Thank you for clicking my thread and thank you in advance for not teasing me.
I am looking for an English “Game Boy” Meowth (Black Star Promo #10) in BGS 10 with perfect 10s in all four subgrades - the “Black Label” grade. I will be looking for this card indefinitely until I acquire it. If this thread still exists and you are reading it right now, I’m still looking.
Before setting out on this quest last year, I asked some peers new and old what they thought of the prospect. I received a lot of valuable feedback:
- BGS is a pain in the ass to deal with and are completely corrupt.
- My success rate will be abysmal and I really should not do this.
- I could not possibly be choosing a worse time to begin an effort like this.
- Black Labels are an expensive vanity grade that adds no real value over a PSA 10 to most collectors.
- I really should rethink this. Do not try this. This is just not feasible.
I completely agree with all of it. It is all indisputably true! This is a fool’s errand and I would be, of course, a fool to pursue it.
But here’s a few things that are also true:
- This is my favorite card. It is special to me.
- The prospect of having a truly “perfect print” of this card is really appealing to me in a way PSA 10 is not.
- I don’t mind having a longterm goal that takes many years to achieve. I have no other “white whales” so I need to invent one.
- Despite chewing over the feedback above, it has not made me want the card any less. The only option is to proceed.
So let’s hope fortune favors fools!
PROS
-The card itself is not individually valuable or expensive.
-The card is easy to buy with many available for sale at any given time.
-The card is individually sealed, which should help preserve its condition despite its age.
For these reasons the card may be easier to grade than many others from the era.
CONS
-The cards have had 20 years to incur minor damage despite being individually wrapped.
-Colorless cards are uniquely difficult to grade.
-WotC promo cards had famously terrible quality control.
For these reasons the card may be harder to grade than many others from the era.
Q&A
Why aren’t you just doing it yourself if you want it so bad?
I am! I’ve been collecting candidates for the last few months and will submit them all at once to Beckett once it becomes more financially feasible to do so. The card itself is not particularly valuable so it does not need to be submitted through premium tiers, but the cost of sealed copies does add up fast for me at about $30 a card. Hopefully by the time lower tiers open back up at Beckett I will have a number of suitable candidates to submit.
This card does not exist in this grade, so isn’t a buy thread pointless?
My hope is that someone with more liquid capital than me might be tempted to include one of these cards in their own submissions to BGS, or maybe be spurred by the prospect of a profitable flip by obtaining the grade for ~$150 and then selling it to me for $1,000. The current cost of grading is a lot for me, it’s not something I can afford for the number of attempts this will likely take. But maybe I can incentivize other people to try by allowing them to profit off a successful attempt. In the future when lower grading tiers are available, the risk will be lower for everyone and maybe this will increase my odds of manifesting this grade.
This card is not worth $1,000. Why are you offering so much?
Because nobody is going to be motivated to roll the dice and submit candidates unless the reward for doing so is high. Even if I lose the money, I will never sell it anyway and will be happy to have it.
Actually this card would be worth way more than $1,000. Why are you offering so little?
It takes me literally a year to save up $1,000 of expendable income. It’s all I’ve got. The value of black labels is totally arbitrary because of their low populations and low interest anyway. There is no sales record for this card because nobody but me would try to grade this card this way. Hopefully if you go through the trouble of submitting a candidate you’d do it to sell it to me and not wave it over my head then list it on eBay for 7 years for $50,000.
Wouldn’t you rather the satisfaction of grading it yourself no matter what?
Yeah, but I am not so proud that I would refuse something I really want just to say I did it myself. In the end, it doesn’t matter if I grade it myself or if I buy it from someone luckier than me. All that matters is that I have the card and complete my goal.
Why can’t you just be content with a PSA 10 like a normal person?
Generally I do not collect graded cards. I am a binder collector. The big appeal of a graded card for me isn’t to simply have the card, which I would rather have in a binder, but to have the card in the absolute most splendid condition possible. I have owned this card in PSA 10 before and it was a visibly imperfect card. I have no interest in a “Gem Mint” card in visibly compromised condition or printed with 60/40 borders. I can have that in a binder. I want something truly splendid. I am a notorious slab cracker - I only ever buy the card, not the grade. But in this case, for this card, I am buying the grade - not the card!
I am a sorcerer from the future. I have this card in my hand. But I want way more money!!
DM me and we’ll talk.
Good luck! I hope you get it!
Thank you! I appreciate the support! 
I think you are a loser and I hope you fail.
Thank you! I appreciate the support!
