How to get the most for your cards

If you have a used car and are trying to sell it for the highest conceivable price, it might not make the most sense to take it to a reputable mechanic and have them figure out exactly what is wrong with the car and write it all down so you can show prospective buyers.

It might make more sense to take it to a disreputable mechanic and have them write you up something that explains how wonderful the car is. It might make more sense to skip the whole mechanic thing and simply believe with all your heart that the car is wonderful, and explain this fact to everyone who comes over to look at it. Or if you knew for a fact that the car is a clunker, you could just lie about it.

With regard to cards, some of the same stuff comes into play. There are people who sell junk and get a lot of money for it, because they either don't know it's junk, and describe it in glowing terms, or they know it's junk and hype it up anyway. It wouldn't make sense for these people to have their cards professionally graded, and this is one of the reasons to buy professionally graded cards.

I think that I would be wrong to tell you that the way to get the most out of your cards would be to send your stuff to one of the top companies. It's a fine thing to do, but if my responsibility is towards you, I'd have to explain that this might not be the best thing to do.

The "correct" answer depends upon what grade it would get from what service. If you have to choose between a PSA-8 or a PRO-10, the PRO-10 would probably sell for more. Of course, if it is going to get a PSA-10, you'd get a lot more for that, but PSA-10's are hard to get, and PRO-10's don't seem to be as hard.

I don't have a lot of experience thinking this way, since I just send my stuff in to PSA. I think the major graders try to do a good job, but even with them it's a crap shoot, so there is a certain amount of luck involved.

The final answer to this question is different for each person, and much depends upon how you want to do business.