dboneesq

Mark ... I agree with the other posters. Unless you are in the select company of a few Registry Builders who have more money than they know what to do with, I'd choose 10 or 20 nice "7s" as opposed to that one hard to get "8". For those select few who have enough money to last the next thousand years, good for them. It's fun to watch the sets that they build.

REMEMBER: Heroin, Cocaine, Methamphetamine, Crack, LSD, Ecstasy, Opium, Marijuana, Psilocybin Mushrooms and PCP are ALL LESS ADDICTING than THE REGISTRY!

fergie23

only reason to be a stickler for having every card in at least a minimum arbitrary grade is if you are actively competing on the registry,

I have to disagree. I only collect only PSA 9 cards and it has nothing to do with the registry. I prefer uniformity in my collection but that is probably the OCD talking.

Robb

tonyo

<< <i>What do other set builders think? Are you willing to live with certain cards (especially non-HOFers) in a lower grade than the rest of the set-or does it drive you crazy? >>



I prefer a set to be similar grade, but depending on the cost of the more expensive cards in the set, I will accept a lower grade version of those.

Of course I also prefer raw cards that I'm not afraid to handle. I love holding a stack of raw cards and flipping thru them like I did when I was a kid.

JMDVM

Go with high end 7s when necessary. When I got the idea to convert my 66 and 67 baseball sets from raw to all PSA 8s, I had no idea what I was getting in to. There was no way I was dropping $300 on a 66 Joe Hoerner RC or $150 on a 66 Stottlemyre. I made the decision to settle for 7s and then offset them with inexpensive high pop 9s so I could at least average an 8 for the set. This will have to suffice until either I win the lottery or my wife kills me in my sleep when she discovers how much I've spent to grade all my FB sets from 48-74 and 57,62,63,66,67 BB........

Stone193

Exactly.