Grading old baseball cards-to grade or not to grade 1950 cards

[boomersbiz46]

My husband has many cards that are from late 40's to 50's and he is sitting on the fence as to grade them or not? They have been in a binder for at least 50 years. They were his as a kid in the 50's. He has approached a few dealers and received a few quotes and low offers just based on our research. Any advice out there as how to handle. Of course we want to get the best price but realize there are dealers and just collectors who may want one of these for their collection.  We are looking for reasonable offers from someone or thru eBay. Any interest, I can send photos ,maybe be a treasure in there. I know he has a Mickey Mantle (not a rookie), Sandy Koufax,Jackie Robinson and some other well know players.  Thanks in Advance for help

[tobaccocardyahoo]

There is much more demand for graded and slabbed cards (blech). I have recently sold early 20th century tobacco baseball cards and the bulk of the buyers were go to have them graded and resell them. The believe they can make money selling them after paying for grading and another marketplace fee. Maybe they can.

I have never had good luck selling other than the 1950's star players and suspect the buyers would prefer to buy graded cards since they are less likely to buy based on sentiment. We all differ in how we trade off, price, time delay etc.

It is not permissible to solicit offers through this forum, and if Ebay becomes aware of sales through this forum without listing on Ebay they may close your account.

[shadowclogger]

Hi:  I am new to this community, but I was looking on the community menu bar, and noticed that if one clicked on Ebay Groups, scrolled down and then clicked on Special Interest Groups, and then, went down to Trading card detection feature I wonder if that would help in your situation.  Wow!  Jackie Robinson!

Hope this helps.

S.

[shadowclogger]

Ack!  I'm replying to myself, which is lame, but, then I checked that space where I'd sent you. And NOTHING. Which is lamer.  So, I did a brief bit of research, and I hope I can add that here:  https://www.otia.com/news/how-to-value-sports-cards/  they give you the basics of researching potential value of baseball cards, INCLUDING Koufax.  I hope this will work better than the previous.  sorry about the double post.

[slippinjimmy]

I don't sell trading cards so take my advice with that in mind.

Getting cards graded is not cheap, you need to research the individual cards to find the ones that it would be worth doing.

For sure a $100 ungraded card would be worth a lot more if it was graded, so would a $10 card but the cost of grading would be more than the increased value.

Since I'm not even a semi-expert in this field maybe this article would be worth reading:

https://www.justcollect.com/should-i-grade-my-cards/

[1786davycrockett]

@boomersbiz46 

Since you already have an eBay site, why not just list them (either individually or in groups), without the hassle of shopping them around to other dealers?

As you've already discovered, other dealers and collectors are always going to low-ball you, and cherry-pick just the cards that they want.

It sounds as if you may have some nice cards in that binder; so why not just list them for the rest of us to see -- and receive the fair and honest price which you deserve?

Grab a copy of the latest Beckett, and get to work!

Good luck!

[chevymontecarlo88]

---

@boomersbiz46 wrote:

My husband has many cards that are from late 40's to 50's and he is sitting on the fence as to grade them or not? They have been in a binder for at least 50 years. They were his as a kid in the 50's. He has approached a few dealers and received a few quotes and low offers just based on our research. Any advice out there as how to handle. Of course we want to get the best price but realize there are dealers and just collectors who may want one of these for their collection.  We are looking for reasonable offers from someone or thru eBay. Any interest, I can send photos ,maybe be a treasure in there. I know he has a Mickey Mantle (not a rookie), Sandy Koufax,Jackie Robinson and some other well know players.  Thanks in Advance for help

---

Just take what cards you have and comp them by graded cards vs non graded cards.

Hopefully you have some nice condition cards that bring you good money.