[williamcohon]

I have some graded cards. I figured it was better to have PSA or SGC do the authentication on Ruth, Cobb, and Young, than to run the risk of paying real money for fakes. Also, these days, more and more cards ARE graded. So, if I'm searching for a card, and I find a graded specimen at an acceptable price, I end up with it.

Here's the thing: I still like to play with my cards, and the slabs get in the way. No, no, I don't flip raw cards against a wall, or clothespin them to my bike.

Most of my cards are in top-loaders, stored in a cabinet in my closet. So, on my way to work, I reach in and select five or six cards at random and put them in my shirt pocket or jacket pocket. I get to amuse myself at lunch; I open my pretend pack and see who I got. It's fun.

Graded slabs are all about the grown-up concerns of authentication, evaluation, and preservation. When you hold a slab in your hand, you are reminded of investment issues. You think about how good the card is and what you paid, and maybe you think about the size of the population in that condition.

But when I examine a card in a top-loader, my mind and emotions are free. I can travel back in time, as if I were opening a pack a century ago. My mind can wander over different terrain. I think about the words used to describe baseball heroes a hundred years ago, and whether people thought different thoughts, or merely used different words. I think about the artists' choice of backgrounds, and the prevailing view of America pictured in those backgrounds. I consider the continuum of baseball, looking for that which is the same, and that which changes.

Anyway, it is true that PSA and SGC have made it easier to buy expensive cards from strangers. I just wonder if there are others who share my views and predilections.