I wondered the same thing for a long time.
I finally asked a guy at a show how he could sell graded commons for what seemed to be less than the grading fee. He submitted in bulk and got a great rate, and didn't do much of his own checking ahead of sending them in. The lower grade ones he sold pretty much at cost, and the "good" ones more than made up for it all.
These days many collectors don't get to handle large stacks of commons that aren't in some sort of plastic, so there sometimes isn't a good feel for what's "right" and what seems wrong (fake, trimmed, etc) So even for mid grade cards there's more comfort in buying graded for some people.
Steve B
|