Grading non-holos

Hey all, new to this forum after stumbling upon smprattes youtube videos. I collected a large amount of cards when I was a kid, and also did a fair amount of buying about 10 years ago of the old WOTC sets. Many of these cards are in very good condition, have clean backs, good centering, and the highly sought after 1st edition stamp. I’ve recently been intrigued by the thought of having these cards graded, and signed up for a PSA membership.

I know the holos should be submitted in sleeves, then inserted into an extra wide top loaders, but how are you all submitting non-holos? I have a ton of base 1st edition commons and uncommons I’d like graded, and wondered if a penny sleeve and traditional top loader would suffice since the surface on non-holos isn’t as sensitive to scratching? Or do you submit them the exact same way you would any other holo?

Penny Sleeves and Card Savers (Card Saver 1 (Case/2,000) | Cardboard Gold)

Toploaders are expensive, bulky, and not preferred.

Treat every card with the penny sleeve/card saver combo and you’ll never go wrong. Lack of holo doesn’t mean invincible surfaces.

Also, check out the forum grading service. You’re going to get more for your money than direct submission + it benefits the forum.

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Myself along with probably most others make no distinction between holos and nonholos so you should just pack them up the same way.

Also since you are grading nonholo wotc bulk is your intention to sell and make money or are you just grading for fun?

If you’re looking to sell or to grade a 10 set for yourself, I’d advise to be cautious since grading a large number of cards adds up really quickly and if you are new to grading you might end up with a lot more 6-9 grades than you hoped for. In general my advice for people new to grading is to send off a couple small batches of their best cards to develop their grading intuition before sending off their whole collection.

Additionally if you go through the official forum service as churlocker recommended, you will get your cards pregraded by the service and you can get an idea of what grades you should expect before committing to the full PSA grading price.

Hope that helps

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I had my verbiage mixed up, I use those card savers for holos, not top loaders. I will check out the forum grading service. I have purchased a few graded cards, and looked at a ton of the same card graded a 9, and 10 to familiarize myself with what the difference is and what PSA looks for. I only plan on bulk submitting when they run another special like they had this summer for $6.50 a card.

I am looking at completing PSA 10 sets of 1st Jungle, 1st Fossil, 1st TR, 1st Gym series, and 1st Neos. A complete PSA 10 1st base set is financially impossible for me, and the newer non-WOTC cards do nothing for me. The old card layout will always be my favorite.

Even if you don’t go for a complete 1st base set because holos are out of reach, you should grab some of your favorites. Pretty much everything else iconic in the set is still in reach in a 10 and there’s no rule that requires a complete set. :blush:

I tried checking out the forum grading you mentioned, but it says I don’t have permission to view that thread. Guessing like most other forums, a member needs x amount of quality posts or to be a member for x amount of days before having access?

Here is the thread, it should be accessible to anyone:

www.elitefourum.com/t/e4-psa-grading-service-ludkins-usa-grading/21654/1