How do you manage your excess Flips ?
 

I have just gathered all my flips, and I plan on returning them to PSA and SGC so they can purge from Pop reports. While we all know pop reports are not entirely accurate, I do feel they are important as you can easily see trends on certain types, players, etc. For this reason, I am returning these flips to the grading companies. What do you do with your excess flips ? Do you even care ?

1. Toss them ?
2. Keep them ?
3. Return them to Grading Company ?

What do you do? Just sell them raw?

Well...
 

Well, Chris since you asked a question in response to my posted question, I will play along!

This scan represents a tiny spattering of my collection in which most are raw and some are graded. These flips have been in a box for a several years, and all along, I thought I would return them. I am a collector. I sell when I upgrade, change my collecting theme, or to help a fellow collector out.

Chris - What do you do with your excess Flips ?

I cut up the flips and use the letters in my ransom demand notes. But that's just me.

well here's a related question -- what do the third-party grading companies even do when notified that their holster has been cracked/opened (either to keep as raw or even when crossing over to be graded by another company)? do they reduce their population reports? ie, are the population reports intended to be accurate for currently, or for historically (ie, "we've only ever seen x number of such-and-such card at such-and-such grade")?

I haven't personally cracked open any TPG holsters, partly cause I like having them encased, both for protection/storage and also in case I ever wish to trade/sell. But I've been considering crossing over some to keep my cards in one company, and have been wondering how they handle the population reports with regard to crossover grading. Cause if they don't adjust, then I would just be "adding" more cards at a certain grade, thus possibly diluting their worth unnecessarily.

I used to throw them away... but now, most of the time I save them. I look at them once in a while, especially after reading something where folks have total trust in TPG and total faith in the pop reports. I do not sent them in to the TPGers.

TPG's & Flips
 

Shaun - I have sent in a few flips to PSA and they do reduce or change the Pop report by simply taking the Cert #, and remove it once they have the flip in hand. I confirmed this by looking at the pop before and after I sent in the flip. (Contact C/S before sending) I am about to do the same with SGC. My thoughts on this are I would probably not bother returning flips on a 63 Rose, but a T210 Series 8, I think makes sense since there are less than 10 of each player graded by all TPG combined. Yes, dilution is what I am trying to avoid, b/c I own the cards behind the flips.

Frank - as mentioned, the Pop reports are just a guide, but do tell a story. Take the T210-8 Joe Jackson for example. You take the pop from SGC and PSA on the Joe's, and you surmize how many might be out there in raw form, and possibly a very few undiscovered and you can draw conclusion that there are probably less than 20 Joe's in existence. This would correlate to the T210-8's that I collect, b/c my guess is there would possilby be either less or about the same amount of the Nashville players I collect. This has proven to be accurate as most Joe's have been graded and sold or at least graded and kept and we have an accurate guide of what Joe's are worth. Essentially, I can get a real feel for how many examples may be out there in what I collect. Can a person do this for everything they collect. Probably not, but for scarce to rare stuff, it can be invaluable from a stand point of understanding just how rare the card may be...

I would actually like a set of T206 flips if possible. If anyone has some they would like to get rid of please let me know.

I don't have any, but that's a great idea for a collection!! I wonder what a Wagner flip would go for these days?

I keep my flips because I keep everything, worthless or not, looking forward to see what they say when I'm profiled on the show "hoarders"

I send them in for grading
 

to the opposite company from that which issued the flip. So all PSa flips go to SGC and vice versa. I keep only the Mint slabbed flips, and sell the rest.

:D:D:D

honestly, I toss them. but I have only cracked maybe 5-10 cards in my life...over the past 7 years since I returned to collecting.

Frank, now that's not very neighborly of you. Some might describe you as a taker and not a giver with that attitude. And that is not good at all.

Hello there, Neighbor Jeff...

Thanks for leaving your post up. So what should I do with them? I'd have thought un-neighborly would have been not 'fessin' up that I was bustin' 'em out.

It would be nice to have a set of flips on registry. Then you can show your friends your flip set, while they roll their eyes at you.

nm

Thrown them all away.

Same here. IMO the population report is already largely irrelevant and beyond repair, mostly.

Jeremy (and others who have sent in their flips),

I would like to return my flips also. However, do you think there would be any bias for doing this? For example, if I sent the flips with my PSA submission, do you think PSA would grade my cards lower than they deserve? Similar for SGC. That is what concerns me in that if I had a submission for 5 cards, but sent in 200 flips also, the TPG might get annoyed.

If this is a concern for you, just make it a non-issue by mailing them separately. You don't even need to put a return address if you want anonymity. What are we talking, like $3 shipping?

BTW, once I crack a slab, I put the card in a top loader and put the flip in the top loader behind the card to keep the two together. I believe keeping the flip probably adds legitimacy if I ever want to sell the card.

What if you just kept the flips, but made a scan of them and mailed the TPG the scan of all the flips?

Clayton

I don’t think the grading companies would go for that w/o having the actual flips in hand.

Imagine this scenario: There are two individuals competing for the same set in the registry. One of the individuals steals images of his competitor’s cards, prints the images and cuts out the flips. Then the individual mails the flips to the TPG with a letter that says “please delete.” That could be a bad situation.

That may sound kind of ridiculous, but some of those registry guys can be pretty cutthroat from what I’ve heard.

Great point David, I hadn't thought of that.

I guess I was just thinking more along the lines that if I had all of these flips I would sort of want to keep them, maybe in case I was ever to sell the card I could send it along with the card, but still have the TPG's adjust their pop reports.

Sincerely,Clayton

I don't have...
 

...any issue with busting out the cards from their holders. Heck, population reports are only a useful as a general guide to relative scarcity, and not the end-all-be-all of card provenance. But if you are ever going to upgrade those cards and sell them as dupes, you are leaving potentially significant money on the table by busting them out.

I have a nice raw T206 set going, with over 300 examples, and a few of them are slabbed. It's awfully tempting to bust the slabs open to keep the entire set looking consistent and raw, but every time I think of doing it, I think of all the money I am literally throwing away and can't bring myself to do it.

If you still have the card then there is no issue of having duplicates in the population reports after you crack it out.

I think you should bust out the card and mail the card to the TPG and keep the flip. More people collect the plastic holders than collect the cards.:D

I keep my flips and turn them in every so often. I make sure that I do this timely when I have cards that have very low total pops when I crack and send to a different TPG. I did talk to a representitive of one of them and I was told that PSA and SGC do not communicate with each other when they do crossovers. I asked because I knew of a very high profile card that was crossed.

Gary - I don't think there is any bias at all. These operations are too busy, and these guys in the industry understand there are multiple reasons why someone cracks the slabs.

Clayton - Customer Service has to receive the flips in hand before pop reports get purged. (Also, I recommend getting a person at Customer Service to mail them to someone who will take responsibility. At SGC, I send them to Michael, the C/S Mgr, and at PSA, I send them to a C/S Rep, Laura, who is very helpful)

I like part of my collection raw, and the other part of it in slabs. Heck, I just sent in 35 cards to get graded by SGC, so for me it is some of both.

Thanks for your thoughts, guys -