Net54baseball.com Forums - Mid-Grade Collectors

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I'm in my late 40's and have been collecting off and on since I was 9 years old. I've come full circle, starting out collecting in the VG or worse area as kid, moving to NM/Mint as I got older and earned more, and now in the last two years or so back to VG to VG/EX. For me, the best balance between eye appeal and the economic and time cost it takes to acquire cards is best at about VG/VG-EX condition. I don't have the time or patience (or the budget for that matter) to search for high grade cards, and frankly, I don't need them to be high grade to be satisfied. The other factor is that too many times I purchased cards online that looked to be high grade and were advertised as such only to be disappointed to have them be mid-grade once I had them in hand. I guess pursuing high grade stopped being fun and too much like work.

I look for low to mid grade cards with excellent centering and eye appeal. Great way to save some money.

A nice VGEX is my perfect card for eye appeal and value. My base Mantle collection 56-69 ranges from 2 to 4.5. If I went for 7’s I’d probably only have 3 or 4 of the late 60’s ones and none from 56-59.

My ‘56 #135 with some paper loss on the bottom right corner, but otherwise VG-ish and nearly perfectly centered. This card in a PSA 8 centered is between $10 and 15K. I figure on the Bay mine is probably a $350 card...not sure what real value I gave up for it at the time, I got this in a trade when I was about 13. But also to the point of just how exponentially different in price tag truly high grade vintage can get. You guessed it...I’ll take my card!

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I'm basically in total agreement with what....everyone else here has said.

I'll take lots of VG-Ex cards over 1 or 2 Nrmt-mt cards anyday.

I would also add that there are a couple of ways in which, aside from price, mid grade cards are objectively superior to high grade ones.

1) You can actually hold them in your hands without freaking out about your breath affecting the molecular structure of the corners (or to whatever extent condition conscious people go with obsessing about such things). I love flipping through cards. If I had a pile of 56 Topps cards in high grade I would be very uncomfortable doing that, but with a bunch of mid grade ones I can go crazy. Great! (behold my flipping through a pile of 54 Bowmans without care: https://baseballcardsinjapan.blogspo...i-collect.html )

2) The cards actually look like they have a story behind them. When you see a beat up old card, you know that some kid really liked that card back in the day, maybe brought it to school in a back pocket or something, flipped through them with friends, etc etc. Its very compelling! A stack of pack fresh cards in contrast are boring - they've just sat on a shelf somewhere for the entirety of their existence. Nobody ever loved them enough to get them worn out. Its extremely depressing actually.

So I'll be the antagonist

But not entirely.

Firstly I will say that centering, surface (creases, etc), and registration are WAY more important to me than corners. Moving on - it really depends on the card and it's scarcity. For readily available cards, I draw the line somewhere between 7 and 8 (rarely 8.5) - The price jump on most readily available cards from 8 to 9 is usually astronomical with often times very little difference in appearance. Add to that the inherent subjectivity to the process and I as I'm sure many of you have seen lower grade cards that look better than the same card at higher grade. There is consideration to value and resale and I believe that lower grades of more readily available cards over time have less of a chance to hold their value than higher graded equivalents.

Now onto more obscure or rare cards - to me the card trumps the condition on these - not only would I jump on a mid grade copy of some, but would be overjoyed for almost any copy - I do have a handful in my collection and love them as much or more than my more highly graded more commonly found cards.

I am working on mid grade Pirates team sets from 1952-1973 with my kids - The only ones we have or are getting graded are the 1952 Groat rookie and the 1952 High numbers(4's-6's) - the rest are/will be raw. Let me tell you - trying to find those 52's centered without surface damage is quite a challenge! Anybody know someone who wants to sell a mid grade 1952 Bartirome for the price of the common it should be without the one crazy guy buying them all!?

I don't really care about the money side of the hobby. Slabbing cards and investing and all that just doesn't interest me. That's not to disparage collectors who are more into the investing aspect of the hobby, it's just not for me, that's all. I tend to go after affordable copies of cards I like that look good displayed on my bookshelf or wherever. I'm not super picky or anything, but I generally prefer centered cards without creases. I don't have any graded cards, but I'd say that most of the more expensive 50s and 60s cards in my collection would probably rate in the 3 to 6 range for the most part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nat (Post 1779408)

I (usually) draw the line at intentional damage. Tape residue, trimmed borders, moustaches drawn on players, that sort of thing. Honest wear doesn't bother me.

?? I asked about the seemingly ubiquitous mustaches when I inherited my older brother's collection; he assured me all the players back then had them---not true?