Who's Cracking $250 Slabs?

[frankbmd]

We generally agree that people (collectors and flippers) buy numbers (grades & pops), which require an opinion (not necessarily accurate) and results in the card being placed in a slab.

Many collectors here and elsewhere abhor tombs and take pride in their practice of cracking cards out of slabs for their binders and collections immediately after purchase.

Clearly without the tomb and the number resale value is compromised in the marketplace. The TPGs are fortunately positioned ideally in this apparent conundrum and more than willing to grade the card again at the time of the next sale.

At $250 a pop, I do not think that flippers are doing a lot of cracking, unless of course they are intending to "fix" the card to attain a higher number and this no doubt happens quite frequently.

Given the rapidly escalating grading fees are collectors still as willing to crack every slab they see. I doubt it, but I could be wrong.

Does it make sense to grade a $30 card for $250 so you can sell it for $100? I may not be up to date on the new math, but this method does not seem sustainable.

I would hazard a guess that historically the majority of existing graded cards are worth less than the current price of grading. Are the TPGs shooting themselves in the foot or are their new fee scales designed to offset the grading of trivial cards (a waste of time) and designed to maintain or grow their income in the age of vault flippers?

It would seem advisable that those collectors with a substantial numbers of low value slabs, due to condition or no-name, should not crack their slabs. You can't afford to regrade them when you are ready to sell.

Times have certainly changed. Have I got it all wrong? Educate me.

[Casey2296]

I'm a little strange because the only thing I care about is how my collection looks to me. I'll pay up for pre-war green label SGC slabs, Lionel and Nagy are a plus.
I cross all my pre war PSA to SGC, I like my post war in PSA slabs.
I also 100% support collectors who want to break everything out, it's their collection and that's what they want it to be, and let's face it, our collections are a very personal thing immaterial of financial considerations.

[tiger8mush]

some recent low $ cracks ...

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

Does it make sense to grade a $30 card for $250 so you can sell it for $100? I may not be up to date on the new math, but this method does not seem sustainable.

Volume man, volume...

[Exhibitman]

Once the dead puppy of cheap older submissions works its way through the PSA python and is excreted out there will be a drought of lower price slabs.

[BobC]

Always figured when buying an already graded card that part of what I paid was for the grading fee. To then crack the card out always seemed like throwing money away to me. So I leave everything in their slabs and for sets/cards I put in binders I make a colored copy (front and back) of any slabbed cards I'd purchased and simply cut them out and put those in the binders. The cost of making a color copy is a heck of a lot cheaper than the grading fee for a card. That way there are no holes in the collection and I can just store the graded cards somewhere separately.

[midmo]

I'm not a big fan of grading but I get it, although I never understood why people grade cheap cards (say under $100 give or take). I almost always break those out and put them in binders or top loaders if for no other reason than the storage space issue. I bought a large lot last year and there were some low grade (PSA 2 & 3) 1955 commons. Why would anybody waste their money doing that? I just don't have the room or desire to deal with hundreds of slabs.

I have broken out higher priced cards (T3's, T5's, etc), but I slowed down after I bent a Jackie Robinson when I was cracking out my '53 set to put in a binder. Don't watch tv while cracking slabs...


1953set.jpg

[doug.goodman]

I buy things I like for prices I like, and anything in a slab is removed moments after I open the box.

[Snowman]

I often buy slabs that look like they're undergraded. Then I'll typically crack those out and send them to a different grading company as long as I think the probability that they'll cross to a higher grade multiplied by the cost to regrade is significantly lower than what it would be worth if it achieves the grade I'm expecting.

[FrankWakefield]

I followed along with the original post through about the first half of it. Until the logic of suggesting that the folks who crack cards out of slabs are less likely to crack a card out when the cost to slab a card got to $250 a pop... For me, that's not much of a factor at all. When I break a card out it's because I don't want it in the slab. I'm not about to reslab it.

I have no intention to get a card graded at a cost of $250. But then I don't have any cards I'd get graded for $25... nor any I'd get graded for 25 cents. And not for 25 cents even if they'd come to my home or meet me at the bank with the ability to accept a card, grade it, and hand it back to me in 2 minutes or less.

For me, I'd rather spend that $250 on a few more cards. For folks who want everything graded, seems to me you'll have smaller collections and you'll be subject to the future whims of PSA and the like. Don't ya reckon?

[Republicaninmass]

Single mist purposeful loss of value a collector can do.


Your future family will thank you for it, when your cards are sold at a yard sale to Mr Mints great grand son for pennies on the dollar since they are not "authenticated" .

Selfish vile act!

All kidding aside, pretty silly, but one is free to do with ones own collection as they wish.


I recent bought a near signed set of 1952 topps at over 300 cards offered as raw with authentication. Come to find out, the owner had cracked almost every single one out of their slabs. They likely would have received 4x the amount had it been know, or had they still been graded. Fwiw PSA refused to reslab only 4 cards, saying they were ?authn

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

I followed along with the original post through about the first half of it. Until the logic of suggesting that the folks who crack cards out of slabs are less likely to crack a card out when the cost to slab a card got to $250 a pop... For me, that's not much of a factor at all. When I break a card out it's because I don't want it in the slab. I'm not about to reslab it.

I have no intention to get a card graded at a cost of $250. But then I don't have any cards I'd get graded for $25... nor any I'd get graded for 25 cents. And not for 25 cents even if they'd come to my home or meet me at the bank with the ability to accept a card, grade it, and hand it back to me in 2 minutes or less.

For me, I'd rather spend that $250 on a few more cards. For folks who want everything graded, seems to me you'll have smaller collections and you'll be subject to the future whims of PSA and the like. Don't ya reckon?

My point was missed here. I'm looking for people who submit cards for $250 a pop. Under what conditions if any would they crack the slab. Granted slabbing is a sales tool, but the cost of playing the slabbing game has gotten too expensive for the majority of the TPG's customer base. There are a lot of crazy prices out there now, but the total number of 5, 6 and 7 figure cards is finite.

Yeah if you're selling cards for $80,000 a pop, $250 or more for a slab is chump change. And if the buyer plans to resell it for $120,000, by all means crack it out and enjoy it for a few months and resubmit it before you sell. With any luck you will get it back in less than a year.

[G1911]

I regularly crack out cards worth over $250. I don't alter them or resubmit them.

I own a handful of graded cards, I think 5-6 right now, all of which are trade bait or opportunistic buys I haven't yet decided are going into the trade bait box or into my collection. Every single other graded card that gets into my hands gets cracked out, regardless of it's value.

I've cracked well over a thousand graded cards by now, many over this value threshold. I place $0 of value on the opinion of a grader I do not know and of unknown expertise, if any whatsoever, in the sets I am collecting. Indeed, many of the cards I crack seem grossly overgraded (I just recently cracked a respected companies 3.5 with no less than 6 creases on close examination), or are simply not even what the label says (how many T219's are slabbed as T218's and vice versa for example? Quite a few), not to mention the numerous altered ones (some of them comically blatant). In fact, I actually bid slightly less on a graded card than the same raw card, since there is a small chance I will screw up on the cracking out and have found zero correlation to cards acquired in a slab being more likely to be unaltered or in any way superior.

Many cards I win graded are because they are not common cards, and one cannot be picky about their copy. I only have gotten a handful of 1950's Topps cards graded, for example, but many of my rare tobacco or candy cards came in a holder, because they appear rarely and I can't just go get a raw one for less money. For other cards, it's because they are tougher sets I'm building multiple copies of or even hoarding. Some cards and sets have greater than 50% of their 'slabbed population' actually sitting in my shoeboxes, cracked out, because I buy most copies that come up for sale.

I know this is blasphemous to the money and label collectors. To me, I collect cards I like and so I don't care about this, but even from a $ perspective I don't see how I'm actually losing out in the end. I have no intent to sell, if my collection is sold it will probably be after my death (or if I really screw up my life and need to turn my throw-away hobby spending into cash). I'm young, I can't reasonably expect to die or screw up life that badly in the foreseeable future. In 40+ years when they're chucking my body into a grave, slabbed cards I have now would need to be cracked and submitted to whatever grader is the big grader then, or at least put into a more modern slab. No real value is being lost unless one intends to flip in the foreseeable future. The auction house or whoever can deal with grading them when I'm dead, during my life I'll spend the grading money on actual cards. I'll sell stacks of flips to people collecting those at a major discount.

[ISURedbird]

Originally Posted by BobC

Always figured when buying an already graded card that part of what I paid was for the grading fee. To then crack the card out always seemed like throwing money away to me. So I leave everything in their slabs and for sets/cards I put in binders I make a colored copy (front and back) of any slabbed cards I'd purchased and simply cut them out and put those in the binders. The cost of making a color copy is a heck of a lot cheaper than the grading fee for a card. That way there are no holes in the collection and I can just store the graded cards somewhere separately.

This is brilliant! Never thought of doing that.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[JollyElm]

Sorry for the jaded bitterness, but there certainly is a scenario that makes sense if you're a scumbag.
(Apologies if someone has already covered this.)

You send in a noteworthy card because it looks beautiful and will 'obviously' receive a high(ish) grade. You pay the usurious fee, and SURPRISE!! the card comes back at a much lower number than you thought possible. What to do now???

Crack it out and start bullsh*tting to potential buyers that this card looks beautiful, but you don't feel like spending the money and waiting a year for the card to come back graded, so you're going to sell it ungraded. Look, it's the correct size and wasn't trimmed. No problems here. If you convince someone to buy it off of you for more than it cost you originally (plus the big grading fee), then you are in the black. If your BS-quotient is top notch, then you may convince a person to pay an amount closer to what it 'should' be worth (based on the grade it was supposed to get) and you're in the money!!!

[BobC]

Originally Posted by ISURedbird

This is brilliant! Never thought of doing that.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

And in addition to cutting out the card copy, I'll also cut out the actual flip and put it in the binder sheet as well. Adds to the identification of the card, and since I put the fronts and backs of the card copies in penny sleeves before putting them in binders (helps to hold them in place so they don't move around) I stick the cut out copy of the flip in the penny sleeve as well. Fits real nice and snug in the reguler sized penny sleeves, which you can just slide into the binder pages then.

[Tao_Moko]

I care about the hobby that's brought me pleasure for nearly 4 decades, not a piece of plastic.. There's no reason that graded cards should demand more than a slight premium for authentication. I don't pay for more than that so irrelevant to me. The slabs are unattractive, represent a flawed industry and an unwarranted inflation of value. It's unlikely I buy graded cards worth less than $250. They all get busted.

[commishbob]

If a card is bought for one of my binder Ed vintage set it gets broken out of the slab no matter the cost. ‘67 Seaver and Carew rookies are the latest examples of these. Prewar graded cards will stay in the slab only because most I buy are lower grade and I figure they should be protected.

[perezfan]

I crack most of them out, with the exception of 1933-34 Goudey. If there was a decent "One Touch" holder (tailor made for that size), I would crack the Goudeys out as well.

75 - 80% of what I buy is raw, so it's not a big deal. The only other reason I would leave a card in the slab is if I intend to sell it in the near-future.

[FrankWakefield]

Republicaninmassssss

Making money is not among My interests in collecting cards. I don't acquire a card with a plan to sell it. The slabs are a huge pain in the butt for me, for storage purposes. And generally, I'd rather have a VG-Ex card than a nrMt card when it comes to old cards (I'm thinking pre 1920). I want to be able to hold a card in my hand without fear of dinging a pristine corner (I know the slab would prevent a ding, but it totally prevents holding the card in my hand).

I'm not saying that gathering cards with a thought to them having more value in the future is wrong... it's fine if that's what you wanna do. But that's not among my goals.


As for the restated purpose of the thread, yea, I missed that. I'm not a cracker who's gonna spend $250 to resubmit a card... I do think a few cards I've sold were graded by the gentleman I gave them to for his auction. He thought, rightly, that they'd sell for more if graded. So he got them graded. And I'm grateful for that. Thank you, Bill.

[mrreality68]

Hi

I am not a person to crack cases.

I never thought about cracking them and resubmitting.

On Some select cards that might not be a bad idea depending on if I and others thought it might get an upgrade.

I mostly just collect the cards unless I can flip for an upgrade.

I guess each person has their own style

[tbob]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

Republicaninmassssss

Making money is not among My interests in collecting cards. I don't acquire a card with a plan to sell it. The slabs are a huge pain in the butt for me, for storage purposes. And generally, I'd rather have a VG-Ex card than a nrMt card when it comes to old cards (I'm thinking pre 1920). I want to be able to hold a card in my hand without fear of dinging a pristine corner (I know the slab would prevent a ding, but it totally prevents holding the card in my hand).

I'm not saying that gathering cards with a thought to them having more value in the future is wrong... it's fine if that's what you wanna do. But that's not among my goals.


As for the restated purpose of the thread, yea, I missed that. I'm not a cracker who's gonna spend $250 to resubmit a card... I do think a few cards I've sold were graded by the gentleman I gave them to for his auction. He thought, rightly, that they'd sell for more if graded. So he got them graded. And I'm grateful for that. Thank you, Bill.

+1

[tbob]

I am currently in the process of cracking out PX7 Domino Discs from slabs because I want to have them all in nice white coin holders which fit neatly in to sheets which are built for the holders. Rather than have 50 PSA slabs and 100 in coin holders, I prefer an aesthetically homogenous set. Crazy? Maybe but I guess it’s the collector in me. ALL my extensive pre-1920 caramel cards are in SGC and PSA holders. All my T210s are in SGC and PSA holders but my sets of T206 (minus the Big 5), T205, T207 and 1910 and 1911 Obaks, 1953-1969 Topps sets are unslabbed and are in sheets. It’s just a personal choice. I regret having slabbed 500+ T210s but I’m sure my kids will thank me when they go to auction after I’m gone lol.

[yanks4]

I agree on all counts.....

Originally Posted by perezfan

I crack most of them out, with the exception of 1933-34 Goudey. If there was a decent "One Touch" holder (tailor made for that size), I would crack the Goudeys out as well.

75 - 80% of what I buy is raw, so it's not a big deal. The only other reason I would leave a card in the slab is if I intend to sell it in the near-future.

Although I sometimes buy "already slabbed" PSA cards, I would never send a card to them to have it graded... especially given the new higher costs, wait times and shady history of errors and favoritism.