Saw a card graded by GMA grading has anyone ever heard of it?
I did some research and found that they are crazy cheap! But they also offer business options where people with experience grading cards can choose their own grading scale and either
A: send in cards with grades and they will encapsulate them for you OR
B: sell you cases and you can encapsulate your own cards.
F*@k me…
edit:fyi http://gmagrading.com/grade-sports-cards-business/
I have heard of them, I see some of their cards up on eBay occasionally. They do have good prices, but in the grading business, name recognition and pedigree is key. People pay PSA a ton of money to grade their cards because PSA grading increases the value by the most amount, due to its name recognition.
As of now, GMA grading has absolutely nothing on PSA or BGS. It’s just too new and too obscure. The whole “grade your own cards” thing doesn’t help either.
I use them and I grade all of my cards 11/10. So yea they should pretty much fund my retirement. Hellz yea. All joking aside, I dont grade any of my cards so does that make me a terrible collector?
Stick to PSA and/or Beckett. Listed by priority. 
Other grading parties just aren’t offering anything that you can’t get with PSA, unless that offering actually harms the value like letting you do your own grades. You are essentially overpaying for a permanent toploader with this kind of stuff. I don’t recommend it at all.
And no, not grading doesn’t make you terrible in any way. I suggest grading as an eventual transition personally, but there is no hierarchy.
Makes you worse than Heinrich Himmler.
Ha! I had to look up who that was. I feel like an uncultured hillbilly for not knowing basic historical figures but mostly for not grading. Maybe one day. I guess maybe it will be some kind of transition thing when I actually get some cards worth grading. I just feel like it’s a scam. I mean If opening cards from the pack was a good bet for a 10 then maybe but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Is that what all of you mean when you say the English cards they make today are crap?
That is not ok milhouse
Those cards coming straight from the pack and not being a 10 is one of the reasons why people grade in the first place.
It’s pretty disheartening to pull a card from a pack and already see wear on the edges from shoddy production protocols, a lot of people in the hobby, especially higher end collectors, condition is everything. A service like PSA grading gives an impartial standard for the conditions on cards. That’s why people like it. People don’t say English card quality is bad because cards aren’t a 10 out of the pack, not even the superior quality Japanese cards are guaranteed 10s out of the pack. They are just badly produced and come with very noticeable and unacceptable wear out of the pack. If you buy a brand new car, you are going to be pretty annoyed if it comes with dents and scratches.
People use so many different words and scales for what ‘Mint’ is, and a lot of peoples standards for what is Mint is laughable. The impartial grading service allows people to say ‘Ok, I know what I can expect from a PSA 9 in terms of condition and I feel safe buying that PSA 9 card knowing that’.
That’s a pretty good point actually. I guess in my my mind I just never see myself selling. I sold my video game collection to pay for school and i literally have dreams of re-kindling it. I like my collections so grading hasn’t been a major concern to me as of yet. You definitley are not wrong about people using different scales or just plain lying. I find myself limited to purchasing things off of eBay because of this but as far as Pokemon cards go they dont really sell them in a lot of stores. Even in the hobby shops there is never a large collection of singles by any means. Its been ages since I have been to any card shows so I’m not sure what those are like anymore.
Only 11/10?
Not at all!
In fact, there are probably far more collectors who don’t grade than those who do. (Otherwise, PSA would be a Fortune 500 company.)
My guess is that most of the folks who do grade are those who actively buy and sell cards. Others are hoping to build elite sets of certified Gem Mint cards. And some folks just like having their cards protected by those durable (yet butt-ugly) PSA slabs. All of those are valid reasons to grade.
But many more of us collect for the sheer joy of it. We don’t view our cards are investments, regardless of their value. If card has a sliver of whitening on the back, that just validates for us what the card truly is — a child’s plaything.
And, above all, we worship the beauty of a card unfettered by a PSA Plastic Prison.
@japanime and @samsamsamsmsms I believe we have had the discussion before about the merits of grading, personal or otherwise, before. Perhaps in the Value/Rarity Discussion thread? But to summarize my personal views towards it: Condition (verified), Exclusivity (increased), and Financial Security (for if/when I decide to sell my collection).
Well yea, I don’t want to take advantage of the system.