Grading Question
 

A newbie here to the forum and pretty new to cards. I have a 1980 Rickey Henderson (not the original owner) that looked like it had a shot at a 10, so I sent into to PSA for grading. It came back N5: Altered. Doing some research it seems it was probably in a screw-down holder at some point. Also, read putting in a cigar box can help, so I have done that for the past month or so. Anyway, looking to get it re-graded. The card itself has perfect centering and nothing noticeable corner or edge-wise. Under the naked eye, the surface looks good. Taking a closer look under magnifying glass can see a few surface blemishes.

I have sent a batch of 80s football to BGS. (I liked the idea of the .5 grades), most of those came back lower than I thought. I have also sent in a Dan Marino rookie to PSA, that looked the same (to the naked) eye as the Henderson, which came back as an 8.

I'm now kinda leaning toward SGC to send the Henderson and other 80s cards. Is SGC the best option for 80s cards....Just looking for any feedback...Thanks

I haven't sent to anyone other than PSA, but I will say get yourself a 10x magnifying glass and look at your cards in under that level of magnification under good light. Flaws that you don't see with the naked eye are much more apparent.

Hopefully that helps you not get surprised with grades, which is always a bummer. 1980's cards can be tough to find in high grades due to the production process and the ravages of 40 years out in the wild.

Good luck!

did you match the rickey up with another base 1980 card? if it's the same size, then it certainly makes sense to have it re-graded (SGC seems like a better idea since you already went down the PSA channel).

Grading
 

Well, this is just my opinion. I started getting cards graded when PSA
started and now I have quit. As for your 80's or 90's cards, don't waste your
time. Even if you get a 10 you can probably buy a 10 for less then
the grading and shipping fees there are so many out there. I was
sending in my 70's, late 60's cards and you just can't grade them against
the cards being made today. Beautiful cards centered, great corners
measure perfect come back 5's & 6's maybe an 8 if your lucky.
Then you look at ebay and I couldn't sell them for the grading and
shipping fees and that's after waiting months to get them back.
Just my opinion :)

I did match it up and as far as I can tell it is the same size. I wound up sending into SGC late last week, so we'll see what happens.

Good points...I am slowly realizing the same things based on my limited experience. Growing up in the 80s, I just prefer those cards. I am starting to get into the new cards.

I agree with everything said in this post. I too have been getting small amounts of cards graded since the inception of PSA and Beckett. I was very satisfied back in the old days with the results. An then, it started morphing into what it is today. Beckett even treated vintage cards separately from their standard card grading, and came up with BVG. A 50s card that would receive a 6 or 7 back then would now receive a 3-4. Crazy. If you look closely at todays market of graded cards, the PSA case or Beckett case, you will see the higher graded vintage cards (mainly 79 and back) are in older cases. That's because they were looked at differently, as they should be. In today's market a vintage card is graded the same way as any other card. It stands to reason that a card issued prior to the advent of penny sleeves and top loaders is not going to grade as well as a new one that in some cases, is never touched by human hands.

However, with all that said, it is the world we currently live in. Maybe with AI some parameters can be built into the grading system that recognize, or consider, the year in which they're made. Until then, be cautious when you submit any card in for grading. It probably will not come back in the grade you expect.

nice - let us know how it works out. always loved the 1980 rickey, but i sold off all my copies and bought a lot of 1979 ogden rickey.