1980 Topps Rickey Henderson RC PSA 10 or BGS 9.5/10 card for review.
 

Hello everyone.

1980 Topps Rickey Henderson RC PSA 10 or BGS 9.5/10 card for review.

Wanted to get feedback on this card to know if I have a chance for either PSA 10 or BGS 9.5/10?

This is a very sharp card, but I just am unsure which one gives me a better chance. I have submitted many cards to PSA but never BGS and plan to sell shall I hit the goldmine. PSA has killed me with Minsizerq on cards that measure out including a few sharp examples such as this so I need to know if I am wasting my time submitting repeatedly or is this the typical way they punish you on a way towards a 10? lol

Using PSA as an example--When you have a card like this, do you submit at the $500 max level ($18 fee) and let them contact you to pay the $700 shall it hit the PSA 10 mark or do they expect you to pay up front to get the grade?


If it is only a PSA 9 I will probably keep it because my personal opinion is it has eye appeal stronger than that.



Thanks for the help.

http://i63.tinypic.com/2myx66b.jpg http://i66.tinypic.com/qs2h74.jpg
http://i68.tinypic.com/rbe445.jpg http://i68.tinypic.com/15rf81v.jpg http://i66.tinypic.com/11qn807.jpg http://i66.tinypic.com/28kt5lc.jpg

Awesome card but I would say that centering is off R-L if you got out the ruler.

If anything at all it was tilted so slightly because the camera angle was not straight. It is pretty close to 50-50 left to right in the center with measuring. Desktop ruler shows 47.5-52.5 at worst part of card.

Anything else holding it back and that is within the threshold of PSA 10 right? (not sure of BGS though)

http://i64.tinypic.com/mtouuu.jpg

does not
 

look like a 10 to me looks like a very nice card, would not be shocked if they put an 8 on it though. Could 9 one corner just appears a tad touched so i say no 10.

Which corner are you referring to out of curiosity so I can take a look at it? I know I saw a 9.5 with a pretty bad corner hit for a 9.5 IMO so I pulled up the ebay auction.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1980-Topps-R...YAAOSwvgdW2Mrj

http://i66.tinypic.com/20s8jd.jpg

I am not saying they would grade another that way, but definitely I have no corners like that.

Thank you for the feedback so far guys.

I'm seeing just a touch of something on the top left corner on the back of the card. Seems like I'm seeing a touch of white there against the blue but it could just be a trick of the light since there is some glare there on the picture. Hard to tell for sure without being able to hold it. Definitely a very sharp card though.

I definitely think it could hit a BGS 9.5 would be crazy awesome if you scored a BGS 10 on it.

jewelers loupe
 

It is really hard to judge the Henderson from the photo. I use a loupe to check the corners of my cards and have pretty good success in selecting 10's. I have even better success eliminating the 8's and 9's before I blow the grading fee. You able to eliminate cards that look like a 10, but under the loupe have some issues. You can get a 30 x 21MM Jewelers Loupe on ebay for $6.50 to $6.75 with free shipping. The cost of one PSA sub.

Frosted
 

Does the holder look frosted to anyone else? Maybe Mexico?

Have a loupe as well as its a necessity to match PSA's guidelines. This one is good to go. I just wanted some opinions on where is best to submit this one and if I have any shot at all at a 10 or 9.5 since it is so far fetched usually for this card.


_________________
Just in case that BGS 9.5 is a bad card frosting/manufactured as you are suggesting.

Here is a side by side next to two PSA 10's I could find online. One is on PSA's website so they believe Dimitri Young's upper right touched corner and off-center fit the bill...The back is also off quite a bit.

.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ....................... http://i66.tinypic.com/160pf2c.jpg
http://i68.tinypic.com/2mw7yq9.jpg
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ....................... http://i65.tinypic.com/30ac8x1.jpg

Its a great looking card. Most really nice 9s are almost impossible to distinguish from 10s in my opinion and from the 10s and 9s I have looked at. In my opinion, you have a better chance of winning the lottery, then PSA giving you a 10 on that card, unless you are an auction house or you do big volume with them. I know it shouldnt matter who the submitter is, but count me in the group who believes it does matter.
I hope I am wrong and you get a 10. Looks like a solid 9, but it wouldnt surprise me if it even came back an 8 or 8.5.

+1 (On it matters who submits the card, even though it shouldn't).

It is a nice card and I would go with PSA. Biggest lottery payout.

To the part of your question regarding service and fee level I would estimate the value raw. Even though a 10 is worth 30k or whatever it's not a 10 yet. Raw it's worth 100 or 200. Submit accordingly to save on the fees. It's very hard to get a 10 so hope for the best but don't be surprised if it comes back an 8 or 9.

Once pulled a Henderson from a pack of 80's Topps. Card look exactly like that except all the cards had a nick on the bottom right corner. Suffice it to say, I was bummed.

My uneducated opinion. 70% chance of a 9. 25% chance of a 8. 5% chance of a 10. Just sub it repeatedly until it hits. Plenty have done it and plenty will.

I've yet to encounter a compromised BGS holder. If they're that good, more power to them.

It's a really nice card you have. I took it to Photoshop, and it's definitely within the parameters for a 10 grade on centering side to side.

You have to look at the population report. 14,489 '80 Topps Hendersons have been graded, by PSA, and only fifteen have been given a 10.

For me, BGS is my go to for modern. PSA for vintage, an SGC for pre-war. 1980 is right on the line for vintage/modern, but I still consider the '80 set vintage. Topps was still the only game in town. I personally view 1981 as the start of the modern era.

Good luck with the submission. That really is a beauty.

I've been using a 10 x loupe from Bausch & Lomb. Looking at the 30 x 21MM on Ebay, and the same as listed on Amazon, a lot of posters are saying these provide nowhere near 30 x magnification. Which one are you using, and are you absolutely certain it's 30 x?

sweet card!
I have been looking for a "perfect" PSA 8 for a few weeks now to no avail .... print dots on the As flag bug me the most, and your card has none

PSA is the correct choice

I'm not sure how close to 30 x the loupe really is, but I am satisfied with the magnification for checking jewelry, silver, art, and now cards. I also use an eye clops (toy) bionic eye that hooks to the TV and is 200 x. It takes two steady hands to use, so I couldn't get a good photo of what it really does.

I do something similar. I scan the card at 1200DPI and then hook my laptop to the TV. Amazing difference between the 13" laptop and 50" TV screens.

Thanks for answering this. I will send at the $18 level then, but hope for a call back to me accordingly to raise it to $700! (this is what I was told would happen should you hit a goldmine card like this)

Thanks guys for all the support and comments so far. I think PSA is the correct choice, I just had noticed a little more lenience with BGS giving some 9.5's easier than the PSA 10(which is worth a heck of a lot more) so maybe I will try PSA and if it lands a 9 because it is in the middle of 9-10 I will send to BGS afterwards hoping for an upgrade.

I had the same question when I first submitted a raw card to PSA. I was told by PSA if I was lucky enough to hit the "jackpot" and get a 10 on a similar card they would contact me to see if i want to pay for additional insurance in return shipping. They will not charge you for the higher service level.

And yes that card is worth a lot more in a PSA 10 holder than a BGS or BVG 9.5. I would agree that trying for that first is the best strategy. Good luck.

Hmm. Interesting. I would have sworn I asked the same exact question and they told me they would expect the higher service level to be paid. The agent could have been wrong I suppose or maybe misunderstood the difference in service level and shipping insurance. They actually told me the reverse funny enough that you could not increase insurance coverage. lol Your version certainly makes more sense, but I kind of believed them charging $700 had it hot lottery status made sense too as they charge more for higher value cards. The agent then did say to be conservative when sending.

*I will make note that he did tell me that if you send in a Jordan Rc you do have to pay for the grade. Meaning to me that they do expect you to pay for obvious cards when they are sent, but maybe there are exceptions such as a Henderson which jumps 3 service levels between 9 and 10 grades?

It was a couple of years ago that I asked, and things certainly could have changed since then. But to me, if you paid for 10 day, or 2 week, whatever it is service, and it turns out your card is high grade, it doesn't make sense to retroactively charge a customer for express 1 day service. It does make sense to see if a card that is now worth 1000s or 10s of thousands of dollars should be insured for that amount.

Not everything that a company does makes sense to me though, so you may be right. That just wasn't my understanding.

Either way though, $700 would be a very small price to pay for a PSA 10 Henderson rookie. Let's hope you find out one way or the other for sure.

Definitely, I want that call asking to charge me $700 instead if that is the policy! It's like buying the grade. I believe they do not charge that much for the speed only necessarily, it is also due to the handling and the fact that head grader(s) will be assessing the card. It is sort of an assumption though.

Either way I think upping the insurance should be possible also so it is very likely the customer service rep was misinforming me.

Wow, that level of magnification does make a big difference.

And, as for the $700 fee if you hit a 10, if they would allow it, you could fly out to their HQ, pick up the card, and fly back for far less.

I hope you hit the baseball card lottery. :)

I submitted this card last week at the $85 Super Express level because of the potential value and also because I had my tin foil hat on thinking that they might not grade it 9/10 if submitted at the $18 level. It came back an 8, which I guess shouldn't come as a surprise because it has just the slightest fraying along the upper left edge near the corner and the tiniest touch on the lower left. Both of these issues are no worse than the corner touch you referenced above in the Dmitri Young card that graded a 10. I think it's perfectly centered front and back, top to bottom. Color and everything else looks great to me but I'm no expert. Good luck in your quest to hit the lottery w/ this card.

Nice card regardless of numerical grade, but obviously a PSA 10 would be a very welcome result.

Two other things to look for on this card are surface scratches and surface bubbles, which are fairly common on this issue. They can be really tough to see in scans, with surface bubbles sometimes only being evident when you hold the card at an angle with a flashlight shining on it.