and my 2 cents worth..... I find that there is nothing quite like an oversized, high quality scan to bring me back down to reality.

Stuff you cant see just looking at "card in hand" jumps out in all of it's painful glory.

7s are usually fairly difficult to determine

8s are almost impossible and

9s don't exist in the wild

As for your 4 - I suspect there is a wrinkle on the card that you are not seeing. Any wrinkle/crease, no matter how insignificant, automatically drops the grade to a 5 at best.

Selling
 

Hi Stephen, I have another piece of unsolicited advice for you. If you are going to sell cards, especially cards that are described as NM/MT, you need to purchase a scanner. Cell phone pictures don't cut it, and I never buy higher end cards from a cell phone photo.

Good luck,

Rick

And thats the reason why buying graded cards makes sense. All of the argument of what NM-MT is

A nice flashlight in a dark room helps, too. Turn the raw card at EVERY angle, especially over the edge and from EACH corner. If there's anything - a dimple, a ripple, a gloss break, a slight ding to any corner, it is probably 5 at best.

As a general buying rule, I think is is smart to assume the raw cards you buy are overstated by at least one grade. As a seller, I think overstating by more than one is unethical but not criminal. Caveat emptor always applies.

It has been my experience that raw midgrade cards have a lesser chance of being overgraded and are under graded with greater frequency.

Lastly, while it WILL cost you few bucks up front you can do what I did:

Buy high graded examples of the cheapest cards in your set (a 6, 7, 8, 9. Skip ten. Too rare and like chasing rainbows. Hope for the best with any 9 you submit but play lotto, then, too).
Study them and use them as a point of comparison for your raw cards. Never give your own cards a 'break' - if you think you may see something, it counts. Be as tough as you can on your own cards and you will be disappointed less often.

Good luck to you.

Since it seems that you have over graded the cards, I am curious what you told the person(s) that consigned the cards to you? Can you fulfill their expectations now that you have found out the cards are not on the level that you thought they were?

Jeff

Good rules of thumb:

1) Your house isn't worth as much as you think it is
2) Your kids aren't as beautiful as you think they are
3) Your cards will not grade as high as you think they will

Unfortunately you're up against some of the difficult new realities that especially affect mid range stuff (Or what's mid range for me, someone that can afford more expensive cards might think of it as low end)

The ones in the for sale post aren't bad. But new stuff seems to be graded much tougher than old stuff.
The next part of the problem is that - at least for me- when I look at buying a card there's a few things I consider. After I get past the "do I have the money" and "do I already have one" the next thing is the quality vs price.
And that's where middling stuff suffers. I find myself looking at raw cards and figuring on what grade I think it would get if I sent it in.

Lets say a card is pretty nice, and I don't have one. That's two plusses :) And lets say it's $14 So I look at sold copies on Ebay. Yes, not every sale will be a good one, but there's enough to get a range.
The 8s look to be between 20 and 30, a 7 sold for 10 or less and 9s are 50+
So I have to decide if the one available is an 8 or not. If I think it is, then it's an ok deal assuming I'd send it in on a special. If not then it's not a good deal.

Next, I look at similar raw cards, especially since I don't really collect graded cards. Yes, I don't actively collect them, but they do have a lot of influence on pricing. Now a raw example with nice centering sells for $3-4 with usually another 3 shipping, and ones with typical centering are usually $1-2

So assuming I really want that card and soon, I have to decide between.
A typical one for 1-2
A nicely centered one for 3-4
A graded one but "only " a 7 for 10
The Available one for 14
A graded one that's an 8 for 20-30
Or I could go for a 9 and spend maybe 50

None of those are outside my budget, (aside from my brain being stuck in the time when 75 minis were a few cents each maybe .25 for the minor stars. )

I'm not really that into graded cards, so I'd probably choose the nicely centered raw card for $4. Lately I've been looking at the collections differently though. So since someone will eventually need to sell it, I might go for a graded card, and one of the lower priced 8s isn't that much more than the nice ungraded one at 14 so it's a nice option with less risk.


And that's the bind that ALL sellers find themselves in. They have to spend to get nice stuff to sell, but getting a decent return is hard if they can't buy cheaply enough. And there are a lot of competitors willing to overpay.
And a lot of buyers who are even cheaper than I am.

Steve B

Thank you. That lab sounds amazing.

I appreciate the input. You may be right.


Thanks for that link! Didn't even think of one of those. I am going to order one asap.

Thanks for the input. I am going to look for that wrinkle the moment it arrives.

Rick... I just got one. I just do the camera phone because it is so much quicker but will start scanning now.

Thanks for your true concern Jeff.

Great advice. I really appreciate it.


HAHAHAHA

Yea what you said is 100% true man.

I can see a flashlight in a dark room working well....I use an OttLite in a dark room to "pick through" cards closely, this setup has worked well for me for many years.

Borders
 

Don't forget to check border "chipping", especially on darker border cards like 71s and 75s. Do a completed listing of PSA 8 or 9 on eBay and look up and down those cards and ask yourself if you have ones that resemble them. Chances are not on the vast majority. For high grade stuff basically the card has to be fresh out of the pack with razor sharp corners, great centering, no snow or printing lines/defects, edges that don't have the chips, etc. As stated centering will usually winnow down your crop vastly off the bat, don't forget top to bottom, for example on '72s are to determine but many are o/c but doesn't jump out...