Professional Grading Question

[xdrx]

OK guys, let me apologize in advance for yet another question...

From a pricing standpoint, is Beckett still the "go to" resource? I'm talking post-war only. What would your expectations be when selling or buying? What % of price guide is realistic? Does it matter if you are on eBay vs some other platform?

Thanks!

[steve B]

Those marks wouldn't bother me if I was buying the card. But I think they'd still knock the grade down below what makes sense to grade.

When I need price guide info I use completed auctions on Ebay because that's were many cards get sold.

As for venue, BST here can be good if you know what you want, Auction here is variable as any other auction. And no fees!

Ebay is the most common venue, and they have the advantage of having more buyers. But having low feedback will usually hurt the results, and knowing their rules helps avoid problems. when I sell I use click and ship through them as it's easy and I get delivery confirmation for much less than at the post office.

Grand slam bids could be good, I've looked but not signed up. You'll want to have a good idea of how much you want. Without a huge number of buyers a higher opening bid helps avoid dissapointments.

I've consigned a few things to a local auction I know is good. Mixed results overall. A few things sold for less than I'd hoped, a couple nice ones sold for about as much as I could have gotten, and a few did much better. They took a pretty sizeable cut, but they also did all the work and took a bunch of stuff that wasn't all that saleable and managed to sell it.

Steve B

[xdrx]

Thanks Steve. I think I am going to get maybe a dozen mid level + cards graded by SGC and see how they do on eBay. I am very curious about the grades. The criteria just don't seem too stable to me.

[scmavl]

Dean,
If you're going for best sale value, you may want to go PSA for 50's-90's cards. The registry keeps prices high and auctions hot. While I personally like SGC for my keepers, I'll go PSA for cards I want to sell. Any high dollar rookies you should get graded, at least to show the card is legit. LOTS of fake '54 Aarons out there. Good luck!
-Jarrod

[smtjoy]

As has been said, I would for sure get all high level rookies graded by either PSA or SGC. I would also get any Mantle graded as well as 50-60's Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Koufax that are in EX+ condition. If your only going to do one sub of less than 20 cards I would just go SGC much easier for first time subber and no $100 sign up 8 submissions.

My two theories on selling, one if you have lots of extra time to do everything then getting the best graded and selling the others raw by yourself on ebay will maximize what you make. Doing it this way also takes time so if you need the money now not the way to go, plus if you have not sold on ebay then you will need a little time to figure it out and you will also get less on some sales with your low feedback.

The other theory is to take less money but let an auction house/consignment house do all the work for you. Most will know and can help get the proper cards graded and will know how to list everything to get as much for your items, they make more when your cards sell for more. The biggest downside is they will take a much larger % than doing it yourself but a ton less work and time for you. There are a number of companies that might be interested like Sterling, Clean Sweep or Hunt to name a few.

Good luck with your cards!

[xdrx]

Jarrod/Scott - thanks for the additional thoughts. I'm not in any hurry to sell, so it sure seems like a slow and steady approach on eBay makes sense. Not sure who I'll use for grading yet, but I'm definitely not going to try and sell the higher end stuff raw. May try some mid-level cards on eBay sans grade but with healthy starting prices and see what happens.

[LanceRoten]

Pretty nice Ripken. Those spots are similar to a couple of spots on a 80 Topps Rickey Henderson I sent to PSA. Graded a 8(nm-mt). I had thought at best the Rickey would grade 8.5, so, I was pretty satisfied with the grade.

[scmavl]

Dean- you may want to post them for sale here first as a lot of us line raw cards. Good luck!