Posted By:
Jerry Spillman
The AU/AA grading is good for buying and selling in person.
Not online. Scans are just not good enough to grade cards accurately - especially high grades. Many times the scans are not very sharp. Even on better scans you don't see printer wrinkles - light creases - stains - gloss - or imperfections especially when the scan is not large enough.
The other disadvantage of the AU/AA grading is reselling. Disagreements to grade as years ago will be back. But that is minor compared to a collector that has a modest one hundred mix of nice (excellent to near mint+) cards all graded AU.
Tragedy: He dies. The family knows nothing about cards. They answer a couple of newspaper ads by individuals to buy baseball card collections. These potential buyers determine the grade of each card and therefore the offering price. The possibility that many cards may be graded by the potential buyers as one grade lower than should be then offering 50%-70% of book on the estimated of value. They chose the higher of the two bidders. Doubt that that family was paid nearly close to the real value of that collection. Had the cards been graded with a number they likely would have had a better advantage and a more favorable deal.
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