I Just Graded 14 Cards with PSA—Surprises, Shocks, and What the Hecks
Grading is a crapshoot. I don't do it often, but the stars aligned on this one. Here are the results, why I chose to grade these cards specifically, and what I learned.
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This is not buying or investment advice. Please do your own research and make your own decisions. Just because cards have increased in value up to this point, it doesn’t mean they will continue to do so.
I really don’t grade a lot of cards. In fact, I think this was my only order in 2024, and it was by far my biggest ever.
Reason being, as someone who doesn’t like risk, grading usually doesn’t make sense. But this time it did because:
1) I found a collection for a really good price and decided to parlay those savings into grading costs and roll the dice a bit.
2) Sometimes I need to do things for content. That is, the stories that action creates allow me to pass along the takeaways to you all, my TikTok audience, etc.
Anyway, here is the list of cards I sent in (and yes, if it looks like a random assortment, it largely is).
14 cards total for a grading cost of about $284 (about $20 per card):
2006 Finest 62 D.J. Shockley Green Xfractor
2014 Topps Chrome 130 Albert Pujols Black Refractor
1995 Topps World Class WC1 Michael Jordan
1996 Collector's Choice 267 Kobe Bryant
1996 Collector's Choice 267 Kobe Bryant
1996 Collector's Choice 267 Kobe Bryant
1996 Collector's Choice 267 Kobe Bryant
1996 Skybox Premium 203 Kobe Bryant
1996 Collector's Choice Mini II Jermaine O'Neal/Kobe Bryant/Kevin Garnett
1996 Collector's Choice Mini II Jermaine O'Neal/Kobe Bryant/Kevin Garnett
1996 Collector's Choice Mini II Jermaine O'Neal/Kobe Bryant/Kevin Garnett
1996 Fleer 203 Kobe Bryant
2006 Finest 1 Carmelo Anthony Black Refractor /99
1996 Collector's Choice 361 Shareef Abdur-Rahim/Kobe Bryant One on One
Let’s talk about why these and how everything turned out.
1. All the Kobes
As mentioned, one big reason I decided to grade is because I picked up a basketball card collection for relatively cheap, around $200.
There were a lot of opened packs, and it looked like all of the Jordans and inserts had been removed, but all of the Kobe Bryant rookies were still in each.
I quickly sold a lot of the raw stuff I wasn’t even considering grading for about $200 before fees.
Feeling good about ROI, I took the leap with these 10 cards that were in borderline PSA 9/10 condition (so I thought), which at $20 per card, was a $200 cost.
1996 Collector's Choice 267 Kobe Bryant
1996 Collector's Choice 267 Kobe Bryant
1996 Collector's Choice 267 Kobe Bryant
1996 Collector's Choice 267 Kobe Bryant
1996 Skybox Premium 203 Kobe Bryant
1996 Collector's Choice Mini II Jermaine O'Neal/Kobe Bryant/Kevin Garnett
1996 Collector's Choice Mini II Jermaine O'Neal/Kobe Bryant/Kevin Garnett
1996 Collector's Choice Mini II Jermaine O'Neal/Kobe Bryant/Kevin Garnett
1996 Fleer 203 Kobe Bryant
1996 Collector's Choice 361 Shareef Abdur-Rahim/Kobe Bryant One on One
From these, I was hoping to get 6 PSA 10s: at least two 10s from the Collector’s Choice, a 10 on the Skybox, two 10s on the Minis, and a 10 on the One-on-One.
Well, I only got two!
Thankfully the Skybox was one of them, and that should take care of the bulk of the total cost once I sell it.
It’s a beauty:
The three other Collector’s Choice Kobes got 9s, fine, as did the Fleer.
But the Minis?
Awful.
PSA 9
PSA 7
PSA 6
Wow.
These were all “pack fresh” but I’m guessing the bottom edge was the culprit:
So, overall, I came up short of expectations but still did fine.
2. Two Crack and Resubmits
While the Kobes fueled most of the grading decision, both the Jordan and the Carmelo were cards I’ve been wanting to crack from previous submissions to try again with.
The Jordan I bought raw, actually on COMC for $150 and graded with COMC.
This is what it looked like raw:
I thought it was pretty clean!
Anyway, I way overpaid based on raw comps, but again, thought it looked great. I bought in September of 2023, and at the time, this is what comps looked like:
So, a tight window, and some inconsistencies. A PSA 9 sold for $695 but the two most recent PSA 8s sold for $199 and $450. More risk than I usually like.
Anyway, this is what it graded the first time around:
Flabbergasted.
I thought it would get at least a 7 worst case scenario.
Anyway, stubbornly, I thought there had to be a mistake. So, I cracked and examined. A couple corners weren’t the best, but there were also a couple ink smudges.
It was at this time that my content brain kicked in. Yes, I wanted a higher grade, but I also thought it could be a good learning experience.
Well, joke was on me. Here was the second try:
ANOTHER 6. I was honestly shocked, but there was consistency at least.
So, now I’m stuck with this card as a PSA 6 and I wasted money grading it not once but twice.
All of that said, recent comps for a PSA 6 are pretty favorable. Based on this, I should have sold the first time.
The Carmelo, thankfully was a better outcome, and one I wasn’t expecting.
I bought this card off of COMC as a CSG 9 for $40 and shipped it home. Now, this was all of the way back in June 2023, so I can’t remember why this card specifically, but it could have been that the card had a lot of eBay watchers.
I think this was also around the time where there was buzz around the fact that CSG was really strict in their grading, so I might have thought this card had a chance at a PSA 10 based on that.
Anyway, when I cracked it out of the CSG slab, I did see some surface scratches that I wasn’t expecting, so ended up trying to sell it raw (disclosing that it was previously graded, of course).
It never sold, so thought why not give it a shot at getting a PSA 9.
Well, surprise, surprise, and this time, the good kind:
I’m guessing I can sell for about $100 to $150, so not making a ton, but a good outcome.
3. DJ Shockley?
Why did I grade a backup QB who never played in a regular season NFL game?
More of a content play, but also curiosity and a test.
I bought the card (which is /50) raw for $1.50 and realized it was in great shape once I had it in hand.
My thinking was that if it gemmed as a PSA 10, perhaps I could get $50+? And if it came out a 9, I’d be close to breaking even on the cost of grading?
Again, just a thought. No graded comps on this card and rightly so.
Unfortunately a 9 it was.
I’ll never know what a card like this could have fetched as a PSA 10, and now I just feel silly.
When it comes to grading cards, avoid feeling silly.
I think the special I graded these with was a 10-card minimum, so under normal circumstances, I should have graded the Kobes and just stopped there.
Being a content creator has afforded me certain things, but it also requires me to take action where I wouldn’t normally.
All said, a good experience, and one we can all learn from. Questions or comments? You know where to find me!
Great content. I appreciate the effort put in to this. I just recently sent a submission in myself. Mostly modern stuff for the PC. It is so nerve racking waiting to see if it was actually worth it or not. I'm always curious to know what the odds are for modern to slightly older cards gem rates. I love 90's cards like you but I just have a hard time justifying grading them.