Card Show Pickups: Raw Dog Review

So last week a card show happened. The main draw for the show was the large autograph guest list that featured a ton of former New York Mets, wrestlers, New York Jets and New York Giants.

So of course I went and didn't get any autographs.

They're all too expensive and they're all names that scream "nice to have, but wouldn't go out of my way for". Especially not at the prices being asked.

No the real purpose of this trip was so I could finally do this.

Yes, I finally got the 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout RC graded.

Granted it's a Raw Card Review so there's no fancy slab, nor does this grade guarantee that a slabbed grade would be the same. But this at least gives me some piece of mind as this has been reviewed by someone and got the card grade equivalent of a B.

The back of the "slab" sticker notes as such (even though it scanned like shit), and that if I wanted it permanently protected I can send it in for a full BGS/BVG grading.

Needless to say that I will not be doing that. The whole reason I went down this RCR route is so I wouldn't have to deal with shipping costs and insurance. Which, BTW, is dependent on the BV of the card. I might not know what a Trout RC's BV is but I at least know that it's gonna make the insurance fee go through the roof. No thanks.

It cost me $25 to have Beckett give me back a grade of 9. Even if it's not what the final slabbed grade could be, I'll still take it as this thing can easily make back that money.

Speaking of which this also makes it a little bit more easier to sell. Granted this card is worth a lot so it would always be a fast mover, but the thing about this card is that if it's ungraded buyers only see it as an opportunity to get a card that might get a BGS 9.5 or BGS 10 that they can sell for even more money than when they bought it raw.

Of course that's why some buyers use that as a selling point and price the RC at bigger amounts saying that it "could" be a BGS 10, but most people know that nothing's guaranteed until that plastic slab from BGS arrives at your door.

Yeah at this point I know full well that whoever wants this is going to want a grade. As such they want to look at the surface, the corners, the centering, everything. When I thought about listing the Trout RC on eBay before I shuddered at having to take different shots at different angles of the corners, as well as trying to get the right amount of sheen on the surface, because that's a lot more convincing than a scan. RCR grades are kinda iffy but at the very least no one can deny that someone employed by Beckett did look at this. That's assurance in it's own right.

Anyway the raw card review took 90 minutes to complete, so during that time I took a walk around the show looking to see if the sellers had any Jasson Dominguez. Spoilers, they did not.

Dominguez has the "problem" where he's only been in unlicensed stuff put out by Panini. As of the time this post is being written he only has an autograph in 2019 Panini Prizm Draft and a non-auto and auto in 2019 Panini Donruss Elite Extra Edition. Both are products that prospectors are staying away from because while prices on Dominguez's cards are through the roof right now, they'll plummet once Topps and Bowman have their way with him.

But of course I was looking for non-auto'd Dominguez (which is just as hard), because he might be Staten Island bound next year. Who knows?

Anyway there weren't any Dominguezes so I opted to instead sell some cards to at least offset the grading costs and whatnot.

I decided to sell off my 2015 Bowman Chrome Walker Buehler refractor autograph. I sold it for less than market value because I just wanted fast cash. Plus in the end I still bought the card back when Buehler was a no-name who was still recovering from TJS, the amount I did sell it for was still a 300% return on investment.

As far as actual card pickups go I only made two of them.

One was a Vitali Kravtsov card from my go-to hockey dealer. As far as hockey stuff I want goes the only cards I was after this time were a Kravtsov base card for TTM purposes and a Filip Chytil printing plate. The show didn't produce a place, but it did produce the Kravtsov and that's good enough for me.

Note, this is also my plea to not send me too much hockey stuff. My wants are niche. So niche that it's just a non-autographed Filip Chytil printing plate now.

The other card was a Victor Oladipo base I got for 10 cents. The Malcolm Brogdon return I got had me wondering if I could maybe get something from Oladipo too via TTM. Worth a shot?

Note, this doesn't mean I've wavered from wanting basketball cards beyond Anthony Davis printing plates.

So in all I spent:
$10 on the entry fee
$25 on the RCR
$10.10 on the Kravtsov + Oladipo
$6 on supplies

While I got:
$60 for the Buehler BoChro ref auto

At least my costs were covered. This is a definite cop out to justify me spending more than $50 at a card show but if I do earn money thanks to the sale of a card, I'm willing to deduct whatever I got from my spending limit. I'm going to still track all of it but being able to hit the proverbial "reset" button at times thanks to this hobby does still help and I'm taking it. This does put me in a good position to land a Dominguez card even at inflated prices now. Whether I'd want to is another question though.

So yeah, as usual a useless card show where the only draw for me was an IP autograph Beckett because I don't care for vintage or BoChro. *Fart noise*

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).