Does it make any difference if I grade this?

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Fred

What this seems to indicate is that people will pay more today to have a card slabbed than they actually paid for the card many years ago.

What a total scam on the TPGs part. What's really sad is that people actually buy into their business model.

Don't mistake me for someone who is a grading fanboy; I have plenty of my own personal issues with "professional" graders - in fact to the point where as of the current moment my preference is raw, low grade. However:

How is their business model a scam? They are providing a service that (in the vast majority of cases) makes valuable cards inherently more valuable. With the exception of a questionable trimmed Wagner aside, this is certainly true for say, Marshall Fogel's PSA 10 '52 Topps Mantle (a card he paid something like $120K for 30 years ago...) or even just you and me as garden variety collectors trying to sell a nice card of a HOF'er from the 1950's. A random Ted Williams in a PSA 5 is going to sell for more, maybe even a couple of hundred bucks more - than the same card raw. There are exceptions here and there of course, and preferences vary widely - but it's hard to argue that's not more or less true.

Of course people pay more today to have their cards graded than the cards were originally worth - the nominal value of each card in a pack at least up until some point in the 1980's probably was one penny per card. I don't think anyone is debating that. While I would agree with you that TPG's can engage in "scams" - it's not with their business model. They are charging an arguably nominal fee to make your card worth more and to give you the ability to sell it for more because it's in their slab with their flip and their pronouncement of grade. The "scam" in all of this lies within the subjectivity inherent in any type of grading that at the end of the day ties back to eye appeal of a vintage piece of ephemera. Yep, they got us all (including me...) pretty much there. I may hate creases and you may hate OC beyond a certain point or dinged corners, but if the card is in a PSA slab with any of that - it might still be worth more. The subjectivity and preference question is where they make their money. Oh - and with the registry and the resubs.