What is the minimum percentage of profit are you willing to grade a card with psa?
For example, grading fee $ 50, raw card $ 50. Average PSA 10 sales $ 150, average PSA 9 sales 80$.
PSA 10 pop report >70%.
Will you grade this card just for profit?
(Just for sale, not for personal collection).
What is your minimum % profit standard?
I don’t do this level of analysis when I’m figuring out what to grade, but I would not even consider a $50 grading fee for your example. Even given a 70% PSA 10 ratio you’re just asking to lose money long-term.
It’d be interesting to know what my profit % for cards that I’ve submitted to grade and then sell over the years, but man that stuff takes so much work!
Volume is a huge factor here.
If you are sending 100 cards to PSA and getting 100 cards back a month, you are going to benefit a lot more from a modest extra $50 profit per card. That’s an additional $5,000. That’s a huge increase and absolutely worth the time, effort, and cost.
But if you are just buying and selling individual cards on a more limited basis then that extra $50 is hardly alluring. I would not spend the time and money to do that. Just give me the money now. On this kind of basis the question isn’t really about the marginal percentage I’m making, it’s just a question of whether the extra money makes a big enough different and that’s entirely subjective. Pretty much anything less than an extra $200 in my pocket when all is said and done isn’t worth my energy, I don’t think.
What @hypernova said. I don’t analyze that deeply. Obviously I won’t send in my base set caterpie in a $100 tier. But other than that, I just put a card in the appropriate tier. Most pokemon cards will naturally be in the lower tiers. I guess I also budget my buy price on raw to grade cards, ie not overspending on potential condition.
A wise man once told me to shoot for your hourly wage minimum profit per graded card and I think Its a fun way to go about selling graded.
Obviously though its going to be case by case with everything.
how many are available in that grade?
what are auction prices at vs BIN?
how hard is the card to source mint?
exc…
All questions you have to ask yourself to make an educated gamble.
Another factor is whether or not you expect the card to be worth less by the time it gets back. There were a lot of cards I held off on submitting at $10-$20 a card because I didn’t expect them to hold their value (which ended up being the correct assessment). But purely based on the values at the time, it would’ve been “worth” submitting those cards.
I try to only grade cards to sell if I can make $50 or more, and I’m pretty good at determing what grade a (modern) card will get so if a raw card I buy doesn’t look like a 10 after all I will just resell it at a small loss. I only do this on a small scale though, ~10 cards a submission. This is still worth it to me, but probably wouldn’t be to someone with more capital unless they’re doing a lot more at a time
Pretty much 75%+ of the stuff I grade I hope to keep if it gets the grade I want. If they grade higher or lower I sell them and try again. Not the best strategy but its worked pretty well for me and all the inventory I end up with is stuff I like so its not the end of the world when I have to hold onto some of it due to slow sales
Something going into the grade pile will depend on condition above all else and grading is then prioritized based on value and desire. I tend to only grade cards that I think would net a profit if I chose to sell, but I speculate this purely in my head with no real formula. There are a lot of cards that since being set aside have gone up in value and are now more worthy to grade and doing this in the moment as a collector is not super worthwhile. Better to place aside your faves and sell spares.
This example would net you ~$18 profit after fees/taxes/shipping as a PSA 10 on about $105 cost. This specific card would not get graded by me in a $50 tier. I like to shoot for at least 50%, but I am much more selective for the more expensive tiers.
Unless it’s modern don’t count on getting 10’s would be a better way to look at it.
I scan most cards quickly and if they will grade an 8 and get me 10 Euro more (after costs) I am already happy. Everything above PSA8 I am gratefull to have them.
But I don’t buy any cards, just selling my “left overs” from years of collecting.
I grade & sell on a smaller scale too. Most of my subs are 40 cards or less. I obviously do research on each the card’s value once graded (based on my best grade estimate) and I send in batches for the appropriate tier. (Like most?) I usually keep maybe ~25% of the returns for my personal collection and sell the rest. I aim for at least a 50% profit margin or preferably much higher. I certainly don’t mind waiting for longer turnaround times at a cheaper cost.