Which ebay sellers are the strictest (fairest) raw graders?

PowderedH2O

I've recently been buying more raw cards and I am trying to put together sets from the 50's, 60's and early 70's. Most of my buying has been on ebay. So far, my experiences have been hit or miss. A few sellers have been spot on, where a couple have been WAY off (and not in my favor). From your experiences, who are some sellers that I should be looking for when seeking 50's-70's raw cards in an accurate grade? No bashing of those that you don't like please, just praise for those that you do.

From my own recent experiences, 003591, superbowlauctions, and acsportsshop were very fair graders and delivered exactly what they said (and in the case of acsportsshop, more than promised). What say you?

bobbyw8469

battersbox is close. tripleplayvintage is close, although I did have a problem with one of their cards. old-card-player is spot on with his grades.

MomandPopCardShop

superbowlauctions is a good one, like me, Andy does all his own grading. Some jobs in a card shop you just can teach.

fur72

Not on ebay but if you are looking for raw vintage check out Burbank Cards.

JustinsShoebox

I've been doing a lot of the same, and bought a lot recently from gregmorriscards. They are pretty good most of the time with their grading of raw examples.

Justin

vladguerrero

<< <i>Not on ebay but if you are looking for raw vintage check out Burbank Cards. >>



Burbank is awful for modern stuff like refractors, they list the same grade for everything and you are likely to get a 90/10 centered card with intersecting refractor lines.

JustinsShoebox

<< <i>

<< <i>Not on ebay but if you are looking for raw vintage check out Burbank Cards. >>



Burbank is awful for modern stuff like refractors, they list the same grade for everything and you are likely to get a 90/10 centered card with intersecting refractor lines. >>



Agreed. I've visited Burbank Cards once and they gave me a walkthrough of their facility. I haven't bought since.

Justin

vladguerrero

<< <i>

<< <i>

<< <i>Not on ebay but if you are looking for raw vintage check out Burbank Cards. >>



Burbank is awful for modern stuff like refractors, they list the same grade for everything and you are likely to get a 90/10 centered card with intersecting refractor lines. >>



Agreed. I've visited Burbank Cards once and they gave me a walkthrough of their facility. I haven't bought since.

Justin >>



I believe they do have a lenient return policy but to be honest I don't buy cards to send them back because they weren't described properly, better things to do with my time, also they are pretty short when communicating if you -god forbid- ask them for a scan of a high end card.

Dpeck100

Galestown

I purchased a number of raw cards from this seller in 2011. He listed Wrestling All Stars with grades ranging from EX to Mint. One of my best self submitted cards came from them and was a 1982 Wrestling All Stars Series B Kerry Von Erich that was advertised as mint and did indeed grade a PSA 9 Mint. It is currently a Pop 2 and a very good card.

CNote

I've said this before, but I must be the only one that had good luck with Burbank. Years ago I purchased about 20 harder-to-find Griffey refractors, and every one came back a 10. I also had good luck with (oddly enough) NESC. Pulled 10s on a couple 1981 Topps commons that turned into POP 1 or 2

hyperchipper09

I've never had any problems with Stephen or Rob at Burbank. Even when it comes to asking for a scan of a higher $$$ card. Maybe it helps that I've bought from them since 1994, dunno. NESC I've bought from as well and no problems either. Higher prices but they counter with free shipping.

digicat

Check out mickeysclubhouse.com. I've done a lot of business with him, and I'd say that he's a very strict grader. Sometimes, he's stricter than PSA! If he doesn't have scans of the stuff you want, email and they'll get scans posted for you.

WalterSobchak

The two highest recommendations I can give in this category are bsugarman and gregmorriscards.

Dodgerfanjohn

I've bought the majority of raw from Greg Morris auctions also.

I also have Klinger83, mac61, robbiescards, and rodansj in my saved sellers list for raw vintage.

A word of caution...the cards are almost always within one grade and I tend to bid accordingly. Esp Greg Morris, and a few others deal with TONS of auctions. So even if they grade accurately, theres still a very good chance theyll gloss over certain things.

On some recent Klinger auctions, there was some VERY heavy bidding for cards that were listed at NrMt-Mt. Personally, I'd be super skeptical since graded cards in 8 or 9 on vintage tend to sell for a pretty hefty premium and I'd be very concerned bidding the amounts these guys were bidding just basically taking the sellers word that these cards are in such condition. Once you factor in the number of auctions he has listed, it becomes pretty apparent that very small flaws can be easily missed. OTOH, I have no problem viewing the card as being in NrMt and bidding accordingly.

One seller I would avoid as I believe cards are severely overgraded is fitzyssportscards.

For instance:

Nrmt-Mt

And:

NrMt with four corners of wear?

And:

NrMt-Mt with multiple corners being touched

To his credit, he does provide very good scans.

And you just have to account for variance and human error. We've all seen slabs that don't appear to belong in them, hi or lo.

mcolney1

I've had good luck with gregmorris and 4sharpcorners. 4sharp has a good business model for raw as far as commons not worth grading.

olb31

<< <i>

<< <i>

<< <i>Not on ebay but if you are looking for raw vintage check out Burbank Cards. >>



Burbank is awful for modern stuff like refractors, they list the same grade for everything and you are likely to get a 90/10 centered card with intersecting refractor lines. >>



Agreed. I've visited Burbank Cards once and they gave me a walkthrough of their facility. I haven't bought since.

Justin >>



Anytime someone puts stock photos or no photos there is a reason. They will answer your questions though and will be honest with you. I bought 7 atomis refractors the other day from them 3 maddux, 2 smoltz, 1 galvine and frank t from 1997 bowman and all the cards looked great, at least 9's and probably a few 10's.

stormtrooper80

With a couple of small exceptions, I've always been very happy with Greg Morris.
Klinger83 is a close second.
Battersbox overgrades just a bit in my opinion

RyanAdmirer

I'm seeing GregMorris cards a lot in these comments. So now I know who keeps outbidding me there.....GRRRRRR!!!!

miwlvrn

burbank's prices are different if you look up the same card sold by them through Beckett, ebay, amazon, or, sportlots (their seller ID is "philstop" on the sportlots site instead of "burbanksportscards" though I'm not clear on why the name switch). They calculate the sale price based on different fees associate with each respective site, so you can save yourself a few dollars on the same card just by going to the right web page.

I've purchased raw cards from them and found their grading to be in a range of 0.5 to 2 grades below advertised, when comparing to the results after submitting those cards to PSA (some were not worthy of submittal based on inspection), with an average of 1 grade below. Nearly all my purchases from burbank have been 1960's & 1970's, and I've got a sample size of about 100 cards or so through them. If you calculate in that the card will be 1 full grade below advertised before you purchase and you still like the card for the price, then it would work out OK. Careful about no pictures though, since more often than not they don't include scans. They will usually send a scan on request though it will take several days for them to do so. If you don't ask for a scan, you'll find a whole lot of OC cards in your purchase that you weren't counting on.

Dodgerfanjohn

<< <i>I'm seeing GregMorris cards a lot in these comments. So now I know who keeps outbidding me there.....GRRRRRR!!!! >>



He sells good stuff. How he gets so many nice cards on a regular basis, I have no idea.

Anyone know if he is the same Greg Morris that owns Valley Sports Cards in Tarzana? Id like to drop by his shop sometime if he is. But the return address that are on his shipments is in a different part of LA.

Valley Sports Cards

bobbyw8469

One of the worst raw card graders I have encountered was Dean's cards. I have found his item to be 2-3 grades below advertised.

WalterSobchak

<< <i>I'm seeing GregMorris cards a lot in these comments. So now I know who keeps outbidding me there.....GRRRRRR!!!! >>


That's the downside. The word is out about him, which makes the bargains few and far between.

Dodgerfanjohn

<< <i>

<< <i>I'm seeing GregMorris cards a lot in these comments. So now I know who keeps outbidding me there.....GRRRRRR!!!! >>


That's the downside. The word is out about him, which makes the bargains few and far between. >>



Tell me about it. I bid higher than I've ever bid on his auctions ending recently, which is to be expected a bit since I was going after some nicer semi high numbers. But I lost a fair amount and some I never touched because prices are already too high.

Look, it's one thing to find an accurate grader. It's a whole different ball of wax if you are expecting anyone to have the same standards on raw cards that PSA does. On about half the cards I've bought raw online, even with a strict grader, have been 1/2 to a full grade low. So I bid accordingly and if a cards listed as NrMt, I generally won't pay over what I consider ExMt value to be.

There were several cards that sold over what the same exact card in a psa equivalent grade sells for...centering and everything...and that just strikes me as loony.

I'm not really concerned about bringing this thread up. Only good can come from a honest and knowledgable seller realizing higher auction prices. Still I wonder why people bid bizarre amounts early on in the auctions and even more so why put a $0.99 "watching" bid on an item that's likely to sell in the $1.25-1.50 range. Almost guaranteed to be sniped, with no bid recourse whatsoever.