With the rising prices of PSA grading are they still the best option in the industry? Nate Liss (@AnOutragedJew) and Jesse Bak (@Planet_Fatness) breakdown the TOP 5 sports card grading companies in the industry to help you decided where to send your best pieces.
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Transcript:
Nate Liss 0:22
Welcome back to Clear the Cash I’m your host Nate Liss you can find me on Twitter @ AnOutragedJew and with me on the other side of the camera if you guys are watching at home is Jesse Bach you can find him on Twitter @planet_fatness.
Jessie the card world continues to be set ablaze by these multi million dollar purchases. We talked about the Luka Doncic one last week, I think there were three or four multimillion dollar purchases that took place this week. So things continue to get crazier and crazier in the card market as we’ve got digital cards and physical cards going on in tandem while comic books, people are grading video games, every hobby you can think of is literally on fire right now. And I know you being the the upper level premier card purchaser you are is out there looking for deals all the time. Have you seen card prices rising significantly, you know amongst news of PSA grading and going up and things like this?
Jesse Bach 1:31
So I believe it was this past weekend or the weekend before golden auctions. I don’t know if you guys have ever been on their website. I don’t think any of us are ever going to be able to afford to go on their butt and buy anything on there. But they’ve had this past weekend. They’ve had record setting deals left and right. It was just it was bananas. Like I’m pretty sure Ken golden made like, I don’t even know like 10s of millions of dollars from this weekend alone, just just out of just out of like the buyer’s premium that the buyers have to pay. So it was just it was crazy. Yeah, there was a Luka I think a green shimmer prism out of five I think it was a PSA 10 or BGS nine, five or something. It’s sold for hundreds of 1000s of dollars like 750k something like that. Yeah, honestly, we’re not even gonna bat an eye with 1 million plus dollar card cells moving forward. It’s just It’s gonna be so commonplace. And you know, the a lot of higher end cards, they more often than not, they’re in pretty short hands. And they’re they belong to a lot of people that don’t really want to let go of them. But you’re going to see more of these cards pop up with this hot market period we’re going through right now. So a lot of these a lot of these cards are going to pop up either on golden or pw cc or, or even eBay. So I don’t think we’re gonna see these new all time high million dollar plus sales slowed out anytime soon.
Nate Liss 3:12
Yeah, this is crazy. Between March sixth and seventh, the end of the winter auction 2021 and golden options. We saw a Kobe Bryant go for 1.7 a Mickey Mantle, go for 1.3 Roberto Clemente go for over a million, a LeBron James patch autograph one go for 1.5. I mean, this is just ridiculous. I mean, ridiculous times. And again, for the people that are, you know, admittedly most of us will, you’re right, we’ll never going to wheel and deal in a golden auction. Now there might be a fraction of our listeners that are more successful, fitter, better looking more eloquent, should be out in public more frequently than we are. They are probably prime candidates to eventually insert one of these auctions. But it’s always impressive, but there are cards at all levels for everybody. And that’s a big part of this show is trying to get anybody who’s a listener of this audience, regardless of what your level of disposable income from the people that have the littlest to spend to the guy that can actually go to a golden auction and spend money. There’s a card out there for everybody. And with that being said, Jesse, I know everybody’s trying to get into box brakes. Nowadays. There’s lots of different people out there doing it. Sometimes it’s hard to trust who is out there doing them. There’s a couple people that I would recommend that do a great job. But we are going to start doing some box breaks over on Patreon so for people that want to get into a prison box break, we can do that there’s going to be some hangers some Megas mix it all up, give people an opportunity at really good rates. So if you guys are interested patreon.com forward slash I’m outraged. You guys can check it out over there. There’s more news to come on that Front, Jessie, we know the PSA card prices have been raised. We talked about this on the last episode. Is PSA grading dead at the moment?
Jesse Bach 5:12
No, I think I’ve already given some my thoughts on the last episode with weather or not, I think this was a good decision by PSA. And I think for maybe the health of the hobby it was I think they’re going to take care of their backlog and PSA slabs are going to be held at even a higher premium than they are right now. Inevitably, so I think honestly, they’re helping themselves I I’m sure there are collectors out there that are pissed off in the short term, but I think I think we’re gonna see, I think we’re gonna see that this is an overall positive event for the hobby. But no, I think even in the meantime, even with PSA, certain PSA grading packages doubling or, or going up a big percentage, I don’t think that necessarily should deter you from from submitting cards to PSA. But I have about five exceptions to to the cards that you should be submitting compared to maybe the cards that you shouldn’t be. So my first rule or my first type of card that I would be still looking to submit to PSA, even with the price increases is just a high end card in general or any like expensive rare or scarce card its value. Raw has to already be pretty up there. But especially if it gets a nine or above, it’s going to increase precipitously in value. So those labels like PSA labels make that make cards like that even more valuable. So that’s the first type of card i would i would look to grade a PSA still second type of card, just it kind of overlaps with with the first card, but just expensive raw cards in general it doesn’t. I’m sure there are cards out there that are raw, not super rare, like a Lucca prison PSA 10 and they are like a prison bass gras could, you know, that might still be a card that you might want to grade with PSA, or just another player’s baby base prism or just another more expensive card for for a player. Again, though, they’ll be more valuable if they’re in a PSA slab. The third exception is grading relevant cards of players who are all time greats, and whose valuable only appreciate with time. So you can’t think of these players cards as cards you’re looking to flip. So when I’m talking about players like this, it’s going to be somebody like MJ or LeBron or Tom Brady, or think of like insert great all time quarterback. So these are cards that have athletes that you’re like they’re only going to appreciate with time. So you don’t really need to be in a crazy rush to sell it as soon as you get it back in hand graded. The fourth type of card is rookie card of an athlete who is still not quite a Hall of Fame player or a Hall of Fame worthy player. But they’re not exactly a prospect either. So these card like with these types of players, I’m thinking more like Yanis or Luca in the NBA, or obviously Patrick mahomes in the NFL. So there, I mean, you can really put a whole whole lot more players in this category here, but you have to be confident in their success long term. And that’s going to be a type of player that you have to be you have to be comfortable, still having ownership of their card even though that cards gonna be a PSA for some time unless if you express submitted or something and it comes back within a couple weeks. But if you’re comfortable owning this card for a year, plus that’s a card that I’d be looking to still submit a PSA. And the my fifth exception is greeting cards that you’re comfortable holding or having ownership 12 plus months this might be these players might be a tear below Yanis or Luca or maybe they’re still relevant but they don’t get that’s quite the love as Yanis or Luca maybe somebody like like kawhi Leonard who’s like stupid under appreciated in the hobby, by the way. And there are cards that, you know, again, a card that you’re you’re not looking to flip immediately and maybe with another championship or potential MVP that players cards are going to continue to appreciate. So those are generally the types of cards that I would still be looking to submit A PSA, even if it’s even if it’s a base card of that of that player, as long as it’s like, you know, a pretty relevant base card or rookie base card. Those are the types of cards that I would generally still be looking to submit.
Nate Liss 10:17
So, and Jesse, we have quite a few listeners, I’m sure that out there is a listener that doesn’t fall under any of these exceptions, but still wants the PSA name. If they still want to play with PSA, can they?
Jesse Bach 10:34
Absolutely. So but this is a little trickier. So you have to do a little bit more research if you if you don’t fall into any of those five categories that I just mentioned. And you’re saying just you know, screw yourself like I still want to submit to PSA PSA is the godfather of grading right now I still want my cards in a PSA slab, what should I do? How should I submit. So my first rule here would be that you need to make sure and again, submitting cards for grading you have to look at make sure that the corners are sharp that left to right and top to bottom centering is pretty good or close to 5050 as possible, the edges are consistent in color. And the surface looks really clean, it doesn’t like you can use a magnifying glass and a LED light for all I care to make sure that the surface is clean that that’s a big part, especially with PSA and BGS grading. So you have to make sure that even if if you think the card is a 10. But if the card somehow gets a PSA nine that you’re still in the green, so you have to make sure that you spent with the amount of money that you spent on the card itself raw, the amount of money you spent on grading costs and ensuring the card to get to PSA safely and back. With all of those costs in mind, you have to make sure that if the card comes back a PSA nine you’re still profiting as the second you get it back in like imagine you send a card today, you get it back today. And it come and it comes back a PSA nine you’re still in the green, you’re still making money. So that’s the first type of card that I’d be I’d be looking to, to submit but you do have to do your research and find a raw card with all of those expenses in mind, where you would still still be profiting with a PSA nine. The second type of card I’d be looking to submit is you would have to do again, more research, look up on pshs website. If you have a certain card in mind, make sure to look up plus gem rates. So the gem rate is all that only has to do with PSA 10s. But it’s the percentage of cards that were submitted to PSA of this particular card or player that were graded a 10 divided by the total number of cards graded by PSA of that of that card. So what isn’t that I use? PSA mint plus gem rate, I’m looking at the nine and 10 rate. So the nine rate the nine rate kind of goes back to the first point I made. But anything I mean this is kind of an arbitrary number, but in my mind, I’m thinking anything 70% or above a nine plus 10 rate would be pretty ideal to submit to PSA. So if if you think you can still profit while getting a PSA nine of the car that you’re looking to submit that is still definitely worthy upgrading with PSA.
Nate Liss 13:50
I think you might have just had a goodwill hunting moment there for a second I was lost at the point where we started doing long division. So one more time what what is your What was your last process there?
Jesse Bach 14:03
So the PA so I like to look at whenever I’m looking to submit a particular card, I like to have an idea of what the gem rate is in my mind. So, the gem rate is the total PSA 10 population of that card divided by the total PSA population of that card. So the total PSA greater population.
Nate Liss 14:27
So let me ask you one question about that. Now, are you using this because it helps you understand the average printed card and its quality? For for submission, essentially
Jesse Bach 14:40
Yes. So if I see the the PSA 10 rate is relatively high, like well above, like if it’s above 50% and it’s a pretty valuable enough card that that’s going to be a card that I’m going to be looking to submit. Now the reason why I’m using thing Plus PSA 10 rate. So mint plus gem rate is you have to prepare yourself to potentially get a PSA nine. And if you can get a PSA nine and still be making money if you bought the card raw, that’s still, that’s still worthy of grading. So if I see a PSA nine plus PSA 10 rate, combine those rates, and you’re seeing over 70% of this car that’s being graded by PSA over if over 70% of those cards are getting a nine or a 10. I’ll be looking to submit that card.
Nate Liss 15:37
Gotcha. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And it’s a really smart way to do it. And obviously, I’ve never heard anybody lay it out in these terms. But I think that’s a great way for people to kind of understand how many of this particular type of card have actually been printed of a nine or 10 quality. So it makes a lot of sense for submitting to PSA. And for the people listening to this show that don’t know much about grading, and they’re wondering, Well, why would you send all these things to PSA? I mean, just generally speaking Jessie PSA, even though we both really like BGS PSA is widely considered the premier grater in the industry, correct? For
Jesse Bach 16:18
sure. People love the 10. So and people have been in love with with a PSA slab since, since it came out in the 90s. It’s an incredibly, it’s always been incredibly relevant in the card grading world, but it’s especially gotten a lot of love and fame over the last five to 10 years, basically surpassing BGS and BGS was the king for decades and grading So yeah, I don’t think PSA, the love for PSA is going to go away anytime soon. Even with the grading submission increases, price increases.
Nate Liss 17:01
Yeah, I agree. I don’t I don’t think so either. And we can see PSA is always putting out applications online, they’re clearly trying to fill more spots for graders with the hobby growing like it is. But PSA is just one grading service and it is admittedly the best grading service around currently though, we would agree that a company like BGS to get a 10 from them is probably more stringent of a grade than a PSA 10. So with BGS and sgc kind of coming back into relevance of grading, we know that there’s going to be a massive uptick of submissions. So what do we do with companies like this.
Jesse Bach 17:44
So BGS and sgc, because of pshs price increases and grading they’re kind of sneaking back into grading relevance. The their turnaround times honestly will probably be a problem with with the general uptick in submissions to them, but honestly, in the short to intermediate term there, they’re going to see a huge bump and people are going to start respecting those companies more than they are right now. BGS on on BGS is slab I don’t know if you guys have have seen or bought a BGS slab before what’s I honestly almost kind of prefer their label to psats and reason being is on, you know, 90 plus percent of BGS slabs, you’re able to see kind of like what’s like a report card of their grading process. So the the four components I mentioned earlier, when you’re looking to submit a card for grading centering edges, corners and surface, you’re actually able to see those sub grades on a BGS slab. So it’s almost like kind of, it’s almost like the the overall grade of the card is cards GPA, and those sub grades are almost like grades that go into the GPA. So I kind of I kind of like seeing those subgrades as sort of as sort of like a peek into BGS this process of why they gave that card a 10 or a 9.5 or or whatever if a god a Black Label 10 so that’s that’s honestly one thing that I prefer with BGS slabs in addition like I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but BGS slabs are like they are the most like sturdy looking heavy ass slabs like i’ve i’ve ever seen like they’re awesome like you pick up a PSA card that and it feels like it weighs like two ounces but a BGS card it weighs like half have like a good half pound like it’s it’s probably not that heavy but it’s it’s I don’t think it’s that oh it’s so sturdy. Like it just makes the card feel so like secure and like it it like you’re holding something of like real value. But anyway, going back to the grading conversation with with BGS, we’ve already seen BGS increase their prices, since this hot card grading period started over a year ago. And their turn their turnaround times honestly haven’t been the best, they’re honest, they’re probably around the same ballpark as PSA. So don’t expect a quicker, a quicker return like a quicker time for the card to return and actually get in hand. And also there, this kind of makes me respect existing BGS slabs now, maybe not as much for someone who’s looking to grade, but they’re honestly the toughest grading company out there. People have been saying that maybe in the last year, the grading has actually gotten tougher than it was before. So that’s I mean, as a as a person who’s looking to submit cards, I think BGS will return to relevance. But I mean, I honestly more than anything, it makes me more appreciative of existing BGS slabs. Now, if something gets a BGS 10. That means that in my mind, that card is actually pristine.
Nate Liss 21:25
Jessie, let me ask you this. You mentioned subgrades earlier, and I’m asking this question on behalf of the listeners. I do know this answer. Because you and I have talked about this. There have been cards, where I’ve said, Hey, man, this thing’s a BGS nine five and you said to me, Well, what are the subgrades? Can it can you possibly have two versions of a BGS nine, five and one of them actually be less desirable because of the subgrades.
Jesse Bach 21:53
Definitely. So you have if you’re looking at a BG, especially BGS 9.5. So you can you can be looking at either a min gem 9.5, which means that so the sub grades are graded just like the card is great. It’s on a scale of one to 10. So, a BGS 9.5 min. gem is three of the four grades are 9.5 and one of the grades is a nine. So there’s if you want to, if for whatever reason if you want to cross that card over to PSA, your chances of getting a PSA 10 are probably not the highest, you have a pretty good shot at getting a PSA nine. But in PSA is mine that that card is closer to a nine than it is 10 but it’s under BGS is label it’s still considered a gem and card, then you have the next level up which is a true gem. So every subgrade on that BGS 9.5 is a 9.5 so that’s the truest version of a 9.5 there is for BGS then you have the gem plus, which is one subgrade has a 10 and the and the remaining three subgrade seven 9.5. And this for a car like this you actually have a decent shot if you ever wanted to cross it over to PSA, you have a pretty good shot of getting a PSA 10 I believe off the top of my head I can’t remember if 210s and two nine point fives I can’t remember if that’s a BGS 10 or BGS 9.5 But regardless, that’s that’s a that’s a crazy card to get and you should you should definitely definitely be considering one if you see it.
Nate Liss 23:40
I haven’t seen that myself I know that some of them that I’ve purchased our you know a 10 and three nine fives and I love the BGS nine fives because I know that the grading company is so stringent. And you know, I do liken it to a PSA. 10 there’s just perception out there that the PSA 10 is the the pinnacle of card grading when you and I believe that the Beckett 10 is at the absolute top because they give out the fewest 10s but we’ve talked about PSA we’ve talked about BGS when we answered this question, we’re also talking about sgc Jessie What can you tell me about sgc other than the fact that they have the least enticing slab I’ve ever seen in my entire life?
Jesse Bach 24:31
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so no,
Unknown Speaker 24:34
no.
Jesse Bach 24:36
So it’s I mean it depends on the card it the the sgc slab if you guys haven’t seen one, it’s an all black slab. Their label is very like matte but this the slab itself is it’s I mean it’s interesting it can it can make the cards pop. I don’t like you know I already like black and gold My cards as it is, so, you know, I don’t mind having a black slab once in a while. But sgc has honestly lost a lot of steam popularity in the hobby. Because when PSA and BGS were already announcing their backlogs back in the summer sgc was they just came in guns blazing and they’re saying, Listen, these like these chumps are keeping your cards for six months plus, why don’t you come grade with us? And they’re that sgc has been it’s been a trusted company with more vintage cards and hasn’t I don’t even think it’s been grading modern cards up until the last two or three years but back when when they were talking crap on PSA and VGS not even a month later, they had a crazy backlog themselves and their their staff couldn’t even handle it. So I you know, right now they’re basically doing the exact same thing. They’re basically saying listen, we’ve kind of cleared up our backlog. And why don’t you submit with us and this exact same thing is going to happen again.
Nate Liss 26:16
Well, they’re they’re literally their website motto is get the service you deserve. No backlog no bloated turnarounds no games. They are they’re going for the throat. PSA on their website literally acknowledges no one. There’s they don’t they don’t say anything. And this is what happens when sgc has been put in a corner. I agree. I think the slabs are there. Everybody’s trying to do something unique and we’re gonna hit a couple more names here that have gone a little more flamboyant BGS is a very clean look like you said sturdy slab. PSA, though. They’ve changed their slab over time. It’s just it’s an iconic look. The sgc slab you guys can Google these. look them up. It’s a very label, man. The label is just the label. Listen. When I was in school when I was a kid, Jesse, it was all about the label. It was all about the Nike swoosh or the jansport or the Adidas or whatever the hell it was. Janko? You don’t know what that is. I’m sure maybe do do you?
Jesse Bach 27:20
Do you know what janco is? It’s the bag company or it’s it’s it’s like a jansport? No.
Nate Liss 27:24
Well, they made jeans. It’s like j apostrophe NCO or something like that. That Jesse? Not to not to date myself or say something overly embarrassing, but back in the day when I was in high school, and again, I’m not 40 yet. It was all about having pants that had the biggest bottom you could possibly get and I don’t mean like in the ass. I mean, like you wanted your shoe to be engulfed by the bottom of the jeans. And it was the most absurd, the most absurd look. I remember my mom taking me to go pants shopping. And she’s like, Are you sure? Are you really? Now think about this. Are you really sure that you want these? And I’m like, there’s 17 inch bottoms. Mom, hell yes, I want these. And it was the look and I don’t even know how I went on this tangent. But these fucking STC cards man, are the biggest letdown since the jenko jeans of the mid 90s. But there’s no backlog you say,
Jesse Bach 28:21
there as of right now. I mean, we’ll see how we’re looking at April. But I think with more people submitting to any non PSA company they’re going to be looking at at sgc too. So I mean, sgc they’re not slouches either. In terms of how hard they great either. One can say that. They’re just about as tough as BGS is. So maybe sgc 10s and sgc 9.5 will be held at a little bit more of a premium moving forward. Hmm,
Nate Liss 28:52
that makes sense. You know what, we’re live on a show but I’m gonna go ahead and send you a picture of these pants anyways, because going into the chat please Jesse if you would.
Unknown Speaker 29:06
Wait. All right.
Jesse Bach 29:07
Oh, my God. These were these. Alright, so this is this is as close as you can get to a jean dress. Lower. Oh my god. Oh
Nate Liss 29:25
my god, I wish I wish you were there when I was buying these from Nordstrom or whatever. And you would have made that comment. I would have never bought them.
Jesse Bach 29:34
Just Just take a time machine back then. Don’t waste your money. I yeah, high school
Nate Liss 29:40
wasn’t friendly. Um, okay, silly. Okay, so we’ve talked about BGS now and sgc, which, by all accounts is the third most notable greater, but does it not feel like maybe there’s a little bit of fragility in their name when we look at perhaps The next two, which we’re going to talk about, which are CSG, and hga.
Jesse Bach 30:06
Yes, I mean, sgc, honestly, that they’re probably going to come back into relevance, but they’re definitely playing third fiddle out of out of the, out of the three major grading companies like think of them kind of like mosaic right now. And I mean, mosaics gonna, it’ll, it’ll be relevant just, you know, people are going to be looking for prism selecting an object more. But speaking of CSG, and hga, the reason we wanted to talk about them is because I think these companies are going to get, honestly the most amount of submissions out of out of any of the grading companies right now that are not named PSA. So first, we’ll talk about CSG. It stands for certified sports guarantee, it’s a new ish grading company that’s coming out of Canada. So, especially for our Canadian listeners, if you’re looking to submit, you don’t have to worry about getting your cards through customs, honestly, just submit to CSG. Like they, they’ve gotten, you know, more more and more respectable name as the months have been going on. I honestly wouldn’t really hesitate submitting to them. But if you look on csgs website, they actually have like, they they go through their grading process pretty, pretty openly, it seems pretty transparent to me, honestly, they have like a seven step grading process. And it seems like they’re there, their customer service is probably going to be way better than you’re going to find from the other three companies. They also use interestingly enough, we keep, you know, occasionally we keep talking about AI as as a grading tool and as maybe like a grading substitute, but they use AI as a tool to assist in grading. So it’s not solely based their grade is not solely based on AI, but that they use AI to maybe confirm or maybe challenge a graders grade on a particular card. The turnaround times from what I’ve been seeing, they seem pretty reasonable. But these the CSG slaps their prices, will they I don’t think they’ll quite get to the prices of BGS and PSA, but they’ll fall more in line or get closer to them with higher submissions that are about to come their way. And then we’ll have min then after CSG we have hga hga stands for hybrid grading approach. They’re by far the fastest rising grading company out there. They’ve burst onto the scene with basically up what I believe is, if I’m not mistaken, I think it’s full AI grading, they may have a greater just to confirm the grade, but AI pretty much does a majority if not all of the grading and their slabs. Nate, you mentioned in the previous episode that they’re slabs are color coordinated to the players jersey, so you’ll you’ll have an orange slab for or an orange I’m sorry, an orange label on a Joe burrow slab or, or a green label on a Jason Tatum slab. So that’s honestly I mean, take it or leave it some people don’t really like it, they like a more classic basic look kind of like what PSA has. But other people think that makes a card pop honestly. So honestly, that can go either way. But unfortunately, to stay. So the company wants to stay true to their grading turnaround times. So in order to stay true to those times, grading to them is pretty competitive at the moment because right now they only Grade A total of 2400 cards a week. So that means that I don’t know what day of the week it is, I’m guessing it’s Monday of every week, you need to be on their website for whatever time of day that they open their grading portal. And you have to be one of or you have your cards have to be in the top 2400 or the first 2400 in order to get graded for either that week or the next week. So grading with them is going to be pretty competitive. But honestly, if you’re looking to submit a bunch of base cards of athletes that you’re strict, I’m talking about more more cards that you’re looking to flip more graded cards that you’re looking to flip. I probably honestly be looking at hga and potentially CSG CSG doesn’t have quite the name as hga does right now. So that’s a little bit riskier, but I think both of them are still going to gonna grow in price and popularity.
Nate Liss 34:51
I mean, I thought that sgc was throwing some haymakers till I read hga is Quote under changing the game in the About Us section, we believe that card should receive grades. I should read this in like in like an accent. We believe cards should receive grades based not on who is on the card, the value of the card, or whether or not a grater is having a good or bad day. They’re they’re throwing shots to say the card should be graded solely on the presentation of the card itself. So we are developing unique software that detects edges for crispiness corners for sharpness centering for balance and surface for blemishes, we feel that we will grade your card accurately 100% of the time. That is bold, Jessie,
Jesse Bach 35:44
it is that they’re kind of taking an sgc approach with throwing shade on PSA and BGS especially, but honestly, like, can you like, in all honesty? And all honesty? Can you say that that’s not true to an extent, like, I’m sure there are graders that have had shitty days. And they like they don’t give a card higher than nine for the day or they’re just like, or maybe something good happened in their lives and everything is they see as in rose colored sunglasses, and they give a couple extra 10s that day. So yeah, I grading is it’s it’s definitely it’s one of the more subjective parts of the hobby. And it’s kind of a shame that it is that way just because this subjectivity can drive so many dollars a certain direction. It’s kind of it’s kind of crazy. So I think in the long term, there should be some sort of an AI technology built into into creating these cards, and who knows, maybe PSA and BGS maybe sooner than we think maybe they’ll either adopt this technology or buy those companies outright and own their technology as well,
Nate Liss 37:03
that see that’s the thing, that’s the real killer is that you would expect that if PSA was going to implement this technology, if they had some variant of it, that it would just crush HCA that they would just then be right.
Jesse Bach 37:17
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think like, just because he has bought out, it doesn’t mean that hga cards are going to be worthless in the future, I think they’ll still have value just because if, I mean, if PSA is buying their technology and buying the company, that means they did something right. So I don’t think you have to be worried too much about buying hga or, or submitting cards to hga.
Nate Liss 37:42
I mean, if Yeah, if PSA ever did buy them and they became like a like a sister company, to them, it would be interesting would certainly give even more value to the name, but the idea that it is AI based is certainly something that I’m I’m for it, I 100% am down with the automated process, especially if it’s if it’s validated, because it’s going to look at every card, you know, objectively 100% of the time and like you said, if somebody is having a bad day, and they want to give that your FLIR Jordan a PSA seven, even though it’s probably a lot better than that, it can totally just, you know, derail the value of a car. And so, I think, I think with a lot of things in this world automation is, is is faster, it’s more efficient. It gives you an unbiased response. So I think that there’s something unique to them, but at the same time, I feel like they’re they’re trying to shoot so many shots and like, Look, we got the coolest looking slabs, and we’re using computers, and fuck PSA, you know, like they’re like, they’re really trying to do everything that’s left everything available to try to win over the masses. So I do I do like him admittedly. I don’t know, you know, I have not graded with sgc personally. And again, the visuals of them have never really done it for me, I realize that they’ve got more of a track record than hga. But if it was between the two, I might actually decide to go with the one that’s got the better looking slab that’s got, you know, computer you know, autonomous grading I might actually go that way versus sgc. I just I don’t find myself buying STC slabs either, you know, and I know that you probably have a couple but if it’s between a BGS and an STC, you’re buying BGS right?
Jesse Bach 39:36
Yeah, I’m going BG and speaking of BGS it almost seems like every single fucking card I’m buying on eBay as a BGS slap just because of how damn cheap they are right now is crazy. But yeah, I would I would definitely go BGS over over STC 10 times out of 10.
Nate Liss 39:55
Yeah. So so we’ll see the development of these companies as we go but With the popularity of people buying packs, buying raw cards, you know, everybody’s trying to get everything graded. So it takes more companies. But at the same time, I think people don’t know that you can really tank the resale value of a card by submitting it to one of these sort of one off graders. I mean, if you if you submit a card is CSG. And you get a CSG, eight back, I mean, a card is dead, right?
Jesse Bach 40:28
Yeah, you definitely look over your cards like the one when I’m talking about going through the grading process yourself and trying to guesstimate, or while you’re preparing a card for grading, try to guesstimate the card, the the grade of the card yourself just before you submit it and see whether or not it’s actually worth submitting. It’s one thing if it’s a card for a PC, and you just want to protect it for its lifetime, whatever, that’s fine. But yeah, just go through the cards, like just make sure that the card has a good have a very good chance of getting a 10 and if not, has a really good chance of getting a nine. So yeah, you just honestly go through the cards yourself. It takes time. Especially if you have like 100 cards or something it’s gonna it’s gonna take a couple hours. So if you’re down to if your game to put the time in, that’s, you honestly have to do to make money here.
Nate Liss 41:25
So what about the people that don’t want to get their cards graded? They don’t want to send it to one of these five companies, but they still want to make money on Raw cards. What do they do?
Jesse Bach 41:36
Honestly, this out of PSA is price increases. This is the most interesting part. Like this is this is I think raw card selling is going to change for the better. And I think people are going to start respecting raw cards more. So they’re going to be people that honestly their PSA diehards, but with the price increases now they don’t really want to submit to any grading company whatsoever. So we’re gonna see more and more raw cards being sold on eBay. So you I’ve bought plenty raw cards and eBay myself, I’m Nate, I’m sure you have to I’m sure a lot of our listeners have. That’s honestly, that’s honestly a pretty decent way to go. If you’re looking to either buy or sell. Just be aware with eBay, if you’re looking to sell raw cards on there. If you’re selling something super, not sure printed, not sure it printed like a bass prism or something. Just be careful and make sure you’re selling to a buyer who has a pretty good eBay rating. Like basically 100% positive feedback rating so that you don’t have to worry about a potential return within a 30 day period. And who knows, like they could honestly even send you another another copy of that card back that’s weigh in weigh should your condition compared to yours. So you definitely, definitely you got you have to be smart selling raw cards on eBay. But if if you don’t want to go the eBay route, and if you want to maybe go a little bit more of a secure route, you can honestly use star stock. And it’s a shame we don’t talk about Star stock enough. on this show, I’m sure plenty of our listeners are at least aware that the company exists or maybe even have an account themselves. Speaking of if, if you guys are looking to sign up on Star stock, you can actually use my username on there. My username is Jay ba k nine three, you can use that as a promo code, when you sign up and make at least a $10 deposit. When you sign up, make a $10 deposit, you get 10 more dollars and I get $10. So and it I mean, my username isn’t anything special, you could honestly do this with your friends who are who already have star stock accounts. But I think it’s just such an awesome promotion of star stock basically just giving away free money to all of its users. So before you submit cards to star stock before you miss, especially raw cards, again, submit them as if you’re submitting them to a grading company and trying to evaluate your collection and seeing what’s actually worth what’s worth submitting or what’s what might have a chance of either jamming we’re at least getting a mid grade. So we’ve talked about on a previous episode that the star stock a holds a very high premium in the rockhard world. So star sock. Basically they do their own grading process of looking at raw cards by hand and deeming them either an A B or a C and A has a Pretty good chance of either getting a nine or 10 if submitted to PSA, a B probably is around an eight. And then a C is anything below, like a seven or below C has to have like a glaring issue with it. So, try to go through your collection and see what actually has a chance of getting starstruck. Because if your card has a chance of getting starstruck, a, you can submit it to star doc Wait, however long it takes for them to upload it on to your account on the website might take like a month or something, you might have to be a little bit patient here. But that starts decay, as soon as you want to list it and flip it raw, that a will for sure go for more for more money than that same raw card on eBay, because there’s actually a third party neutral third party that’s going through this card for free for you to basically tell the buyer and the seller, the condition of the card as it is raw right now.
And the another nice part about Star stock is that there are no holding or inventory fees, which is amazing. So you can submit 1000 cards to star stock, and they’re not going to charge you a monthly amount to keep that 1000 cards in their inventory in their warehouse or whatever. That’s That’s insane. So that’s, that’s pretty rare when you when you’re able to do that if you could do that for graded cards too, with with other platforms, and they’ll still charge you, I don’t know, a certain percentage a month, or a certain cost a month. So it’s really nice of star stock to just you know, kind of hold on to your stuff for free without you having to worry about paying to to keep your stuff there. And also when you transact on store stock, whether buying or selling star stock only takes 5% commission for every transaction on there compared to eBay which takes around 13% for every trip for every transaction. So it’s honestly kind of a no brainer to at least consider submitting your raw cards to start stock. I mean, a couple of disclaimers, so they do have to be they have to be modern relevant cards, and I they mostly transact or they mostly buy and sell like the major brands today. So prism mosaic optic select so it it has to be relatively modern. And yeah, unfortunately won’t be able to submit polder cards there but like honestly, just with the premium that starstruck A’s and even some starstruck B’s, the premium that they have over eBay raw cards, it’s honestly a no brainer to submit to them. And another company we have as it’s it’s kind of a forgotten child, but they still have a sizable enough consumer base to the to the point where I’ve actually transacted on there recently both buying and selling as compsci. So that’s co MC It stands for check out my cards. This this is more of a site that’s pretty friendly to cards that are more like PCIe cards, they’re not quite investor cards, like we think of prism select optic and mosaic is almost like like investor or flip sets. But these, they’re, they’re not selective in terms of what you can submit. So you can submit basically any raw card you want to them and they’ll take it no problem. If you’re looking to submit to star stock, but you go through your you go through your inventory and you see that, okay, this this car probably doesn’t have a chance of getting a star stock a, I would consider sending that card to come see because comme si, I don’t think they necessarily have to disclose the the condition of the card. But people honestly people will probably want to purchase raw cards if they don’t have any intention of flipping them on compsci as opposed to eBay. So I still think you’re gonna have a pretty a pretty decent size audience and and maybe and foot traffic I guess on the website. Unfortunately, like I mentioned earlier star stock doesn’t have a holding or invent a monthly inventory fee. Unfortunately comme si does it’s a small fee it’s it doesn’t cost very much I’m pretty sure I pay one every month and I hardly see a difference in my my compsci account. Yeah, it’s it. I mean, it’s not it’s not too much and I I’m pretty sure I have like a good amount of cards there. I probably have like 60 cards in compsci. And I don’t pay too much for for the monthly holding fee but that’s just kind of a small downside compared to To start stock, but if there’s a card that you don’t think that that’s raw that’s in your possession and it probably won’t get a star stock a, it’s it’s not a bad idea to submit it to compsci.
Nate Liss 50:10
So whether people are looking to get cards graded, or they want to deal with raw cards, Jesse, you have laid out perfectly, the way the A to Z, step by step process for people to take advantage of all these different things. Again, if you guys go to star stock, use Jesse’s name on there, J ba k 93. Help him out, help yourself out. Let’s help Tony Thomas out. He’s a patron he had a question. We’re gonna wrap this show up with one last question, because I know you and I both have something we want to say about this. Tony says, I feel like Lamar Jackson is undervalued right now. That’s true. He’s a year removed from an MVP season is probably about to get an elite wide receiver and free agency and a massive contract is anywhere from days to a year away. What cards of his should I be looking to buy?
Jesse Bach 51:08
Tony, you are a smart man. We honestly, we probably haven’t been talking about Lamar Jackson enough on any of these shows. I think he is a fantastic buy. And I’ll tell you why. So there were two cards of his as soon as we got this question and today I wanted to see, I knew he was a bi but I wanted to see exactly how much of a bi he truly is. So I looked up Lamar Jackson’s prism base PSA 10 rookie card, and his select field silver PSA 10 rookie card. So to go into the prison base first, this card between July 17 and September 28 of 2020. Every single purchase or transaction on eBay went for above $2,000. On this card, the card peaked on eBay on August 9, for $3,759. The last sale, that’s it’s insane. The last sale went for $900 on March 7, and that’s a 76% drop. It’s just to let that sink in.
Nate Liss 52:27
That’s it’s so far down. And you know, when you talk about the actual date at which this Lamar Jackson, you know, base prism, which by the way, there’s about 540 in population.
Jesse Bach 52:41
Still Well, that’s Yeah, I consider that low
Nate Liss 52:43
that is low. I mean, for sure. That’s definitely low. And this is this is a card that went for roughly 30 $600. And it just went for less than 1000. So that card without a doubt is is the card to get your hands on. And the point that I wanted to make is when I hit its peak, there wasn’t even football being played yet. This was a COVID offseason preseason. And this card was pushing $4,000 a base prism was pushing for grant. I mean, that is that’s mind bending so it’s not surprising to us in the least if in the future here as we return to the same August period of time for this card to reach $2,000 again, I mean I think that’s absolutely in its range of outcomes.
Jesse Bach 53:32
Oh for sure. Yeah, this I this card is going to reach 2000 by I can’t see it not reaching $2,000 by July.
Nate Liss 53:40
Yeah, things have just gotten too quiet you know, in the event that they add some stud free agent you know, whoever ends up signing here, if somebody great signs here and there’s a little buzz that builds then we get a little bit of that offseason height building 2000 feels like the floor. I mean again, like you said nothing sold for less than 2000 over the period of multiple months. When football wasn’t being played then the season opened up and we saw that car drop a little bit but it was still 1518 $100 over where it’s at right now.
Jesse Bach 54:13
Nate it was every single transaction between July 17 and September 28 I know the pop is relatively low but it was commonly transacted like this was this car was cotton was very commonly frequently bought and sold between those two months so I don’t have a number off the top of my head of how many times that actually was sold but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was at least 50 and in every single one of those transactions that card for went for over $2,000 Wow. So we’re not we’re not working with like a small sample size here.
Nate Liss 54:49
Now that that was definitely that that’s when the floor was solidified for him so we’ll get back there but tell me this Jesse you and I talked we found another card Lamar j And by the time this episode airs this card will no longer be available. But ask Jessie and I if we did buy it we’ve agreed to go and 5050 on this thing. We want to win this card. Tell me tell me about the so this is a 2018 donruss optic Lamar Jackson downtown. PSA 10 these downtown’s, why do they look so amazing?
Jesse Bach 55:25
It has. So if you guys have to look up exactly how this card looks, but it it looks freakin sweet like this. This is probably one of the best inserts I think optic has ever had. In any sport. It’s bait basically has the just like random features of what Baltimore is all about. I’m pretty sure it has Edgar Allan Poe in the card through it’s it’s just like it’s such a cool looking card. I know they’re 90s basketball cards that were basically designed kind of similar to this and they go for a ton of money and they were so sought after in the 90s basketball card market, which is still hot today. And this card it’s it’s super short printed. I my buddy actually pulled one not not of this not of Lamar Jackson, but in a 2020 box, retail box and you have to rip like at least hundreds of packs to be able to find this insert. It’s crazy. I don’t know the exact pop count. I’d have to look it up for this. Lamar downtown PSA 10 it’s probably low. It’s honestly probably like, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a 10th of his base prison PSA 10 that has been selling for basically like it was commonly selling for over $2,000 so it’s it’s very short printed, it’s it’s probably honestly be insert to go after if you’re if you’re looking at optic in general. Yeah,
Nate Liss 57:02
it’s it is without a doubt one of the nicest cards I’ve ever seen. I mean it’ss such a I don’t even know what to say I’m like drawn to this card, we have to win this card. We just we have to we’ve we’ve set a collective goal between the two of us. Currently, the card is roughly halfway there now. There’s a day and 20 hours left on it. I think it’s gonna exceed what we’re willing to spend. But Jesse, I think we’ve put ourselves in a good position. I think we’ll be battling to the end on this card. There’s there’s just no doubt in my mind on this.
So, Jessie, once again, you’ve delivered like nobody in the industry can.
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Thank you guys very much and we will be back next week with another episode.