I’d say one of the most common stumbling blocks I encounter when speaking with novice (and even more experienced) collectors concerns shipping sports cards.

For someone that hasn’t sent a valuable card through the mail, the process can be a bit of a daunting experience.  However, once you do it a few times, it becomes a fairly simple and easily repeatable process.

I put this guide together to help fellow collectors and to provide some further instructions on shipping sports cards.  This guide will cover supplies needed in order to ship your cards, how properly package your cards, along with different methods of shipping and how the process might vary if sending to any third-party graders.  

If you have any questions on this, feel free to leave a message in the comments section, or as always feel free to shoot us an email at help@allvintagecards.com

In what can only be described as inevitable, PSA just announced that it was suspending all Value, Economy, Regular and Express grading service levels.  In a letter to collectors, PSA President Steve Sloan outlines the massive influx of grading requests and the move to ultimately slow down submissions. 

Sloan reiterates in his letter that PSA continues to get flooded with grading requests and has received more cards in three days than they did during the previous three months.  The letter clearly states that PSA needs to catch up.  And in order to do so, they are halting any Value, Regular and Express grading submissions.

So what does this mean for collectors?  Well, it means that it will basically be impossible to get your cards graded at PSA, unless you want to pony up the $300 for the ‘Super Express’ grading level.  And for most collectors that isn’t an option, unless you are dealing with a card worth in the multiple thousands of dollars.

In what was only inevitable, both SGC and PSA, two of the hobby’s largest third-party grading companies have hiked prices. 

The deluge of cards submitted to the grading companies has resulted in nearly unfathomable wait times and the grading companies are trying to put a halt to submissions….well, by raising prices.  

The story at PSA is two-fold.  First, if you hadn’t heard, the parent of PSA – Collector’s Universe was acquired by an investor group, which includes collector Nat Turner.  Turner has voiced his desire to improve upon the existing operational infrastructure at PSA and to provide much-needed investment to improve upon the existing processes.  

In a recent letter to customers from PSA President Steve Sloan, PSA provided a new pricing structure, hiking the ‘Regular’ service card submission from $50 to $100, while at the same time raising the declared value to $499 (from $199) on Collector’s Club ‘Value’ submissions.  They also hiked the ‘Value’ rate to a minimum of $20 per card.  

I’m slightly late on this one, but another collector alerted me to this lawsuit regarding a Fake PSA 10 Michael Jordan rookie card.

Donald Spence, who is a heavyweight in collecting circles (just take a look at his PSA registry here) is the plaintiff in the suit. 

Back in May 2017, Spence purchased a purported PSA 10 graded Michael Jordan Fleer rookie card from Common Cents Coins in an eBay transaction worth $19,999.99.  

It’s widely accepted that the only three major card graders in the hobby are PSA, SGC and Beckett.  

There have been many upstart graders over the years but those are the main three that are still standing strong.  

Still, we have many cards in circulation from other now defunct grading companies. I get questions from collectors all the time asking if they should trust so and so card in such and such holder they found on eBay.

So, I thought it would be helpful for collectors to have a ‘Sports Card Grading Graveyard’ where we list out old card graders and whether or not their slabs/grades should be trusted.  

Thus, this list is a collection of our experience with other grading companies along with our research sourcing opinions from other websites such as the Net54 Forums and Blowout Forums (both unbelievable resources).

I get a lot of questions regarding the authenticity of Michael Jordan rookie cards, but I also get a lot of questions on what grade a card will receive from PSA.

While we’ve covered the basics of card grading (along with a visual representation of card grades), I thought it might be fun and even helpful to create a similar sort of visual guide for card grades using just Jordan’s rookie card. 

If you’re new to card grading or just looking for a quick visual representation for Jordan rookie cards (or even any card for that matter), this should be a good resource.

As always, feel free to shoot me an email at chris@allvintagecards.com if you have any questions. 

One of the most frequent questions we get from novice collectors is in regards to the ‘Authentic’ grade from third party grading companies.

It’s confusing, since we automatically assume a card we get graded is authentic to begin with; thus why does a grading company label a card as solely ‘Authentic’ with no numerical grade (from 1 to 10)?  And then ‘Authentic Altered’…what’s the difference between the two?

Simply put, an ‘Authentic’ grade means that the grading company identified something wrong with the card, usually an alteration or some other major defect, which prohibited them from assigning a numerical grade to the card.  

In what follows, we will examine some of the nuances of ‘Authentic’ graded cards and why they are graded that way.  Hopefully this will help clear up some of the confusion.

Be also sure to check out our piece on ‘How To Spot a Trimmed Card’ which talks more about grading and trimming. 

We have a lot of collectors asking about grading, namely how to do it, and whether they should do it?

But one of the bigger questions that has come up lately is this:

Do PSA Graded Cards sell for a premium over graded cards from SGC and Beckett?

I always assumed that this was true, but decided now to do a deeper dive into recent sales data to see if it was actually true.

Our findings: for older pre-war cards, PSA graded cards do carry a small premium over SGC and Beckett.  For newer, modern cards, PSA pricing is more in line with the other grading companies.

Let’s take a closer look.

We’ve written extensively about how to identify a fake Michael Jordan rookie card here and here

As I’ve mentioned many times, we get a lot of inquiries asking to help authenticate Jordan rookie cards. 

We’ve also written about the history of PSA flips and how to altered slabs. 

First, let’s just say that the Jordan fakes are getting better.  Often I find myself telling a reader that it’s not possible with me to authenticate via images and would need to examine the card in person.  So, long story short, the scammers are getting better at their job.

Now, something that the scammers have been doing for a while, and not just with Jordan rookies, is busting cards from authentic flips and replacing with a fake card.

The widespread price increases throughout the hobby has led to a surge in demand for sports card grading.

This has led to significantly increased wait times across all of the third party grading companies. 

PSA, SGC and Beckett just can’t keep up.  With forced closures during the peak of COVID leading to a backlog, the excess demand in recent months has led to significant delays for all of the grading companies. 

Thus, if you have a card you want to get graded, you could be waiting upwards of six months to get your card back.

Now of course there are ways to spend a bit more and get your order expedited.  In this guide, we’ll examine the wait times for all of the grading companies and what it costs to get your cards graded today at each company. 

**(March 7th Update–See Our Latest Article On PSA and SGC Pricing Changes and Turnaround Time Updates)