Last year I opened a Gym Heroes and a Base Unlimited booster box. I am considering sending out a large grading order from both sets with a minimum grade of 9. Anything sub-9 would be a binder card. Is there enough demand from these sets to even justify grading C/U? Or am I just going to get stuck with more worthless C/U? I don’t expect to make a profit or even break-even on these. I’m looking to build my collection first, and then sell off anything extra. I also have 1st edition Jungle, Fossil, and Rocket C/U.
10’s you’ll make money but they will be (often times VERY) slow moving. 9’s you will be lucky to break even and often times won’t. These will sit forever if you try to break even unless you fire sale them at a slight loss just to get back some capital. Occasional exceptions for pikachu and maybe some other random popular Pokemon.
If you can’t trust yourself to be able to send only 9/10’s I would advise against sending anything. It is a fairly easy thing to do though especially with non holos. I have graded several hundred jungle/fossil/rocket/gym non holo r/c/u’s and have only gotten 8 or less a few times because I pick over anything I know is a 9. I only submit things that I feel have a 50/50 shot at a 10 if not better. I never do minimum grade, I just throw them in a pile of other cards not worth the grading price that I’ll get to someday.
I think the 1st Ed WOTC C/U have a latent demand. There are collectors who would go after a full set, but they don’t want to absorb the risk of grading themselves. Basically if you don’t earn a 10, you are SOL. This is true for both collector and seller.
Therefore C/U are between a rock and a hard place.