Lost Mail

It finally happened.  It seems as if the United States Postal Service lost a package that was supposed to be delivered to my house.

It was a 2016 Panini Optic Jared Goff bronze autograph.  I paid $84.99 plus $3.00 shipping for it.  Tracking information said it was delivered today, likely between 11 a.m. and noon, but it was not in my mailbox. 

I'm hoping that it was merely put into a neighbor's mailbox by accident and that they'll deliver it to my house. 

Finding BGS 9.5s on COMC.com

As a buyer, one of the best benefits of COMC.com are the high quality scans that they have of the cards on the site.  They have some of the highest quality scans you'll find for cards you're about to buy.  I don't know of any other website which takes so much time and effort to supply these scans.

Usually, when you buy cards on eBay you're forced to judge the condition of the card from crappy camera phone pictures or crap scans of the card through a super-scratched up toploader.  The condition of the card is often a guessing gaming, and always a significant gamble.  Sometimes the eBay sellers don't even provide a picture or scan of the back of the card so it's impossible to know the condition of the card's back!  It's basically like trying to view a card through a dirty and scratched up window, and only looking at the front.  That is hard.  I've been burned many times because of this, having received cards which had damage and flaws which were not visible in the crap pictures and scans.

COMC tries to avoid this dilemma by providing the highest quality scans possible so you can see every print spot, see every dinged corner, and see every chipped edge.  Honestly, the only thing which I do find hard to see on COMC's scans are any gouges or scratches on the surface of the card itself, but these would be hard to see anyways on most any camera pictures or scans.

Thanks to the high quality scans on COMC, it's very possible to find raw cards for sale which are likely BGS 9.5 cards once graded.

I was lucky enough to find one when viewing Aaron Rodgers rookie cards.  Below are the actual COMC scans which I saw when viewing the card.
 

Aaron Rodgers Bowman Rookie Card

By carefully looking at all the scans of these cards, I was able to pick out which ones were in the best shape.  I carefully examined the front of the card to see which ones had the best centering.  If the centering was perfect, or at least what I would deem to be an acceptable 9.0 centering subgrade, then I checked the corners and edges.  In this case I was looking for white specks which are indicative of dings and chips.

Aaron Rodgers Bowman Rookie Card

A lot of the cards had really banged up corners and edges.  It was very easy to rule out a lot of the cards based on corners and edges alone.  In the end, I had settled on two cards which I thought to be in sufficiently good enough condition to warrant a BGS 9.5 grade.  After carefully examining the scans for print spots, dirt, or other spots which might indicate surface card damage, and then re-examining the cards' corners and edges, I bought the better of the two.  I paid $11.55 for it.  

When I received that card from COMC in my next shipment, I was pleased to see that the card was indeed in great shape.  I knew I had a BGS 9.0 at the very least and a great shot at nabbing a BGS 9.5.

Remember, to get a BGS 9.5, you have to have at least three 9.5 subgrades, and any subgrades which aren't a 9.5 must be a 9.0.  (See this old blog post for general overview of the BGS grading formula.) 

A couple months later this card was sent off to Beckett for BGS grading.  When I got it back, I was happy to see that it got graded as a BGS 9.5 Gem Mint!  All four subgrades got a grade of 9.5. 

The value of this card, having been graded a BGS 9.5, is approximately $25 to $50 on eBay.  Considering that it cost me around $15 to have it graded this wouldn't be a huge profit, if any, if I were selling it to make money but I'm not.  This is a PC card and I'm happy to just put it in my collection.  It does bring me happiness and sense of pride though, knowing that I found it raw on COMC.  This just goes to show that with a little hard work, and a careful eye, that you can find BGS 9.5 cards on COMC.

Give it a shot!

BGS Beckett Grading Tip: Centering

Of the four Becket Grading Service (BGS) subgrades -- centering, corners, edges, and surface -- the card's centering should be the easiest for you to evaluate on your own.  The only tool you're really need is a ruler.

It's important to keep in mind what makes for a good centering subgrade.  Beckett's own website provides guidance on this issue:

Pristine 10 centering must be: "50/50 all around on the front and 60/40 or better on the back."  

Gem Mint 9.5 centering must be: "50/50 one way, 55/45 the other way on the front, and 60/40 or better on the back."

Mint 9.0 centering must be: "55/45 both ways on the front, and 60/40 or better on the back."  

Understanding what the above language means is critical to making sure you're only submitting cards for grading which should receive a 10 or 9.5 on its centering subgrade.

The first important note to take away from the above language is that the card's front centering is way more important to obtaining a good centering subgrade than the card's back centering.  Even with 60/40 centering on the back of the card you still can get a 9.0, 9.5 or 10 subgrade on the centering subgrade depending on the card's front centering.

The second important note to take away from the above language is that to get a centering subgrade of 10, the card's front centering must be 50/50 all around on the front.  This means that the card should not be off-centered left to right or top to bottom.

The third important note to take away from the above language is that if the front of your card is off-centered both left to right and top to bottom, then you can only get as high as a 9.0 subgrade on centering (although you certainly might get lower).  A subgrade of 9.0 on centering allows for the card's front centering to be off both ways, but only by a small margin of 55/45 both ways.  However, to get a subgrade of 9.5 on centering then the card's front centering must be 50/50 one way and only 55/45 the other way.

In conclusion, if your card is off-centered on the front in both directions, meaning top/bottom and left/right, then there is no way you're going to get a 9.5 subgrade on centering.  Most likely you're going to get a subgrade of 9.0 or less on centering.  This can hurt your overall grade significantly as since the general BGS rule is that your final grade cannot be more than 0.5 higher than your lowest subgrade.  (I've covered the basics of the BGS grading formula in this previous post.)

Centering is one of the easiest subgrades for you to control and measure when you're buying cards either on eBay or COMC.  If I'm buying a card on eBay or COMC which I would like to submit for BGS grading, then I am very careful to evaluate its centering in the pictures or scans.  Since COMC uses high quality scans on their website, this makes measuring centering very easy.  I'll often enlarge the scans and use a ruler to measure the centering on the card to make sure it will garner a high subgrade.

Keep the above tips in mind when choosing cards to submit for BGS grading.  There should be no excuses for not getting a 9.5 or higher on your cards' centering subgrade if you know the BGS grading criteria and are careful to evaluate your card's centering.

2013 Topps Five Star Football is Awesome But Beware of Ink Stains on Corners

Having watched a ton of 2013 Topps Five Star Football box and case breaks on YouTube, I finally gave into buying some singles.  I had heard that some boxes contained cards which had black ink stains on the corners.

Mindful that the cards might have ink stains, I took to eBay and bought some singles.  I was careful the entire time to check the pictures and scans to see if the corners were stained.  More often than not, you just couldn't tell from the pictures.  Furthermore, as since most eBay sellers are looking to sell their cards for the highest price possible, they will not disclose any defects to the card anyways.  Basically, you're basically just buying blind. 

My first single came in the mail a few days ago.  It was a gorgeous card of a player that I PC, but one of its corners clearly had a black stain to it.

Black ink stains on the corner edge.

I notified the seller.  He has offered a refund, and claims that they didn't see the black ink stain on the corner.  Who knows whether they really did or not.  I suppose if they are a volume seller who doesn't have a lot of time to take an additional five seconds to look at the card's four corners then I guess it's plausible.  More than likely the seller probably knew about the stain, and didn't want to disclose it hoping for whomever bought the card to not see it or not return it.

Be aware when you're buying Five Star singles that the cards may have ink stains on the corner.  It's unfortunate that Topps is having this problem with this product, because it is ruining otherwise beautiful cards. 

eBay Best Practices: Communicate with the Seller Regarding Any Problems

You've just received an item in the mail from a seller on eBay.  You open up the package only to discover that something is wrong with the item.  Perhaps it was not as described or it was partially damaged in transit due to poor packing protection.  What do you do?

It's always a good idea to politely contact the seller and notify them of the problem.  Most sells will respond and offer you the ability to return the item for a refund.  Sometimes if they're feeling super generous they may refund you part of the sale price or let you keep the item.  Other times, they may even reimburse you for return shipping costs although those are normally borne by the buyer.

In any event, politely communicating with the seller is never a bad idea.  If they don't respond to messages to help resolve your problem then you should feel no remorse for leaving them neutral or negative feedback.  (As of the date of this blog post, eBay sellers can only leave buyers positive feedback so you should have no fear of receiving a retaliatory negative feedback.)  Your last resort to an unresponsive or uncooperative seller is to open up an eBay claim.  As long as you have messages and pictures to prove your story, you should be able to convince eBay to rule any disputes in your favor so you can get a refund. 

NFL Draft Is Less Than A Week Away!

The NFL Draft is less than a week away and I'm stoked!

If you PC players from a certain college, now is a great time to buy their cards.  Once the draft happens all the team collectors and the player collectors will be scooping up the rest of what's out there.  I've been taking advantage of the pre-Draft market and buying my favorite college players for fairly cheap.  I'm interested to see what teams draft my guys and in what round they're drafted.

One guy I've been tracking is Oregon State wide receiver Brandin Cooks.  I think he has potential to be a great wide receiver in the NFL despite his smaller size.  I've been charting his 2014 Leaf Metal base prismatic autograph rookie cards for some time now.  It's been interesting to see how the market prices vary over time.  Below is the graph.

This graph follows the eBay sale prices (sale price plus shipping cost) for all of his base prismatic autograph rookie cards.  Thus, I was not tracking any of the shorter printed parallels.  The sale price is on the Y-axis, and the date of sale is on the X-axis.

Each blue dot represents a sale on a given day.  The red dots represent a moving average of the last ten sales.

This graph reveals a few interesting trends.

First, prices start out fairly high when the product first released in late February 2014.  Most of the cards were selling for anywhere between $10 to $15.  Over the next two weeks the average price dropped considerably, at which point cards were selling for anywhere between $6 to $10.

This trend is not unexpected.  Prices for singles are always high immediately after a product's release as the hard core collectors with deep pockets go on eBay buying binges to nab all the cards they want.  Once that event ends, and all the hard core collectors are satisfied, prices tend to drop to more reasonable levels.

But then things start to get interesting about three weeks after the product's release (March 22, 2014 on the graph) -- prices start going back up slowly. This is shown by the slow rise of the red dots. 

Why is this?

This is mostly due to the supply of the cards.  Two weeks after the product's release, the market was flooded with cards.  Just look at all the blue dots around the March 15, 2014 date.  The laws of supply and demand state that if the supply curve increases, but the demand curve stays the same, the equilibrium price will drop.  This is what happened.  Tons of people were breaking Leaf Metal around that time and had started to put the cards up on eBay for sale.  With tons of cards for sale, bidders had plenty of options (cards) to bid on.

But starting three weeks after the product's release, and more noticeably after four weeks following the product's release, the supply of the cards available had gone down.  Notice how few blue dots there are in April and early May.  Less people were opening the product, and less cards were available for purchase on eBay.  The laws of supply and demand state that if the supply curve decreases, but the demand curve stays the same, the equilibrium price will go up.  This is exactly what happened.  With fewer and fewer cards available to buy on eBay, bidders were getting into bidding wars.  Other sells would put cards at above-average Buy-It-Now prices and would actually get buyers making that purchase just because there weren't any other options available. 

It will be extremely interesting to see how the prices will react once Brandin Cooks is drafted.  I imagine that if he is drafted high in the first round, all the people who have been hoarding his autographs will put them up on eBay to sell them to all the team collectors who are PCing their team's draft picks.  This would represent both an increase in the supply curve and an increase in the demand curve.  This could result in prices going up, or staying about the same since the increase demand will be offset by the increased supply. 

On the other hand, if Brandin Cooks is drafted lower than expected, while we still might see a flood of cards return to the market, the demand may remain stagnant.  If this happens, prices might go back down.

One final takeaway from this chart is that if you're looking to flip, timing is always key.  Buy cards a couple weeks after the product's release once prices have gone down to reasonable levels.  Then, sell them later on once the supply has dried up, or right after the draft when demand is likely to spike again.

I'll be updating this chart for at least a month following the draft to see what happens to his prices.  I may even continue updating this chart throughout the entire 2014 season to see how his prices react to his performance.  This should be interesting to follow.