Why I Am Not Into Grading

I've been thinking about this post for a long time, probably since I re-entered the hobby in the early 2000's, or at least since the Boom after the pandemic.  Mike from the Junk Wax Hero YouTube channel inspired me to write it after his video asking if grading was a scam.  I actually wrote this post a long time ago, but never published it apparently.  Might post that as a follow up.

My collecting style doesn't lend itself to grading in the first place.  I'm an old school set builder with tons of player collections and miscellaneous pursuits that all tend to pull in tons of bulk cards that are generally cheap.  I do have vintage sets, including the superstars, and the most expensive ones are kept in [the wrong kind of] holders separate from the binders or boxes containing the rest of the set.  The only ones that I've bought graded specimens of are my T205's.  (I did pick up a '57 Willie Mays this year, but only because the price was too good to pass up.)

I do think grading is useful for buying a card that you can't look at in person, and for authentication purposes (like my T205's), but that has it's flaws too.

So I won't say I'm totally against grading.  I actually submitted my first card for grading through COMC.  (It's one I was selling for a friend.)  But I have some major problems with many of the facets of that part of the hobby.  I'll try to illustrate them here.

Free The Prisoners - Slabs

Every graded card is imprisoned in a plastic shell, never to be touched, held, or smelled again.  At least with vintage cards, the smell is part of the appeal!  Plus, now you have to get a whole new set of storage supplies - bags, boxes and rubber bumpers.  And you can't put them in binders [very well], which is my favorite way to see them.

Say No To Crack - Inconsistency

The fact that someone can submit a card, get it back, be unsatisfied with the grade, and crack it out of the slab and send it back in (and sometimes get a much different grade), from the same company or a different one - kinda invalidates the authority of the grading companies.  If grading is supposed to be the final answer, then the answer should be the same.  But it isn't.  And it can be many reasons:  The amount of submissions someone makes, the mood of the grader that particular day, and simply the subjectivity of the human who's determining the grade.

And they should require that any card removed from a slab be un-registered!  They're not, so that means the population reports are inaccurate.  Speaking of which...

It Doesn't Add Up - Population Reports

The idea that the current number of a certain card that has been graded affects the value is ludicrous to me.  Now, if it's some pre-war scarce vintage issue then maybe.  But to say that something like a regular Topps issue card jumps in value because there have only been 12 of them that got a certain grade is ignoring so many factors.  My idea of the population report is that it's the count of people who decided to grade that card, with that particular company, and got that particular grade.  There are too many almost arbitrary decisions involved there.  It is NOT an indication of how many cards exist in the world in that condition - just how many that company has slabbed so far, which should have nothing to do with the value.  

Pump It Up - The Inflated Prices

This is the most illogical part of it for me.  Let me try to explain how I think about it.

This is a "raw" 1975 Topps Nolan Ryan.  Card number 500.  It is well centered, has sharp corners, and has nice color and eye appeal.  Without subjecting it to extreme magnification, or really anything more than casual scrutiny, I would say this was almost mint condition.

If you look at current copies for sale in similar condition on COMC, you see that the best ones are running about $40 to $50.

The left and center ones are on sale from $40+, and are better looking than the highest priced one on the right (at least the scans are better - an extra service by the site).  But in general, the going price for a great condition '75 Ryan is around the $50 range.  

Now, at least in my mind, the purpose of grading is to "certify" that the card is in that particular condition.  Mint, NrMt/Mt, Near-Mint, ExMt, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor.  Numeric values are assigned to the different condition levels - some of which are expanded to fill a ten point scale, or even farther to fill a twenty point scale (with .5 scores in between).  

"Raw" cards have always been priced by condition - all the way back since the days when the Beckett book was still the authority on card values.  (Some people still do, but they're living in the past.)  The book listed two or three price values, but always had the chart to calculate the values for the conditions in between.  The High book column was the full retail price.  The Low column was the lowest price one could find if they dug deep and shopped around.  Most dealers quoted the High book price when selling a card - usually without much modification.

Essentially, the High book price was the value of a specimen of that card in the nicest condition.

Therefore, I think it is logical to say, (and I always have), that the value of a "10" should be no more than the high book value of the raw card.  Translated to today, that would be the average eBay or COMC sale price of the ungraded card in similar condition.

Lately, I've considered backing that down slightly to maybe a 9, since the companies are far stricter in giving 10's.  (At least PSA is.)

Because, what is really happening here?  

The card starts in a certain condition.

Bet you thought is was an 8-ish

The card is graded and therefore "certified" to be in that condition.  Then it is encased to prevent damage and handling to change that condition.  

Has the piece of cardboard actually changed?  No.

It's the same thing - just now it's "officially" that condition.  

What is the value?  

To me, it should be the same as the raw value, plus maybe the cost of grading, if it's being sold.

But is this what happens?  No.

Here is PSA's chart for graded '75 Ryans.  You can see that a 6 is close to the real raw value of the card today.  But the grades above that take massive leaps.  

Now, I would concede that a 10 is probably a rarity, so that would be worth a bit more, but not OVER 500 TIMES MORE!

Even the expected 8 score is valued at TEN TIMES the value of a similar raw card as shown in the COMC listings.  It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

It's a Near Mint card - officially.  So the value of a Near Mint card is $__.  Maybe plus the $35 for grading and if it's a 10, then what?  25% more?  Where do you get the other $400 from?  The prestige of PSA grading?  

Let's look at a couple other examples....

Low and High prices of 2006 Topps Derek Jeter on COMC - from $1 to $6.23.  28 of them.

Now modern cards should basically be almost perfect, right?  So 10's shouldn't be that much higher....

Well, they're charging $90 above the price of the card itself.  Or, let's do the math to add the grading cost and Gem 10 premium.  ($6 + $35) * 1.25 = $51.25.  Still just half...

And on to the ridiculous:

1987 Topps Mark McGwire - COMC starts just over a dollar.  There are over 1000 listings.  Highest is $21.  (Wish that guy luck).  Junk wax star - Nobody should price this over three to five bucks, right?

Survey said .... Bzzzzt!

Two hundred and twenty something more?  Child Please.  They are nowhere near rare.  And 10's can't be that tough to find.

But maybe there is hope....

I think these people are starting to figure it out...

I used to think (and see) that every graded card was inflated to several times the price of the ungraded card no matter what the score.  Lately, I have observed that there are slabbed copies available for about the same as a decent copy of the unburdened one.  So hopefully, we are seeing the end of these massively boosted price tags.  But it might put the auction houses out of business. 

In conclusion, grading isn't going anywhere.  There are too many collectors who only do high end cards and want them all graded.  And that's OK.  I will never be one of them.  There's room for everyone in the hobby.  And I'm not such a puritan that I won't take advantage of an increased price on the rare occasion that I'm trying to sell a card.

I do believe that there is a faction of people out there who are sickeningly rich who manipulate these prices among themselves.  The prices aren't real.  But the Gem 10's keep selling.  

I'll stick with raw cards in quarter and dollar boxes and stars at reasonable prices, thanks.  Collect what you like.

Just don't grade ALL the cards, please....

Case Closed

Well, now that I've wasted three weeks and a lot of you have probably forgotten about it, and that Heritage is now past and largely irrelevant, here is my case break recap.

Here's what a whole case looks like sorted by card type and stacked up together.  12 piles of base on the right and all the inserts, short prints, hits, parallels and shiny things.

All the base fit neatly into a four row box that Stuart brought.  We sorted it all into sets later.  That was an interesting exercise - as we were making six sets at the same time.  Keeping the wants for each one straight was challenging, but we did it.

There were about 96 short prints, as we had calculated.  But since we wanted two full sets, we had to decide how to split them up.  We ended up putting them in order and then dealing them into two piles - first card on the left, second one on the right, third on the left, and so on.  We did have a few dupes that we split first, including the Ohtani Highlight, which was nice.

I'm gonna torture you (or at least make you scroll to the end) by leaving the mojo for last.

Three buyback box toppers.  Larry went to Night Owl.  Astros hot case....

Rounding out the other nine box toppers - the jumbos.  These are really nice.

News Flashback inserts.  Probably the flashiest design these have ever had.  Didn't get two of them and had a double and a triple.  The triple was handy since I needed another one of those for my space binder.

Baseball Flashbacks - again with a dupe and two no-shows.  The downside of these is that we needed two full sets since we each build them all.  So basically I let Stuart take the majority of the inserts in general and I traded for what I needed.  That way neither of us spent money on them after all this.  I had dibs on my player guys, but didn't get too many others.  But since trading on the TCDB is what it is, it was fine.

Same collation with the Then & Nows.  I got dibs on the Palmers since he's a PC.

The Nappy's (New Age Performers) were much more plentiful than the rest.  Stuart got 'em all and my missing count was a single digit number.  Nice design too.

All but one purple was from the "hot box".  A few of these have been traded away.  Elly looks different because he's in a toploader.  Should have sold him quickly after the break, he was going for $100.  Now he's around $30-40...

Only got one black chrome refractor /75.

One silver refractor /375...

And one missing signature.

 Oops, found another one later when we were sorting the base...

A single black & white image as well.

Three chrome refractors /575...

Four (different) image swaps - one twice.  Matos hot box.

Only three regular black bordered ones.  Seemed like there were more...

Three color swaps - Owen's base on the left

Nick's base on the right....

And Curtis' base (chrome) on the right.  It was easier to find than digging for a regular base card.  

There were more than one regular Chrome, but I've traded away all but Max Scherzer, so I don't have an image of them.  There were Mead, Scherzer (in the purple hot box), Lindor, Evan Carter, and Gavin Williams.

And the white borders - minus a couple Orioles that went to my set.  Which is sitting here too, but I already took the picture and uploaded it.  I really do like the way the MVP's look in white.

OK without further delay,

The relics.  Nice mix of colors and bat pieces at least.  A nice, clean design with great colors.  These would have fit right in if they'd have done relics in '75.  Good job, Topps!

Not in order of pull, but here are the autographs!

I kept Fisk & Oliver.  Stuart took Simmons, Blomberg & Volpe.  I told him he should sell Volpe right away since he was going for three digits.  But he said no, he'll keep him in his "PC".  He's a Tigers fan who likes older players, so I don't see the point, but to each his own.

And finally, the location of each pull - now listed in order.

(left to right - first, second, third, fourth stack)

Box 1 - Jose Ramirez bat - (location not recorded).

Box 2 - Fisk auto - Top pack on third stack

Box 3 - Cousin Bryan Reynolds bat - Top pack of fourth stack

Box 4 - Eloy Jimenez relic - Bottom of fourth stack (Last Pack Mojo)

Box 5 - Al Oliver auto - Top pack of second stack

Box 6 - Charlie Blackmon bat - Top pack of second stack

Box 7 - Sandy Alcantara jsy - Top pack of fourth stack

Box 8 - Zeke Tovar jsy - Top pack of fourth stack

Box 9 - Ted Simmons auto - Bottom pack of first stack

Box 10 - Anthony Volpe auto - Third pack of fourth stack

Box 11 - JT Realmuto jsy - Bottom of fourth stack (Last Pack Mojo)

Box 12 - Ron Blomberg auto - Third pack of third stack

So the most frequent position of hits seems to be the fourth stack, or the one all the way to the right.  I'm guessing that the first pull was in the first stack just going by the law of averages.  There were two hits in the second stack and two in the third, so it's a logical assumption that there would be two in the first as well.

Not sure that gives any insight on where to fish for hits now, since Heritage is probably sold out of all the shops anyway.  But it was an interesting investigation.

Hope you enjoyed us playing Deal Or No Deal - Heritage edition and following the order to "Open The Case!"

Owl's, O's (and a Jay) On A Mailday

Got a couple trades in the other day that cosmically intersected, so I thought I'd share.  I really should put up more trade posts...but anyway....

These are from a TCDB trade with TSCastle.  Palmer Select and the two Kuhl parallels are for player collections.  While the Heritage base are for my 3rd, 4th and 5th sets.  (I have a 6th building, but probably won't finish it before it gets broken up.)  Though it may be true that everyone else is done with it by now.  The inserts are for my own set.

The same delivery brought these from Night Owl, who was hoping that I regularly go after my local teams.  I really don't, but I do keep their parallels with the base sets (esp. back when I still did flagship.)  So it's cool to have these.  The Sparky is for his PC - it appeared in NO's post back in April when Heritage came out.  You'll notice he's a bit larger than his other '75 looking counterparts.  They're the 2024 minis!

So the (extra copies of the) base cards and the minis showed up on the same day.  

I'll put 'em with the Heritage set and see if I find more of the mini O's later.

Thanks to TSCastle and Night Owl.  Happy trading!

Jerseys And New Yorkers

Still making like detectives and opening the case.  Gonna close it out with this post, since there are six boxes to go.  Too few to split into two posts, so I'm gonna go a bit quicker.

So far our insert/parallel/box topper piles look like this.

Box 4

Starting us off, Michael Jack Schmidt box topper.

Nothing really amazing in the parallels - white and shiny New Yorkers.  This is a recurring theme for a bit...

A slightly skewed shot of the hit - Eloy white swatch.  Hit Location - Last pack mojo (Bottom 4th)

And the rest.  An OK box.  Not my first choice if I had to pick one out of the whole case.

Box 10

Let's see if Stuart can do better than mine.  Starting off with another solid jumbo.

Another regular Chromey.  Three whites again.  Nice to get a Trout insert.  Also pulled his short print, which you'll see in the next pic, but not for long...

Because it is also the best shot of the biggest hit of the case.  I wouldn't say it's a "case hit", but it's the most valuable one we pulled.  (Stuart is keeping it forever.)  Hit Location - 3rd pack 4th stack

The consolidated view.

Box 5

Alright, let's see if I can get back on track.  Again, nice HOF topper...

Color swap Curtis Mead.  Comparing to shiny version, but you see the difference.

Duly noted on the back.  And my pull....

Cool!  So glad it's a vintage player again.  I know a Pirates guy that probably wants this one.

Another Palmer that will go in my PC, the Apollo insert for the Space binder, and a shiny Gavin......Gavin?  I'll get second copies of the T&N and News for my set later.

This gal might look familiar to those who follow the Royal Family in the UK...She usually had #24.

Box 11

Resisting the urge to reference "Spinal Tap" here again...  

A-ha!  Another buyback.  Still don't like the stamp where it is....checking Night Owl's list...Dangit.

Zack Gelof "My Lawn" image swap...

Confirmed.

J.T. Re-al-MOO-To.  The Phillies wear grey?  Hit Location - Last Pack Mojo.

The Black & White borders performed the Heim-Lux Maneuver.  

 

Box 6

Cool shot of Brett I don't think I've seen before.

Image swap of Johan Rojas.  Swapping his name to Rohan Yohas would have been even more fun.

Charlie's Bat, mon.  Hit Location - Top 2nd

We ended up with two of the Ohtani Highlight SPs.  That's always nice.

Box 12

And finally...

This one already appeared on Night Owl's post about how there is so much '75 content on his blog these days.  It was the only one of the three he needed from our break.

Neat black & white image Jake "No, my sister isn't Jenny" McCarthy.  Though I can't say I like the orange and yellow with the colorless picture.

Another image swap in the same box!

And this.  Nice autograph from another Yankee.  

The Morel of the story is "the shiny ones aren't the biggest deal".

I could keep going, but there is no Box 13.  Sorry, Leyla...

Hmmph...

I'll probably do a recap post just to put things in order.  Thanks for tuning in.  Good night!