Card Wars

Typically, I try to give you as much analysis from 40,000 feet, so to speak, to try and make sense of this thing of ours from a high-level macro perspective. As I noodle on such seemingly weighty issues as how to best prosper as a card seller, I run across all sorts of micro-snapshots from the retail collector-seller level. I thought this week I would put some of them out there for you, at least from what I am seeing on the ground in sunny SoCal.

We have a permanent PSA submission center at Burbank Sports Cards in Burbank (I am not being a smartass: they ran the confusingly named “The Burbank Show” in Anaheim and Ontario until they changed the name). I decided to have a nice 1910 P2 Sweet Caporal Cy Young pin slabbed. I bought it a few years ago raw in a Whatnot auction, was pleasantly surprised at how clean it was, and decided to keep it as a long-term investment. It has been on my list of to be graded items ever since I got it. Now that I’ve quit my day job, er, retired, I have the time to get to all of these little projects. I decided to take it to Burbank and drop it off at the PSA station.

Pin grading ain’t cheap; came to over $50 with return shipping, which is why the only pin I am grading is the Young. I arrived at the store about 10:30 a.m. and found no line at the booth. The clerk taking subs looked at the pin and my paperwork and said: “Whoa, a Sweet Caporal [mispronounced] pin; that is beautiful. We never get pieces like this.” I said: “Yeah, a Sweet Caporal [pronounced correctly] Young is unusual. What do you usually get, a lot of modern?” He shook his head and looked down and quietly said with a tone of resignation: “Yeah. A lot of it.” He repeated how beautiful the pin was and logged it in. I gotta admit, it felt great to have a young card guy acknowledge a vintage piece. Every time I set up at a show or have something like the P2 in my case, young jaws gape. We old fart collectors are such a small part of the overall picture, but what we have often is the sort of dream stuff that young collectors have never seen in person.

Speaking of grading services, it is amazing how fast SGC has gone down the toilet in the minds of collectors since Collectors bought it. SGC was my preferred service, but I haven’t sent SGC a thing since the Card Borg assimilated it, and the horror stories I am hearing from current SGC customers do not encourage me. If I am going to get the same dog-shit service and long delays with SGC, I may as well use PSA instead so at least I can walk the order into Burbank Sports Cards and save myself the shipping concerns and costs attendant to getting my cards to Florida. Since PSA pretty much sucks too, however, I’ve switched to CGC for most stuff. I find their service and handling is head and shoulders above the Card Borg and their work is spot-on. I admit that I have gone back to using PSA for some items. I took in a rare boxing card that I hope to get added to a registry set eventually so I can cash it in, and the pin I discussed above because they do a really nice job with them and CGC doesn’t do pins…yet. At this point, SGC would be my last choice and would get only the stuff that PSA and CGC do not handle.

Let’s talk MBA, Mike Baker Authenticated, and those annoying slab stickers. To me, they are like the slab-slabs I made fun of last week. In my view, having someone grade the grade on the slab is the ultimate product of the greed and ignorance that comes with a cardboard gold rush. Greed because all MBA is doing is grading the grader’s grade. It’s already graded, so what the heck do you need a second opinion for? If you are gonna operate on my foot, yeah, I want a second opinion. For a graded card, no. Ignorance because anyone with experience with cards should know enough to be able to assess the eye appeal of a slabbed card without paying some assclown to add a stupid sticker to an already graded card’s case. That said, I recognize that there is a non-zero element of the card buying public that buys into this nonsense and will pay extra to have the sticker on the case, and that makes the service a potential money maker regardless of how stupid I think it is. In that regard I am entirely agnostic: whether to use any service is really dependent on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are doing something for your personal collection, skip the sticker and save your money. If you are planning to auction the card via an auctioneer, ask what they think and follow their advice. If you are going to do a direct sale and you think your card will get a shiny sticker, bake the eye appeal into the price negotiation and let the buyer take the risk and pay for the sticker. Works great for raw card sales. Speaking of which…

I sell a lot of raw on eBay and I got this gem of a question about a raw card:

“Anything off with it?“

Yes, I think they used a bad photo and the design of the back of the card is ugly. Not what you wanted to know? Then be more specific. I’ve since amended my boilerplate to say: “I DO NOT GUARANTEE OR WARRANT THAT A RAW CARD WILL OBTAIN ANY SPECIFIC GRADE FROM ANY SPECIFIC GRADER. My listings meet the criteria for the grade assigned according to eBay’s definition. I also do not respond to nonspecific inquiries like “anything off” or “what should I know” because they are so vague that I have no idea what you are asking. If you have a specific question, say about whether there are any creases, those I can answer. Above all else, if you want the certainty of a specific grade or a numerical grade on a card, please look for a PSA or similar third-party graded example instead of what I am selling.”

Finally, Michael Jordan, again. His later career-contemporary cards have been flying lately, especially the 1990s short prints and inserts, which makes sense because early cards like the Star issues are simply out of reach of many collectors. During the COVID surge I bought a Star rookie year Jordan, the Gatorade, which is the 2nd card of him (the regular series #101 was issued first) and the shortest print since the set was a dinner banquet freebie at the mid-season all-star weekend. I didn’t know all that at the time, but I did suss out that Star Jordans were earlier than Fleer Jordans and seemed to be a great investment given that the 1986 Fleer card was going bonkers. My card has increased tenfold since I bought it and the rate of increase is increasing. I’m cashing in my later career inserts and short prints, but the Gatorade is staying with me until prices stabilize. Like Ruth and Chamberlain, I really don’t mind holding strong MJ cards on a future appreciation play.

That’s it from the Card Wars for now. Back to the high level concepts next time.