Griffey Rc $300 or $3000?

momo1234

Why oh why is the Beckett Graded 10 griffey UD rookie going for 10 times as much as the PSA 10?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1989-Upper-Deck-Ken-Griffey-Jr-ROOKIE-RC-1-BGS-10-PRISTINE-PWCC/

LarkinCollector

BGS 10 is a higher grade, BGS 9.5 and PSA 10 are equivalent.

momo1234

high enough to equal such a jump in price? wow.

vintagefun

Only for a few. I'd rather buy 10 PSA 10s.

momo1234

amen.

olb31

you would rather buy 10 psa's but would you rather have your griffey grade a bgs 10 or psa 10?

seebelow

wow..maybe all of that is debatable but for this one it's just too new, 1989, for me to justify such a price jump....it is stunning ....just think if it got a 10 for centering...perfect!...it is getting the bids

s***g (101) only has 150 of the 168 bids so far...think he wins it? or bows out?

ugaskidawg

@seebelow said:
wow..maybe all of that is debatable but for this one it's just too new, 1989, for me to justify such a price jump....it is stunning ....just think if it got a 10 for centering...perfect!...it is getting the bids

s***g (101) only has 150 of the 168 bids so far...think he wins it? or bows out?

Got to love chip bidding...

Dpeck100

Let me first say I totally understand the my card is better than your card concept because it has a higher grade on the label. People debate if a card should be a 9 or a 10 all of the time and no matter what the 10 looks like it always sells for more. That said this is so idiotic to me. There are 115 examples that have graded a BGS 10. The total population is 35,164 and 2,377 have graded a 9.5. You have a 6.75% chance of achieving their Gem Mint grade and a 0.0032% chance of receiving the coveted 10 so it only makes sense that the card will sell for more than their Gem Mint copy and by a wide margin. Here is where it makes absolutely no sense. PSA has reviewed 65,353 copies and 3,142 have received their highest grade giving you a 4.8% chance of receiving a 10. There is no doubt that there are at least 213 BGS 10's sitting in PSA slabs. There are so many collectors who send their best cards to PSA and don't even view BGS has a credible option further reinforcing the fact that some of the best copies are in a PSA slab. I have found over the years that bragging rights trump rationality in card collecting and this is probably the most egregious example of them all.

momo1234

@Dpeck100 said:
Let me first say I totally understand the my card is better than your card concept because it has a higher grade on the label. People debate if a card should be a 9 or a 10 all of the time and no matter what the 10 looks like it always sells for more. That said this is so idiotic to me. There are 115 examples that have graded a BGS 10. The total population is 35,164 and 2,377 have graded a 9.5. You have a 6.75% chance of achieving their Gem Mint grade and a 0.0032% chance of receiving the coveted 10 so it only makes since that the card will sell for more than their Gem Mint copy and by a wide margin. Here is where it makes absolutely no since. PSA has reviewed 65,353 copies and 3,142 have received their highest grade giving you a 4.8% chance of receiving a 10. There is no doubt that there are at least 213 BGS 10's sitting in PSA slabs. There are so many collectors who send their best cards to PSA and don't even view BGS has a credible option further reinforcing the fact that some of the best copies are in a PSA slab. I found over the years that bragging rights trump rationality in card collecting and this is probably the most egregious example of them all.

SO WELL SAID ALL THE WAY AROUND!

vintagefun

But this goes to 11....

rcmb3220

@Dpeck100 said:
Let me first say I totally understand the my card is better than your card concept because it has a higher grade on the label. People debate if a card should be a 9 or a 10 all of the time and no matter what the 10 looks like it always sells for more. That said this is so idiotic to me. There are 115 examples that have graded a BGS 10. The total population is 35,164 and 2,377 have graded a 9.5. You have a 6.75% chance of achieving their Gem Mint grade and a 0.0032% chance of receiving the coveted 10 so it only makes since that the card will sell for more than their Gem Mint copy and by a wide margin. Here is where it makes absolutely no since. PSA has reviewed 65,353 copies and 3,142 have received their highest grade giving you a 4.8% chance of receiving a 10. There is no doubt that there are at least 213 BGS 10's sitting in PSA slabs. There are so many collectors who send their best cards to PSA and don't even view BGS has a credible option further reinforcing the fact that some of the best copies are in a PSA slab. I found over the years that bragging rights trump rationality in card collecting and this is probably the most egregious example of them all.

I wonder what the success rate is crossing over a PSA 10 to a bgs 10?

I'm sending in my 1989 pro set barry sanders to bgs for a graded review with a min of 10. Probably throwing money away but I'll give it one shot. The only bgs 10 of that card I've seen for sale went for 1350 a couple years ago.

Dpeck100

If I were BGS I would be very political on the issue. It is the only thing they have left. There might be a few stragglers out there but for just about every card I can think of from various sports and genres they all sell for more in a PSA slab expect for the BGS 10 grade. I don't see any upside for them crossing cards over because if you then make it clear to the market that the Pristine grade isn't superior to the PSA 10 grade and those prices collapse you are left with nothing.

It was probably 2005 or maybe 2006 and I woke up the next day and realized I had purchased two BGS 9.5 Griffey Jr's for $300 a piece. A year or so later is when the PSA 10 started selling for more than the 9.5 and when the real shift in leadership started to become very evident in third party grading. I ended up selling the copies and losing over half and had I bought the PSA 10 that was in the low $200's at the time I would have actually made money. It is hard to imagine now with the landscape being what it is but a BGS 9.5 was more coveted than a PSA 10.

mtcards

@Dpeck100 said:
they all sell for more in a PSA slab

This is where I tend to disagree. I use both companies for different reasons, some for convenience of quick authentication, some for longer term gain. To say that a PSA card will sell for more is when you consider equal grades. A PSA 10 will sell for more than a BGS 9.5, A PSA 9 will sell for more than a BGS 9 and so on. B

BUT

A card that sits in a PSA7 holder will sometimes get a BGS 8 or even 8.5.

Examples (Using a couple of recent sales)

Joe Montana 1981 Topps
PSA 7 - $89
BGS 8 - $100+

Ken Griffey 89 UD
PSA 7 $23
PSA 8 $30
BGS 8 $25
BGS 8.5 $35
BGS9 - $50-$60

I think if you asked most people on here, they would say that BGS generally will grade anywhere from .5 to 1.5 grades higher than PSA. The two cards above are two examples of widely graded cards and subgrades do come into play. But I have always used the strategy of sending better cards that would grade a 9 or higher to PSA and ones that would grade under that to BGS to maximize returns. The same "card" depending on grade "might" sell for more in a BGS holder if the card is of lower quality. Not trying to argue, just presenting an alternate theory to "which grading companies cards sell for more"

Dpeck100

@mtcards I don't disagree with your analysis. There are plenty of collectors and dealers who will send their cards to BGS to get a higher grade on the label and try and maximize value. My point was just on a straight grade basis. What it really boils down to for me is that if I went to the National next year and decided to rip a box of baseball cards and chose 1989 Upper Deck. If I pulled a beautiful Griffey Jr. I would walk it right over to PSA and would never even consider going with Beckett and I believe there are a ton of collectors and dealers who would do the same thing and therefore this amazing example that hypothetically would grade a PSA 10 could be a BGS 10 but we will never know.

secretstash

Best method is to sub everything with PSA first go around. Then consider reviews with PSA and crossovers with min grades with BGS. SGC can be wrapped in with their specialties too>pre war> ignoring small wax stains>etc.

momo1234

@drc said:
Food for thought:
Numeration Systems and Psychology

THIS IS AWESOME!

2dueces

@momo1234 said:

@drc said:
Food for thought:
Numeration Systems and Psychology

THIS IS AWESOME!

David has some great stuff on his site.

lightningboy

Is a BGS 10 always a nicer card than a PSA 10? I know PSA allows some centering variance on its 10's, but that doesnt mean all 10s do vary from 50/50 all around. What if a PSA 10 does not have any of the miniscule allowances from perfection? That is why i would disagree with the assertion that BGS 10 is automatically better. Are there other flaws that PSA lets slide that would do worse than a single BGS 9.5, or whatever is allowed for a BGS 10?

seebelow

@drc said:
Food for thought:
Numeration Systems and Psychology

Cool, interesting read. Thanks. Since we're going down this road. And to stay with this topic, does anyone recall the theory on how civilization changed or advanced when the numeral zero(0) was "discovered"? And so added to the number system. I can't recall where i heard that from. Thx

Cakes

@drc said:
Most old systems worked fine for adding, subtracting and simple math. It was the invention of a zero symbol and the decimal system that allowed for advanced calculations that led to all the advanced stuff humans have done.

Thanks for the knowledge.