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Grading cards at The National: What dealers, collectors submitted to be graded
I’m not real sure how they keep track of attendance at the National Sports Collectors Convention, but I don’t see how there could have ever been one bigger than this year’s show in Chicago. (The show wound up setting an attendance record for the 43-year-old event.)
Every day, as soon as they opened the doors to the public, one of the first things you encountered was a mad dash to the different grading companies, where collectors were scrambling to get in line for their services. PSA, Beckett, SGC, CGC and all the others were doing a brisk business from Wednesday afternoon until the show closed on Sunday. I set out to find just what kind of items collectors brought to have graded and what they expected to get in return.
It was around 1:30 p.m. on the first day, two hours before the doors opened for the first time, and I was at the PSA booth, where there was a mad rush to get everything finalized for the start of the show. I asked one of their employees if he had any idea how many cards they would take in to be graded? He glanced around for a moment, then said, “Should be over 100,000. But I don’t know that they want me to be telling you that,” he said, then quickly hustled off to try and get things ready.
Depending on how much you wanted to pay for the service, you could get your items back before the end of the show, or you could have them shipped.
One of the first people I encountered just after the show opened was Rick Giddings of Gizmo’s Sportscards of nearby Davis Junction, Ill.
“I’m the guy who got robbed at the show in Atlantic City last year,” he said with a laugh. “They caught the guy and he is going to trial pretty soon.”
Giddings showed me a 1953 Topps Mickey Mantle card he was waiting to get graded through the Express Service at PSA, which means that by paying extra he would get it back right away. The card looked to be in great shape.
“I think it will come back at a 7.5 or 8,” Giddings said. “If so, it should then sell for close to $70,000.”
The next day I stopped by his booth hoping to get a picture of the graded card and see what it brought.
“You are just a little late,” he told me. “It came back at a 7 and I sold it to a gentleman early this morning for $32,000. I’m happy with that.”
I’m not sure there was anybody at the show with as many nice Mantle cards as Giddings had displayed at his tables.
Next I ran into Sean McElroy of Boston, who was waiting in line at Beckett. He had a nice collection of cards and tickets he had just got signed at the Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Cooperstown.
“I came straight from there to here,” he said.
He laid his cards and tickets out on a counter and showed them to me. It was an impressive lot.
“I got most all of these this past weekend. I’m going to let Beckett slab them and certify the autographs,” he said.
McElroy has been doing this for years and has an impressive collection of autographed baseball and Hall of Fame induction tickets signed by each year’s inductees.
“I use Beckett and PSA and have always been happy with both,” he said.
McElroy has an online store called Able and Duncan Collectibles and is in the process of opening a brick-and-mortar shop in Boston to sell cards, memorabilia and autographs.
“It is what I do, I just love it,” he said.
The most unique item I came across was owned by Andy Benish from the Minneapolis area. He is, of course, a big Twins fan and had a letter written by Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett to his then-girlfriend, telling her that he had just gotten his promotion from Visalia to the big leagues to play for the Twins.
He brought it to PSA to have it authenticated and slabbed along with some Twins World Series tickets, one of which was signed by Puckett. I ran into him two days later and he had gotten his items back, all authenticated. What he now owns is a pretty unique piece of baseball history in the Puckett letter.
Next I met Ken Randell from San Ramon, Calif., who was in the PSA Express line.
“I retired from the United States Marine Corps and now I spend most of my time collecting cards and building sets,” he said. “This is my fourth National, and the second time that I have brought cards to have them graded.”
He has a variety of about 20 cards from the 1960s through the ’80s to submit. It is a mix of football, basketball and baseball cards. There are some different Michael Jordan cards and a Barry Sanders rookie card that stood out to me.
“I really love football the most, but I also like baseball and basketball as well,” he said.
A BIT OF EVERYTHING
You see a little bit of everything at The National. One collector had an autographed St. Louis Cardinals Jordan Walker baseball bat he was waiting to get authenticated by PSA, as well as a box of baseballs signed by Hall of famers Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle that came from an estate sale in Knoxville, Tenn.
I was shown a 1-of-1 autographed soccer card that a collector was getting expressed to try and sell at his booth.
Friendships were being formed in the long lines as dealers and collectors waited to submit their items. Two guys from Buffalo were having a great time talking with two guys from the Chicago area, comparing notes on cards they had sent off in the past and debating the grades they had received.
There was a steady stream of attendees moving by the booth of the Arena Club, newcomers to the grading game, hoping to catch a glimpse of Hall of Famer Derek Jeter, a part owner of the company.
I talked with a collector in line at the SGC booth who had a 1986 Fleer Jordan rookie card. He was from Texas and didn’t want to give his name. He wasn’t totally sure he wanted to get the card graded. “Just kind of shopping it around,” he said. It appeared to be a little bit miscut to me.
Next I wandered over to SGC, where I met Jim Hamburgh from Minneapolis, another die-hard Twins fan. He had a stack of about 20 cards and said he was going to give SGC a try.
“I have heard nothing but good things about these guys, so here I am,” he said. “[I’ve got] some baseball, hockey, football, and basketball. I have used PSA and Beckett in the past.”
Several people told me they believe SGC is making inroads in the fierce competition among grading companies.
Gary Morabito and his son, Luca, of Philadelphia were waiting in line at Beckett.
“We went to Atlantic City last year, but of course that was close by for us. Now here we are in Chicago,” Gary said.
They have what seems to be a unique problem. They have a Michael Jordan Skybox E-X Century Dunk ’N Go Nuts card that was graded a 10 by Beckett, but the casing has a small chunk out of the side of it.
“I got it in an auction and this is how it came to us,” Gary said. “We are going to see if we can pay to get it re-slabbed while we are here, but not if they say they will have to regrade it. I don’t want to run that risk.”
I agreed with him on that.
Caleb Mitson hails from Spokane, Wash. “I am a huge Gonzaga fan and I have a 1-of-1 Panini Immaculate basketball card with the autos of three former Gonzaga players,” he said. “Two have left to go to the pros and one transferred. I am hoping to get it authenticated and slabbed. I also have a Topps Chrome autographed soccer card of Erling Haaland of Manchester City that is numbered 43/99. I have brought them to Beckett to see what happens.”
Sean Ueland is in line at Beckett with a 2018 Topps Chrome Shohei Ohtani rookie card that he has brought to be graded for a friend. He hails from Hopkins, Minn.
“We did have a shop called Grand Slam, and we advertised a lot in SCD back in the day, but it went out a few years back, COVID and all that stuff, and now we are getting ready to come back as Ultimate Collectibles,” he said.
Ueland was a longtime member of the Twin Cities Sports Collectors Club, which put on a successful show every month.
“I’m a big Minnesota Twins fan,” he said. I told him I had run into a lot of them in the last couple of days. “We like to come to Chicago,” he says with a laugh.
MY SUBMISSIONS
So how about me? Did I get the urge to get some cards graded in Chicago? Well, yes, I did. It was kind of like being in a casino. If you walk around long enough, you will probably end up making a bet.
I submitted two cards to two different companies to have them shipped to my home. All four were baseball cards. One company got rookie cards of Fred McGriff and Austin Riley, and the other got cards of Shohei Ohtani and Pee Wee Reese. If interested in what companies I chose and how they turned out, drop me an email.
I loved everything about the show in Chicago, and I am excited to return next year to Cleveland. The I-X Center is such a great place to have The National and I’m glad it is back on the schedule.
Hope to see you there!
— Barry Blair is an author/writer who lives in Jonesborough, Tenn. You can reach him at barryblair54@gmail.com or check out his web site www.rightfieldpress.com.
