Posted By:
Al CrisafulliI don't think grading has saved the hobby per se', but I get Jim's point, and agree with it.
We often forget that the hobby consists of a primary market of companies putting out packs of baseball cards every year, and people buying them. The 05 revenues for Topps alone were $294 million - which is a pretty decent number - mostly from the sales of shiny new cards in packs. I think the concept of companies making cards and people buying them each year is a safe one, grading or not.
Of course the hobby also consists of a secondary market of collectors like us, and this is where I agree with Jim. Completely.
There are people who consider condition a primary factor in their collection, and there are people who don't. Fine. But whether you do or not, it is a WHOLE lot easier to get an idea of condition from someone who tells you a card is an SGC 60 then it is from someone who tells you a card is EX.
Grading may have its negatives, but given the dollars that go into the secondary market, it's here to stay. Anyone who's tried to assemble a graded set with self-submissions, or bought an overgraded raw card over the internet from a seller who wouldn't take it back, or gotten stuck with an altered or counterfeit big-dollar raw card would agree.
-Al