My priorities wouldn’t change at all, I’d still want mint or better cards. At least with grading, I won’t have to gamble with awful listing photos.
2 Likes
I would probably focus almost exclusively on NM cards then, and maybe even EX/NM conditioned cards for less desirable ones. I would also unlikely pay a premium for what would be considered “gem mint” because it’d be pretty hard to prove unless it verifiable to some standard that would be put in place similar to grading.
In the end, grading does help quite a bit at times. Even when it comes to NM vintage cards, there’s usually a huge difference from a PSA 8 graded card and your average “NM” on eBay for example. It’s actually one thing that sort of drives me nuts is that huge discrepancy in grading condition standards and the average cards on the market, and so I’m often forced to buy slabs at times to count on getting something that actually is NM condition.
The way I approach investment would change dramatically, BUT as far as my collection goes, I’d probably be a lot happier. If I saw a nice binder copy, I wouldn’t have to crack it out of a slab, and question whether I was killing the value.
1 Like
I would prob just soly focus on Artist Binders, Cool card binders, and Master sets 
I could really care less about PSA 7-10 worthy cards.
As long as the card is VG+ to NM, I am totally happy 
1 Like
If grading never existed, the entire hobby would have progressed in a completely different direction. It’s hard to say exactly what this direction would have been. Without grading, would there be as much interest as there is today? Maybe. But would there be as much money involved? It’s hard to say. Grading companies helped drive exposure during the boom periods of the hobby…and grading is so pervasive, it’s hard to imagine the hobby without it.
It might not be accurate, but ideally in my mind this hobby without grading would be much smaller than it is now. It certainly would have grown some during 2020 but to nowhere near the extent it did in reality. In this made-up fiction costs would be lower across the board, though of course ruled by supply and demand (so scarcer/in demand generally = higher cost). If this was how the hobby was today, I’d probably have been able to do something I’ve only dreamt of: cracking cases upon cases of BW to build complete, self-pulled sets (grand, I know lol). Unfortunately today, the prices of these boxes are too high to justify opening them imo. So I have to stick to singles.
2 Likes
I think I would still focus on rare Cards only, maybe even focussing more on Cards with original Shields
2 Likes
How has transitioning/expanding to graded cards affected your:
Happiness/Satisfaction
How happy/satisfied were you with your collection before you started to collect graded cards?
- More Happy/Satisfied
- Equally Happy/Satisfied
- Less Happy/Satisfied
0 voters
Budget
How did you spend money on your collection before you started to collect graded cards?
- I spent more money
- I spent an equal amount of money
- I spent less money
0 voters
Time Spent Searching
How much time did you spend on auction websites before you started to collect graded cards?
- I spent more time on auction websites
- I spent an equal amount of time on auction websites
- I spent less time on auction websites
0 voters
Legitimately thinking of selling the majority of my slabs, aside from childhood cards that I’d never sell, to expand on mainly binder collecting.
3 Likes
This thread has turned a bit existential for us slab collectors 
5 Likes
mine wouldn’t change much at all. i bet it would be easier to find nm cards since none are being sent to psa or elsewhere. condition isnt something im too focused on in general. there are so many cards that i want, that paying that extra premium for graded simply isnt worth it.
I would definitely focus more on binder collections. For binders I think I would seek out cards in a little worse condition as long as the front of the cards look nice. For rarer cards I would still seek out mint or gem mint cards though. I wouldn’t pay PSA 10/BGS 10/CGC 10 prices because the condition wouldn’t be guaranteed at that point and something could happen during shipping.
1 Like
MOST but not all of my slabs have been purchased for value, NOT for collecting. I’d gladly sell most of my graded collection before even considering my binders.