I have zero confidence that huge pop ultra modern cards in PSA 10 or BL will hold any notable value in 20 years.
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Oooh, this is a bet Iâd like to explore. I would gladly take the other side of this, and think that in 10 years, pick-your-top-modern-PSA-10 will grow significantly more than something like Neo Destiny shinings or most gold stars. What vintage cards do you have in mind when you make statements like these?
Iâm going to be so upset when I have to pay a $10 premium for my BL Moonbreon in 2050. 
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Haha I can definitely see the duality here - I suppose it more so comes down to that I really just enjoy trying to grade them myself. If I buy a black label rather than grade it myself, I am much more likely to sell it down the road.
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Well in 20 years, they wonât be ultramodern cards any longer. Theyâll have an age of 20 years and vintage will have an age of 40+ years. I would bet that they will still retain some value.
Literally any notable vintage card. Pick your modern champion and you can tag me in this thread in 2034 and we can compare.
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I like the saying âIâm putting my money where my mouth is.â
In your situation you donât buy Black Labels.
It seems you just love the chase of grading them to sell for huge profit gains. I am getting more of a grade optimist and profit maximizer vibe out of anything than your advocation of value and devotion of love for Black Labels.
I get it, the love to gamble $500 - $1,000 on a potential $10,000 card is very financially rewarding. I just donât buy your enthusiasm when you yourself donât purchase any.
It really all comes into focus on the âwhyâ we pay certain prices for certain cardâs conditions and the value put on micro differences. I will never understand.
Personally I would rather buy a CGC Perfect (When they had perfects) since It is a âvalueâ buy compared to a BGS BL.
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Itâs not even a micro difference. If you canât predict a BL in advance with any confidence and thereâs a solid chance it wouldnât regrade a BL if cracked, there is functionally zero significant difference between a BGS 9.5/10 and BL
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Personally I wouldnât know. The flash price tags and sold prices outshine any differences between a BGS 9.5/10/10BL
Obviously as said multiple times before, itâs the Lottery than anything else.
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This is an interesting prospect because pull rates are so much worse today. There may be a lot of sealed closet collections out there but if the prices get too high, I donât think any of them will be opened or not at the rate required to keep the population steadily increasing.
Given the increasing optimization of the hobby, Iâd also venture that the âbestâ raw cards are the ones being sent which leaves the imperfect ones circling. Itâs still a process to get there, but I think it would still end up with there being a premium over raw.
Also, PSA10 rates would not be as high, especially for Japanese, if they didnât ignore print lines. Pretty sure even Black Labels can have print lines which is ridiculous because I think vintage cards are penalized for print lines.
Another problem with a label premium in terms of long-term value is that youâre effectively investing in the grading company itself.
If PSA or CGC go under you can still cross your 9s and 10s to whatever the current popular company is and maintain the majority of the value (although some PSA 10s might take a bigger hit than others). If BGS goes under and 90% of the value of your collection is purely from the BL premium, it will hurt
If you donât care about future value this is an irrelevant point though.
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An interesting thread to read for someone uninformed and naive. I think the fact knowledgeable people view BL as a waste and it can be agreed that itâs impossible to know whether your âperfectâ card will be graded as BL, even if cracked straight from a BL case is mostly unimportant noise to those that buy them.
At this point, itâs been said BL is the king for long enough that people take it as gospel, no matter how many times that opinion may be proven flawed. The only way that bubble (?) pops is if you run out of people with more dollars than sense. (You wonât)
Can you prove a BL 10 is of better quality than a PSA 10 consistently? Seems unlikely.
Is a BL 10 worth more than a PSA 10? Undoubtedly!
Iâd assume, as in most luxury industries, quality of goods wonât play as important a role in as the story told, and that the BL 10 will always be valued much higher for mid to high end cards. The market doesnât care if it makes sense.
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@Slade you can brand me however you want.
As far as putting my money where my mouth is, I think that is most valid in the form of how much I spend in BGS grading each year lol.
As far as profit maximizing, that is just simply untrue. As I stated before and as any longtime pokemon seller/investor/flipper will tell you, if my goal was simply to make money, PSA will always be the answer. It is undoubtedly the safest and most surefire way to make money in the hobby. Chasing black labels purely for money just is not the answer.
I am just here to share my experience since other collectors such as yourself sometimes make assumptions about other people motives. At the end of the day I am just doing what I enjoy. And, I will self-admit: I donât have the money to buy black labels. I can really only afford to own them if I grade them myself.
Your negativity and desire to just label me as purely profit chasing speaks volumes about the type of person and collector you are. You donât have to believe my motives at the end of the day, but I have no reason to lie haha
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@Bingbong I appreciate your input.
Personally I would wager my entire collection on the fact that most black labels are consistently better than PSA 10 quality.
Does that matter in the long-run? Maybe, maybe not. I donât really care since I enjoy the challenge that Black labels present for me. Many collectors donât care if their card is 50:50 centering or 60:40 and that is totally valid. It does not take away from the fun I have trying to find the perfect card! 
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@pfm not trying to sound like I am beating a dead horse here, but let me clarify some of my statements I have already shared.
There are cards that can be black labels and cards that cannot be black labels. That being said, you can surely pick out and pre-grade cards that can be black labels. I do it all the time with significant confidence. Takes time and practice and experience, but it is doable. So, I am not sure what background you have that enables you to say âcanât predict a BL in advance with any confidence,â besides just your own speculation.
I am sure you are quite good at picking out PSA 10âs that you send to grade (if you grade cards. I am not sure if you do.) Getting good at picking out BGS 10âs is no different, just requires you to be familiar with BGS standards and to get acquainted with them, since the standards are absolutely different.
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If the cabal didnt chase away buffet, there would 100% be a post here is a PSA 8 moonbreon being cracked and put into a black label case
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I think that post was somewhere above haha
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Hereâs the primary distinction. Leaving out misgrades or particularly weak graded cards.
When you crack a BL it becomes a âcandidate BLâ. It also looses the majority of itâs value.
When you crack a PSA/CGC 10, you have a card that is still a âPSA/CGC 10â with respect to its condition. And in most cases, it would retain the majority of its value.
Itâs the difference between saying a raw card can be a BL and vs a raw card is a PSA 10. The difference between a PSA 10 and a PSA 9 is condition. The difference between a regular BGS 10 and a BL is RNG
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I think black labels are a sham, a marketing trick to drum up attention for BGS and draw in people wanting to gamble, but Iâd actually join you in betting the average black label is higher quality than an average 10. For one simple reason - Iâm assuming black labels are subject to some enhanced quality control before they head out the door.
Grading companies donât care if they send out a 10 thatâs actually a 9, or vice versa, but there are so few black labels and they get so much attention itâd be really stupid of BGS to be so careless with them. Thatâs a brand they should be trying extra hard to protect.
(Then again, there was the whole black label insider fiasco with sports cards and the brand is still strong, so maybe it doesnât matter after all.)