Will the grotesque rise in grading costs eventually translate to higher prices?

[chadeast]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

With grading as expensive as it is for the foreseeable future, does the existing stock of graded cards increase in sales value as a result? I'm not talking a 33 G Ruth. I mean the sub-$50 cards that fill out many sets. If my replacement cost for a card is the card cost plus $30 will that have an effect on prices? Has it already?

Hey Adam. It's hard to tell with everything having gone up so much this past year. But I believe that the long term effect here is actually to kill off graded set collecting. I've been waiting so long to submit my '33 Goudey commons at a reasonable grading fee that I'm pretty much over it now. I started a new set and decided to collect them ungraded, the first time I've done so in a long time. I also think that when this current boom ends, and it will end, that the TPGs may wish they had the graded set collectors back. It must have been a not insignificant portion of their income pre-COVID. By most accounts, younger collectors are generally not set collectors anyway, but removing the ability to grade commons for 1 year+ is going to drive many of us existing graded set collectors away from that area of interest, as it has me.

I don't know what they (TPG) could do differently right now, maybe specials for grading "vintage" commons, but they probably don't care about us enough... yet. Wait until they have these bloated grading departments with nothing to grade. The grading fees will have to come down. I'm waiting for the inevitable downturn with interest, but I'm becoming much more happy collecting ungraded cards day by day.

EDIT: In fact, I cracked out 5 T3's from their SGC holders last night. Mostly because I don't like the look and size of the SGC holder for T3's (still much preferred over PSA for most other prewar). It actually felt really good freeing the cards, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would