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Posted By: barrysloate

Scott, what you did and what everyone should do is teach themselves the business, and there is nothing wrong with a beginner buying a few inexpensive cards and if he gets burned, he learns a quick lesson. Just chalk it up to the cost of learning what's what. But too many people do jump in spending too much money before they learn anything, and they are led to believe that if they are buying slabbed cards they have nothing to worry about. Of course, there is yet another problem in that these neophytes are often badly overcharged and lose out anyway, but that touches on a completely different issue. I've always said that graded cards solve some problems but create a set of new ones. People are badly taken advantage of under the guise of: "if you buy a slabbed card, you are buying insurance against fraud." But what they don't get is insurance against price gouging. What it boils down to is Scott's original point- teach yourself the business, learn to make your own decisions. That's how I started and everything I know I learned myself, sometimes the hard way. When new investors jump into the hobby and start buying up all these overpriced slabbed cards, I think they are missing out on the learning experience.