Professional Grading Question

[xdrx]

Hey everyone - another question from the new guy...

As I prepare to sell off some mid to higher priced cards from 60s and 50s would you say I am crazy not to get them professionally graded? It is very confusing to me, as someone who was in and out of this hobby before cards got locked in to plastic crypts with numeric values attached. I see the same card on eBay going from $20 to $200, and I am hard pressed to find much difference, except for the pro grading.

Would you make a distinction between bigger tickets items - 55 Clemente; 54 Aaron vs 61 Mays vs 65 Yaz, for example? What about something like a Ripken rookie? I have one that is Mint except for two small spots (stains?). No idea if they devalue the card by 10% or 90%. I can put them up for auction and let the market decide, but the reality is that it is hard to accurately convey condition on eBay, even with hi-res scan.

I have inquired with some semi-close by dealers, but it sounds like going rate would be pennies on the dollar, so it seems on line sales to collectors is a way better route to take to maximize dollars.

If the answer is "yes" to grading what services do you all recommend?

Thanks much for any wisdom!

[steve B]

If the big ticket cards are in really nice condition I'd probably grade them. Many buyers these days have doubts about expensive cards and a grade helps them feel comfortable about the card being real and not trimmed.
(Although all grading companies make mistakes)

Which service is a tough choice. PSA has a $100 cover charge, so I haven't used them, but they're what most collectors of 50's-60's cards use. I haven't sent any to Beckett, but they're good on more modern stuff. I have sent a few prewar cards to SGC. The holders look nicer -My opinion- and they're pretty easy to deal with. Also a bit less expensive if you send in under one of the monthly specials.

Of the ones you mentioned, a nice 55 Clemente I'd grade before selling.
Same for the 54 Aaron. The Mays and Yaz depending on how nice they are. It looks like really nice ones go for a good ammount, while typical vg+ ones there isn't much of a price difference. If the Ripken is stained I wouldn't bother. Nice ones are going for roughly $6-15 ungraded, and a stained one wouldn't grade well.

Steve B

[xdrx]

Thanks Steve. That logic seems solid, especially as I read more and more threads here.

Regarding the Ripken, I'm curious what people think of it:

[IMG][/IMG]


The spots are above BA in Baltimore and in between end of Baltimore and beginning of Orioles. These blemishes would've been of little or no concern to me when I collected many moons ago, but the standards have clearly changed. How badly do they impact value of an otherwise pristine card?

Thanks for the education!

[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!

[U240robert]

Yeah if you have higher value cards you may want to get them graded.
Also, if you run across any mid level cards in very nice shape then a graded version can make a huge difference. You can take a NM/Mt common of, say 1961, if it came back a PSA 9 thats a nice value as opposed to selling it just raw which may bring just a few dollars.
But definitely the high value cards. On ebay it seems graded cards bring alot more unless you are a reputable dealer then it may not make a huge difference.

[xdrx]

Originally Posted by U240robert

Yeah if you have higher value cards you may want to get them graded.
Also, if you run across any mid level cards in very nice shape then a graded version can make a huge difference. You can take a NM/Mt common of, say 1961, if it came back a PSA 9 thats a nice value as opposed to selling it just raw which may bring just a few dollars.
But definitely the high value cards. On ebay it seems graded cards bring alot more unless you are a reputable dealer then it may not make a huge difference.

The more I look on eBay the more I agree with this. Just sent 10 cards to SCG to get graded. Based on that I will make some decisions about other cards.

One thing that puzzles me is that I often see cards being sold for less than $10 @ that have SCG or PSA grades. Are lots of people getting crazy-low pricing on grading? If not, why would you spend maybe half the value of a card for a professional grade?

[Brendan]

Originally Posted by xdrx

The more I look on eBay the more I agree with this. Just sent 10 cards to SCG to get graded. Based on that I will make some decisions about other cards.

One thing that puzzles me is that I often see cards being sold for less than $10 @ that have SCG or PSA grades. Are lots of people getting crazy-low pricing on grading? If not, why would you spend maybe half the value of a card for a professional grade?

Either they didn't get the grade they were hoping for or the card sells for 50% more when graded.

[steve B]

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

[smtjoy]

Not all cards are good for grading and most mid to low grade 60-70's commons are a losing game. Also some dealers who submit in bulk can get down to $4 a card I have heard so they have much less cost than you and they also buy lots of their cards in bulk and I would guess at times for less than a dollar a card. So if they pay $1 for the card and $4 to grade, they can still turn a good profit for selling less than $10.

[xdrx]

Well, I just rec'd my initial 10 cards back from SGC. Somewhat disappointed and definitely confused by the grades. Most are lower than I expected, but some just don't make any sense when compared to the others. I really don't have much faith in SGC based on this submission. I think I'll give PSA a shot next.

One question: A bought quite a few cards from a dealer back in the day who used to write prices on back in pencil. Small (as small or smaller than card number digits) and light, but still visible. I haven't tried to erase those markings, thinking I may cause more damage than harm and because I don't want it to seem like I am altering the card. What are your thoughts? How much do the pencil markings take away from grading? Should I try to erase?

Here's an example:



Thanks.

[ThoseBackPages]

cards with writing on them will kill its grade. Erasing will make it worse. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do.

as a collector, i like them as they have amazing eye appeal. the low grade means that they are extremely affordable.

Here is my Gibson rookie. its got someones initials on the back, kept the price nice and low



live and learn,
Eric