Good afternoon, I’m seeking some advice on what to do with the collection I just purchased. Quick back story, I loved and owned tons of the early Pokemon card sets as a child, but lost my entire collection due to unforunate events. About a month ago, I got back into trading cards and decided I wanted the earlier sets again to grade and possibly sell at another time. I ended up buying a binder filled with base, jungle, fossil sets and more, which included some 1st edition and shadowless as well. So far I have taken most of the holos and put them in top loaders. Luckily they were in penny sleeves already and most are in pretty good to possibly mint condition. Well today as I thoroughly inspected the rest of the binder, I realized a lot of the common/uncommon 1st edition and shadowless cards I was excited about are in decent to poor condition. I understand this is on me and taught me a lot about how pictures can be deceiving. This is where I’m stuck a bit and seeking some advice. Would it be worth it to bulk grade the less ideal condition cards through Ludkins? Do they hold any value at all at such a low grade (I’m thinking 3-5)? Or should I just hold on to them and grade the ones I think have the best chance at an 8+ grade? Luckily the best cards such as base Charizard appear to have a solid chance to grade well, even after inspecting and being honest with myself. All advice is appreciated!
When it comes down to common and uncommon cards I’d say that it’s not worth grading. If its holo 1st maybe than. But I love binder collecting and that’s a good place for played and lightly played cards to go. Where you can forget about the condition and just gaze at the amazing art work of each card.
Unless we’re talking about 1st ed base, I wouldn’t grade a common/uncommon that didn’t have a shot at a 10
TBH at this point in time I wouldn’t grade most cards that didn’t have at least a shot at a 7+, unless we’re talking about the very highest end of English set cards. Definitely don’t bother grading non-mint common cards. Even in the case of 1st Ed WOTC holos, there isn’t much demand for low grades, and the markup would be very negligible if you did manage to find a buyer.
You’ll have much better luck selling them to people looking for binder copies to complete a set. I occasionally list some WOTC holos that are in VERY bad condition (like, massive crease through the middle) for like $20 and they usually sell quickly on eBay.
Quite a few are 1st edition base, but judging on the feedback the grade they’ll get just won’t be worth it. I will be grading a 1st edition Squirtle that luckily appears to be 8+ to me and I have a 1st edition yellow cheeks Pikachu that I’m on the fence about. That card I think will be maaaybe a 6.
I mean you could always just send it to me
I don’t have experience with grading cards, but I want to share my thoughts in case it’s any help… I think that it all depends on the intention you had when buying the collection. If you just want the cards for yourself, I wouldn’t grade them. If you bought it to sell them… I would only grade starters and solid 8+ grades. But as I said, I’m no expert AT ALL
I appreciate it regardless! I definitely purchased it looking at it more as an investment. I saw all of the possible value in the binder and pulled the trigger. It isn’t quite the gold mine I had hoped for, but still have plenty of value to be excited about. I’ve tried my best to inspect the cards and be honest with myself, now I’m just hoping the cards I will be grading aren’t much worse than someone as new to this as myself may believe. For now I’m deciding whether to grade the ones that will be more expensive to grade ($60-$100 per card) or take my time and have the holos that may be worth $100-200 each and flip them for money to grade the heavy hitters.
Unless you’ve got a lot of capitol and willing to take many shots, it’s rarely worth it. You’ve got to go through many binders to make it worth the work, in my experience. Sure, you can get lucky. But buying one and thinking it’s a huge score, I mean it just doesn’t work like that. Just some advice on buying binder collections.
If you’re not picky about the edition e.g. base 1st/shadowless/unlimited/base 2000, I suggest that you just replace the cards in less ideal condition and buy some NM/mint copies of base unlimited to grade yourself.
Grading is quite expensive if you’re doing it en masse, so you can pace yourself out too!
It all comes down to what your goal is.
If you’re looking to flip and profit in the near term, I’d suggest grading: all 1st Ed and shadowless holos, any unlimited holos that you think will grade 8+, 1st Ed non-holos either in mint 10 condition or of more popular cards (starters, rares, etc.)
If you’re enjoying building your collection back up, sounds like this was a great first step and you now have a solid start to a new binder collection! Especially in the current market, if you’re looking to quickly build your collection or get a bunch of 1st Ed holos, there are basically 2 options: pay top dollar, or take a bit of a gamble like you did on this collection. I wouldn’t feel discouraged at all if I were you, sounds like you made a fair purchase.
1st ed jungle pika psa 9 has auctioned multiple times recently over $200, times a changin
Argument from exception. Plus you’re counting on that price to hold for a year+ while your cards are graded. And if you ask me, it won’t.
It probably won’t hold at $250 but I definitely believe it will still be at least $100 in a year which is worth grading to me
Yeah I don’t have a ton of capitol to throw around. I’m still learning and definitely dove in a bit early, but thats how I’ve always learned lol. That said, I do have a solid 10-20 cards at least that I think are worth grading and I believe will make my investment worth it. I plan on doing this long term and am excited to get back into the hobby.
Thanks! I’m going to take my time grading. I still am very happy with what I got from this. Here is a photo of most of the best cards I pulled out and put in top loaders. Obviously cannot see the card quality but just to show a general idea of what I have (if I did the picture thing correctly lol)
Quality aside, those are some awesome cards.
If you have shadowless started + their stage 1 evolution I would grade those. Anything over a 5 at least. If they are unlimited I would look to grade if they seem 7 and above
I doubt it. I had 50+ raw PSA 8/9 quality 1st Edition Jungle Pikachus that I was struggling to sell at $5 each earlier this year (if you don’t believe me, I’ll send you any proof you need). Then, one day, someone bought me out of them. It was a $5 card MAX earlier this year; no way in hell 1st Ed Jungle Pikachu in anything other than maybe PSA 10 will be $100+ in a year. These things are incredibly common. The fact that it’s worth more than like $30 in PSA 9 is insane and artificial. The current price is wildly inflated.
Regardless of how common they are, you simply can’t say that with such conviction and certainty. None of us has a crystal ball.