Buying the grade not the card ?

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Posted By: Brad

If you had the choice of receiving a graded T206 Wagner but could only pick one of three identical cards, the only difference is the grading company. What would be your 1st choice and why? (oh yeah, your not allowed to cross them over!)

1) T206 Wagner SGC 30

2) T206 Wagner PSA 2

3) T206 Wagner GAI 2.5

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Posted By: quan

if all 3 cards are identical, does it really matter? most i guess would say sgc, you didn't include bvg or i'll choose them because they have the sturdiest holder for that bad boy.

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Posted By: Steve M.

SGC 30 (even a 20 over the other choices)

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Posted By: Steve Dawson

I'd take the PSA card since all my other T206s are PSA.


Steve

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Since the card is the same, another way to ask this question is:

What grading company would you choose to grade your "Good" T206 Wagner?

I would go with PSA. I trust them and if the card ever had to be sold, I think it would bring the highest value if it was in a PSA holder.

Frank

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Posted By: robert a

I'd take the PSA since it's the easiest to break out.

Rob

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Posted By: JimB

For a card like that, it would not matter to me. I think most people buying a card like that only care if it is real and then make the condition judgement on their own.
JimB

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Posted By: dan mckee

The SGC 30, as it is probably a VG card.

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Posted By: Jim Dale

Send it too Beckett and you might get a 4.0 - J/K; I'd have to select PSA 1st and SGC 2nd.

I am very new to these kind of cards and GAI has quite a black eye in my mind right now.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

Robert, you'd really take a screwdriver to a case holding a $250,000 card..??
A frickin mazing.
More power to you, but thats a whole lot of baseball memorabillia you're risking - I don't know anyone in the hobby - not even ted or frank, who'd forgive you if you jabbed it in the side and tore it a new ........

Me, I'd take it however it came if the card was identical, and cross it over to the slab of my choice - maybe go along for the ride and ask if I could hold it for just a few minutes before interring it behind some fresh cold hard plastic.

Daniel

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Posted By: dan mckee

I would pop it out in a second! What a rush knowing you are risking that kind of coin. Send it to me, I will bust it out after 12 beers.

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Posted By: Jim Dale

Give this guy a Picaso....maybe he can toss his elbow through it at a cocktail party

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Posted By: Jason L

wouldn't care...I'd just pop it out and put it in my bicycle spokes!
(along with the rest of my set)

But for the record, my choice = SGC

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Posted By: Dave

I'd choose the one that presented the best. It's all about visual appeal with me.

-If the GAI has a bright front with a little corner wear but gunk on the back... I choose GAI.
-If the SGC has nice corners but a crease in it (that doesn't affect visual appeal)... I choose SGC

So on and so forth.

I'm a guy who buys on presentation, not grade or grading company. GAI, SGC, PSA... they all are good and bad. They all make mistakes and the other graders aren't worth mentioning. My own judgment means more to me than any number.

I think it was Dan McKee who earlier said grading is a cancer in the hobby. I fully agree.

Take this card for example. It has some glue stains on the back... but to me, its nice corners and look outweigh that because when I look at it... it's a beauty to me!

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Posted By: E, Daniel

Please cut out that cancer in your life and send any cards still holdered to me - I have a safe place to keep them that will leave you fully protected.
Oh for those days of yore receiving cards in no better than fair-good condition from a catalog that called them ex+ was SOOOO much better. Please oh please let us have the days back when those sellers of such stellar character and no reason to fib sold me junk for whatever prices they wanted, keeping the choicest material for themselves......AHHH, the Golden Olden Days.
Course, living here in Lawrence Kansas with no vintage card shops, or shows to visit, or any way to actually view first hand the card before I buy it shouldn't sour my thoughts on this, should it. No, much better that I just rely on some ebay description and crappy scan, or maybe an auction house that 'prepares' cards for grading and sale.......Hell, you're right, a 3rd party with no stake in the outcome of deciding a card's condition is the crappiest idea yet. Surely there are others with greater interests in the outcome I should trust.
To this wonderful end and thinking, I believe we should also get rid of any holders that don't require glue and pasting for display or any other ridiculous manner of change that the hobby has undergone, for clearly anything that is not as the hobby was originally intended has totally wrecked it.


Daniel

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Posted By: T206Collector

SGC

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Posted By: Dave

I grade your sarcasm a PSA 4, an SGC 40 and a GAI 5.5. Feel better?

I think everyone is more comfortable buying graded cards. You're right, it has improved the situation with the shady deals, bad cards bought.. etc. I completely agree.

But at the same time... I think there are a lot of collectors who care more about the plastic than the cardboard inside it.

Respect the cardboard, not the number.

That's all I'm saying.

Cheers

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Posted By: Dylan

Its ridiculous to look at grading as a cancer of the hobby. Lets all be honest here, it has brought a great deal more legitimacy to a hobby that was/is plagued by card doctors seeking to make money by any means neccesary. No grading done by humans can be expected to be error free, but overall sgc does a pretty darn good job. And considering the bulk of cards and the price they charge to grade them psa does a pretty good job overall as well. Perhaps its the high dollar prices paid for these encapsulated cards that bothers you? Well guess what, people will pay extra money for the comfort of knowing they when a card is advertised as genuine and mint it most likely will be genuine mint.
Not all of us live in areas where vintage cards abound and we can look at them first hand before purchase.

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Posted By: Bob

If there's no back paper loss I'd take the GAI 2.5.

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Posted By: quan

the question is the card is IDENTICAL in every respect, so it's just which grading company you would prefer it slabbed? PSA/GAI holders slip and slide, SGC insert could cause edge damage, so the obvious choice is PRO since that thing is built like an armor truck!

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Posted By: leon

BVG has been doing a decent job as of late, imho. You won't find a sturdier holder either !! Talking about a tank, that thing is sturdy.... I take out the BIG hammer to crack one of those....(when I crack).....

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Posted By: V117Collector

I'm debating if I should cross over my V117Ruth which is slabbed GAI 2.5, hoping it could receive a 40 from SGC.

I can't see any reason why the Ruth wouldn't get the 40, I've a few sgc40 cards that don't look as nice as my Ruth.

Q: If I send in the Ruth card GAI 2.5 and it only resives a 30sgc would it be worth it?

No paper loss on the back or any were eles!
One crease and some very small light wringles (Scan link below)

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Posted By: Paul

Since I have owned that Ruth in the past, I've always thought the crease & wrinkles would prevent it from a 40. Whenever I "hope" for a 40 from SGC, it never happens. They are tough on those problems in my opinion. I don't think your card would lose any value going from a GAI 2.5 to an SGC 30. Also, who knows, maybe you would get a 40, since it's not me submitting it

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I'd not only cross the card to SGC, I'd crack it out first.

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Posted By: Dan Kravitz

Thoughts about why grading companies are huge benefit and extremely important in our hobby & not a cancer…

A while back “raw” cards were being sold through the mail on a site un-seen basis. Anyone who purchased cards this way was relying solely on the judgment of the Seller. I would imagine too, that cards were being purchased with a check or money order (essentially cash), which probably made card buying a risky endeavor unless you knew who you were dealing with. Fortunately the price of cards were nowhere were they are today, so you had less people trying to deceive the public, and if someone made a mistake it wasn’t going to hurt too badly.
Fast forward to today’s advanced technology to reproduce imagery, manipulate an image, steal an image, laser cut a card, re-back a card, etc. Therefore, I think a 3rd party can be extremely beneficial to a buyer. The 3rd party gives us the important independent person to preview a purchase, and gives us an assumed unbiased determination of its overall quality. Unless the holder has been tampered with, I can pretty much be assured it is authentic, and its grade falls between certain guidelines. I usually can see for myself from a quality scan if the card has a crease, determine quality of corners, condition of the imagery, or has or has not been trimmed. When spending thousands of dollars today on a piece of cardboard, this extremely important.
I’m not saying that these companies are right all of the time; I just believe it gives us the extra unbiased view to help determine authenticity. For the most part, I don’t have any EX cards in my collection, so the condition is mainly determined by me. I respect the 3rd party’s opinion, but it doesn’t mean as much as mine. I only need to know that they feel relatively sure that the card is authentic, which is good enough for me.
On a side but relative note, SGC holders are super nice. For me the holder does not take away from the card, in fact, it enhances it. I think it also has a museum quality look to it. I also like to handle my cards and share them with friends/family. If they were “raw”, I would be afraid to let anyone handle the cards (including me). I have approximately 5% of my collection “raw”, so I can enjoy touching, smelling, and viewing the cards in there original form, but I also enjoy the fact that when I touch my graded cards, I won’t put another crease or mark in them.