Posted By:
Aaron Michielor anything, but do you really think that you should be advising anybody about "investing" in baseball cards and running "market analysis" of the various pros and cons between grading services, if you know so little about the hobby that you didn't know that PSA did not exist 20 years ago?
Again, I'm not saying this to provoke you, but to try and help you. I myself am a novice compared to some of the regular posters I've read here over the past few months.
To get more background on the various grading services and some comprehensive context for the history of the hobby, I would recommend you buy the entire run of a magazine called Vintage and Classic Baseball Collector. (It's relevant even to someone such as yourself who is interested in modern cards.)
The run stretches back to 1995 and offers an amazing perspective on the development of grading card services (just one issue of many that is touched upon) that is very eye-opening and educational.
It's hard for collectors who have only been in the hobby for a couple years to grasp that just a few years ago neither professional grading services nor the Internet were widely used or accepted as permanent fixtures in the hobby.
You can find the magazines at http://www.vcbc.com/
I think the run itself is about $140.00.