Grade or Not to Grade? Clemente w/Scratches on Back

[chalupacollects]

I would grade it, couldn't see the scratches until the blow up pic. Presents well!

[raulus]

Jolly - are you a gambling man?

Most of the time, it seems like a gamble when you submit stuff for grading. And this one probably qualifies a bit extra with those flaws. Will the grader go easy on you? Will they freak out and hammer you? Will they even notice in the 15 seconds that they look at this card?

Hard to say, really. So you could be looking at an 8. Or you could be looking at a 2. Or somewhere in-between!! And if you don't like what you get, I guess you can always crack and re-submit. Or just crack and stick with raw.

[Beercan collector]

I wouldn’t grade it - you never know what a grader is going to do with paper loss , no matter how minimal - somebody might give it a one - imagine a 69 set where Every card look like this ( The print and centering is perfect ) would be a pretty enjoyable set

[swarmee]

Yep, don't recommend grading. I would call it paper loss as well.

[jchcollins]

For 15 bucks anymore, it may be worth a shot. The SGC I am familiar with lately has a decent chance of not even noticing that.

[JollyElm]

Thanks, guys!

There are plenty of dark sides to this site, but this thread shows a great aspect of it. Some of the opinions are diametrically opposite of each other, yet each post has been spot on in its own way!!

Here's how I've decided to treat it. I rarely, if ever, sell anything, but always must imagine what would happen if I did:

Graded - Let's assume that nothing is missed at SGC and it (rightfully?) gets only an SGC 2 due to the scratches/paper loss. If I go to sell it, it will only merit the low sales price that a 2 gets, which practically isn't enough to cover the cost of grading. Plus, if I was hoping to get more for it than that, when I explain it's so much better than a 2 - and it only got that number due to the 'unseen' claw marks - a buyer will think, "No way, man, there's gotta be more to it, hidden bends or creases or something."

Ungraded - If someone's interested in buying or trading for it, I simply say it looks really nice over all, but I didn't send it in to be graded because of the minor scratches on the back. The reply? "Cool. Makes sense."

Yes, I like to gamble on cardboard, but since I do have another (unclawed) one in similar shape, I'm going to leave this one in the binder and put all of my (slim) hopes on that one instead.

[Phishphan21]

Just use a box cutter to trim that part of the card off altogether or a pair of safety scissors and call it OPC