[jchcollins]

From a pure financial perspective, you may be best advised to not spend the money to grade those kinds of cards - assuming these junk era stars you are talking about are not gem mint rookies or some kind of valuable 90's parallels or inserts.

Many run of the mill 1980's cards are not going to grade super high even if they look nice because the techniques used in their production more closely resemble that of vintage cards than they do of the shiny, die cut things we pull out of packs today. Also, in the era before grading - even though most kids were aware of the importance of condition - the cards got played with and shuffled around loose a lot more than happens today. You have to remember, "mint" to us back then was about like a PSA 6 or 7 today. Centering wasn't really even considered. And Jose Canseco base cards in a PSA 7 are not going to be worth more than the same cards raw.

Just my opinion. Sometimes you might want to have a certain card in a slab even if it is not technically worth it due to sentimental value or something like that, and that is ok too. Most of us have done it.