What's Worth Grading?

[Glenn9999]

This will serve as an introduction post as much as my question. I used to collect baseball cards in a very heavy way from about 1985-1992 or so. I've gotten completely out of collecting any more cards, but still have my collection here.

It was pretty massive, storage space wise, so I decided to pare it down in 2007. I called a couple of card dealers asking about sale prices, and basically got back the answer that common cards (especially 1986-1988) were pretty much worthless (and one was giving them away. Another was offering 1 penny for three/four cards), so I got a Beckett Price guide then (2007) and pared them down from about 2500 cards to about 300-400.

Basically, I still remember enough knowledge to sort out a few things, though I'm fuzzy on some of it and plain not knowledgeable about others. My main interest is putting some of the "worthwhile" cards into order to sell, and then arranging some keepsakes where I'm not kicking around anything I'm not truly interested in anymore.

This leads to my first question. One change I noticed in the market place is the invention and popularity of grading services. I've read enough to figure out the idea, and have an order I'm working on putting together with PSA. The question becomes one of guidelines... How do you tell what's worth grading in the first place, especially given the $17 charge plus shipping per card (or does PSA do bulk deals worth calling them for)? Given that I know enough that I can still find out what things have been selling for in general, I've identified what seems to be obvious candidates, but I ended up with a few that seem borderline to me. When I got done, I ended up with 79 potential grading candidates out of what could potentially be many more. I pared that down to 19 absolutes to help make the cards marketable, but it still seems iffy...

So...suggestions?

[revghost]

If you've got an 89 Upper Deck Griffey Jr RC, I'd say that is something you should definitely have graded. Any RCs you have of can't miss HOFers, those are a safe bet. Players like Gwynn, Ripken, Mattingly, Bo Jackson, Mark McGwire, their values are pretty solid, but anything from 1988 to 1994 was horribly overproduced and won't be worth storing. I began collecting in the mid eighties as a kid and sadly, I shared your pain when, after an 18 year hiatus, I got back in to the hobby last year. Luckily, I had enough gems (Jeter Rookies, and Jeter Rookies, and oh, did I mention Jeter Rookies? Lol.) that had been properly stored to show for it. I went through the process of sorting through about 10-20 thousand cards and well, let's just say that I pared it down to about 1000 cards. There were some great rookies (Thome, Pedro Martinez, etc) and some horrid busts (Todd Van Poppel/Brien Taylor anyone?) but in sorting them all, I started remembering things like the 1992 TriStar show in Houston, the first card shop I frequented as a kid in Galveston, and well, next thing I know, I was buying packs again. Grading is not cheap, but in a lot of cases can add a lot of value to cards in your collection. If it's not vintage, or an RC of a player that is Hall bound, for the most part you may want to just put it in a sleeve/toploader and call it good.

[Glenn9999]

Yeah, that's kind of the question. What I mostly kept were the good players (lots of Boggs, Brett, Mattingly, Gwynn, Clemens, Ripken, Ryan, Puckett, etc, few rookies though) , though there's a few rookie busts in there too.

The problem is that grading is indeed expensive, and given the criteria I've found of most of these cards today, I could legitimately grade 75% of them (the ones I didn't tear up as a kid, condition-wise). I could probably call up PSA and see if they will give me a really good bulk rate if I do send all 79 of the cards.

But the main question is what will return the value that is spent by grading the card. Maybe I can come up with some more pointed questions in reflection of the 79 I picked out?

1. A large percentage of the 79 are vintage cards. 1961, 1969, 1970 Topps to be specific. A large percentage of that percentage are miscuts, but most of them either have a worn appearance (which could just be how they looked, I don't know), or have a ding or two on the corner. Are the miscuts irrelevant enough given the demand that I should grade those too, or should I avoid those?

2. More pointed to that, I have four very not common vintage cards with crazy markets that aren't in good shape (mainly miscuts). Since the markets for these cards is crazy good for them in good shape, would it be worth grading these just for the mere fact that they are these hot vintage cards that might bring something decent anyway?

3. The only set I ended up with is a 1987 Fleer Update. I noticed pretty quickly back in 2007 (and today) that I could bust the set up and get the same value out of two or three cards as in selling the whole set. Is there a market for partials in that set if I were to break it up to grade it (the cards I have in mind to grade are obvious to those that know this set). What about those cards, specifically, in terms of grading (they *should* all pop 10's)? I can see Maddux, McGwire and maybe Williams, but McGriff?

4. Basketball. I only have 6 cards, but ended up with a 1992 Upper Deck McDonalds Michael Jordan and a 1991 Skybox Magic Johnson. Worth grading? They're definite keepsake pile, but for basketball I know these names didn't get much bigger back in those days.

5. 1987 Kraft Dinner cards. Got a Brett, Canseco, and Boggs. Worth grading any of those?

6. Are error cards marketable anymore? Got the 1988 Topps Al Leiter set. Worth grading?

7. I didn't end up with too many good rookie cards from about 1988 onwards, but ended up with Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson (no Griffey Jr, sadly)? Worth grading?

I think that'll get it for the cards I set aside specifically.

[revghost]

1. I'd leave the miscuts alone, unless you've got some stars in there.
2. Read #1, lol, get those graded so they don't further deteriorate and it will give them some added value moving forward.
3. McGriff seems to still have a pretty strong following among collectors, I'd get him graded. Not sure what to tell you to do with the leftover partial, I'd imagine there are a good number of incomplete sets out there due to what you were talking about in regard to breaking it up.
4. Maybe grade the Jordan, but I'd leave the Magic alone unless it's in immaculate condition.
5. Don't know what to tell ya here, maybe another member can help with this. My instinct is no.
6. That Al Leiter currently books at 50 cents. I'd leave it be. Some errors have held their value, like the 89 Bill Ripken, but it seems that some just plain haven't.
7. The Glavine and Johnson can be had pretty cheap, while I'm sure there are collectors out there looking for graded copies, I'm not sure grading yours would be a sound investment due to the overproduction by card manufacturers from 1988 on.

I'm by no means an authority on grading, I'm sure there are other members here that may be able to offer better insight. I do spend a lot of time on eBay though, so I have some insight into the market for graded cards, but feel free to get some more advice before you make your decision, bud. Good luck!

[Glenn9999]

Thanks for your help, this ought to pare down the list a bit.

2. Read #1, lol, get those graded so they don't further deteriorate and it will give them some added value moving forward.

This was one of my major questions in looking at the vintage cards - whether there's a point that a card being in garbage condition was irrelevant, given what it is. Three miscuts and one that was written on. Shame on that second one, given what it is and how valuable it would be without the writing. But like I thought in buying it, hey it's (name of major vintage star).

3. McGriff seems to still have a pretty strong following among collectors, I'd get him graded.

I don't get it. I never remembered Fred McGriff to be anything more than a reliable but not spectacular player. Someone that would be known in a local market well enough but not everywhere as a star.

4. Maybe grade the Jordan, but I'd leave the Magic alone unless it's in immaculate condition.

I can pop over to the basketball forum and ask values. The Jordan seems a no-brainer to me, but the Magic was questionable until I saw mentions of it potentially being "rare" on e-bay ("Prototype" label on some, not on others). So I don't know.

5. Don't know what to tell ya here, maybe another member can help with this. My instinct is no.

I see graded panels of these for about $30-35 on e-bay, but again what I have aren't complete uncut panels, so I don't know.

feel free to get some more advice before you make your decision, bud. Good luck!

Thanks! I'll welcome any good advice on any of the questions I have, especially when I start looking for good places to sell some of the cards that didn't make my list of 79.

[Glenn9999]

Got my PSA order shipped out. They wouldn't work with me on a discount for the vintage common cards, so just got my "stupid to not grade" cards and shipped them over there. Hopefully they will come back soon and I can see whether I'm accurate on what I think they will be or not.

As for the Magic, I got it sorted out, it's only worth about $1 anyway, it seems, so it stayed home.

That said, to the sales blocks soon once I can get that organized!

[Glenn9999]

How many cards?

It was pretty massive, storage space wise, so I decided to pare it down in 2007. I called a couple of card dealers asking about sale prices, and basically got back the answer that common cards (especially 1986-1988) were pretty much worthless (and one was giving them away. Another was offering 1 penny for three/four cards), so I got a Beckett Price guide then (2007) and pared them down from about 2500 cards to about 300-400.

When I did this, I had a little fun. I figured if I was going to destroy the cards because no one would buy them, that I should run these commons through the shredder. That said, look at the image (just found it going through files).

How many cards are in the wastebasket? (Yes, I counted, and yes all that is in the wastebasket is shredded commons) If someone else here wants to play, it might be a good discussion question or contest idea even.

[Dave Crum]

Speaking of your vintage, if you strongly feel your cards from 1960's would grade a 9 or 10 I would grade them. PSA vintage 9 and 10's bring in a very nice return. I have seen 60's commons in those grades sell for 100 dollars plus. 60's stars/ hof in a 9 or 10 can bring in a ton. But, you need to inspect them with a jewlers loupe (?) If you can see flaws, they will see the flaws. I would even grade 60's hof players If I thought they would bring in an 8. In my opinion the newer stuff has really went down in recent years so I would only grade the best rookie cards of the best players from the era (Griffey ud, Johnson ud, Rivera bowman, ect...)

[Glenn9999]

Speaking of your vintage, if you strongly feel your cards from 1960's would grade a 9 or 10 I would grade them. PSA vintage 9 and 10's bring in a very nice return

I'm not really entirely sure. Other than a little aging, most of these vintage common cards I have would bring a 7-8 in my opinion if there wasn't any miscuts in them. A couple of scans are here (http://community.cardboardconnection...tml#post371518). The problem I'm unsure about is where the PSA standards are on that, because I've seen examples of anywhere from 3-8 PSA grades with miscuts. As I said, I shipped my "obvious I should grade" cards out to PSA, since they wouldn't cut me any deals for the other 40 vintage commons I have to do a bulk rate (frankly it's not cheap). I'm sure questions will be answered when I get them back.