Vintage Card Market Trends Can Create Opportunities For Collectors!!

I doubt the volume of beautiful cards from the 50's and early 60's that are available today match the volume that was produced back in the 50's, heck the population in the country wasn't nearly that high as today. People didn't protect them. To many are far to nice and the graders know it. Fakes from Asia ? Question for one of your Q & A shows. How do the graders know fakes if produced on the same presses. Were the presses ever destroyed or simply shipped overseas ?

An eye-opening video, Graig! Great examples here of why many of us favor eye appeal over assigned grade. Loved this!

Personally I don’t go near any vintage cards but these players were considered some of the best of their time. Does this mean a player like
Mookie betts, Freddie Freeman type will be forgotten?

Hey Graig! I can’t thank you enough for all you do for the midlife nation community! You’re such a good person and a good human being and I appreciate you so much, we appreciate you so much. You are about to hit an incredible milestone, 6000 followers. I’m telling all my friends to subscribe! Take care and God bless you and thanks again for all that you do!

Graig, great points you make here!! I have noticed the same thing. I think there are a couple of factors for this. One, is that during Covid PSA was hiring people like crazy! They had ads all the time looking for people. My guess is most where brought in with no card knowledge. Second, if one grades both vintage and modern, they cannot compare in quality. Thus you really need to look at them in a different light. Just my humble opinion!

Hey there Graig your great buys segment is one of my favorite show's you do, I really appreciate all the time and research you put into this topic. Just yesterday I purchased a 1966 Topps Joe Morgan All-Star Rookie card in a SGC 5.5 with nice eye appeal for $29.99 in a best offer. I had been targeting a SGC 6 for over 6 months now in the $60 dollar range, I never found the right one. I sacrificed a 1/2 grade but paid 1/2 of what 6's are going for, for my really nice copy. I love November and December deals it has become my favorite time of year to buy cards.

Love this show. Over time, this is one of the few shows on utube I always listen to and enjoy

Amazing info, very thought provoking. I will take that Drysdale for $12!

Where am I when all these hot deals come up? There are some really good deals in what you showed. Thanks for doing the research and sharing with us, Graig.

This must take so long! Do you use a filter tool or the one on eBay? Great video again.

I think that 53B Minoso had a print line through the center, similar to the flaw on my Spahn from that set.

These grades are ludicrous. Now we have to ask what it would take for those 3s and 4s to get a 7 or 8. There has to be incremental grades to show the different levels of grades. If something that looks amazing is a 3, it is going to really mess up the system. Also, people are going to stop grading their raw cards. They will get more money for a great card if it isn’t graded. You are correct though, it really allows us to pay value prices for amazing cards. I’m not sure how grading apps like VCP and Card Ladder will continue with their current business model. On paper comps will mean absolutely nothing if the grades are not uniform.

I have to ask, I thought this upcoming year, would be a year that this 70 year old would get cards graded for the first time in my life….i am thinking no after this

I'm not saying PSA isn't grading tougher these days but they should have been grading this tough all along. They evolved once they figured out what they were doing and how they should be doing it. I don't want to spend the time double checking all your cards but the '61 Drysdale PSA 3 for eg. You can't simply eyeball it from a distance, you need to compare it directly to the same card in high grade side by side. Then you'd have a video that did the comparison justice. If you do you will notice just how much better the color is on a higher grade card. You will notice more easily that the PSA 3 is slightly off center. You will also see from the back of the card that the corners on the PSA 3 are all weak. I'm not suggesting I don't understand that the 3 looks pretty good, especially at the casual glance, but saying that it doesn't merit the 3 that it got is the wrong approach. (or blaming old grading standards v. new grading standards)

It's probably wax rather than pancake syrup. 🤣 But you're right. I'm seeing brutal grading on some vintage cards with cert numbers starting with 9. Combine that with the time of year and the recently typical train-wreck auctions on low- to mid-grade vintage cards and you get your mind-blowing prices. High-end and elite cards still do OK in eBay auctions, but otherwise you're crazy to put your 1962 McCovey PSA 4 into an eBay auction. Your heart will be broken. Buy auctions, sell fixed-price. And as Graig said, buy recently-slabbed mid-grades! PSA 4 is the old PSA 6 or 7.

Great video Graig! Can’t argue they are grading tougher!

🎉 Can you make a video with the exact same cards in the same grades just like this video say an old Mickey mantle 3/4 compared to a new slab mantle same card in a 3/4 thanks!!!

Graig, I truly believe they're so cheap because they're reproductions and the graders know it.

As I write this there were so many absolutely amazingly low prices for amazing cards it is startling. PSA has gone off the deep end. I have a dealer friend that only deals with PSA cards.. I regularly buy PSA cards that were graded recently from him and send them into SGC and ALWAYS get a higher grade. I'm convinced that PSA is being graded by a robot. SGC grades cards by eye appeal.

I don’t think the grading standards have necessarily changed, it’s how those standards are implemented

Excellent and informative video. Cards in old PSA holders in a particular grade are generally inferior to cards in newer holders in the same grade.

Personal examples that reinforce Graig's point: 1959 Topps Whitey Ford PSA 3 (looks like an old 6) for $26 ... 1972 Topps Seaver In Action PSA 5 (looks like 6) for $16 ... 1973 Topps Yaz PSA 5 (looks like 7) for $16 ... 1975 Topps Yount Rookie PSA 4 (looks like 6) for $20 ... 1959 Topps Mays / Ashburn PSA 4 (looks like 6) for $20. All were recently graded. These prices do not include shipping and tax.

Graig, i have a 1968 Topps Bench rookie PSA 2 that i bought last year. It has beautiful eye appeal as it looks like a PSA 5 or 6.

I think what may happen is older PSA slabs (with the exception of iconic cards) will continue to lose demand on the market. I could be wrong but i wonder if sellers crack those old slabs and get it regraded knowing it will get a lower grade. It may come to a point where selling a lower graded new slab has more demand than a higher graded old slabs. It will be interesting to see how this plays out

Great examples comparing the new and old PSA slabs. It is obvious to anyone that they grade harder today. One other comment I wanted to make is that I sold a very similar Deacon Jones card six months ago for $99.99 with $5 shipping. Mine had better corners and slightly worse centering, but now the card goes for $44? Crazy deals out there.

I love me some 3's, 4's and 5's!

HA! I bought the Ken Boyer rookie card in this video!

Nice job bringing attention to this absurd grading debacle. You could’ve shown an infinite number of even more egregious examples. And while you’re looking at it as a “buying opportunity”, sellers are taking it up the A$$.

In a future episode, you should focus on how they’re now grading T206 and Goudey. Pertains to both PSA and SGC. It’s easily a 2.5 point difference from just 5 years ago. The PSA / SGC merger should never have been approved. It’s as corrupt a monopoly as there is.

With all that said the 8's, 9's 10's graded earlier are still mostly lookin pretty spectaticular tho

this is a PSA problem, though, not an SGC problem. they aren't grading harder, they are grading incomprehensibly. PSA should be embarrassed and should hire somebody to spot these cards on the internet and make it right to the people who submitted them. It'd have to be really unique set of circumstances for me to consider sending a card to grade at PSA. There's no way I'd run the risk of losing hundreds of dollars in value on a card because they cannot hire enough quality staff and enough staff (in general) to turnaround cards in a reasonable time frame. Chris Sewall even made a video sharing the results of one of his submissions in which he had pack fresh cards that got 5s.

Hi Graig. I enjoyed watching this months EBAY sales. It just shows that you can get some awesome deals on vintage cards. Thanks for all that you do for this hobby.

I haven’t bought anything off eBay, but I’ve been looking at the prices in the I’m blown away with that being said you are right these graded are getting tough and I guess we’re the middle guys. Thank you for the video.❤️

Here's my take on the grading. It costs alot more nowadays to grade your cards compared to the $5-6 cards of yesterday. Then you're getting alot worse and seriously, more erratic grading, giving you less money back due to their grades that (in their opinion) they give your card. Go to sell those same cards, and most of the buyers are looking at that number that PSA gave your card, and everyone wants it cheaper than your listed price.

I've refused many sales due to this because I'll just keep it in my collection rather than just giving my card away. It's certainly a buyers market, and I'm not willing to take that kind of a loss. Heck, I'll just keep it in my collection.

Right now, I'm spending more of my own money buying cards than trying to offset my costs, selling some of my less favorable cards.

It's just not the appropriate time to sell. If you can afford to.... buy, buy, buy. Eventually, things will self-correct. Just not yet.

Thank you for the time and effort that you put into these videos Graig!! Great analysis!! How does a person find these deals? I truly appreciate everything you do for the card hobby!!

I’ve been studying this quite a bit recently and a few thoughts keep running through my mind.
1. Many of these newly graded 50’s and 60’s cards in the 3 to 5 range have very white borders. Whiter than the old slab 6’s and 7’s Makes me think that soaking and cleaning is widespread.
2. Where have these raw cards been hiding for so long?
3. Why sellers are not using SGC more. My hunch is that many of these 3’s and 4’s you showed would have graded at least one, maybe two grades higher at SGC.

That 1959 Fleer Ted Williams selling that cheap in an SGC 8 was mind blowing. Hell, I wish I had seen that one for sale, because I would have bought it.

Stop using PSA! I have said this before if PSA cards bring higher prices but you’re getting two grades lower than what is the point of using them? People are like lemmings.

So why send cards to PSA? If they are grading that poorly. Why would I want to send my cards into them?

My biggest problem in the hobby continues to be PSA…period! They are now dominant in the market more than ever…and that IS a problem. Their monopoly in terms of sheer volume has increased to the point that most of us here in the middle class of vintage card collectors are truly being left out in terms of quality and consistency of grading. The graders apparently are just not that good…or AI technology is literally taking over the final graded product. Someone needs to reach out to PSA and have them recognize what they are doing to endanger…instead of enhancing…the graded product. Thanks again Graig for speaking up!

I love poorly assessed cards.

Hi greg i enjoy your vidoes.this month my favorite cards is the buster posey Retirement cermony card from 2022 and watched i was An attendance for.and also i got the will clark 2022 Retired his jersy number and i also attendance for that too thought it was cool to find cards to games i want too.i will post them when they Arrive her

Thanks Graig! This is why I love mid to low range grades. But, I’m a little bit of a hypocrite because when I (used to) send in grades for grading, I would get so irritated if I received a mid to low grade.

The flip side of this madness is how easily they overgrade ultra-modern. So many new cards in PSA 10 are way off centered or dinged corners. Crazy.

I would be careful buying cards with grades 2/3/4 on eBay without holding them in hand. I have graded vintage a few times with PSA the past year and they are grading harder, but cards that get these grades have surface wrinkles and creasing you can't see from the image. You might be real disappointed when you get the card in hand and there is a surface wrinkle across the face that you can't unsee. It would also be unfair to send it back to the seller, since the card was graded properly. I have sold people cards graded a 3/4 like this and they complain when there is a wrinkle on it. I now have to list issues with graded cards because of this, which is silly because the card was graded correctly. The other thing you need to be careful of with new PSA labels, is the defects are being masked by people using Kurt's Card Care techniques. The card still has creasing and wrinkles, but these "card restoration experts" are pressing the cards and cleaning them to make them appear better, but the damage is still there. As someone who grades, I avoid really nice looking 2/3's for a reason.

Great video! My favorite videos you show are the videos that help us get the most out of our buck!

You’re seeing all the shockingly low grades on great cards because psa and SGC intentionally suppress grades to prop up values and of existing high grade cards.

Killing me with all the Feller's!! Thanks Graig! Love that Deacon Jones! Berk ross Owens is saeet

Thanks Graig! Loved it as always
So many cards??? Blew my mind

A really good in-depth comparison would be low grade PSA, when population count is high, compared to the various sets in the registry. At face value, I would argue that the PSA low grades don't move up in value as fast, or are in absolute demand, when in quantity because it won't move the person up in the set registry. If a card goes for higher than expected, you will usually find that the "registry" is the answer to the question.