Posted By:
Al C.risafulliI am not a card grader, so I cannot tell the difference between a 9 and a 10. Generally, I don't inspect my cards closely enough to care.
Other people do, though, and for one of the many, many styles of collecting, the number grade is very important. That's great, because it creates demand and interest and activity in our hobby.
I know a gentleman who is collecting a modern set, all in 10. There are more than 700 cards in the set. Even though the cards themselves are readily available, it takes the same amount of searching to build a modern set in 10 as it does to build a scarce vintage set. It creates a level of challenge that is exciting and interesting.
I have thought - often - of trying to build a 1981 Fleer set in SGC 98 or better. You can buy the cards unopened today; a vending box is about $15 and yields you 500 cards. For the price I paid for the Henry Johnson Babe Ruth I bought two weeks ago, I could buy more than 50,000 raw, unopened 1981 Fleers in an effort to try and assemble the set in SGC 98.
Given that I try not to worry about the value of the cards, and focus instead on how much I like them, and given that the 1981 Fleer set blew my mind when I was 11 years old and really turned me into the collector I am today, why haven't I done this? Why have I elected to build a Henry Johnson Confectioners set instead?
Because building the 1981 Fleer set in 98 or better would be really, really hard. I would lose my patience.
So I don't knock it. At all. Because in a lot of ways, it's just as hard to seek out the highest-grade cards as it is to seek out the scarcest. It's just another facet of collecting in this great hobby.
-Al