Feature Friday: To Grade Or Not To Grade?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]…isn’t that the question?

Grading has been a hot topic in the card collecting industry over the last few years and there are pros and cons to getting your card graded or keeping it raw. What choice is best for your card? Well it isn’t always a cut and dry answer. What’s the end result of the card? Will you be keeping it or re-selling it? I’ll try my best to build my fellow collectors a road map about what they should do with their card in this week’s Feature Friday.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]So if we can pull back the curtain a bit, I think grading is a bit of a scam. No, not a scam like the trimming controversy that came up earlier this year, but more the process itself. When you send a card in to be graded, the card is being analyzed by a person who has likely been staring at cards all day and/or may be ready for their lunch break. With the influx of cards being sent to BGS and PSA on a daily basis (my social media timelines are flooded with PSA and BGS bulk submissions and it has been published that grading companies receive in thousands of cards daily), these companies could be prone to mistakes and/or oversights. Taking into account that humans are doing the grading, could personal bias sway a grader’s decision? How about trying to control the market by keeping a certain player from having too many Gem Mints or 10s out to the public? I’m taking a very pessimistic approach to grading, but I think it is an imperfect process that needs to be cleaned up before I can fully buy into the hype.

HOWEVAH…

I’d be a fool to not follow the industry’s lead by getting valuable cards graded. If you can spend $15 and turn a $100 card into a $400 card, you jump at that opportunity.

With all of the above being said, I 100% agree with the importance of grading certain cards. No, I’m not talking about the $2 Michael Jordan 1991-92 Fleer Ultra card or a $.50 Aaron Rodgers 2018 Score card. Spending $12-$15 to get a card like that graded and trying to flip it for $20-$25 is what has been watering down and turning me off from graded cards. Now if you are telling me that you want to get a low end card graded for your PC because you like the way it looks, I’m 100% on board with that and have deployed that strategy in the past myself. Remember our motto “HOW Do You Collect?”. So what should be graded or not graded?

To Grade!

• PC Items- Want to pretty up your collection? Spend the extra few bucks to get it graded. Why not?
• Quick Flip- If you’ve followed our Instagram account, you’d know we have a nice Contenders Optic Lamar Jackson Autograph that we are getting graded. Jackson is in the middle of an MVP season, so we have chosen an expedited option to get the card graded and sent back to us during this historic Super Bowl run
• High End Cards– In the high end market, buyers want to know what they are getting when they are spending a large chunk of change. Going into a transaction knowing that a card is graded at a 9 and may have less than ideal corners, they can feel comfortable making an online transaction. If a card is raw and the buyer purchases it online, they may be surprised that a condition of the card wasn’t fully shown in the pictures or listing. Grading takes this scenario out of the question.
• Authenticate Cards -Sadly, we have a lot of people in this industry who want to spend their time scamming people, as opposed to growing the hobby. There are a lot of fakes out there, with the Michael Jordan 86-87 Fleer being the #1 culprit. Getting a card authenticated will give you peace of mind that the card is legit. Somewhat damaged cards from the early 2000’s and previous are OK to grade in my eyes. Some may want a low cost option when purchasing a Tom Brady rookie. If you have a 2000 Fleer Metal Tom Brady card with soft corners and/or slight surface issues, it’ll likely come back as a PSA 7, which would give it a $175-$200 price tag, up from the $150 raw price. Worth it to you as the seller because all the chips are on the table. The buyer knows what they are getting in this purchase and you likely make a few bucks off the grading charge
• Authenticate Autographs– Remember going to a game and getting your favorite player’s autograph? Many in the industry used to say that would ruin the value of the card because there was no way to guarantee the autograph. Not so fast my friend. Beckett, PSA and JSA will offer authentication services to guarantee and certify the autograph. 20 years ago, having Ken Griffey Jr. sign his rookie card would devalue the card. Today, getting that authenticated will make it a more unique (and valuable) item.
• Prospects- I’m torn on this, but if you have 10 Prizm Daniel Jones rookies cards, now is the time to grade them. Cards like Prizm generally sell well when they have been  graded and Daniel Jones is a nice high upside player to invest in. You would be spending a little over $100 in a bulk submission and it’ll take 5 months to get the cards back, but if he breaks out in 2020, you’d have those on hand and it would be a great time to turn a profit

Not To Grade!

• Low End Cards- I can’t stress this enough. If you know the card will never be worth more than $1-2, DO NOT GET IT GRADED IF YOU ARE GOING TO TRY AND FLIP IT! Again, if you are doing a bulk submission and spending $10-$15 to get a Bo Jackson 1991 Upper Deck card graded, if it comes back as a 10, you will still only  get a few bucks for it. Ultimately, this tactic makes a mockery of grading and has watered down the hobby a bit
• Anything Altered- Yes, we always want to get the best grade possible, but do not trim, color in or change the condition of a card. There’s a good chance you’ll get busted and nobody wants that. Now that doesn’t mean you don’t want to clean the card with best practices, just don’t modify the card itself
• Any Modern Card With Damage- Generally, anything that comes back as an 8 or lower should sell similar to a raw card. If there is damage to the card (corners are bent, obvious manufacturing flaw, creases, significantly off center), don’t grade it. You are wasting your time and money

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”blog-callout”]Grading…what side of the fence are you on with it? Feel like we left anything out?
You know where to find us on Facebook and Instagram, and of course can also comment down below[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”105008″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row]