First Vintage Set - Graded vs. Raw?

[RayBShotz]

I would advocate for graded if you see yourself selling this at some point in the near or distant future.
Graded has more drawbacks now, however, than even a year ago.
If you are going the PSA route you are currently unable to submit your own raw cards and if and when it finally opens back up it might be prohibitively expensive to do so.
The 56T set looks great in 8 pocket sleeves. I always felt it was cool to look at the set and flip the binder pages from top to bottom vs the typical book page by page.
Good luck either way with this.
It's a great set.
RayB

[Mbjerry]

Originally Posted by RayBShotz

I would advocate for graded if you see yourself selling this at some point in the near or distant future.

Graded has more drawbacks now, however, than even a year ago.

If you are going the PSA route you are currently unable to submit your own raw cards and if and when it finally opens back up it might be prohibitively expensive to do so.

The 56T set looks great in 8 pocket sleeves. I always felt it was cool to look at the set and flip the binder pages from top to bottom vs the typical book page by page.

Good luck either way with this.

It's a great set.

RayB

Thank you. I was unaware of the 8 pocket sleeves. That would look really nice.

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[JollyElm]

The plastic cases housing graded cards might as well be made of gold, because there is such a huge discrepancy in price between the 'same' graded and non-graded cards. You can get a helluva lot more for your money buying ungraded. Many people prefer having slabs to ensure the cards are authentic, but with all the crap coming down the river from PSA, even that is very questionable at times.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you'll probably have to find a balance that works for you. If you're attending a card show and can really examine the cards to make sure they are authentic, you can make some nice headway buying ungraded cards. On-line, it's a little bit of a tougher undertaking, but the good news is eBay is pretty good (maybe too good) with supporting buyers who feel they've gotten scammed, so there isn't too much real risk involved.

Good luck!!

[cardsagain74]

The last thing I would do is buy graded big cards and then crack them out (especially since you said that the financial factor is a big consideration). If you prefer raw that much and want the conformity of everything in a binder, you're often better off paying up a little bit for raw from really established dealers (which is still naturally cheaper than slabs, especially PSA).

I've spent a lot of time here and there deciding how to best land the kind of '50s key cards that you need for a '56, and I've often ended up with graded for something around a 4 or 5, and raw for anything low grade.

You're right in the middle of that range for your main '56 cards. If I were in your spot, I'd lean toward graded. It's not that cumbersome to get out half a dozen top slabs to look at. It's how my sets have often unfolded

[maniac_73]

I also collect 56T and what I did was buy the biggies graded (Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Robinson, Clemente etc) and the commons raw. That way Im more confident that they aren't counterfeits and if I need to sell quickly I can.