Mint, Near Mint, etc - Grade Cards Yourself

OK, card grades....There are specific criteria to determine a card's grade, or condition. If you can write this down or memorize it, then you'll know what the dealer or seller is talking about. You'll also know if the dealer or seller is trying to put one over on you.....

Mint (MT): A beautiful condition card that has only one minor flaw-- such as a very slight wax stain on the back, a minor printing imperfection, or slightly off-white borders. The centering should be 65/35 to 70/30 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the back.

Near Mint (NRMT): Card has just slight surface wear visible upon close inspection. There may be slight fraying on some corners. Picture focus may be slightly out of register. A minor printing blemish is acceptable. Slight wax staining is acceptable on the back of the card only. Most of the original gloss is retained. Centering must be about 70/30 to 75/25 or better on the front, 90/10 or better on the back.

Excellent-Mint (EXMT): Card may have visible surface wear or a printing defect which does not detract from its overall appeal. A very light scratch may be detected only upon close inspection. Corners may have slightly graduated fraying. Picture focus may be slightly out of register. Card may show some loss of original gloss, may have minor wax stain on the back, may exhibit very slight notching on edges and may also show some off-whiteness on borders. Centering should be 80/20 or better on the front, 90/10 or better on the back.

Excellent (EX): Very minor rounding of the corners is evident. Surface wear or printing defects are more visible. There may be minor chipping on edges. Loss of original gloss will be more apparent. Focus of picture may be slightly out of register. Several light scratches may be visible upon close inspection, but do not detract from the appeal of the card. Card may show some off-whiteness of borders. Centering must be 85/15 or better on the front, 90/10 or better on the back.

Very Good-Excellent (VG-EX): Corners may be slightly rounded. Surface wear is noticeable but modest. May have light scuffing or light scratches. Some original gloss will be retained. Borders may be slightly off-white. A light crease may be visible. Centering must be 85/15 or better on the front, 90/10 or better on the back.

Lower grades from here are Very Good (VG), Good (GOOD), and Poor to Fair (PR-FR). If the card looks beat up then it will fall into one of these catagories and in reality won't be worth very much. But there is a market for them if they are very rare items (such as from the 1880's), and could be worth a lot even in low grade.

*****Picking on eBay Sellers again! Some, the crooked ones, will be off a full grade when describing their card. Sometimes two full grades, or they will give vague descriptions, saying something like "Looks nice!" Another hint: The more exclamation points !!!!! that the Seller uses, the more he's trying to convince you that's it's a real bargain. Don't fall for that nonsense.

Have fun out there...But be careful.

Deceptive eBay Sellers...A Black Eye on the Hobby

I've been ripped off in the past because some eBay Sellers are either ignorant of how to grade a card, or they're being vague on purpose, or whatever. This was before I got wise to their game, and now I ask them specific questions about the card's condition long before the auction ends. I'm going to name some eBay Sellers that have sold me cards that were not as described in the auction. These are just a few:

(555)

kevino35

truckinman1113

nolansport

intergalactic

lebrju
jercole17
escards
manana1024
sjscout
markssportscards
cotuit-kettleers
uncanned_heat
$stuff4less$

Not all of the above are crooks, they just don't realize, or possibly care about, the importance of conditioning. But the dishonest/greedy ones will do things like this:

A) Take a bad scan on purpose, or alter the scan, making it appear that the card has sharp corners.

B) Photograph the card from a foot away in order to hide it's condition.

C) Claim they found these things in the attic and don't know if they have any value (yeah, right).

D) Give a skimpy description of the card.

E) Say vague things like "looks nice!" or "see scan for condition."

F) Go on & on about how the winning bidder better pay quickly or they'll leave Negative Feedback.Update: Sellers can no longer leave Negative or Neutral Feedback.

G) Have over-the-top Shipping & Handling charges.

***AWARD WINNERS***

Worst eBay Sellers of 2007

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fritschcardsauctions

BMW Sportscards

Let's take the first one- you may also know them as the famous Larry Fritsch Cards. If you want to buy worthless reprints or pay the Mint price for VG-EX cards, then these are the guys you want. They have a huge card shop in Stevens Point, Wisconsin and claim to have over 65 million cards in stock. Of course, about 60 million of those cards are from the late 80's & early 90's when the card companies were manufacturing billions of cards. Worthless. They steal, sorry, 'make' a lot of their money from the uneducated, or unsuspecting collectors that walk in the door. One of their favorite activities is to take a rare old photograph of Babe Ruth or somebody, run off a few hundred copies and sell them to people that don't know any better.

BMW Sportscards eBay ID: bmw_cards -- These guys are the ultimate price gougers. You can go to their eBay Store and see PSA-graded cards with prices that are double, sometimes triple what PSA-graded cards usually sell for. At this writing they have a 1959 Topps baseball card of Felipe Alou (card #102) that's been graded by PSA as a 9, or Mint. SMR (Sports Market Report) is the magazine that PSA puts out listing hundreds of cards that they have graded and what the average sale price would be. That '59 Alou, at PSA 9, sells for about $400, on average. But BMWsportscards wants $2,000 for their card. That's right, two...thousand...dollars.

If you've ever been burned by an eBay Seller, you probably have been tempted to leave Negative Feedback. Of course they in return will leave Negative Feedback and hurt your Positive Feedback pecentage. My advice would be to try and resolve the problem first with the Contact Seller option. If your dealing with a dishonest Seller, he'll ignore you or send you a nasty or rude reply because he doesn't care. If that's the case you should send your concerns to eBay itself.

The good news is that the following eBay Sellers do a good job with sportscards, that is, the descriptions match the card you won:

bbdiamondsareforever
petorti
4_sharp_corners_store
centralcitycards
zindlers
kmmcards
steves-sports-cards-la
markirodenko
minnesotateasurechest

Some of the above eBay Sellers might stick it to you with S/H charges, but they give you decent cards. You should keep in mind that it only costs the Seller .59 cents postage to put a card in a top loader and envelope and mail it to you. Some spend a little more, using a bubble mailer or a Delivery Confirmation slip (.75 cents). You should always get insurance if the card/item is expensive or valuable.


We hope this was useful to you.


Have fun out there!

Pssst....Here's the biggest ripoff on eBay--

The biggest ripoff on eBay is "Shipping & Handling" or Shipping charges. I'm sorry to say that most eBay Sellers overcharge their customers for S&H, just to make more money. They figure that most Bidders don't have a clue about how much it really costs to ship items. So they use that ignorance to charge double, triple, and more than what it actually costs. It's not just sportscards, but every catagory that eBay offers. It's up to the Seller to charge S&H, and many of them look at it as a way to price gouge without anyone bothering to complain.

But let's take sportscards, as an example-
Did you know that if a Seller puts a card in a top-loader, and then a #10 envelope, mails it to you First Class, that it only costs .59cents postage? If the Seller puts the card in a Bubble Mailer and sends it First Class, then it costs $1.00 postage. Anything over one ounce but less than two ounces costs $1.34 postage. FYI: Three cards in top-loaders weigh just under two ounces, so the postage alone should be $1.34....You see where I'm going with this? If the Seller charges $2 or $3 for Shipping & Handling per card, that must be some kind of special handling, eh?

Don't let them get away with it. You can send them Nuetral or Negative Feedback for their greed, and you don't have to worry about retaliation. That's because eBay has a new policy now concerning Feedback. Sellers can no longer give Nuetral or Negative Feedback, only Positive Feedback to their customers. Maybe if they get enough bad Feedback about shipping charges, they'll change their ways.

You can also buy yourself a little Postal Scale at any large office supply place. Once you find out how much something weighs, then you can go to usps.com and find out how much you're getting ripped off.

Have fun out there, but educate yourself!

Don't Get Ripped Off on eBay

Ealier I covered how not to get taken by some dishonest sellers on eBay. As I said before, the great majority of eBay Sellers are OK folks, but there are crooks. My advice would be to educate yourself a little by buying a copy of Beckett's Baseball Card Price Guide at your local newsstand. They list pricing for thousand's of cards in there each month, but the articles are very educational. Many times I have found something in there that was new to me and I'm sure it would be of help to any collector, whether they're new to the hobby or not. The dishonest eBay Sellers that I warned about are hoping that they get a bidder that knows very little about the hobby, a "pigeon", or "mark" if you will. Don't be that pigeon/mark. Read about the subject and become an expert yourself. You can do it, I did. Another tip: If you find a card on eBay that you want to bid on, ask the Seller a question or two if you have time to get an answer back. That's because many times the scan of the card will not show some defects. So you might ask the Seller "How are the corners?" or "What about that mark that I see, what is it?" The mark could be just something on the scanner's glass. Some dishonest Sellers won't use a scanner, taking a digital photograh of the card instead. Hard to see the card's condition that way! The crook will hope that you take his word for the description of the card, to trust him. Always look at the Seller's Feedback Rating-- anything below 98% is awful. Read the Feedback Comments. The Sellers that have a high rating want to keep that good reputation, and they will answer any question honestly.

Have fun out there!