VERY High End Card in Beckett Holder - Thoughts
 

I have the opportunity to buy a beautiful high end card that I've always wanted but couldn't afford. It's sitting in a Beckett 8.5 holder. Looks to be legit. Centered perfect... and selling for about 1/3 of what I's have to pay for a comparable PSA. Any advice?

If you’re an investor buying an investment slab instead of a card, don’t do it.

If you’re a collector buying a card, congrats on the bargain, lock it in.

Sounds like a no-brainer...buy it now. That would be my move, anyway. Especially if you've seen good images of it and are completely satisfied with what you see.

The only thing that Beckett does that other TPGs don't do is they will grade sheet-cut/hand-cut cards that could normally be obtained with a factory cut. I see that somewhat regularly with O-Pee-Chee hockey cards.

Has Beckett fallen THAT far?

PSA grades the 84 Nestles cards that were only issued in full sheets.
Probably plenty of others too.

Yeah, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying PSA won’t grade (numerically) cards that were hand cut from full sheets IF those cards could be obtained as singles cut from the factory.

IFF they can detect it...

Bingo.

Also, to the OP…buy it and just regrade if you don’t like Beckett. Regardless of rumor I see no proof that Beckett misses anything more than PSA or SGC, it seems like a brand homer belief. The only concern is the sheet cut, which is factual. As you have not given the card set, it’s impossible to say if that would even apply

Agree with Justin on all counts. I have crossed several cards from BVG to PSA and had better than anticipated results.

Hypothetical: If I cross it over and it comes back altered, trimmed, or "minimum size requirement," is there any recourse from the original grader (Beckett). FYI... the card in question is on ebay now. 1967 Seaver in a Beckett 8.5 holder. Seems like one of those too good to be legit deals... but it looks really nice.

BGS has no grade guarantee. Although they were sued in a similar case over a quarter million dollar card. https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...-auction-more/

I’m not seeing anything that would bring it back as altered but it’s not gonna cross over at 8.5 - Not sure how PSA would treat the two full rough cut borders but the corner near the M in Mets is not a near mint corner - Centering is really good - A nice PSA seven would be about $2k .

Interesting.

Looks like the case is ongoing. Beckett tried to have it dismissed, but lost the ruling, so there's still a chance the plaintiff could prevail.

Beckett would not be my preference, but if you have no questions on authenticity and are happy with the appearance for a PC card, then there is nothing wrong with it. I did this fairly recently on a nice '69 Reggie RC in a BVG 4.5 that walked into my LCS. It was an old flip that had the subgrades on the back - which if you were active in the hobby in the early 2000's - there was a brief period of time when they did this and were actually fairly tough graders.

So, I bought the card for what I thought was a fair price. Ironically, in checking out the cert after I bought it, it would not come up on the Beckett database - so I called them. Long story short, the slab was "so old" that Beckett could not even stand behind it. (Huh?) I mean the slab was old, but not that old. It was from maybe 2005 or so; PSA and SGC still routinely stand by their slabs that old for purposes of re-holder, etc. The kicker on this was if I wanted it reholdered and to appear in their cert verification, BVG wanted me to to pay for both shipping and regrading on my dime. Uh, no thanks. I just left it in the old holder, it was in good shape and I kind of dig the subgrades on the back - which of course nobody does anymore for vintage.

Only caution for Seaver with Beckett - I will say that in the distant past I have seen a fake Seaver RC that got holdered as authentic in a BVG slab. I'm sure they got called on that.