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Sports cards in the 21st Century. One the biggest phenomena's in the sports card market today is having your cards professionally graded or the slang term 'slabbed'. For those of us who have been in the hobby for more than 15 years this can be a hard concept to grasp. Professionally graded cards were unheard of less than 15 years ago. You could spend hours at a sports card show with more than 100 or so tables and not find 1 graded card, not one. Then all of a sudden, almost in an instant, a graded card appeared. 'Where did that come from? That wasn't here before.' Then another, then another, and all of the sudden you can't visit one table at a show without seeing half a dozen or more PSA, BGS, USA, SGC, ABC graded cards. There are more companies grading cards today than there are making cards. Does anybody else see a problem here? How much does it cost to have a company professionally grade a card? $10? $20? $30? That depends on how fast you want the card back in your hands. You can go to some card shows and the grading companies are onsite, grading cards while you wait. Imagine opening up a new wax pack at a card show and finding a Michael Vick Rookie card and then immediately going to one of the grading card booths and have them grade your card. It comes back a MINT 9! It should be MINT 9 it just came out of the pack! I don't need a professional grading company to tell me that, much less, I don't need to spend any more money on the card than I already have. MINT, GEM MINT, PRISTINE, what the heck is that?
Doesn't the term MINT imply perfect? I didn't know that you could improve on perfect. Apparently you can because most of the grading companies have MINT listed 2 levels from the TOP of their grading scale. Things used to be so simple. MINT was perfect, Near MINT was almost perfect and anything less was usually left at the table. I can spot a MINT card a mile away. At least I thought I could. I don't need a microscope to see if the corners are sharp. I'm not that blind, yet. I don't need a ruler to tell if the card is centered. Does a fraction of an inch really make a card worth that much more? Not in my eyes. It is simply insane to spend hundreds of more dollars for a card simply because some 3rd party says the card is GEM MINT versus just MINT! If the corners are sharp, the centering is centered, the edges are clean, and the surface is clean, then the card is MINT. Spending and extra $10, $20, or $30 to have someone tell you that it is MINT is like throwing money away. 99% of the hobbyist who are having cards graded, do so in order to obtain a larger profit from the card. Buy a Rookie card for less than book, have it graded, sell it for more. The problem is if the price for grading a card is $10.00 or more then the selling price has to reap more than book price plus the grading/shipping price. That sometimes just doesn't happen especially if the card comes back with a less than desirable grade. Most newly released cards have to obtain a grade of GEM MINT or higher in order to obtain a premium.
I'm not saying that professionally graded cards don't have a place in our hobby. I personally love vintage (pre-1970) graded cards. I would certainly pay more for a 1965 Philadelphia common Cowboy card graded PSA 7 than I would the same card ungraded. The graded card carries a premium and deservedly so. My biggest problem with the grading companies is there are too many, there are too many inconsistencies in the grades, and too many collectors think that a Gem Mint grade makes a common card valuable, but what do I know?
Marty Ogelvie July 2001 |
