Increase in low grade cards being graded

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

1. Sellers trying to entice newer collectors who are only used to buying slabbed material to buy their stuff BECAUSE it's slabbed (and now being offered at beyond full retail value).

2. Sellers who are only used to offering shiny stuff who think that everything needs to be slabbed in order to sell.

3. Collectors new to vintage but just used to slabs for their modern material, who think everything needs to be slabbed in order to be considered collectible.

I have never and will never understand this fixation with slabbing ("But it makes you more monnneyyy!!! It's impossible to sell anything without a slab!" If I have to hear this one more time...). I have over 150,000 autographed items that could fit in slabs. Forget about the cost, or that I'm more comfortable with my own knowledge over that of whoever determines if my signed item gets slabbed...can you imagine having 150,000 plastic clunkers in your possession? You'd have to buy a second house.

150K autographed items? Do you have a list of images?

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by calvindog

150K autographed items? Do you have a list of images?

For obvious reasons, nothing that's shared publicly or privately. It's way too much to put on display online or anywhere else, and that's not my interest. There's clearly duplication galore. Besides anything nice, nobody needs to see 100 Lou Fette 3X5s. You may not recognize my handle, but we know each other.

[BioCRN]

I'm a user on another vintage board (on Reddit) that unofficially champions many low-grade post-war cards. It's not that board's stated purpose, but a lot of newer vintage collectors show up to show off their pickups. Real casual community...

Many of these people are hobbyists that want a collection, but have money concerns to allocate elsewhere besides their collections.

Especially for people that didn't start to build heavily in the pre-COVID era price bump these low-grade cards fulfill their collection need while allowing them to buy many cards rather than 1 or 2 really nice cards. They are very pleased and happy with their slew of 50s-70s legends, even in PSA/SGC 1-4 condition. Rather than having a few really nice cards to show off, they have a display case full of dozens of low grade legends.

One thing about raw/graded I've noticed...the newer vintage collectors (less than 5-10 years) are kinda weary of wanting a vintage star player in raw condition, fearing ending up with an Etsy counterfeit or a trimmed card. Sure, grading isn't a sure-thing, but it's considered a safer haven. I've noticed many of these same people are not as weary of buying raw in person, but online they seem to gravitate to graded. Some people go graded by default, they've always collected that way and that's what they do.

[mybuddyinc]

People have to grade low grade vintage .............. because I keep cracking them out .................

Fun, fun, Scott

[Vintagedeputy]

I slab lots of low-grade vintage cards because I like the way they look in the slab. I don’t care what they’re worth. That’s the way I collect.

[BioCRN]

Originally Posted by Vintagedeputy

I slab lots of low-grade vintage cards because I like the way they look in the slab. I don’t care what they’re worth. That’s the way I collect.

I screwed myself into a slab collection in the late 1990s when I decided to grade some of my raw and sell off the rest of the raw to fund slab upgrades.

By the time I made peace with "maybe I should have stuck to raw" my needs and wants list was already mostly graded (well over 80% complete) and I decided sticking to it was worth more to me than going back.

It realized I became a "fool" when I was paying $10-ish for slabbed cards worth about $1 solely because I needed it for my Cubs team collection. The crazy thing is I can get more than I paid for almost all of these same cards because of the amount of people out there that would want it out of graded rarity. It's totally graded rarity, not reality rarity. There's only one 1991 Bowman Rick Wilkins RC graded by PSA, it's a 9. I paid around $10 for it and multiple people have offered me $20+ for it so they don't have to bother getting one graded for around the same price.

Slab game has weird culture and value norms.