Posted By:
JimCrandellWP-"It would be a good time for Davalillo to jump in."
Okay--still thawing out after enduring a 5-inch snowstorm in Des Moines.
There is an enormous amount to learn from "old-timers" and my knowledge of vintage cards is but a small fraction of many people on this board.I especially enjoy the comments of Mr. Heitman but I know for a fact that he and Jeff Lichtman are wrong when they say "I don't know of one collector who stood up and shouted 'give me a grading service' nor "grading services began to appear in this hobby without any demand from collectors" or "nobody begged for a grading service"
Meet that guy. I demanded it and I'm not the only one. Jeff-- I couldn't agree more when you say "90% of the dealers lied about the condition of their cards". You never knew what you were buying if you bought by mail. In addition, there was this burgeoning problem of card alteration. Back in late 1980s-early 1990s, I bought a fair amount of expensive ungraded cards. After buying them, I measured them and found several measured short. I showed these cards to various "experts" and for almost all the cards I had suspicions on the opinions were very divided. Card alteration got to be so bad that I made up my mind I would not buy any cards unless they were graded. I know of several substantial graded card collectors who felt similarly. Collectors completely lost confidence in the ungraded vintage card market. I can remember Superior Sportscards last ungraded sportscard aucttion. A significant number of cards did not receive bids--those that did were in many cases low. Greg called me the next morning and offered me several cards incl a Diamond Star #108 in nrmt-mt at min. bid. What caused me to demand card grading to paraphrase Mr. Heitman's words was that when I ultimately sent in these cards to PSA for grading many came back trimmed or altered in some way.
Now I know that card grading cos are not perfect and that many altered cards have slipped into graded card company holders but grading has attracted an enormous number of new players into the hobby--many of whom have thrown millions into the hobby. Grading is the here and now and the future of the hobby.
Jim