Catch 22 of card grading - is it worth the gamble?

[conor912]

Originally Posted by hcv123

I have in the mean time decided to offer the card at $1250 - a premium over a "7" but a discount to an "8" rather than play the grading game and sending it back.

As a collector, I am totally cool with that. I had my eye on a 7 of a particular card for a while, most of which were going for ~$1700. I recently found a wildly harshly graded 5 that could pass for a strong 6 if not a 7 all day long for $850. Average 5's sell for ~$500, but I was thrilled to pay a 70% "premium" to get what I considered to be a 50% discount from what I was expecting to pay.