The mighty flip

[Peter_Spaeth]

Football example, but I am putting this on the front page because it's a universal phenomenon. The 8.5 sold at auction for 2993. The 8 is available, and likely will never sell because it's well above market, at 699. Welcome to the asylum.

[nsaddict]

Yup....your choice...for 3K

Lane PSA 8.5

or

Lane PSA 8
Starr PSA 7
Unitas PSA 7

[mantlefan]

your just realizing now that TPG is a subjective process in which the standards of grading are not standard?

[slightlyrounded]

To be fair, appears the PSA 8 is the much more common “horizontal variation”

[Bigshot69]

The jump from 8.5 to 9 tacks roughly another $15k to the hammer price. Granted there might only be a half dozen or so of them that have graded so high.

It’s a very popular set and “Nightrain” is a legend. If the Unitas RC is $10k in PSA 8, the Lane RC seems undervalued in the same grade all things considered. I’m sure there are more QB collectors than DB collectors out there though.

[mechanicalman]

Originally Posted by slightlyrounded

To be fair, appears the PSA 8 is the much more common “horizontal variation”

Nice!

[bnorth]

The flip is everything. At one time I had 2 insanely rare cards that there is only 5 graded. When I decided to sell one of them I got an outrageously amazing offer for one from a fellow member. He chose the beater that was highly over graded over the much nicer card in a 1 point lower slab.

The flip trumps the card almost every time.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by slightlyrounded

To be fair, appears the PSA 8 is the much more common “horizontal variation”

LOL. I forgot to rotate one for better comparison.

[timn1]

Gave me a nice chuckle

Originally Posted by slightlyrounded

To be fair, appears the PSA 8 is the much more common “horizontal variation”

[TanksAndSpartans]

This is probably an over generalization, but my theory is if these same cards were graded 6 and 6.5, the 6 might sell for more because in my opinion there is a slight diamond cut to the 8.5. I'm not saying that there aren't any discriminating high end collectors, but I think there are more who buy the card over the flip at the mid to low end of the grading scale. I've seen 5s sell for more than a 6, etc. To be fair, I don't really watch auctions when the grade is way out of my price range though, so I'm not watching a lot of auctions for cards graded 8+

[orly57]

Originally Posted by slightlyrounded

To be fair, appears the PSA 8 is the much more common “horizontal variation”

This post made me wish this board had a "like" button. Very well played. I see this is only your 4th post, and you have already set your bar pretty high.

[toledo_mudhen]

Originally Posted by slightlyrounded

To be fair, appears the PSA 8 is the much more common “horizontal variation”

WOW - Good eye - Hadn't noticed till you pointed that out!

[MattyC]

That is one of the strange yet bedrock principals of the hobby: in many cases there is an exponential price increase for an infinitesimal (or virtually invisible) increase in card quality. For example, I could probably not see a difference between Evan's '52 Mantle 9 and a 10 (and in one case I think one 10 looks a little worse than Evan's 9), yet the 10 would likely cost a few million dollars more. Then of course there are the cases where the higher graded card actually looks worse than a lower graded card.

Yet in many other cases— when the flip and the card are in harmony— I see no problem with a buyer paying a big price difference if they also see a big difference in card quality. For example, the .5 grade difference between these two cards resulted in a 2x+ premium. So not every case of a higher graded card going for a large premium over a card one half grade lower is the same.

[tiger8mush]

Originally Posted by mantlefan

your just realizing now that TPG is a subjective process in which the standards of grading are not standard?

No, I think the point he's making is we, as buyers, pay for the flip (the opinion of a $25/hr employee) instead of the card.

Both of those look cards look exactly the same, yet one sells for $3k, the other no nibbles at 25% of the price. All because the flip says one is a .5 grade higher.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by tiger8mush

No, I think the point he's making is we, as buyers, pay for the flip (the opinion of a $25/hr employee) instead of the card.

Both of those look cards look exactly the same, yet one sells for $3k, the other no nibbles at 25% of the price. All because the flip says one is a .5 grade higher.

Right. Exactly this.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Football example, but I am putting this on the front page because it's a universal phenomenon. The 8.5 sold at auction for 2993. The 8 is available, and likely will never sell because it's well above market, at 699. Welcome to the asylum.

The answer is obvious, isn't it, Peter? Crack that baby out, ship it raw to PWCC, have them send it in to PSA. Voila, 8.5 baby!

Originally Posted by orly57

This post made me wish this board had a "like" button. Very well played. I see this is only your 4th post, and you have already set your bar pretty high.

I certainly got a good chuckle from it. And this is one instance where I, too, wish I could give a "like". But that would take Pandora's Box, and rip the lid off.