And here we have the birth of The Arnold Group.

I don't think most graded card collectors collect for the competition. I have 500 or so sets in the PSA set registry and there is not one of these I am actually competing to have the best set. Its fun to see where I stand on the registry but I just like to have all my sets in psa 8 or better and look sharp....and I am a passionate as anyone about collecting. There is really no difference in the pssion that graded card collectors and raw card collectors bring to the hobby...its just that graded card collectors are smarter(just kidding on that last statement).

Jim

Hey Jim
 

I know you are very passionate about your collecting. I admire that very much. I certainly didn't mean my comment way above, the way it came out. I just gave my opinion, concerning some collecting I have seen, but also didn't mean to put down the way anyone collects. We had a very nice, fairly long chat at the National and I hope we can do it again at the next one. If you aren't doing anything Friday night you should come over to the Net54baseball dinner. It will be a lot of fun and I would love to see you there.

Its cool Leon. I was in Dallas Thursday. I was going to give you a call to come down to the Mansion at Turtle Creek for a drink. I have never seen so many good looking ladies in a bar in my life. Also had a terrific meal at Ocean Prime. Two thumbs up for Dallas.

Also Leon--appreciate you pointing me to rarites sold by you and others. Love the cards I bought in your last auction. They are adding a cool dimension to my collection. I love prewar cards but beyond the 10-15 most popular sets I don't know a lot about the sets themselves.

All the best,

Jim

I used to be a "raw card only, I hate the slabs" guy years ago but now I have an equal number of cards graded as ungraded. I love having the sets like T205, T206, T207, T212s etc. ungraded, raw in pages, all together. On the other hand, all my caramel cards and M cards are slabbed for several reasons: I wanted them protected, they are easier to re-sell when I pass on and my family inherits them, plus I like the way they look, especially in SGC holders. I likewise have all my T210s graded and slabbed, mostly in SGC holders for eye appeal.
As far as registry sets go, several of my sets of slabbed cards are in all 3 holders- SGC, PSA, and GAI, so they will never make it to #1 without massive cross-grading. That's fine. I do not employ the registry sets as a compulsive drive for the best set, I use them to help identify and prove value in case my cards are ever stolen. It's something we should all think about.

anthony n and tbob
 

no such births here, anthony!!!
just silly playfulness with ole al who i'm always glad to see around here.

bob,
i'm relieved that you still have the gai's. I've been holding onto mine ever since you and I agreed ages ago that gai was pretty good for a period of time, which admittedly seems like ancient history now.
I have the monster in mostly sgc, a few dozen of psa, 2 or 3 dozen of gai,
and 2 or 3 bvg's. They've basically been 'protectors' for me and never felt the need to spend the bucks for the sake of homogeneity,etc. I don't think i've ever sold a card myself---traded once in a blue moon.
When i saw that you'd sent 26 or so of your gai's to sgc(the old address)
i began wondering if i'd best put my thinking cap back on.

all the best,
barry

Graded vs Ungraded
 

Thanks guys, for some very interesting posts. We've toasted certain dealers on this very site and lauded them for their friendliness, customer service, etc., but over the 20+ years I've been collcting, I've found that natural human instinct is that if you're selling the card raw, it tends to be graded higher than it will semi-objectively, by the grading companies, even by guys we've given the highest commendations to. I've purchased '57 Frank Robinsons with an indentation across the center of the card graded near mint, '63 Musial's graded NMt-Mt by mail whose centering was dubious, and with a stain on the back, and a '58 Jim Brown rookie supposedly in NMt-Mt with the back portion scratched off by these same guys. Human nature is human nature, with regard to grading--the seller wants it to be a higher grade simply to make more $$$!

You still have to buy the card, not the slab, as either Jeff or Barry have stated here, but the authentication process becomes more difficult if buying raw, since presumably (hope, hope!) the professional graders have been able to better keep up with restoration techniques than we have as collectors (although my position is that there have been too many 9's and 10's in the pre-'60's area in recent years, which are restored cards that are simply slipping past the graders, and I personally would not be buying such condition rarities without additional insurance). I have read that Jim Crandell will not touch such a high $$ specimen unless Kevin Saucier gives it his personal stamp of approval, and I wouldn't be surprised that some day Kevin starts his own business and starts doing that on a large (and profitable) scale. Maybe Jim isn't so far off on his last remark, especially with the latter qualification. We've come a long way, and so have the card doctors since the '90, when basically all you had to do was bring a high-powered loupe along to shows and take a careful look at the edges to determine originality.

I also agree with Jeff that I enjoy my considerably rare but lower condition cards in slabs as much as those which are more common in higher grades.

Would love to hear your feedback.

Larry

.

Just FYI, but my latest submission was mailed to the PO Box and delivered to SGC on Friday (3/25). So everything is still working from that stand point.

I know that the mail is set up to forward for one year, but the same Post Office where the PO Box was located processes deliveries to the street address, so I'd imagine that if they see an SGC package, it will be placed with street deliveries regardless of how it is addressed. There might be a one or two day delay on a few packages--which is unfortunate--but until the address update is properly implemented by being removed from the all aspects of the site and reprinted on all invoices, the delay might be unavoidable.

Brian

brian d
 

many thanks!
you still offer the best of customer service even when you don't work at the
place anymore.
kudos to you again and again

all the best,
barry

.

Who'll be in charge of the sheep dip?

reassurance
 

so I'd imagine that if they see an SGC package, it will be placed with street deliveries regardless of how it is addressed.--now that sounds reassuring....

adam
 

i'll bring them Herbridean once, but after that they're strictly on their own!
all the best,

barry

That's how forwarding orders are handled. The letter/package is machine sorted to the proper branch, then manually sorted into the route order by the carrier. Except for junk mail which is usually already in route order.

Any vacation hold mail or mail to be forwarded gets removed there. If the forward is in the same branch it would be handed off to the carrier for that route. Forwards outside the same branch get a label and are sent back to the regional processing center. The boxes are a "route" so the person handling the po boxes would make a bin of SGC mail and give it to the carrier. I'm not sure if it would get relabeled, probably not.

Steve B

ZING!!! :eek::eek::eek: