Almost Found Something Cool in a Small NJ Shop
 

I stopped into a card shop I had never been to before, in an unnamed NJ town on Tuesday and it was a real tiny place. With my friend and the owner in the store, the place was crowded.

I looked around, then asked the guy if he had anything vintage and he showed me some cards from the 50's-70's. I said do you have anything older and he mentioned he had just sold some Playball cards. So I said, I collect T206 cards and he went in the back and said he might have something interesting, some strip cards.

He came out and handed me a small pile of W516-1 cards, so I looked. Common, common, common, common, Ray Schalk, Tris Speaker, Walter Johnson and Ty Cobb!

So calmly I asked prices on them and he said, hmmm, not sure and disappeared...sort of. The back of his store was half the size of the front so I could still see him.

Unfortunately, this story has an unhappy ending. Five minutes later, he found them in his big Beckett Price Guide.

$50 each for the commons and Schalk(not a bad price because it was nice)
$300 Speaker
$500 Cobb and Johnson

Well...you still found something cool...just not at cool prices.

If he knows what they are why doesn't he out them on eBay?

The five minutes he spent looking them up makes me think he had no idea what they were, other than strip cards. That and the fact most people don't just keep a random pile of "$1550 worth of cards" off to the side.

It's odd that he was able to find them in Beckett if he didn't know what they were.

It's entirely possible he didn't find the exact cards, but he knew they were strip cards, so that kind of cuts down the search a lot. There aren't that many strip cards and they are all in one section with a sample picture you can use as a guide. Not remembering the commons, there may have been one in the set that isn't in others and he was able to find it by process of elimination.

It took him five minutes like I said, so it wasn't like he opened the book to a page and said ah ha like it was in a movie script to cut down on time.

Johnny D....
 

sorry my friend......too bad he didn't find some T206 scraps:);)

Not that odd. I have had a few HOF strip cards for a very long time. Years back I looked them up in my 2007 SCD. I put a post-it on the toploader so I will know the ACC designation. But, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what that exact designation is unless I pull them out and look at it.

I did the same thing with mine.

I didn't think it was odd at all actually. Five minutes was fine with me, I looked through other cards to kill time.

It was Alex (Smokes 4) who used the term "odd". I should have quoted him:) It would take me more than five minutes to find the cards I mentioned:o

Paul - I never would have been able to find a strip card that fast with Beckett alone. I remember it taking me at lest an hour on the web about 10 years ago.

According to PSA
 

According to PSA, there is never a (single) grader. Their website says (http://www.psacard.com/Services/PSAGradingProcess/):

"Grader #1 will then enter his grade for the card in question (and for each card within the order until the order is completed if there is more than one card) and close the order on his screen. Once that is done and after redistribution of the order, Grader #2 will do the same – not knowing the opinion of the first grader on any of the cards within that order.

If their grades match in the computer, the card would then eventually reach a 3rd grader for verification of the grade. If the opinion of the first two graders does not match, that card will be assigned to a 3rd grader whose opinion is required to break the tie, so to speak. As with the first example, the card would still be assigned to another grader for verification (a 4th grader in the process) to make sure the grade is accurate and consistent with our standards."

Based on the above, three graders had to agree that it was a 10. I also assume that "3rd" and "4th" grader above are not in reference to 9 and 10 year olds.

Based on the above, three graders had to agree that it was a 10. I also assume that "3rd" and "4th" grader above are not in reference to 9 and 10 year olds.[/QUOTE]

That's very funny! I had to read it a few times.
My "3rd grader" sure likes to have her opinion be the final deciding opinion. I need to check with PSA and see if they are hiring more 3rd graders, soon to be 4th graders!
sure seems like a lot of graders to grade a single card if it's not a extra high value 9-10. Perhaps their in house disagreements between graders could explain the current slow turn around. I wonder how they handle light bulb replacement ( if it takes 4 employees to grade a card).