When I was (much) younger, I saw a "What's New with Phil and Dixie" comic, in which the punchline involved a man living inside his Lucite-encased Magic card collection. Ha ha, so funny, who would do a thing like that?
Now that the value on some of my older cards is threatening to cross from three figures to four, I'm wondering if maybe that's not such a bad idea. So, for those of you who've sent your cards in to be graded:
1) What's your cutoff? Obviously, grading every card in a collection is a huge waste of time and money. The highest-end stuff is obvious, but what about, say, an Imperial Recruiter? Or a Mox that'll get probably a 4 or 5?
2) I've heard that BGS gives a harsher grade than PSA. Does that translate into a higher resale value?
3) How do you ship your cards? Scratch that - how do you sleep at night knowing that you've given thousands of dollars worth of Magic cards to the USPS?
4) Any regrets on doing it - or on passing up on it?
5) Any stories about judges accepting your slab and making a proxy for you? Or is that just an urban legend?
I don't see myself having the time to play Legacy/Vintage in the near future (or '93/'94 ever), so making sure that some of my rarer stuff gets protected while I take a break (read: durdle around with EDH) seems important.
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BGS (in my opinion) is better as they break down the card into sub-grades; corners, surface, edges, and centering. PSA does not do this, just a single card grade...not sure if one is 'harsher' on grading over the other though since I've not personally had anything PSA graded.
My cutoff price for sending is generally $100 but I have sent lower value ($50+) on cards that were particularly pristine.
One thing to note is that grading services give discounts for volume so you might consider talking to your FLGS to see if they might organize it. That way they can get groups of people who might only have a few cards they want graded and still get a lower cost.
Also of note: BGS uses FedEx, not USPS. And I would highly recommend making sure that your cards are insured when you send them...it gives some peace of mind if nothing else. I'm not sure what PSA uses, but I would guess FedEx as well.
One thing to note is that graded cards can be hard to move. Players don't want them due to higher costs. For a collector though, some are willing to pay a premium since grading helps insure card quality is and authenticity...though I have heard urban rumors of counterfeit cards passing through the process.
Also, any card that grade lower than a 9 will generally not command any premium so be sure to send in only cards that are in really good shape.
I have not had any regrets on greading yet. In fact, I am going to try getting a few more graded soon if I can.
How much does all this typically cost? I can't imagine spending ~$30 to get a ~$50 card graded...
It has been a few years, but if I'm remembering correctly it was around $6-$7 per card. Our FLGS organized getting a larger order together.
Sometimes grading services have special offers as well, and we may have been in on one of those. I know he was able to get a discount due to the size of the order too. I think he wound up with around 50 or so cards from the various people who gave him cards to send out, though it may have been more than that too...he also sold sports collectibles and I never really kept up with that crowd so I don't know how many of those cards might have gone out with that order as well.
When I was (much) younger, I saw a "What's New with Phil and Dixie" comic, in which the punchline involved a man living inside his Lucite-encased Magic card collection. Ha ha, so funny, who would do a thing like that?
Now that the value on some of my older cards is threatening to cross from three figures to four, I'm wondering if maybe that's not such a bad idea. So, for those of you who've sent your cards in to be graded:
1) What's your cutoff? Obviously, grading every card in a collection is a huge waste of time and money. The highest-end stuff is obvious, but what about, say, an Imperial Recruiter? Or a Mox that'll get probably a 4 or 5?
2) I've heard that BGS gives a harsher grade than PSA. Does that translate into a higher resale value?
3) How do you ship your cards? Scratch that - how do you sleep at night knowing that you've given thousands of dollars worth of Magic cards to the USPS?
4) Any regrets on doing it - or on passing up on it?
5) Any stories about judges accepting your slab and making a proxy for you? Or is that just an urban legend?
I don't see myself having the time to play Legacy/Vintage in the near future (or '93/'94 ever), so making sure that some of my rarer stuff gets protected while I take a break (read: durdle around with EDH) seems important.
Great question! As someone who owns exactly 10 graded cards (power 9 and a Time Vault), let me weigh in.
1. My cutoff is cards that are pretty much vintage only. I've been considering sending off a Library of Alexandria for grading, but it would probably only come back at a 7.5 so I've been holding off because it wouldn't come back at NM. As it gets harder and harder to find, I may break down and do it, but for right now I'm ok with it ungraded. I have a Tabernacle, Moat, Judge Gaea's Cradle, Candelabra that would all grade out as NM, but I've restrained from slabbing them primarily because I have been able to play a few legacy games over the years.
2. All of my cards are BGS graded. From what I can tell, a 9 on either BGS or PSA sells for the same amount. Same with an 8 and a 10. The half grades by BGS sometimes make a difference, but usually only if it's a 9.5.
3. I shipped my graded power to BGS in Dallas via UPS insured. The cost of shipping each way was over $100 (with insurance) and the grading was only $50. Expensive, but when you're shipping a couple thousand dollars in cards, yeah its worth it.
4. No regrets up to this point. Since I probably will never get to play a vintage tourney the only thing that I cannot do is have a legit powered cube. And for that I'll just proxy off the cards I own. I'm getting pretty serious about sending the tabernacle off for slabbing though. At $1400, it's certainly holding the right price to be slabbed.
5. Never heard of it happening.
One of my biggest desires is to get a Mishra's Workshop. It's about the last big time card I don't have. I have a huge desire to build either a mono red artifacts deck or just plain colorless. That means I'll probably get the workshop unslabbed when I am able to pick one up.
Biggest thing is if you want to play with the real thing, then don't bother slabbing. If you're ok playing with a proxy of a card you own, then slab away! Also, unless a card is going to grade out at least an 8 (NM), it probably isn't worth your time to slab.
/edit BGS has a feature on their website called population report. you have to register but you can go on there and see how many of each card has been graded and it gives a breakdown of what grade each was given...
My cutoff price for sending is generally $100 but I have sent lower value ($50+) on cards that were particularly pristine.
And I would highly recommend making sure that your cards are insured when you send them...it gives some peace of mind if nothing else.
How much does all this typically cost? I can't imagine spending ~$30 to get a ~$50 card graded...
I was browsing the BGS website on Friday, and it's $9/card if you send 31-99 cards (and don't care about turnaround time). Then add postage ... it adds up, I'm sure.
I will also note that they had a popup chat feature on the page, and I asked them some of the questions I was going to ask here. They have their own metric for card prices, and were unable to tell me whether that was a market comparison, or just something pulled from their collective City of Ass, but if I bought 50 gradings at once I could get access to it. They were very, very pushy about trying to sell me a package of 50 gradings (for $450), even after I started with "I have about a dozen cards" and "$450 is way out of my budget". So that kind of turned me off of their service.
I think that I'm going to have to be very careful about what I send, if I send anything. I have a Chaos Orb that I thought would be good to grade, but it's off-center a bit, and one of the corners is slightly dinged. We'll see.
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cutoff doesn't exist for me, I can play with them once they are slabbed. I've got one graded card left and I can tell you, they are very difficult to move.
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Now that the value on some of my older cards is threatening to cross from three figures to four, I'm wondering if maybe that's not such a bad idea. So, for those of you who've sent your cards in to be graded:
1) What's your cutoff? Obviously, grading every card in a collection is a huge waste of time and money. The highest-end stuff is obvious, but what about, say, an Imperial Recruiter? Or a Mox that'll get probably a 4 or 5?
2) I've heard that BGS gives a harsher grade than PSA. Does that translate into a higher resale value?
3) How do you ship your cards? Scratch that - how do you sleep at night knowing that you've given thousands of dollars worth of Magic cards to the USPS?
4) Any regrets on doing it - or on passing up on it?
5) Any stories about judges accepting your slab and making a proxy for you? Or is that just an urban legend?
I don't see myself having the time to play Legacy/Vintage in the near future (or '93/'94 ever), so making sure that some of my rarer stuff gets protected while I take a break (read: durdle around with EDH) seems important.
My cutoff price for sending is generally $100 but I have sent lower value ($50+) on cards that were particularly pristine.
One thing to note is that grading services give discounts for volume so you might consider talking to your FLGS to see if they might organize it. That way they can get groups of people who might only have a few cards they want graded and still get a lower cost.
Also of note: BGS uses FedEx, not USPS. And I would highly recommend making sure that your cards are insured when you send them...it gives some peace of mind if nothing else. I'm not sure what PSA uses, but I would guess FedEx as well.
One thing to note is that graded cards can be hard to move. Players don't want them due to higher costs. For a collector though, some are willing to pay a premium since grading helps insure card quality is and authenticity...though I have heard urban rumors of counterfeit cards passing through the process.
Also, any card that grade lower than a 9 will generally not command any premium so be sure to send in only cards that are in really good shape.
I have not had any regrets on greading yet. In fact, I am going to try getting a few more graded soon if I can.
How much does all this typically cost? I can't imagine spending ~$30 to get a ~$50 card graded...
It has been a few years, but if I'm remembering correctly it was around $6-$7 per card. Our FLGS organized getting a larger order together.
Sometimes grading services have special offers as well, and we may have been in on one of those. I know he was able to get a discount due to the size of the order too. I think he wound up with around 50 or so cards from the various people who gave him cards to send out, though it may have been more than that too...he also sold sports collectibles and I never really kept up with that crowd so I don't know how many of those cards might have gone out with that order as well.
Great question! As someone who owns exactly 10 graded cards (power 9 and a Time Vault), let me weigh in.
1. My cutoff is cards that are pretty much vintage only. I've been considering sending off a Library of Alexandria for grading, but it would probably only come back at a 7.5 so I've been holding off because it wouldn't come back at NM. As it gets harder and harder to find, I may break down and do it, but for right now I'm ok with it ungraded. I have a Tabernacle, Moat, Judge Gaea's Cradle, Candelabra that would all grade out as NM, but I've restrained from slabbing them primarily because I have been able to play a few legacy games over the years.
2. All of my cards are BGS graded. From what I can tell, a 9 on either BGS or PSA sells for the same amount. Same with an 8 and a 10. The half grades by BGS sometimes make a difference, but usually only if it's a 9.5.
3. I shipped my graded power to BGS in Dallas via UPS insured. The cost of shipping each way was over $100 (with insurance) and the grading was only $50. Expensive, but when you're shipping a couple thousand dollars in cards, yeah its worth it.
4. No regrets up to this point. Since I probably will never get to play a vintage tourney the only thing that I cannot do is have a legit powered cube. And for that I'll just proxy off the cards I own. I'm getting pretty serious about sending the tabernacle off for slabbing though. At $1400, it's certainly holding the right price to be slabbed.
5. Never heard of it happening.
One of my biggest desires is to get a Mishra's Workshop. It's about the last big time card I don't have. I have a huge desire to build either a mono red artifacts deck or just plain colorless. That means I'll probably get the workshop unslabbed when I am able to pick one up.
Biggest thing is if you want to play with the real thing, then don't bother slabbing. If you're ok playing with a proxy of a card you own, then slab away! Also, unless a card is going to grade out at least an 8 (NM), it probably isn't worth your time to slab.
/edit BGS has a feature on their website called population report. you have to register but you can go on there and see how many of each card has been graded and it gives a breakdown of what grade each was given...
http://www.beckett.com/grading/set_match/6928477
This one is for all cards from Unlimited.
I was browsing the BGS website on Friday, and it's $9/card if you send 31-99 cards (and don't care about turnaround time). Then add postage ... it adds up, I'm sure.
I will also note that they had a popup chat feature on the page, and I asked them some of the questions I was going to ask here. They have their own metric for card prices, and were unable to tell me whether that was a market comparison, or just something pulled from their collective City of Ass, but if I bought 50 gradings at once I could get access to it. They were very, very pushy about trying to sell me a package of 50 gradings (for $450), even after I started with "I have about a dozen cards" and "$450 is way out of my budget". So that kind of turned me off of their service.
I think that I'm going to have to be very careful about what I send, if I send anything. I have a Chaos Orb that I thought would be good to grade, but it's off-center a bit, and one of the corners is slightly dinged. We'll see.