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Posted By: warshawlaw

But you will occasionally see legitimate sellers willing to list graded cards below what you believe was their cost. I have done it myself. Usually it is one of a few reasons:

1. I am trying to get some "action" on the card and am willing to bet that if people can be drawn to a low bid to open, they will run the card a bit. Most of the time this works, occasionally I get stuck handing out a bargain;

2. I bought a card for resale that I though would grade out nicely, got a crappy grade from SGC, and am simply trying to unload my disappointment and recoup what I can;

3. I decided to try to blow the item out on ebay rather than sell it to another dealer at a discount; as long as I am going to take a hit, I might at least try to retail it in the hope that someone would see it and run it up a little; or

4. I got the card graded via a freebie or make-good grade. At one point, PSA gave out a free grade for each card it did not grade on time. I had around 100 cards graded late and forced PSA to grant me a credit for every last one of them. Some of the cards I had graded were really nice looking but lower priced cards. My effective cost of grading those cards was around a buck each (for postage). I still have some and when I sell them, I can afford to sell them at or below the grading price since they were graded for almost nothing and may have been pack pulls or items received in lots that I have already gotten my investment out of. BTW, other services will issue a make-good to you if they mess up and you piss and moan enough about it.