[shaunsteig]

I'm in a similar position to yourself -- collected contemporary baseball cards extensively while growing up in the 80s and early 90s, and within the last 6 months have gotten back into collecting, now focusing on vintage. Welcome back to the field, and to the board -- despite the overall economy, it's a fine time to be collecting I feel.

Beckett has a few different grading services, so just want to clarify. BGS is for modern cards, BVG is for vintage cards. They're both considered fine, although BVG is sometimes considered to be the "step-child" among vintage collecting behind PSA and SGC (although there are many here who have stated that they consider BVG's gradings very reliable and conservative). What you need to avoid is BCCG - their numeric scale is way off (they give a 6 for a good, or something like that) and I don't consider them an option at all.

One benefit to sticking to one grading company when collecting a set is for the registry. Both PSA and SGC have online set registries where you can list your cards, and they compute your collection's rank, factoring in grade as well as the card's "relative value" (eg, a HOFer will carry more weight than a commoner). For some, climbing to the top of the registry for a particular set is paramount. For me, it's one means of organizing my set and also for sport. I also like how PSA created listings of "virtual sets", eg HOF NY Yankees.

Also, to submit to PSA you either need to pay to become a Collectors Club member, or you need to find a PSA-certified dealer and submit the cards through them. For SGC, there's no membership nor dealer program -- so there's no threshhold. Also keep an eye out for each of their monthly specials, as they can entail very significant savings, or bulk discounts.

And absolutely -- buy the card, not the holder. There's variation within each grade, whether deliberate or accidental, among any TPG (third-party grader), so don't simply buy a card due to the grade but also have to factor in the visual appeal.

Best of luck!
--S