Best Card Types to Submit to Grading Services

[elbsportscards]

Hi All,

Wanted to pick your brains and experience. When you look through your modern day cards to pick out what you plan to submit to grading services like BGS/PSA etc. I was curious as to which types of cards from your experience each year gave you two things:

1) Better consistency of getting 9 or higher grading?
2) Best increase in sell value realized in the graded card over the raw card?

Please list your experiences by including: the Brand, the specific card type (Base/RC, Inserts, Parallels, etc.) and lowest point attribute (corners, surface, etc.)

Thank you,

Ed

[Negron-23]

I don't think this is really answers your question but I have a few opinions on grading. I am by no means an expert but I've done the grading thing a handful of times so I now have a very basic criteria for sending cards in to BGS.

- First it has to already be a valuable card cause I don't really think it's worth it to spend the money to grade cards that book $10-$15. Unless you get a Gem Mint 10 chances are the value will remain at around $10-$15 so it won't be worth it.
When you consider the Beckett grading fees and return shipping fees and insurance and shipping the cards to them you're gonna spend quite a bit to grade a card so you want to make sure getting it graded will be worth the money you're gonna spend.

- Which leads me to my next thing. I would never send in just one card to grade cause again, the fees can get a bit pricey even for just one card, so you're better off sending in at least 2 or 3. It kind of maximizes your chances of getting back at least one at a high grade which would then make it worth the money and effort to send them in.

- Lastly, I'd say be as sure as you can that the cards will grade well. No lower than an 8 but preferably 9 and up. Really take a good look at the cards you plan to send in. I always just kind of eyeball it and if I have a good card that looks like it might grade well I set it aside and then take the time to really inspect it. There have been times where I had cards that I thought could get a 10 but after further looking at them I realized there was a small blemish or it was slightly off centered and decided to just leave it ungraded.
You have to keep in mind, the graders will catch just about anything that is off with the card so if there's anything even slightly off, kiss your 10 grading goodbye. They often see things I didn't even know was there. So just kind of grade it yourself with your own eyes first and if you see anything wrong with the card at all, then they will definitely see it too.

To better answer your question I'd say the tougher cards to grade are chrome cards because of the constant flaws with the surface. The surface qualifier has been the toughest for me to get a 10 in when sending in cards. I think because it's not always easy to spot all surface flaws with the naked eye.
Seems like from the moment chrome cards come out of the pack the integrity of the surface starts to get compromised. And the longer they lay around or go around from one collector to the other, forget it, the surface of those cards will never be a 10.

Also any topps heritage type cards are tough cause of the problems with chipping off the edges.
Similar to the chrome cards, the longer they are out of a pack and not in a protective holder, the more damage those edges and corners will take.

I'd say the modern regular Topps and Bowman cards are the easiest. Many of those usually have sharp corners and smooth surfaces but the issue with those is sometimes centering is off and value wise, grading many of them doesn't make much of a difference unless it's a superstar.

Overall I'd say it's worth a shot just to test out the experience. It isn't something I look to do often but every now and then I see a card that looks in really good shape so I send it in.
The last few I sent in actually turned out pretty decent.

Sorry for going on a bit long there. I hope some of that helped.