Just my thoughts on graded cards

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Posted By: David B

I'm new to the board and I'm sure that card grading has been discussed here to exhaustion, but I felt like I had to put in my 2 cents. Bob was nice enough to recently send me a copy of the article on grading from VCBC #7 (thank you, Bob). Very interesting and, as far as I'm concerned, right on the money. I was just reading the thread begun by Travis on "best card find for the value". I noticed several people purchased graded cards, broke them open, re-submitted them to another grading service, and had them come back with a higher grade. With the higher grade, the cards were worth considerably more. But isn't this just a sham? What is the true value anyway? Was the card originally undervalued, or after re-grading is it now overvalued? Who's to say? Someone even mentioned sending in a trimmed card to SGC and having it come back with a grade. This is why I almost never buy graded cards. About the only times I've done so was to make sure an often counterfeited card was authentic (but even then, is that really a guarantee?). It seems to me the only winners when it comes to graded cards are the grading services. Although they are harder and harder to find, I'll continue to search out ungraded vintage cards for my collection.

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Posted By: Bob

David you are certainly welcome for the article. I'm glad you found it informative as did I. The only thing you mentioned that I would take issue with is the idea of buying only ungraded cards. There is a saying here that you always buy the card, not the holder. Quite often cards will be severely undergraded and you can get a good deal on them because some of the "slab-heads" will steer away from lower graded cards. I recently received a PSA 2 from Mike in the BST thread which looks almost identical to a PSA 6 which went off in an auction last night. I can't for the life of me figure out why it was graded so low but I was able to snag it for $85 instead of $400 and the card's appearance is beautiful so I was happy to say the least.
I realize that most of the collectors here have more knowledge than the run of the mill ebay buyer, but they guys (and gals) here have a keen eye for eye appeal and what does and does not constitute a p, f, g, vg, vgex, ex, exmt, etc. card so often cards are bought which are slabbed in lower grades at bargain prices.
On the other hand I have seen some real dogs graded vg and vgex so what you say does have merit, but again I go back to the "buying the card, not the holder" maxim. Sometimes also it is just impossible to find certain cards which aren't slabbed. An example would be the 300 series cards in the Sporting Life set (M116). About half of the 300 back cards are very scarce and it seems like you simply can not find these cards except in holders...
tbob

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Posted By: David B

Bob, I understand your point about buying the card, not the holder, but I would have to disagree somewhat. The price you end up paying for a slabbed card is based on the grade stamped on the holder. You might be lucky enough to find an undergraded card and get a good deal - where a good eye comes into play. But, say you buy a fairly graded card in Ex condition, you're going to pay a premium above the value of the "raw" card. So if the card is worth $100 in raw Ex condition and $200 in graded Ex condition, you're paying $100 for the card and another $100 for the holder (or for some guy to give his opinion that the card is really in Ex condition). Ultimately, though, you have to trust your eye to see if a card is graded correctly, which, of course defeats the whole purpose of grading as the final authority on the condition of a card (as is pointed out in the VCBC article).

Anyway, I'll shut up now. I can see from the lack of other responses that this grading question has been beaten to death ad nauseum.

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Posted By: leon

You're right. This subject has been debated heavily on this board. The more we learn to buy the card and not the holder the more the grade plays less of a factor in the price. This is of course excluding the set registry guys when the # on the PSA slab actually means more than the card. No use debating it, as it is what it is....We've had that discussion over and over and over. Case in point about buying the card and not the slab. I bought 2 PSA graded cards as the National. Both are D304's...one was a common in a 4 holder but the holder had been tampered with...it was obvious. I liked the card so I still bought it. If it hadn't been trimmed it would have been a 30-40. It now resides in an AUT holder from SGC. The other D304 is Young and it was in a PSA1 holder that had not been tamperered with. I cracked it and got some paper remnants off of the back as I did with the other common. It also now resides in an AUT holder as it was obviously slightly trimmed and PSA missed it. The prices were decent and I knew that even in AUT holders they should be worth a little more than I paid for them...So, knowing they wouldn't grade I still bought them in the holders.....The cards are nice....and are on their way back from SGC now.... I bought the cards...not the plastic.....and now they are at least graded correctly....

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Posted By: Brett

I've never sent a card in to be graded. I was just thinking, has anyone everheard of people slipping the grader of the card alot of money to make the grade higher on a Cobb or Wagner or a very expensive card??

I remember someone showing a t206 Cobb PSA 8 from the Marshall Collection. Everyong agreed it should have graded a 5 or 6 i think. There is a huge difference there, thousands of dollars difference.

This must be happening because of all of these overgraded cards i see on ebay or from this forum. the people who grade these cards don't know what they are doing i guess.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Not sure if you are refering to me in your post about submitting a trimmed card and it coming back from SGC graded. The person I bought the card from said the card was trimmed. After receiving the card and examing it, it looked good to me and measures correctly. I figured I would send it to SGC to see if it would grade, and it did. Here is the card in question:



Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: David B

Jay - sorry if I misunderstood your posting about the Wagner card. I certainly wasn't intending to critisize you. I apologize if it might have sounded that way. I was just trying to make a point about the unreliability of grading services. But in your case SGC verified your evaluation of the card. Sounds like the guy you bought it from should have taken the chance and submitted it for grading before selling it.

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Posted By: jay behrens

He did. PSA said it was trimmed. That's why he sold it that way.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: David B

Aha!! I rest my case about the unreliability of grading services

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Posted By: jay behrens

Just PSA

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: fkw

Thats card has a common diamond cut (top and bottom both slanted).


Bottom line, PSA screwed up!




Buy the card, not the holder! The holder (graded) is just a slight insurance that the card is what it is proposed to be (authentic and untampered with). And that alone is why it will sell for or is worth more graded.

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Posted By: edacra

When you get into the higher end grades the minute differences can be trivial to your enjoyment of the card....where the same can not be said for the lower end of the grading spectrum. There's so much variation in cards graded between 10-40 that I can't see why anyone would take it at face value from the number alone.

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Posted By: barrysloate

We've all chimed in on this before but what I find most galling is the practice of resubmitting a card until it gets a higher grade. Keep in mind that if a 7 ultimately gets bumped to an 8 it can often make that card 3-4 times more valuable. That so much depends upon a whimsical change of heart by the grader really makes a mockery of the system. And while everyone says buy the card and not the slab- certainly sensible advice on the surface- if the grading were more consistent and accurate one could actually depend upon it to reflect what the card should look like. When coins were first being graded the idea was to create a market environment where they could trade sight unseen. Obviously, that is a far cry from what is actually transpiring in our hobby. I say cards should be submitted to test for tampering, trimming, etc., and the grading part should be learned by each collector. Before third party grading we all learned to grade our own cards, and I know the skeptics say that it gives unscrupulous dealers too much leeway. You know what? If one grades too loosely he will soon be out of business, as the market will no longer tolerate sloppiness.

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Posted By: Griffin's

"Keep in mind that if a 7 ultimately gets bumped to an 8 it can often make that card 3-4 times more valuable."

I find it equally, if not more, disturbing that there are so many that will pay exponentially more for what is often an arbitrarily increased assessment of the card.

One recent example- recent realized prices of '38 Goudey Greenberg:
PSA 8 3657.78
PSA 9 24898.20

Given this scenario you could crack and resubmit the card 100 times and still have enough left over for a down payment on a house in many parts of the country. I could see maybe 50% more, but 6 times?

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Of course, the net result of this status will be that the population reports are useless and virtually every graded card will represent the worst card that could achieve that grade.

Pretty much like it is now, but worse.

But those cards which are not sliders which fit under the grading wire, will become premium quality for the grade - meaning they would never make the next grade, but they are not sliders that barely made the grade, in the opinion of the seller.