What’s the highest grade slab you would crack for a binder? This doesn’t include re-holdering or cross grading. We’re only talking about breaking a slab, and shoving that card into a binder. Do you only do this with 5’s? Or are you a complete binder nut and do this with 10’s? This can be for cards you WOULD DO it for, or HAVE DONE it for. Either counts.
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I said 9 because that is plenty close enough to being perfect for the binder. If I had a 10, I would sell it and buy a 9 or 8 of the same card to fill the binder.
For my binders I normally go for cards between 6-8 and collect graded 9s.
I voted 9 but it depends in the card for me, if it’s a higher rarity card I’ll crack under a grade 7.
Depends on whether it is vintage or modern. For vintage, I’ll crack an 8 regularly. For modern, I am OK with cracking 9s and 10s.
I voted 7 because I would feel bad cracking a 8+ vintage card lol.
But I honestly didn’t think about modern, I would crack 8/weak 9 in that case, except some particularly rare or valuable cards.
I’ve cracked an 8 before. It was cheaper to buy and crack than buy a ‘mint’ one raw.
I’d probably consider a 9 if I was regrading, but for a binder, some 9s are expensiiiiiive.
Nothing is uncrackable to me. That being said, I wouldn’t go buy a 10 to crack it. I’ve bought 8 and 9s below market price to crack for my binder. If I happened to randomly get a 10, I’d still crack it, but normally I won’t pay the 10 premium, so it’ll probably never happen for me.
Anything 8+ I’d prefer selling and trying to pick up a cheaper/worse copy if it’s for my binder. If the difference in value isn’t worth it I would probably crack an 8
I’ve cracked 8s, but would prefer a 1-7 with a nice holo. =)
It completely depends on the card. I’ve cracked 9s for binders before, but have also kept 6s slabbed. The only thing I won’t crack are 10s.
I voted 9. Even though there is nothing really sacred about a PSA 10; I’d still feel weird cracking them out.
That being said I dont do a whole lot of slab crackin anyways - I’m not super picky about the majority of my binder cards as long as they have pretty good appeal so it’s almost always cheaper to grab a raw copy
psa 7 or cgc 8.5 or lower
9 for modern 8 for anything vintage
personally cracked a CGC 8 1st edition dark charizard holo for my rocket binder
Depends on the grader Company, I’m not and expert on those…
My policy Is: if I can have RAW, it’s Better.
And I don’t like paying for the grade.
So i’d Say psa 9 or graad 8.
They are the only 2 I’ve inspected beforehand and fit pretty well my taste. There might be exceptions but so far I find myself confident with these 2.
Going upper those to me is useless and going lower Is bad for my mental health
I’d probably crack a 8 possibly pushing a 9, however it does depend on the condition of the card inside the slab as some of them which are certain grades look worse or better than the given grade.
This is how I feel. 10 Grades feel like they should be reserved for people who want to collect those. If I wanted to collect 10s I wouldn’t be making a binder. So while I don’t place any special sacred importance on 10s I do think they’re a separate commodity that are best left for other collectors who prize specifically that.
As a separate thought: Cracking 8s used to be the baseline for binder collectors. For the first 2/3rds of the 2010s if you were a binder collection you probably bought 8s with the express intention of cracking them. I still have that instinct but I recognize times have really changed.
Back then buying an 8 meant you for sure got a near mint card and eliminated a lot of the guess work. You didn’t have to closely examine every blurry mid-res ebay photo trying to confirm if your view on near mint matched the other party’s. You could just buy an 8 and be on your way. I built almost my whole collection that way, and I only bought 9s when 8s weren’t available.
