Quote:
Originally Posted by barrysloate
Here is something I simply do not understand regarding the large sums spent on baseball cards. Let's take two lots in the recent REA Auction: Lot 12, a PSA 9 Hank Aaron rookie which sold for 216K; and lot 13, a PSA 9 Sandy Koufax rookie which sold for 156K. We all know those are both very common cards, and only attained those lofty bids because they were graded Mint 9. For someone willing to pay such an extraordinary amount of money for them, there had to be a strong belief that what they were buying is exactly what it says on the label. But here is what we also know:
1) A card submitted for grading that comes back "Evidence of Trimming" can be resubmitted a month later and come back NR MT 7.
2) The same card can be submitted three times and come back with three different grades.
3) Countless trimmed and altered cards make it into holders with numerical grades with alarming frequency.
So can somebody tell me why there is such a blind faith in that little white label? To me there is a disconnect here that makes no sense. Why is something so subjective and so inconsistent treated with such absolute trust? You don't spend a quarter of a million dollars on something if you are not completely confident you are getting what you are paying for.
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Because the flip is the commodity, not the card. Flips sell, and nobody scrutinizes what's in the holder very much, at certain strata anyhow. I've seen cards posted here that I would bet my life are altered, but many just see the flip and ooh and aah.
"What we said of it, became a part of what it is." -- Wallace Stevens.