Sports illustrated for kids cards. Question on grading.

yoadrian49

Does anyone have any experience getting sports illustrated cards graded? How does one get a single card out in any condition worthy of being graded? Thank you in advance for your responses.

erikthredd

I contacted PSA awhile back to see what the best way to separate them was and was told they would only grade them if they' ve been pulled apart and not cut out with scissors. I was also told all of the perforated edges have to have some of the fibers like can be seen on this card.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1989-NOLAN-RYAN-SPORTS-ILLUSTRATED-FOR-KIDS-81-RANGERS-PSA-10-/172530648694?epid=561780889&hash=item282ba0c676:g:KscAAOSw32lYolAx

I've had success slowly folding the row on the sheet toward the other row then folding it back the other way and back & forth till its easy to pull apart. Just be careful you don't bend the cards or at least not the one card you're aiming for most. It gets easier as you do more & more. its tough finding sheets that haven't been creased or folded. Finding a decent 89 Jordan has been tough because his card was in the bottom right corner of the page and almost always have corner damage.

divecchia

I also use the same technique that Eric uses.

Donato

totallyradd

I sent in the Tiger Woods SIFK card. When I did the folding, I started by making a slight fold on the perforation. Then when I felt comfortable, I would fold over and over until it basically fell off. I also put a piece of blank paper over the the card itself to not get finger prints all over it.

The stock board on those cards aren't nearly as strong as regular cards.

I might be missing some, but the most sought after are Woods, Michael Jordan, and Tony Hawk. Jordan Speith was doing well for awhile, I haven't checked it in awhile though. There are probably a few more that I'm missing.

Good luck!

LarkinCollector

Some solid advice all around, I've broken up many of these sheets and subbed for player/RC sets. Some other issues to watch out for:

• On some of the newer sheets (2016 was the first year I've run into the problem) the cards down the right edge can be too wide to fit in a standard holder and came back from a sub in tallboy holders.
• The Spieth card in particular is frequently MINSIZEREQ and PSA won't holder, be careful if trying to cross over from BGS or buying raw. I think this happens most often to the bottom row.
• Cards on the lower right of the sheet are typically the hardest to get high grades on, that corner seems to be the most easily damaged.
• Centering can be atrocious and is difficult to make out from many eBay listings. I purchased a lot of 25 sheets where the perforations were all near mid card TB.

Mia Hamm is another one that was really hot for a while.

Also, here's my go to checklist for all SIFK cards issued: http://athleticards.com/SIKids_by_order.html You can sort by a specific sport or alphabetically by athlete on there as well, making it easy to create your own checklist in Excel.

Cakes

Isn't there also a Lebron card?

yoadrian49

Thank you for your responses, very helpful.

Cakes

Good Lord Larkin I just looked at your list and didn't realize they made that many cards. I had always thought it was just a handful of people, not thousands!

LarkinCollector

Nine new cards nearly every month since 1989. There's a registry set for all of them @ 2805 items now: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/misc-sports/mega-sets/sports-illustrated-kids-1989-present/14690

Just to be clear, I don't own the list at the link I provided, it's just a handy reference I keep bookmarked.

LarkinCollector

Dup post.