Increase in low grade cards being graded

[BioCRN]

I'm a user on another vintage board (on Reddit) that unofficially champions many low-grade post-war cards. It's not that board's stated purpose, but a lot of newer vintage collectors show up to show off their pickups. Real casual community...

Many of these people are hobbyists that want a collection, but have money concerns to allocate elsewhere besides their collections.

Especially for people that didn't start to build heavily in the pre-COVID era price bump these low-grade cards fulfill their collection need while allowing them to buy many cards rather than 1 or 2 really nice cards. They are very pleased and happy with their slew of 50s-70s legends, even in PSA/SGC 1-4 condition. Rather than having a few really nice cards to show off, they have a display case full of dozens of low grade legends.

One thing about raw/graded I've noticed...the newer vintage collectors (less than 5-10 years) are kinda weary of wanting a vintage star player in raw condition, fearing ending up with an Etsy counterfeit or a trimmed card. Sure, grading isn't a sure-thing, but it's considered a safer haven. I've noticed many of these same people are not as weary of buying raw in person, but online they seem to gravitate to graded. Some people go graded by default, they've always collected that way and that's what they do.