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Where Did We Go Wrong With Grading?

By Wes Cooke

Here’s a comprehensive summary of how card grading has disrupted and, in many cases, negatively impacted the trading card hobby:

💸 1. Grading turned the hobby into a marketplace

Grading shifted focus from personal enjoyment to investment. Many collectors now chase perfect grades—PSA 9s and 10s—as financial assets, rather than for nostalgia or fun. The cards are being pumped out as quickly as they can make them, too, many of which are damaged in the pack. My latest damaged replacement was returned with a Mosaic Sparkle Pack and the rep at Panini told me: "The rerun batches have been worse than the initial damaged production." Wow!!

🎯 2. Obsession with perfection hurts enjoyment

Collectors increasingly reject raw cards with minor flaws. A small amount of whitening is considered garbage because it won’t score a stupid 10. Many share stories of losing joy because of over-scrutiny. When I used to do this as a kid, I was just happy to get a rare card. Now… I look at its centering. A bona fide 9 from PSA should not fetch the same as raw, but it does. The potential of a 10 is more appealing than owning a mint-condition item. That's just nuts to me!

🏛 3. Costs and barriers for casual collectors

Grading fees have skyrocketed, with PSA and others raising prices to manage submission backlogs. Many casual hobbyists are priced out: "It was too expensive to continue … I’m a collector, not an investor," said a close friend recently.

⏳ 4. Backlogs and delays skew value

The PSA backlog means that graded cards can take months, or even over a year, to return. If you had your card back next week, it may sell for hundreds, even more. Nine months from now, your player could be injured or retired. Tank Dell, anyone?

🧪 5. Inconsistent grading & grading fraud

Human error and lack of consistency lead to unreliable grades. Cards resubmitted get different grades, and some are even altered or trimmed without detection. I’ve sent the same exact card, only to get a different grade each time. Yes really! Sending a submission on my own got me an 8 on a 2023 Prizm V Silver Stroud. Cracked it and sent it back in with a reputable submission company that spends a lot of coin each month, and guess what it came back from them? A 10! Again, yes really!

📉 6. Oversaturation reducing value

With millions of modern cards graded, the relative rarity that justified grading diminishes. Soon enough, expect plateauing or falling prices on graded modern cards. Before it's all done, the only valuable cards will be vintage with limited print runs and where a 7 is king. Keep this receipt!

🤝 7. Community & social bonds weakened

The grading boom has diluted local card shop culture. In-person deals and casual trade, once the heart of the hobby, give way to online-only, slab-based transactions.

Grading services like PSA, BGS, and SGC brought structure and helped authenticate cards, but the massive scale and profit-driven model have also:

• Prioritized investment over enjoyment

• Raised financial barriers

• Introduced ethical and grading inconsistencies

• Shattered the raw-card community vibe

Hopefully, collectors will push back, emphasizing raw collecting, local interactions, and personal love of the hobby. Whether the future recaptures that original spirit remains to be seen, but I will be doing my part and have personally sworn off grading another card for the foreseeable future. Be the change you want to see!

Buy/Sell Targets - NBA Free Agency Edition!

This doesn’t constitute investment advice, more just a window into my overall strategy and how I see the market, and for entertainment purposes.

✔ Luke Doncic 🏀 - His pricing fascinates me. Right now, many of his cards are at their lowest point in 2 years! I don’t think the Lakers are a top-line contender, but he’s still playing with LeBron and Austin Reaves, so they should be good. I’m betting on him coming back with a vengeance, and I still think the Lakers have another move to make.

✔ Cam Smith ⚾ - 80% of the reason I picked him is because we have the same name! Also, 2.3 WAR in less than 80 games for a 22-year-old rookie on a good team is stellar. He’s been a high OPS guy at every level, so we can even expect improvement on his current .786 (which ain’t bad). He’s a bit of a hot name, but there’s definite room to go up.

✔ Andy Pages ⚾ - For his future prices, I’m glad he missed the All-Star team. In the past 66 games (before Sunday), he was first in batting average (.326) and fifth in home runs (15) among NL outfielders, along with 53 RBIs. This guy seems like a future (current?) star in a massive market. A PSA 10 Bowman Chrome 1st auto sells for under $200. He’s not Pete Crow-Armstrong, but his are selling for $900.

❌ Amen Thompson 🏀 - I’ve been banging his drum all along, but man, he’s got too much hype for me to buy in. His PSA 10 Silver Prizm rookies are selling for $250 and still climbing despite the offseason. The train might’ve left without me, because I’m not sure he’ll ever be the type of offensive player that can carry a team (and the hobby). I probably wouldn’t actually sell him, but I wouldn’t buy at this price either.

❌ LeBron James 🏀 - Here’s the thing. His all-time legacy is cemented, but I think we could see some strange stuff in his pricing. For example, Kobe’s market dropped in his last few years in the league, playing poorly through injuries, but we know his place in the hobby now. There’s enough uncertainty around LeBron right now that we could see the same. What if he gets traded? Or his play drops off a cliff? Or, what if his team is just okay and we get LeBron’s famous passive-aggressive messages? I think selling now (or in a few months when the season is getting closer) and then buying back later after a drop could be the way to go. His overall market is up over the past 6 months:

❌  Cal Raleigh ⚾ - What a fun story! I love what he’s doing…but I’m just not a believer in the sustainability here. Before this year, his best batting average was .232, and his best OPS was .774. Do we think his 1.029 OPS is going to stick? Plus, catchers are infamous for taking days off, being injury-prone, and having shorter careers. He could be Mike Piazza, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Take the win if you have his cards.

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Quick Hits

News From Around the Hobby

+ eBay Auction Mayhem - eBay plans to test out “extending auction durations by 2 minutes when a bid is placed in the last 2 minutes of an auction.” This test is limited to certain trading card listings. I think I love this as a seller—when someone bids with 10 seconds left, now there’s a chance for the other bidders to come back and top it. Might get a few extra bucks from some cards.

+ Cards vs Stocks? - “Here’s an overview of how cards in general have performed relative to the S&P 500 over the past three decades.” The main takeaway is that the S&P 500 is a much safer investment, while investing in the right cards would’ve netted you much more. This is why I always recommend investing in stars, and not loading up on second-tier guys that’ll be forgotten in a few years. It’s also waaaaaay more fun to invest in sports cards than stocks!

+ A Bunch of Whatnot - “25-year-old skipped college—now her sports trading card company brings in more than $1 million a week on Whatnot.” Live selling is huge in other countries, but still in its infancy here. Huge opportunity.

+ June the Hottest Card Month? - “An all-time online sales record for sports and trading card transactions was set in June, with more than $305 million spent on the hobby across the major auction houses and marketplaces.” June wouldn’t have been my first guess (December? October?), but I love seeing these major growth signals across the hobby!

+ Hobby Budget Grails - You’re on a budget, but want to have a sweet card collection. Here are the best ones to target that still make your friends go “wow.” (Of course, the Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck is #1. Solid choice.)

A ton of collectors are sifting through their collections for the first time in 20 years, desperately wishing they knew how to protect sports cards better! [Keep Reading]

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The content in this newsletter is for entertainment purposes only and is not intended to be actual financial or investment advice.