Old Judge Card Prices

[Archive]

Posted By: Jay Miller 

Since Leon so eloquently voiced his pet peeve in a prior thread I thought I would vent one of mine. There seems to be a trend starting in the Old Judge market where slabbed cards are selling for multiples of comparable cards that remain untombed. Can any of you explain this situation to me? I have paid some stupid prices (at the time) in the past for cards I wanted but even I have drawn the line about paying over $600 for an EX card of a player who is not rare. The story used to justify these type of prices usually is that a particular poses is rare. This is almost always just baloney. There is no dealer in the country, except for Lew, who has any real idea which poses are scarce and no one knows that information for more than a small subset of players. Are people afraid of doctored cards and are willing to pay a premium for GAI, SGC or PSA to tell them that the card is good? My experience is that the grading services have questionable expertise in this area at best. Besides, the grading criteria they use deemphasizes qualities that are important to most Old Judge collectors. I'm sure you all have seen pink cards with bad photos that have received high grades because they have sharp corners and clean backs. I would appreciate knowing what you all think.
By the way, if anyone has questions about specific Old Judge cards email me at curl777@aol.com and I will try to help.