Cards from Vending and grading

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Posted By: <b>Joe Jones</b><p>Does anyone have any experience sending cards from a vending box to be graded? Does the curve of the card make it ungradeable or affect the grade?

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Posted By: <b>Anonymous</b><p>it's not so much the curve but more the corners. the box themselves offer little protection and the corners often get dinged.

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Posted By: <b>Mark</b><p>The curvature of the card itself is not an issue. But you'll need to keep an eye out for damaged corners and occasionally edges. You also need to be careful not to cause too much surface damage when sorting, as cards tend to stick together. Lift rather than swipe each card from the card below to avoid surface scratches.<br /><br />During the late '90s I broke open five 1985 Topps vending cases. This was during the period when McGwire PSA 10s were selling for up to $7k on Ebay. You'll need to be exceptionally careful when pulling the cards from the boxes and sorting through them. I removed all the cards from the vending box and then sorted through them in small stacks of about 50 cards at a time. <br /><br />My experience submitting 100 McGwire cards to PSA was about 60 came back PSA 7s & 8s. I had about 30 PSA 9s and about 10 with serious corner/edge/surface damage in PSA 6 or below range. Unfortunately no PSA 10s... and come to think of it I've never had a PSA 10 come out of any vending box.<br /><br />Good luck!

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Posted By: <b>Joe Jones</b><p>Thanks for the info Mark, it was very helpful.

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Posted By: <b>dodgersin9</b><p>This was my response to a different thread on best unopened finds-<br />I opened a 1971 (Topps baseball) vending box in about 1998. From the 4th and 5th series. Many of the cards were O/C, including an otherwise mint Nolan Ryan, but there were some nice cards also. Got a couple mint Killebrews that later graded PSA 9, 2 Clementes that later graded PSA 9 and PSA 8, a PSA 9 Jim Palmer, and a few PSA 9 commons. The surprising thing was the low number of 9s. Based on the prices these go for at auction, I think people assume that vending boxes are loaded with 9s (or 10s- there were none in my box) but that is not always the case. I think I got only about a dozen 9s out of the box, although the Clemente by itself made it a good find. I think I sent in about 100 cards for grading, and ended up with mostly 8s but also some 7s. Only those cards I sent in were worth a chance of grading- all the others had issues, including dinged corners centering, etc. I ended up trading the Clemente for a complete EX/MT to NM/MT set of raw 68s, a deal I regret now. The prices today for unopened vending from '71 are, in my opinion, way high given the low chances of finding a lot of high grade cards. By the way, there were about 530 cards in the vending box, not 500. I thought that was cool, getting an "extra" 30 cards. Bottom line though- I thoroughly enjoyed opening the vending box, and if I ever get another, I will probably open it as well.<br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>Paul</b><p>I have a dumb question. What was the purpose of a vending box? Weren't these boxes of 500 or so loose cards? What was a retailer supposed to do with them?

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Posted By: <b>Randy Trierweiler</b><p>Paul, vendor boxes is what the early card dealers bought directly from Topps. They would get cases of vendors and put sets together and sell singles from them. Randy<br /><br />They didn't buy wax from Topps. Randy

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Posted By: <b>DD</b><p>The cards were also put into vending machines, at least up until the mid to late 60's.

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Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>Mastro sold a lot of Frisch's vending boxes and I heard (rumor) that they didn't all grade well. Beyond wear, coming from vending doesn't mean perfect centering. Though vending can produce high grade cards. Since the boxes are unsealed, the rule is to buy vending from a reliable seller.<br /><br />Personally, I don't think the natural curve should effect grade, but I'm not a professional grading company.

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Posted By: <b>Dave Hornish</b><p>I remember buying a box of 75 vending from Renata Galasso in 1975, so some dealers sold them to the public. I also remember buying cards from 5 cent vending machines. In 1972, after Gil Hodges died his card was the most sought after one in the set. I used to get most of my cards at a local toy and hobby store called Coronet (Westbury, NY-a great store when I was a kid, long gone now) and could not find one in a pack (and I used to buy rack packs) for anything and finally stuck a nickel in a vending machine and lo and behold ol' Gil was there.