Include a sentence in your will highlighting the estimated general range value. Attach a 1 page document to your will telling them to go to X hobby friend for advice. Heck, you could write a 1 sentence notice: “The baseball cards are worth ~$100,000 at the time of writing (date). Do not sell to the first offer, post on Net54 upon my demise for advice on grading and auction houses”. You could do a longer one pager and periodically update it with the trendy grader of the moment and the trendy auction house of the moment to go talk too. There is absolutely no reason people need to get suckered so easily. Just a general notice like this will do it; I’m sure your heirs would do a little work for a big pay day. The person inheriting the bulk of mine is aware what to do, and I have such documents and a short provision in my Will to make it abundantly clear.

Thanks for the great info. I appreciate it very much. That is a great option that I didn’t think about or consider. I was thinking also that if I got them graded now, then whoever gets my collection can drive/fly out to a big dealer like Burbank sports cards , or even the pawn stars shop in Vegas! Or even box them up and send them if to probstein for consignment. My though was if they are graded it would be easier to drop of a box of graded to figure out a price and sell vs drop of a box of ungraded raw cards for the same purpose. I appreciate your thoughts on this.

If you go to Burbank or a pawn shop, you’ll get Pennie’s on the dollar. Consign it to an auction house, sell via a top eBay consigned (Greg Morris for raw), but never to a dealer. The dealer has to pay well below market in order to turn a profit; it’s almost always the least profitable means.

There’s nothing wrong with raw or graded, do it however you like, but if the concern is for your heirs and you don’t expect to need to divest for 20+ years, you’ll want to grade later and get them in whatever the hot slab of the future is. 20 year old slabs don’t do so well these days, and that’s without any real major change to grading in the last 20 years. The signs point to software grading coming. Your heirs will likely net a lot more that way. Raw will likely sell lower if kept raw, but they also cost less. If you’re doing high end cards, graded today might be the smarter move. If you’re doing cards that are $10, $50, $350 type items, you’ll probably do better by just getting the cards you like now and grading the better ones in 20 years.

So now I must ask the question of the decade! Based on all of the above info given in regards to old slabs vs newer slabs, may I ask, do you think an older slabbed psa card or a raw card will have more value in the future? Thanks

It is not an easy, simple yes or no question. Probably the only truly correct answer being "maybe". It will most likely depend a lot on what the raw or graded card looks like, and if graded, whether it appears over or under graded. Can then further depend on what the reason a person looking to acquire a particular card is. Are they looking for a nice presenting card for their collection, a possible candidate for resubmitting for a grade bump, a card doctor looking for potential candidates to work on, a Registry geek looking for a particular grade with no thought or concern as to the real condition or appearance of the card itself, and so on.

Intrinsically though, if there are two of the exact same card, in exactly the same identical condition, with the only difference being one is graded and the other is not, the graded card will most likely always have a higher value simply because someone already paid for the grading!

Certainly with high value, high grade cards, or cards that are susceptible to faking and/or tampering, then graded is almost always going to be more valuable than raw.

If you’re talking about the average low or even mid grade common card, then there’s probably not a gigantic difference in pricing.

For big ticket items, even older PSA slabs will bring more than raw.

Thanks for your responses!

I noticed at the last big card show I went too, EVERYONE had slabs. There wasn’t a single raw card in sight! And this was a BIG show! Seemed like every was walking around with their pelican cases full of slabs. A totally different hobby now it seems.

So being somewhat new to the hobby after a 35yr absence, here’s a couple of points you all can advise me on. I feel like buying raw, I’m only buying from GMC or similar for fear of trimming or fakes. That leaves me considering buying graded (yeah I guess those too can have trust issues). However with graded cards, it’s kind of sterilized in the sense you can’t touch them or showcase them easily if that makes sense. Just throwing some thoughts out there that maybe someone could help with. Thanks!

Yeah, sometimes the card you want will be hard to find outside of a slab. But you don’t have to keep them that way.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...4a07475e9c.jpg

Just curious what show you were at. The last Philly Show a few weeks ago had plenty of raw cards along with graded ones.

The Burbank card show when I was out west

I'm younger and newer to vintage. I personally wouldn't touch a raw card worth four figures right now. I can't judge condition and authenticity, and don't want to lose hundreds for buying a fake or raw card that a dealer overstated its condition!


I was at Burbank and Philly. Burbank is the bigger modern show, while Philly will always be more vintage oriented.

Graded, or slabbed, is the future simply out of newer buyers not wanting to get hosed on a raw card!

To me, grading is passe'. These 52's came in the mail yesterday. Geeked to go thru these and add the upgrades to my binder. Grading is like Nirvana and the 90's to me.

That pic is AWESOME!!

Awesome guys!

I see both sides of the coin as mentioned above.

Nothing beats getting a box of true vintage unslabbed topps cards to go through. I love it!

However the hobby waters we are now in is there is a TREMENDOUS amount of fake vintage topps cards out there. I bought a 1950’s card on eBay not too long ago . Pics and price were just right. Once I got the card in hand it looked like someone printed it on their home computer. The quality was really good dnd would probably fake out most people but not this old fart that’s been in the hobby forever. So of course I put it right into my shredder. It left a bad taste in my mouth that fakes are in our hobby and I got ripped off.

I would much rather have an old shoebox of vintage cards than a box of graded cards but these fake cards out there now is pushing me toward graded only and yes I know there are fake slabs out there too. That’s a whole other thread! But at least with slabbed cards the chances they are real are much greater than a card not graded.

The good news for me is most of my collection of vintage I bought 30,40+ years ago when I knew without a doubt they were real .

eBay will side with you on returning a fake card. You don't need to shred it and lose the money.

I didn’t think of that I was just thinking shred it so it doesn’t get recycled back into the hobby. Don’t want anyone else to get ripped off like I did. (Fortunately I didn’t pay too much for the card)

Thanks, I think it's kind of fun to see photos of stacks of cards.

anyone notice that modern graded cards are going for very low prices (in some instances less than the cost to grade) and vintage graded cards have ridiculous starting bids (where do sellers come up with these crazy starting prices?)

I prefer raw but if the slabbed price is right I will jump on it. Not cracked too many but it seems that asking prices for raw > graded prices all things being equal.

Grade the big guns and leave everything else raw - no binders, card savers preferred

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I prefer Raw, to slabbed, but with the way vintage is heading, and the never ending climb upwards, I might have to slab some of my loose high dollar cards. Just in case anything catastrophic would happen.

Any new updates or thoughts?

Nothing has really changed here for 20 years. They have been the fiscal favorite for decades and it is very unlikely to change without some paradigm breaking event.

Agreed. And given that all the revelations of the last few years have not changed the paradigm one iota, it is difficult to see what could.

Maybe a simultaneous implosion of all of the TPGs, sort of like GAI or another now defunct TPG?

Of course, someone else would probably set up shop and pick right back up where they left off.

But now I’m seeing on a lot of card collecting sites and hobby chatter that fake graded cards are becoming a major problem nowadays.

I’d take the 90s and Nirvana over the complete sh*tshow of 2023 any day of the week.

any new updates or thoughts? thanks

Don’t think much has changed in the last 7 months.

Other than one of my key graded cards being outed as doctored. So I guess there’s that for me, which doesn’t make me eager to buy more high graded stuff.

It seems like there is more of aa transition in viewing collectibles as an investment and along with that comes a positive correlation with buying graded cards only. I have come across buyers that actively buy PSA 10 cards only as an investment.

^^^^ this! ^^^^

Yes, graded cards are the future of vintage, at least the worthy HOF cards. It will become harder and harder to find raw vintage HOF cards in the future, especially pre-war vintage.

Guess I better hold on to mine then :)

graded cards - pro or con
 

I personally liked raw cards and that's all I ever collected. However the sad fact is buyers pay a decent premium for a graded card. Since a majority of cards are bought on the internet, graded cards become important because you cant hold and see them in person PLUS sellers can color enhance cards. Now I would NEVER buy pre-war cards or strips ungraded - they are counterfeited often and there are WAY more variations compared to 60s Topps cards and inserts. Also with pre-war cards, especially strips, they are often flimsy and tobacco cards can be brittle so having them encased protects them. They are so expensive - encasing them works for me.

Now my biggest gripe of them all is the inconsistency of all grading companies - furthermore compare, PSA and SGC. Take the same card that would grade ex/mt but has a modest mark on the back. PSA would grade it Ex/Mt 6 (MK) while SGC would grade the card Vg/Ex+ 4.5.... My last gripe especially with pre-war strips - a card graded A could be a pitiful looking card OR a card that was cut a millimeter short but has amazing eye appeal. Same goes for Poor 1 - I have seen cards graded 1 that look pretty good but a modest crease or 2 and some paper loss with rounded corners and others that are hard to look at without cringing. Expand the lower grades - Do we need 5 grades with the word mint in it. Ex/Mt 6 to Gem Mt 10 -

MY VENTING IS OVER -

I was one of the only dealers there with raw vintage cards. i will have a ton of raw vintage sports and non-sports at the Pasadena show January 27-28 and at the Ontario show (the Burbank show) over Presidents' weekend in February. And of course at the Labor Day Burbank show in Anaheim.