Whats the most you'll feel comfortable paying for an ungraded prewar card?

[steve B]

If the scans are good ones, I'd be comfortable paying whatever is reasonable for an ungraded example in whatever grade it appears to be.

I'll add a few cautions.
I don't do Ebay by phone or tablet. There's no way to make the image -even a good scan- large enough to see the right details. Desktop with a fairly large monitor and if I need to I use the zoom feature built into the browser. For ebay items with the "click here for a larger picture" the browser zoom won't work on the larger picture, but will on the regular one in the listing (For IE, not sure about others)

Having an idea roughly what grade a card might get if it was graded helps a lot. For T206 I usually don't go much past the price of a VG card for a nice looking raw example.

Having a good eye for what trimming looks like helps a lot. Some weird edges are factory, but won't grade. Some straight edges are too "sharp" and I try to avoid those. I've gotten one or two card that were trimmed that I took a chance on. But kept them since they're actually really nice looking. And I didn't pay much more than I'd have probably had to pay if it was graded "A"

Overall, knowledge can solve a lot of problems. And cheapness can help avoid more. Not the sort of cheapness that makes someone belive they're getting a VG Goudey Ruth for $200, but the cheapness that assumes small issues with an otherwise nice looking card and bids accordingly. Yes, you'll miss out on some because others will risk more. But eventually you'll get a nice card for a reasonable price. And if you're lucky - less likely with HOFers than commons- you'll get a very nice example for a really good price.


Steve B

[Luke]

To me it pretty much comes down to how comfortable you are with the set you are buying. If you are all over the place with your want-list, I would probably just buy graded. But if you collect one or two sets for a few years, you will probably become comfortable enough to buy them raw from reputable dealers.

Sometimes a card will be found by a picker somewhere and if you want it, you have to buy it raw or someone else will and it will get tucked into a collection. I recently found and bought a really tough T207 that was high on my want-list raw and paid $750 for it via ebay. The seller had great pictures that showed the surface so you could see that there were not any surface bends or wrinkles and he had good feedback, so I felt pretty comfortable (and now it is in a SGC 55 holder).

[rainier2004]

I just bought this raw from BST...not a concern in the world on it. It does amaze me all the blind faith like someone else said. We use to educate ourselves on cards and the issues we collected. Get a ruler, do some reading, but a cheap issue and "play" with it. Isn't that all part of the fun? I love this hobby...