For all you veterans out there, what is your process for finding gradeable cards to buy? Long careful hunts? Shooting your shot until you finally score?
It completely depends on what I’m attempting to grade.
If it’s WOTC Commons/Uncommons/Rares, I’ll just a bunch in bulk, sort out the gradeable copies and list the other copies I won’t be grading up for sale on eBay.
If it’s for more valuable items, such as holos or Japanese promos, I’ll either search out the cards I’m looking for individually on eBay or I’ll just find some sellers that I really like and go through their stores periodically to see what they have available.
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It’s much harder these days to find vintage holos in good condition worth grading, imo. I will pretty much only buy those if I can see them in person at a shop, convention etc. I’ve been burned a couple times on bad shipping and hidden scratches in photos, but have had a fair bit of luck by talking to sellers and getting them to assess condition.
For cards XY and beyond I tend to just message sellers and ask them to assess condition and send more photos if needed. Usually I get what I want, and if I don’t I just add to my binder collections.
I also have a few sellers that I keep going back to because I trust them and have developed a relationship over time. I usually get the best finds from them.
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buy 15,000 raws on ebay then pick out the most favorable ones then put them in card savers and leave them on my counter never to be graded
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Pretty much what cerulean said. Very accurate.
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Well, I think it’s still pretty easy to find just about any card from any era in gradable condition. Tons and tons of stuff out there that will be PSA 7, 8 and even 9 worthy for the most part. PSA 10s though is gonna be tough to find unless you get pretty lucky. I’ve bought numerous card lots off of eBay over the years in order to build sets and I find people sort out the real gem condition cards and leave the mint and near-mint cards in the lots more often than not. I bought a Jungle 1st Edition lot recently that was labelled as ‘unplayed’ and ‘pack fresh’ and out of the 30 some odd cards I think maybe 2-3 might be gem mint but probably mint while the rest are most likely PSA 8 or so with my own subjective view on it. I’m still really happy with the lot because I got them for a great price and they’re perfect for sleeving into a binder.
You have to be looking pretty often to find the best deals like this and unfortunately eBay and places have so many ads to sort and look through which is both a good and bad thing I guess.
For these reason, I tend to only buy my favourite cards in graded condition already than trying to find cards to grade myself. I always shoot for 9s and 10s and anything else I buy to complete sets or put into a binder instead. I’d say the majority of my binder(s) would be high grade condition overall but not worth it to send to PSA at least not right now.
Buy raw gem mint cards on ebay for cheap, send them to PSA get all 10’s, flip for x2500% profit, upload the cash on Ig, repeat.
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Buy cards from trollandtoad, tcgplayer, or japanese sites w/o any pictures that say “NM” or “beauty” expecting a binder copy (and priced accordingly), and be pleasantly surprised when it comes mint. Then proceed to grade it, and buy another binder copy to replace it.
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Open boosters.
I don’t think many people are going to be completely open sharing their process, but it really comes down to research, lots of time, and luck!
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