Quote:
Originally Posted by perezfan
And why should we care about some criminal’s opinion of whether the assigned grade is accurate or not? Wouldn’t it depend largely on WHEN the card was graded? Did he vomit out his vaunted opinion when PSA and SGC were more lenient, and grading far easier 4-5 years ago?
|
For a few reasons: 1) Because they have the card in hand and you don't. 2) Because they know how to grade cards and most buyers don't. 3) Because they evaluate cards for eye-appeal all day every day, and they have a pretty good pulse on what most of these cards *should* look like.
A few people earlier suggested that the reason people like the stickers is because it somehow validates their cards to them, or in some way makes them better because it shows that someone else gave it the thumbs up too. But this is missing the mark. The reason the market values the stickers is because of the points I listed above. The most important of which is they have the card in hand and you don't. Cards often have hidden flaws, especially in the low to mid grade range, and we as buyers are left to wonder whether or not a card has a flaw that we can't see. On ebay, we often ask sellers directly if there any creases we can't see, or for additional pictures, etc. The stickers provide the buyer with a sense of security, knowing that someone who knows what they're doing has evaluated the card in hand, and they think it is one of the best examples you can find in that grade, and/or that it is even under-graded. That information is valuable in a market where 99% of transactions occur online these days. Especially since the grading companies are wildly inconsistent with their grades and do not publish grading notes/flaws for cards. Seeing a card in a PSA 4 holder is merely a starting point for most buyers. If I know that a card in a PSA 4 holder will regrade as a 5 or better with near certainty, then I'm going to bid accordingly. But if I don't know if there are hidden flaws on a PSA 4, then I'm not going to bid it to the moon because the risks that it will always be a PSA 4 at best are too high. So I'll just bid as if it's a 4.