Grading 101

[Archive]

Posted By: Elm

Hi. I have been completing and upgrading my 1957 to 1973 Topps sets for some time now. At some point in the future I am probably going to sell it all off. It's just reality. Since I've never had anything graded, I was hoping maybe some of the experts on this board could give us all a quick lesson in grading. In other words, without getting too bogged down in absolute specific details, you can cover which companies are the best for cards of this era and what would the cost be to grade a bunch of these cards? Kind of an open ended question and I'm sorry if it's been covered before.

I know you have to join, for instance, PSA and then there seems to be various levels of service, maybe based on turnaround time? What about postage to and fro? I assume it's paid for separately. Are there certain standards?

Say I wanted to get 100 cards graded without regard to turnaround time, what would be the estimated cost? Or say a smaller amount of cards--25. These cards would be mainly HOF'ers like Mantle, Koufax, Aaron, Clemente and Mays, but would also include, say, good conditioned high numbers, etc. A decent mix of relatively valuable cards.

As I said, I know nothing about the complexities of grading (although I know enough not to bid on those obviously fake Wagners, etc., in the other thread), so I'd appreciate any pertinent info you can give me. Thanks.