Collecting raw

[steve B]

I collect mostly ungraded cards. I probably have a slight advantage of having collected when most shops had stacks if not entire boxes full of most postwar sets. So I don't have much worry about knowing if the cards are real or not.

I'm ambivalent about grading. I figure grades 1- 6 or 7 are the old familiar grades. P, F, G,VG, EX and MT. Unless you're super fussy about grade anything 7 and up is a very nice card.
But if you are picky, or collecting some of the more expensive cards I think it can be a good thing for a few reasons.

The first is that it gives an opinion that's supposedly unbiased. And that means outside the influence of wether that 55 Topps is a common or a Clemente, and outside the excitement of "discovering" the card. (How many of us have "found" a really great card that seems to develop more problems the longer we own it? I know I've done that at flea markets, bought a really nice 50's card only to spot a bunch of stuff that I didn't notice when it was new and exciting. )

The second is hopefully a bit of an unbiased technical look that should catch most alterationswhen a buyer might not have the tools handy. Yeah, that means some factory crads with some oddity like being originally cut small will get rejected. same for ones with odd cuts. But hopefully most of the amateur trimmings get caught. And as the prices get higher, the temptation for a seller to enhance a card is also a bit more.

All of that also limits the old "it's excellent for its age" that so many dealers used to go with. Nope, excellent is excellent no matter wether it's from 1910 or 2010.

And to a point, as much as we might hate to admit it, there are a few cards that really aren't around in really amazing condition. I went through around 15000 81 topps I had, looking for only the really nice ones. I had maybe 2-300. Out of those only 6-7 were ones that seemed worth grading because none of the companies had done many or any perfect ones. They still only came back as 8s or lower. 81 Topps are really common, and really cheap. But if for some reason you want perfect ones, they really aren't that common.
If a card is really that nice, I don't have any problem with having it graded.

Steve B