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10 Million cards doesn't surprise me at all.A rumor I saw said Nat Turner made a post on social media indicating the PSA backlog is 10 million cards waiting to be graded.
Sold a big ticket item on eBay tonight so I picked a couple other cheap slabs and auto. Won a Panini Crusade Ryan Anderson card /10 that was PSA 9 for under $9 shipped. Anderson will never fetch money but he was super nice when I talked to him before a game and a card with a print run of 10 and well graded seemed like a solid PC pickup. Also won an Essentials Zach Collins rookie PSA 10 for about $20 shipped. He’s been out injured again but he plays well when not injured. In current climate it could be a steal by this time next year, worst case scenario it is the same as the base price for grading same card right now. The auto was in looking at the ridiculous prices of the Hoops Rookie Ink, I stumbled on a seller that had Suns rookie Jalen Smith for about $20 shipped. Nice signature, he was a lottery pick and has been solid the couple times I’ve seen him get minutes. In current market, seemed to make sense as young guys are one good game away from being priced out at all times now.
Mail today was fruitful because I got the Premium Stock Ja Morant that I got a solid price for a few weeks back and I got the Red /5 Bayley card from the 2020 Topps Finest. I have that an entire rainbow except the Superfractor now. The seller that had it on eBay was looking for pennies under $600 for it. I tried an offer the other day but it seemed like the lowest they would go was $350, which I’m still not comfortable with for a single card. Listing went down today, no idea if it really sold as the seller had it up months ago, took it down and put it back up. May be doing that again but I don’t have faith it will hit a price I’m comfortable with as everything in this seller’s storefront looked overpriced to me. I get setting your own price for a card that is the only one but the Chrome Superfractor of Big Show which may be one of his last WWE products ever released sold for around $80 the other day. Pete Dunne went for $70-something, which I’m kicking myself for missing because I have a lot in that rainbow too, including the /5. Granted Bayley goes for higher prices than those guys regularly but 7.5x the going price of those seems like a dramatic jump.
I like Zach Collins but he's just constantly been injured and never seems to stay healthy.
Yeah, in today's market there's a ton of sellers who are A: trying to set a market on their card even if it's /99 (PWCC, Probstein getting higher sales which push higher sales prices elsewhere also doesn't help) and B: ignore the general market and overprice their own card for emotional reasons because it's 1/1 or of a Bayley/Alexa Bliss/Charlotte Flair who tend to command higher prices instead of a Big Show or Finn Balor.
Another example, there's a 2004 Score Final Score SP Parallel - Troy Brown card. Serial Numbered 7/14. It's a cool card. The Ebay seller has it listed for $79.99 and 20% off gets it down to $63.99. Really? It's a cool card but it's Troy Brown, it's Score football as a brand, and it's a card from 2004. I could pick up two Immaculate /99 Autographs (one Eye Black) for $71 combined.
As for @SFH post, a lot of people treat GMA as a red-headed dirty stepchild. Even Youtube videos now are all going, "Will SGC/HGA/CGC step up and be the slabber for low-end cards," and it's like... GMA is right there and they were built on that exact reputation. If you wanted vintage, you'd sub to SGC and if you wanted low-end cards or strictly lower PC items, send them to GMA. A lot of these new people in the hobby don't seem to understand that these grading companies aren't all necessarily aiming to be PSA 2.0.
I'll be the first to say I've cooled a bit on GMA in relation to picking up BGS/PSA/SGC slabs but I'd still take them over an HGA. I don't quite trust HGA's technology and think due to the technology it'll be very, very hard to get 10s if they over fine-tune the surface grading to be too harsh, which I think they've done. I still think GMA's a fantastic alternative for picking up 80s/90s 'Junk Wax' era Rookies that look as good as their PSA counterparts at cheaper prices but all of the ACEO Custom Cards do rub me the wrong way in terms of being graded.
Made an offer of $9.99 for a 1992 Jeff Bagwell Topps #520 All-Star Rookie Cup GMA 8.5. It's a solid-looking card and PSA 10s were going for $25-$40 by comparison. Considering the high print runs, I'm fine owning just a NM card that looks good rather than paying almost 3-4X for a PSA label while the card's back is probably worse than the GMA card. But I'm a weirdo who looks at the back of cards and weighs them as equally important as the front.