First Card Show in 15 Years-Observations and Questions

[the Rock]

O.K...I went to the show in N.E. Ohio (Strongsville) last week after a long hiatus from card collecting. I spent most of my time just looking around at the different offerings available. It was interesting to me that a great deal of what was available was not professionally graded. My expectation was to see a lot of graded material and little else. Card grading was just coming into vogue when I gave up collecting and I really didn't like the idea. Seems to make collecting sort of sterile in the way that I have always perceived stamp and coin collecting. I can see some advantages to the grading also, such as being sure of authenticity and lack of alterations. I can see that grading is widely accepted and here to stay. I need to learn to function in and understand this area.
I spent some time at the Beckett Grading Services table and got a good overview of how it works, the costs and risks involved, and what type of items it may be worth to have graded. One of the offerings at the show was to have three cards graded for $10 but not slabbed. These are delivered in card holders that are sealed(?) by a sticker across the top with the grading information. Is it conceivable to sell/auction cards graded in this manner v/s slabbed cards? Is it possible to auction raw cards on Ebay and not be taken advantage of as the seller? Or as far as Ebay, are slabbed cards the only real way to go?
I'm still not sure where my collection is going to go at this point. I got out all the old stuff that I haven't seen in 15 years and have many items I would not want to part with. I can also see some nice items that I should probably sell off as the collection is large and seems to go in a million different directions. I know I am rambling here but I am trying to put together a good strategy for future collecting and also safely selling.
If any one can make any sense out of this ramble, any suggestions or bits of information are very welcome. The whole thing seems quite overwhelming at this juncture. Thanks!

[steve B]

Sounds like a fun time at the show. Yeah, things have changed a bit.
First question - never mind the changes, what did you get?

Anyway, I was also against grading when it started. The trims and alterations than were usually pretty obvious. Plus I figured that if someone wanted to collect they should get to know the cards. I also had some technical questions that really weren't addressed by anyone. (And mostly still haven't)

Money changed most of that. Some people that had big money to spend didn't have the time to learn. And alterations got much harder to spot. So grading mattered for some collectors. At the same time some of the stuff I learned from became much less common. Most dealers no longer had stacks of cards of all types that you could just look through and that weren't in holders of some sort. So getting to actually touch hundreds of cards from any one set to really get a feel for what real ones were like just wasn't possible.

I've started grading my nicer cards, having realized that I won't be around forever and someone may someday have to sell them without my help. The grades will hopefully make that a bit easier.

But I still don't totally understand grading. It seems clear cut, but some of the grades I've gotten are puzzling to me. It is fun though. Getting them back from grading is sort of like buying thm all over again.

Picking a direction for the collection is good. I've never been able to do it.

If the cards are expensive and in great condition grading will usually allow them to do a bit better on Ebay. More modern mid grade stuff it's a toss-up. Sometimes the extra doesn't cover the grading fee. Unless a card is the key card in a set I wouldn't bother with beaters. A creased 55 common won't be any more valuable graded, but a 55 Clemente would because buyers could eliminate questions of alterations or authenticity.

That changes for prewar cards, because there are quite a few cards that look great but have back damage that lowers the grade a lot. They do better because some people want a nice looking card and either don't care about the back as much or couldn't afford one without damage. Prewar is a whole different way of thinking.

Steve B

I also do stamps, and dabble in coins now and then. The coins have become pretty sterile, but they've been slabbing them much longer. Slabs were a reaction to a few things, one being that poor storage could change the coins look or damage it. The other being that some people were getting a coin certified and putting the cert with a lesser condition coin. They started grading stamps a few years ago, and slabs were soundly rejected. I think you can still get it done, but the acceptance wasn't there. Certificates have a long history in that hobby, as well as actually marking the item(Now frowned upon, but also a mark of something being legit. The upside down airplanes were all numbered on the back by the dealer who broke up the sheet) The same arguments against grading are going on with stamps...Like dejavu all over again.

[53Browns]

I wasnt a fan of grading early on either but now 100% of my collection is graded, mostly for the fact that I am leaving these cards to my daughter and I want to make it easy on her to sell them.

[mintacular]

My general rule of thumb with vintage grading is that for most cards 95%+ are not worth the grading fees/hassle which is why you saw so many raw cards at the show....Here are the 5% exceptions:

1. Major stars/rookies (Mantles Clemente's Mays, etc.)
2. Pack-fresh HOFers with nice centering
3. Cards that are known to be counterfeit (OPC Gretzky RC, Michael Jordan, '52 Mantle, '68 Ryan RC)
4. Pre-war cards in decent shape
5. Low population high-grade singles (this takes several years to learn, etc.)

In short, for me I like to buy singles and build sets and for any high $ card I will spend a little extra $ to have the card graded---I do like a 2nd opinion if I am spending several hundred dollars on one card. If I am spending $10-$100/ea. on a card I trust my own judgement based on the scan provided--I think most alterations on $100 or cheaper cards are pretty obvious and you shouldn't be so paranoid that you need a grading co. to authenticate these types of cards....

[the Rock]

Thanks for the replies and insights. I need to put together a sound plan for selling cards first as I want to downsize and specialize to some degree. I also can't really afford to add much until I generate some collecting capital. I think I want to focus on completing the sets from the years that I actually bought packs as a kid ( 68 through 74 ). After that I would work backwards through to the early 60's. I would also (at some point) work on football and basketball from the same years.
My initial selling plan would be to use Ebay as I am an experienced seller and buyer there as I have dealt in vintage toys(slotcars,trains,Matchbox,Hot Wheels,model kits...etc...)for quite a while. I just have a feeling that trying to sell cards will be quite a bit different than what I am used to. I would be selling mostly baseball with some FB and BB thrown in, 1950's through the mid 70's with lots of oddball stuff also.
I want to sell some graded items, but would prefer to work with ungraded items. Is it a reasonable expectation to try to do so? Or am I asking for a lot of returns, possible switches on returns, and just general problems with buyer's remorse. I would plan to included quality scans of the front and back of all cards in the descriptions.
Any advice will certainly be welcomed here. Any sellers of ungraded cards please let me know how you successfully do this. I am not here just to learn about selling cards, but I think I need to start here as most future additions would be funded by some of my present collection. I really need to get a handle on grading and how to deal with it.
Again, I hope that this all makes some sense as I am sort of overwhelmed with the differences in collecting now v/s then and just the scope of my present collection as I get back in to it. Thanks!

[Jaybird]

I'll put in a plug for the B/S/T. I sell a little on ebay as well but I normally put things up here on the Buy/Sell/Trade section first. You can avoid all of the fees, and most of the hassle. Check out the thread where people are talking about their experiences on B/S/T to get a gauge for how it is going over there.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=134967

I've sold a bunch of raw cards on ebay as well and if you are very clear about the flaws on the cards and provide large scans, you won't have any trouble.

[mintacular]

In terms of selling raw on eBay, feel free to pm me when you get close to do so in terms of how to sell or questions you might have....It is more than doable the key thing will be to provide a nice scan for the viewer to decide....Also for any card with a crease it is important to disclose that as sometimes this won't show up on scan. Print out a currently copy of grading standards and perhaps provide a range "This card is somewhere between Ex and Exmt...." kinda thing. It is critical that you know when to sell cards as singles and when to sell as lots/partial sets, etc (As a general rule $1-5 cards should be bundled together to not get killed on fees/cherry-pickers by starting with .99 opening bids on raw mid-grade commons, not to mention the time/hassle you'll save yourself....) When to auction and when to set a BIN is also a consideration. It is essential that your combined shipping rates are reasonable....Make sure your auctions end around 9pm EST, Sunday night the best according to reasearch. Good luck.