The starting point of valuation is the cost of grading. If grading a card does not increase the cards value past the cost of grading, it is junk. This is a real weird hill to die on imo
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@alchemyst , it seems like you’re mainly taking issue with the term “junk” rather than the actual definition in the context it’s being used in. Your position here would benefit from that rather than just dismissing other’s opinions because they’re calling things “junk”.
“Junk Slabs” in the wider sense of the Pokemon hobby are cards that have little value to the general target market. For example, there isn’t much demand for a CGC 3.5 unlimited Base Set Wartortle for the general collector (which all these youtubers / influencers are catering to). There’s probably some collector who wants to collect CGC 1 to 10 Wartortles that it might have value to, but since the demand is so small and the supply is large, the card has very little value and is thus, “junk”.
You should not confuse “junk slabs” with cards that are niche. Niche cards also tend to have limited supply, which junk slabs do not. For example, you said you could consider trophy cards “junk” because there isn’t a wider market for them. That is exceedingly incorrect given the prices they fetch at auctions. There is demand, just the general target market can’t afford it. If you could buy an illustrator for $1000, you definitely would.
TL;DR: “Junk Slabs” is a lot easier to say than “Slabs that have a big supply with little demand”. Most people are just calling those slabs what they are to them, which is junk.
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I feel embarrassed to be linked to this post in the second comment on it, but my opinion on there being no such thing as a junk slab remains. Even the lamest graded card could have sentimental value, meme value, or negative value due to shipping costing more than the card/slab, those things dont make it junk, they just make it less desirable and less valuable. Ill admit that i do have a definition of a junk slab though, a slab which is broken and thrown away after the card has been salvaged… if the card goes along with it into the trash thats just the way she goes i guess. There comes a point where a “bad” card graded, if “bad” enough, has added value purely due to the meme’ness.
If i were to create a class of slabs which are what most people would call junk slabs i think the most agreeable characteristic would be this: if PWCC auctioned it, would it get a minimum bid, if not, its a bad sell, maybe its a junk slab to some, but like i said the story behind it being graded might be something to consider… if the story was stonks well sorry but thats junk stonks more than a junk slab
It’s not that most are viewing in terms of value, but rather acknowledging. I for example can easily call my Slowpoke fossil unlimited 9 a junk slab, and I don’t see my cards as dollar signs or value or anything. I distinguish between how I view them (love, interest, passion, what have you), and a more objective world view of them. It’s like semantics over the actual definition of something versus how you associate a word or what a word means to you. All that junk slab means is a value term. It isn’t an insult to a card, but as described above, a description for the fact that said card holds no monetary value when adding the slab. That’s the only reason for the term. It’s the slab, not the card.
Almost all of the discussers involved here collect worthless slabs and love them equally or nearly equal to their other slabs. There are few who really constitute a divide here on E4. I don’t audit my slabs at all, but it is acknowledged at some point, or occasionally at least. That is a fact of life that what you earned gets due consideration for what was done to earn it. Whether it be your labor, your creativity, or your dollars spent.
I just want to stand up for the fact that most serious, passionate collectors in this particular discussion defending the inoffensive term don’t care as much about the value of their collection as they do having the cards. After all, most who are talking here (including me), have been collecting now-expensive slabs and once junk slabs since before they were worth a damn, and continue to buy monetarily worthless slabs, yet say that they do acknowledge that there are junk slabs.
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If a person has a strong sentimental bond to a certain low-value card, they will submit it regardless of what anyone calls it - but no one here would call such a sentimental card a “junk slab” anyway.
If this person’s reason for submitting a readily available, bad condition card is of financial nature, they should be glad that the term “junk slab” exists, because it might make them aware that they’re about to throw their money out of the window and hopefully think twice about it.
As an added benefit this person won’t be adding to the PSA backlog which is positive for everyone involved.
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Not very desirable? A PSA 7 Illustrator just sold for $900k.
It’s not that a “fraction of a fraction of people” want those cards; it’s that only a fraction of a fraction of people can actually afford them.
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Why do you think people call the 90s era of sports cards the junk wax era? It is one of the most loved eras, but the very people that love it (like myself) recognize it as the junk wax era. We are not saying that there is no sentimental value, we are saying that the card companies overprinted far too much and drove prices into the ground. Base rookie cards of hall of famers were worth a dime. You are misinterpreting the term junk and applying it to if people enjoy the product or not. Cards that are worth less than the slab they are in are junk slabs. If you want to slab your beat up childhood card, all the power to you. Just because people find joy in the card does not mean it cannot get the “junk” label over it.
One of my favorite cards of all time is the 1990 Fleer Michael Jordan card. It has one of the best photos of an athlete on a card, yet in the 90s it was basically worthless due to overwhelming supply. Is that card junk to me? No way, but was it one of the biggest contributors to the junk wax era? Most definitely.
There are a lot of bad takes in this thread but “all the people on this forum who have been collecting cards since 2014 only care about value of their collection and not owning the cards” may be the worst.
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‘Junk slab’ is not just a term related to monetary value. There was a point when PSA 6 Base Unlimited Charmanders were selling for >$50. Now they’re worth significantly less than that. They were equally as much junk slabs then as they are now. At the same time that PSA 6 Base Unlimited Charmanders were selling for $50 ea, there were other cards that could be had for $50 ea that weren’t junk slabs.
In fact, there are cards still selling for >$30 that that I suspect most people here would view as “junk slabs.” And there are cards still selling for <$30 that I suspect most people here would not view as “junk slabs.” So it’s clearly not just a monetary value-related term.
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If your issue is really with the word “junk” being used to describe slabs of little monetary value, just don’t use that term.
That cgc 3.5 wartortle is a “sunshine happiness slab”. There ya go.
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I did address some of the points you made. You said the market dictates the value. I agreed, but said it’s more than that.
You said you’ve yet to see a non emotional argument against calling em junk slabs. I don’t need to give you a non emotional argument, because emotions is what drives most of our decisions as humans.
If you want to disregard what I say, because it doesn’t fit a non emotional argument, I can do the same with you only using a financial argument. I would rather not do that though
Are you even a collector if you dont buy expensive cards?
You aren’t the first to say that, and won’t be the last. Recently I sold some shoes, at market were $750, for $250 each. I made $300 in profit between the two. I think a little differently when it comes to this stuff.
at least you got your own thread. That in itself is extremely rare
People aren’t obsessed with valuable cards, they just want them, and there aren’t enough to go around. Therefore those particular cards naturally earn higher price tags and warrant more discussion.
“junk slabs” is just a slang term to describe graded cards that people, including yourself, don’t want. Here is an image of cards that ended with 0 bids at $0:
Feel free to use whatever term to describe those cards. It won’t change the fact that no one currently wants them. It isn’t some grand conspiracy, its just there are cards that have no added value or demand being graded.
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So you left $1,000 on the table for what exactly?
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Who the hell graded those
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@alchemyst, let’s take a real-life example. In late 2020, Flipper X sent 200 unlimited Base Charmanders in LP-MP condition to PSA for $10 each. He obviously isn’t emotionally attached to these cards at all, he only wanted to capitalize on the 2020 craze (that is now long gone).
When he gets them back sometime in late '21/early '22, he’s now sitting on 200 obscenely common PSA 3-6 cards that he can’t sell for anything but a big loss. The only emotions they evoke in him are probably anger and despair.
We also know for a fact that, apart from the obvious financial loss, grading these cards has cost valuable, limited resources like time, work power, storage space at PSA’s facility, crude oil for the cases and gas for shipping.
And it was in fact - inarguably - all for nothing, because Flipper X would’ve been better off (and happier) selling them raw, resources would’ve been saved and the time could’ve been used by PSA to grade cards that have actual value (both sentimental and monetary).
How could you not understand why we call such slabs “junk”?
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the real junk slabs are the friends we met along the way
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I actually haven’t been dismissive of other’s opinions though. I’ve already said that I agree there are cards that have less monetary value. I just didn’t agree on using the term junk for them. Especially coming from those that hold influence over others in the community