"Rick Scott" wrote in message
ups.com...
Grading Systems Have DISTROYED the hobby.


This is so true. When this was a hobby back in the 1970a to about the mid
1980s people bought/sold/traded for fun because they like sports &
sportscards. In around 1984 when Donruss was hot everyone started to invest
in Mattingly & Strawberry rookies. The next 5 years saw all kinds of stuff
occur from Upper Deck arriving to FB, BSK, HK etc. get hot. Then in the late
80's/90 Alan Hagar started Accu-card which was the 1st card grading company.
He took his knowledge from coin grading and crossed it over. He has made a
lot of $! and at the time i liked his ideas & product. He was like the
inventor so i still congratulate him on his success. At first for a while
the major dealers from Rosen down the line did not like this and said they
would never sell graded cards. after a few of the people started doing it
and getting MORE money than they could non-graded many others followed or
"crossed the picket lines". You have to remember at those times in the card
industry profitbale sales for most people were flat and everyone was just
turning their items over & over and not making much money like it was in the
1984-1989 frenzy. The few people who stayed with grading cards saw the
potential and took advantage of it and now there are many ways to get cards
graded and make money and as well lose money. There really isn't a hobby
anymore. Companies have come & gone and it isn't cheap to produce things
like you use to. Everyone sees grading cards as a gimmick to buy this & that
but in actualality it gives no one a reaosn to collect but to only buy for
what something is possibly worth. People take older cards & trim them since
sizes varied and restore cards and i see them all the time in PSA holders.
Old cards did not have super sharp edges or corners cut by exacto knives and
what is really the worst out of this is the inconsistent grading . I thought
the government would have got involved in the fraud that was and is being
committed with altered graded cards long ago but so far those people still
get away with it and they know what they are doing. What was the hobby in
1990 has lost many good dealers & collectors but since grading ='s $ more
people with $ have kept this thing going some more. It will never die at
once but again people can only afford so much so more people give up buying
only to give wau to some teenager trying to make a $ as the new breed chases
things like Bonds etc. The grading thing after so long sees a very good % of
the market & what is out there and then at some point the rare cards & very
important finds or high grades start seeing stupid $ and people get richer.
Eventually the only people who make money are the graders. It may be 10
years down the road but things are really dead overall unless you get
ungraded older stuff that is truely nrmt/mt from private collectors who
don't do SCD or Rosen type dealers with the big bucks or even Ebay as that
goes. Graded cards desrtoyed this hobby and could never change it back.
Where once it was a hooby , now it is just big business. Everything will
eventually turn into the same thing just like coins & stamps but this time
it will be graded comic books, records & paper money.