Raw vs. Graded - Card Show Culture With Sammy Thunder & A Collectors Dream

Hey, everybody. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the extended version, the extended edition extra innings, whatever they are calling it these days, with the Sports Card Clubhouse, Episode number two with card show culture, featuring myself and the esteemed Orlando, or steamed Orlando from a Collector's Dream. We are going to be going into a particular topic because we only have about 15 minutes to discuss it, but I think it's going to be a good one. This was suggested by Orlando. Let me bring it up right now. So graded versus raw Orlando, I want you to go into what sort of. How do you want it to elaborate on this? Because I have some ideas, but I'm going to let you start. Well, I went to a card show this weekend and I noticed and I actually talked to a few dealers. There was a dealer friend of mine that's there, and I kind of sat behind his table there for about an hour, just, you know, taking a break and just watching and talking to him. And he had a lot of raw cards that he really Goldin grade. He didn't want to send them to psa. Now, PSA was there taking submissions, but, you know, it was whatever, $80 or whatever. They were there. They weren't grading there. They would just take them back. And, you know, even though this was in Fort Lauderdale, a half hour away from their Boca place, you know, there weren't that many people submitting cards there. And the dealer was telling me he had a whole bunch of raw cards, but he was not going to submit them. He was going to try to sell them raw. And, you know, it was kind of, to me, you know, you don't see that very often. You know, these dealers usually are going to go ahead and get everything graded. But, you know, it was. It was kind of a. A good and a bad situation because I did see him sell some raw cards. But I did see some people come in and. And they were asking, you know, you know, only for graded, and they only wanted graded. And there was a son and a father. I mean, the son was like in his 30s, and the father was probably in his 50s. And he told me that the father had just gotten back into the hobby. And they were looking for football cards. And this guy had, you know, vintage football. And the son was telling the dad, the dad was looking through the raw cards and he liked some of the cards, but the son was telling him, no, dad, you really want to buy them graded because, you know that, you know what they're worth, you know what they are, and, you know, so on and so on. I can comp them for you and so on and, you know, and, and, you know, I was talking to the dad because he was an older guy, and I said, you know, Yu-Gi-Oh your son is probably right if you're going to go ahead and, and do it as an investment or hold on to it. But if you really like the card and you, you know, you don't find it graded, you know, it's up to you, you know, you know, you don't have to always get them graded. And. But the son kind of had a little bit of a disagreement with me there. He said, no, you know, I really want my dad to only buy graded cards. And I said, I understand that. I mean, I, I think that's, you know, for somebody that's new into the hobby, that's not really as familiar with the grading situations and things like that, I can see that happening. So I do see a lot of the new people that are coming in and there's a lot of new people coming into the hobby, Sammy. That's why you see prices going up. It's because of the supply and demand. The demand is a lot higher and there are less graded cards out there because of the grading situation right now. So it's kind of a tough situation, you know, because for me, I'll buy them raw and maybe, maybe get them graded eventually, you know, or maybe not. You know, I mean, I know you're buying a lot of raw cards yourself at some of the shows, but the new guys, they want only graded cards and, and that's kind of, kind of what I see in the market right now. They want graded. They want higher graded cards for vintage, you know, not necessarily the nines and tens, but they want something that's mid grade or above and something that they can have confidence that it's going to hold the value. You know, maybe it's because they just don't know how to grade, not knowing the, you know, that kind of stuff. But, you know, I think the good thing about all these raw cards out there and a lot of the dealers, I saw them buying collections, you know, a lot of them buying raw cards, and, you know, they all told me the same thing. I just can't send them out to be graded right now. Their price is too high. I'm waiting until PSA opens back up so I can do my bulk submissions, but then it's going to take another six months or so. So, you know, they're putting them out raw. But I think the good thing about it is, Sammy, that a lot of collectors, you know, they're going to really learn a little more of how to grade cards. Like in the old days before grading or where there were very few graded cards, you know, but we negotiated deals. What we did was first we agreed on what the grade was going to be. You know, that was the first negotiation. We would look at a card and the dealer would say, you know, well, that looks more like a near mint, or it looks more like an X mint, you know, and you kind of would negotiate that and then you agree, okay, it's more like a, like an X mint card. All right, now let's talk about price. And I think that gives the collector more knowledge, more experience, and, you know, being almost like, like a Dylan, where he grades his own cards, I think we need more of that. I think this is a great opportunity for new collectors or veteran collectors to really take a good look, a better look at cards that they're going to buy versus just buying the grade on the label. So going back to like when, when you say that in the, in the, in the older days that, you know, dealers and collectors would evaluate what the card would, would, would be graded as. I was just talking about the condition of the card in that sense. Like, in the sense that you submit stuff to Greg Morris. Greg Morris either labels at vg, vge Ex. But not like saying, I think this looks like a nine. I like them. Think this looks like an eight or a seven. You're not, you're not thinking about it that way. You're thinking about the condition of it. Is that what you were saying? Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, and we're talking vintage, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh With modern, you can't tell a 9 from a 10. No, no. But with vintage, you could tell, you know, a four from a seven. You know, so you kind of more of a range, you know, this, you know, the corners, you're going to look at the corners, you're going to see if there's any wrinkles, you're going to look at the surface, those type of things. You know, you're going to really analyze the card a little bit more when it's raw and when the dealer is selling it raw and the dealer, you know, he's got his, his price on it, you know, if he's got a price as a seven. But you look at the card and you look and say, hey, this just doesn't look as good as you think it looks like. So it's. You're gonna have to kind of negotiate not to surprise now, but, you know, you're gonna have to show the Dealer, look, take a good look at the card. You know, you know, it's, it's not as, as nice. This corner is not as good. You look at the back or whatever, you know, and, and you negotiate a little more, you know, not just the price, but the condition of the RAW card itself. Yu-Gi-Oh I can price. I can't. You know, for me, I set up locally and I mean, I always, I classify myself as a lower end, like lower tier dealer. I'm not, I don't have the inventory to go to like a National or Strongs or anything like that or even like the Philly show or some of these larger shows. So I say that because if I'm selling RAW cards, I, you know, for the most part, I will use ebay or eBay or 130point. I'll type in the card and I'll get a lot of RAW examples. I typically don't try to compare a raw example to a graded example just because grading, I mean, I don't. This is gonna get debated, but grading is completely subjective. One day something could be a seven, the next day you crack it out and it could be a five. So if, you know, you can, I guess you can sort of look at the card through, through a slab and try to evaluate and see if it compares to yours. But I try always to evaluate raw. RAW to raw. I don't really typically try to do raw to RAW to graded just because of the subjectivity of, of the upgrading as a concept. But. So I don't know, what do you. I mean, is that something? Yu-Gi-Oh but you got to price the car, so. No, no, you can. But in that case, I mean, you can look at how other, other RAW examples have sold in the recent months. I mean, I don't think you have to use graded cards and compare. You know, I don't know, maybe I'm looking at it, looking at it incorrectly. No, you're right, you're right. But you know what, Sammy? I think it's a, this is a great opportunity, you know, buying raw if you're smart and you got a good Yu-Gi-Oh and you could buy some great rock cards. You know, I think the perfect example of this is our buddy B. Roth. Oh, he's. He's the best. He is, yes, he is one of the best. That, that does it and has an. As a strong online presence. And I, Yu-Gi-Oh I've gotten, I mean, one of my closest hobby friends. I mean, look at what he buys. He'll buy raw. That's pretty much all he buys. Yu-Gi-Oh he Buys really beautiful high end, beautifully centered sharp raw cards. Some of them he sends over to Greg Morris and he gets really good prices. Yes. Some he'll go ahead and get them graded and get high grade sevens or eights on some of those raw cards that he got. Yu-Gi-Oh he has good judgment when with, with what to send a Greg Morris versus what to grab grade versus what to keep raw. He actually inspired me because he, well he does inspire me a lot with, a lot with when it comes to setting up at shows now. But like for example he showed me like he said oh, you know Bob Euchre, Bob Euchre cards are, they always do well with Greg Morris. And so I was at a, I was on vacation, I was at a shop and they had a ton of Bob Yuka cards for good prices. I was like, okay, Yu-Gi-Oh I think, think you know, Brian's definitely right. So I just bought a lot of the Euchre stuff. But Yu-Gi-Oh it's, it's a great, it's, it's a great, great shout out because he's good example of somebody that buys good raw stuff for good prices and is able to make a nice, a nice decent turnaround on it. Yu-Gi-Oh I think this is a great opportunity for, for real collectors that people like, like V. Roth that know what to look for. Yu-Gi-Oh I think this is a good chance because you have a lot of dealers buying raw collections, putting them out there and instead of them themselves looking at which ones am I going to send in for grading. Now you've got a chance to get them raw and you have a chance to buy them, you know and get them graded yourself or however you want to sell them through Greg Morris. Yu-Gi-Oh I, I'll look at it similar to buying a, a slab card that looks like it's better than the grade and getting like a Mike Baker sticker on it. Okay. Because there's a lot of guys like a David Chase that'll do that. He'll buy a really good looking card that looks good in the slab, send it to, you know, and to Bike Baker, get that sticker and the price has gone up with the same thing with these raw cards. You got a beautiful looking rock card that hasn't been graded, hasn't been looked at by anybody but you and a dealer. And here's a chance for you to give it your Mike Baker sticker on it and get it at a great price at a price of a rock hard. Eventually either get it graded or sell it like I said through Greg Morris and get you know, a nice. You know, 20, 30, 40 bump in many cases in what you paid for that card. If again, if you got a good Yu-Gi-Oh you know what you're looking at. So I think that today, in the next few months, until PSA gets caught up, it's a great opportunity to buy some sharp, well centered rock cards from dealers who just can't get them graded. But you may get them, hold on to them and eventually either you grade them or you send them to Greg Morris just like B. Roth does. I think he's really ahead of the curve right now in this era of, of card collecting, at least for the next, you know, six months or so until PSA gets back to speed. Yu-Gi-Oh he, I was when it came to. Because I roomed with him at the national and when it came to his pickups, a majority of them, if not, I would say most of them were raw. I think he may bought a few graded stuff, but Yu-Gi-Oh definitely bought a lot of raw stuff. I think he does really well. I think that's kind of his. I mean not just not to take anything away from buying graded stuff for him. I mean he does buy graded stuff and he does well with that too. But he has an exceptional life for the raw stuff. So. That's a good point. But. And I know this could definitely carry into more conversations because I did a video recently talking about dealers frustrations with the whole grading system and what's going on. And Yu-Gi-Oh I'm not going to call it desperation, but it's looking for other outlets and obviously CGC and NBA are the two grading companies that have kind of blossomed out from PSA and SGC's grading debacles. Now the feedback I received on the video I did recently was majority will not align themselves with mba. They just. Because of various reasons, whether it's the reputation issue or who Mike Baker went in business with. I, I think his name is Brent. I forget this. I don't know. Huggins or. Huggins. Yu-Gi-Oh he was part of pwcc. Right. And part of the trimming scandal. Right. Mike Baker also was, was part of the Gai issue. Yu-Gi-Oh they both have some backgrounds but they're, you know, he's a pretty, he's a great grader. He really, really is. And I think that now that he has his name literally on the slab, I think he's trying to come back and get a good reputation and you know, take a look at the mantle that sold on CIA. Yu-Gi-Oh Say seven for $417,000. So there's obviously is a market you know, I would have guessed that card was going to sell for maybe 450 or 5. In an SGC it would have sold for about half a million. Yu-Gi-Oh it's pretty, pretty good sale for a Mike Baker. So I think people are gaining some trust in Mike Baker, especially stickers. Clearly there's something there. And I'm seeing more dealers at local shows and big shows like the East coast national. The Philly show is going to be interesting to see. I know a number of dealers that set up at the East coast national that are also going to be at the Philippines silly show that haven't put in have, that have submitted cards of Mike Baker, got them back and they're going to be on display. I think there's the one takeaway that I have is I think this is more of like an experimental phase right now. I think there are dealers that are going to be submitting, you know, any, I'd say anywhere between 100 and maybe a thousand dollar cards. But when you start getting kind of creeping up into the higher price cards like you know, they might, maybe they, maybe they don't submit those to Mike Baker and submit them to PSA and just kind of, you know, either wait it out or expedite the, expedite by paying more. But because what I've been seeing I think a lot are the, those more 1 to 100 to $1,000 cards have been in NBA slabs from you know, the, the various dealers that I've seen. So it's gonna be interesting to see in Philly if we're going to start seeing more and more of them come out in other and more, more display cases. Yu-Gi-Oh I think we'll have to wait and see. But you know, it is an option and there aren't many options right now because even SGC has taken a long time to get their cards back and, and, and, and CGC is taking a long time now. They're Beckett up too. I think my NBA is starting to start to creep up as well as far as time, turnaround time. So. Yu-Gi-Oh and you know, I, I don't know if you saw the interview that Greg from Midlife did with Kit Young. Kit Young is the long time, you know, one of the most veteran dealers in the entire hobby. And Young, he asked Kit Young, you know what he felt about Mike Baker and Kid Young said Yu-Gi-Oh I'm definitely gonna send cards to get him graded through Mike Baker. Yu-Gi-Oh I think, you know, he's giving, he's giving the, he's giving the, giving it a shot. I think it's worth, you know, for them to try it out, see how collectors will respond. A little concerning with the response I got, but, I mean, it's a small portion of collectors that voice their opinions that say they're not on board and that they one-of-one buy a Mike Baker slab regardless of what the card is. But we'll see. I mean, clearly, the Mantle sold for that as much as it did, so it's not bothering everybody. But I guess we'll wait and see. And the Philly show will be a good barometer of detecting where, you know, what people are walking around with and what people have their cases and what people buy. And we'll see. Only time will tell. All right, well, on this note, I think we've reached the most time we can spend on Sports Card Clubhouse. So for the. For tonight, that is it. But I'm sure we'll be back for more extended editions, extra innings, whatever it is called. And we'll be back again in September. So thank you, Orlando, and thank you everybody that listened and watched. Take care.