Buying the grade not the card ?

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Posted By: Dan Kravitz

Thoughts about why grading companies are huge benefit and extremely important in our hobby & not a cancer…

A while back “raw” cards were being sold through the mail on a site un-seen basis. Anyone who purchased cards this way was relying solely on the judgment of the Seller. I would imagine too, that cards were being purchased with a check or money order (essentially cash), which probably made card buying a risky endeavor unless you knew who you were dealing with. Fortunately the price of cards were nowhere were they are today, so you had less people trying to deceive the public, and if someone made a mistake it wasn’t going to hurt too badly.
Fast forward to today’s advanced technology to reproduce imagery, manipulate an image, steal an image, laser cut a card, re-back a card, etc. Therefore, I think a 3rd party can be extremely beneficial to a buyer. The 3rd party gives us the important independent person to preview a purchase, and gives us an assumed unbiased determination of its overall quality. Unless the holder has been tampered with, I can pretty much be assured it is authentic, and its grade falls between certain guidelines. I usually can see for myself from a quality scan if the card has a crease, determine quality of corners, condition of the imagery, or has or has not been trimmed. When spending thousands of dollars today on a piece of cardboard, this extremely important.
I’m not saying that these companies are right all of the time; I just believe it gives us the extra unbiased view to help determine authenticity. For the most part, I don’t have any EX cards in my collection, so the condition is mainly determined by me. I respect the 3rd party’s opinion, but it doesn’t mean as much as mine. I only need to know that they feel relatively sure that the card is authentic, which is good enough for me.
On a side but relative note, SGC holders are super nice. For me the holder does not take away from the card, in fact, it enhances it. I think it also has a museum quality look to it. I also like to handle my cards and share them with friends/family. If they were “raw”, I would be afraid to let anyone handle the cards (including me). I have approximately 5% of my collection “raw”, so I can enjoy touching, smelling, and viewing the cards in there original form, but I also enjoy the fact that when I touch my graded cards, I won’t put another crease or mark in them.