Pre-Grading Analysis Pt. 2 - MEGA Maddux Collection

All right, we're going to head on to analyzing for pregrading here. Stack number two. We've got quite a lot going on here. And so we're going to go ahead and jump right in right where we left off from part one. So this next card is a 99 Upper Deck Ionics Holographics. Uh really, really rare card. Really tough pack odds. This thing is about I want to say it's one in,500 packs. And so that is astounding. And speaking of astounding, this uh not just this card, but this card's condition is uh is fantastic. At least what I can see. Now, I'm trying to realize here a lot of this background hard to tell if this is an edge wear. That's just the design of of this. This is actually not uh it's not damaged in the slightest, but it it gives you gives you a moment to pause there and see what's going on. All right. And then the surface that I can see is just just beautiful. I mean, just a beautiful surface on this card. Let me see here. I Uh, where did I put that? There we are. There we go. Just a little fuzz there. Okay, let's check out the back. There we are. Yeah, boy. that. Oh, wow. Clean, clean card. I see one little puck mark in the back right by his chin right there. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So, it's uh it's not a not a 10. There's another one right by this bar graph. Yep. But all things considered, you know, you have two very, very minor surface flaws on the back. I mean, I still think this could be a nine even with those. So, [sighs] we'll have to see. We'll have to see. All right, let's go ahead and put this card in. the PSA 9 prediction pile. Next, we have Metal Universe Lynch Pins from 99 Metal. Great card. And just looking at this one briefly, I'm thinking this could have a somewhere in the 8 to N range. Let's uh let's take a look. This is beautiful. Look at all these die cuts all throughout the card. We just have uh just a touch of white. I mean, just barely a touch, but um yeah, boy, that's that is nice. That's a really nice card. Let's go ahead and check out the back. Ah, yes. Just a touch of white there. That's interesting. It looks way worse in the camera than it does in real life. That's fascinating. So does that one. Actually, these uh I don't know these corners. I still say it's somewhere in that 8 N range. I don't think it's going to get a nine now with those looking like this. Probably an eight, especially with how um how harshly they're grading now. If I do send the PSA, which uh yeah, for for these cards, I I think that's the uh that's the plan. That's the play there. Like I mentioned before, some of the bigger cards I'm considering sending Beckett as a partially to send a message uh that um that I don't want upcharges. [laughter] [sighs] Um and also partially any card that I'm sending that's that big that would require an upcharge, it's not actually the grade that matters. It's uh it's the authenticity and the you know, you're looking to get it slabed up, but to authenticate and make sure that no hanky pankies happened with it. Uh which to all I know, you know, look, I'm I'm a little nervous about the whole like men size thing. I know that they've had a lot of since they've done their I don't want to say AI grading, but automated assistance, computer assisted, whatever you call it, they've had an awful lot of cards come back. back. I want to put this in the eight pile. I think that makes a lot of sense. And so, yeah, I'm um Anyway, if I send my bigger cards to Becket, I don't have any uh anything to fear about upcharges. Okay, so this is a 99 ultra platinum medallion season crowns. Uh when I looked at this briefly, I saw nothing wrong with it. So, I I honestly think this could be a 10 potentially. Let's uh let's take a closer look, shall we? Yeah, that is a sharp card. Guess we have a little bit of fuzz on the bottom. Wow. [sighs] Let's check the back here. And we'll have to go over the surface, too. I realize I didn't quite do that thoroughly enough, but uh Wow. And while we're here, let's check out the surface real quick. Not seeing Oh, I think that was that fuzz. Is that like a micro pock mark? It's nothing. Yeah, that's nothing. Let's check the surface on the front here. Yeah, I I'm I'm seeing nothing. And And again, I know through the camera, for whatever reason, it looks like there's a touch on that corner, but but I I I promise in person it does not appear that way. I don't know if it's a lighting thing or what, or maybe the car is just really magnified. I'm getting it really close to the camera. Well, in any case, I I believe this actually does have a shot at a 10. Um, despite what that might look like on camera. I don't say that about many cards, but I'm going to put it in that in that stack. All right. Now, this one I know this one's the uh the 2000 Stadium Club out of 25. This is the first day issue refractor. Um, this one I know has some surface scratches. I remember seeing them. So, I I feel like we're starting at like a PSA 8 as as its maximum, and it it might stay there, but but we'll have to just take a quick take a quick look here. But, of course, it's chromium card, so the edges and corners are beautiful. Uh the centering, you can't really tell on a border-free card how the centering is anyway. Um so, whatever. Uh but of course it doesn't take very long to look at this before you start to see we've got these uh big vertical scratches coming straight through. Yeah. From his neck to his ankle and then right there on his thigh. Yeah. So [snorts] I don't know if there's anything to be done about that. Probably not. But like I said, it's it's probably uh somewhere in the 78 range, I would say. But it's uh because it is a a surface issue. It's not a glaring centering issue. It's not a an obvious, you know, soft corner. And so I think that uh it certainly will present very nicely for the grade. So So I'm going to go ahead and put it in the seven pile. I think it's somewhere between a seven and an eight. I don't think that um it's not that bad all things considered. Yeah, they are two relatively long scratches, but uh but everything else on the card is really really solid. Really nice. Um so I'll put it in the seven pound. I think that's a little bit conservative, but that's that's fine. Okay, now we've got a Circa Thunder rave numbered out of 150 from 1998. Circa Thunder. This is, you know, it's interesting. I was thinking about the iconic firsts in the hobby and thinking, you know, I already have a 96 Circa Rave. I don't really need another Circa Rave that's not um of the iconic first run there. But this is Circa Thunder. They technically rebranded in '98. So I I don't know. I don't know. So before, again, just looking very briefly at this card. Before in my mind, I was thinking somewhere like an eight. Just a little touch on that corner. That that one is, you know, an actual touch there. Um, but now I'm seeing something a bit more severe now that I have it under the direct light. And so there's a little touch on this corner, which that's what I saw. But what I'm seeing right now is right here between the V and the E in Braves, there's a little indent like a like a thumbnail mark vertically going right through that. And so that is [clears throat] a problem. I don't think I wouldn't call it a wrinkle and I wouldn't call it a crease. I think it's just a dent. Something like that. And a little scratch by this A in Atlanta. Yeah, right there. But um [clears throat] again, it's it's one of those things where the the damage is in such a way. It's funny how that works on on surface issues. Can uh can take the grade down so quickly, so severely, but also simultaneously keep the card looking incredible because so much of it is hidden where you know if unless you have the damage in exactly the right light, exactly the right angle, uh you're just not going to see it. So anyway, all right. So, yeah, pretty clean. I I do see a pock mark on his hat right there on the blue. Yeah, I do wonder how those happen. So frequently happen. Yeah. So, you know, with the uh with the with the the pock mark is pretty minor. The touch in the corner, the dent on the bottom there. I mean, this is honestly it's probably going to go in that like six pile. That's probably what this is going to be. And you know, at at some point too, I if they're really going to get sixes, I I have to do a little more thinking about this during this week. If I if do I [clears throat] really want to get a card graded if it's only going to come back, you know, probably a six. Is that Is that really even worth it? I mean I mean I could probably just you know if I am the ones I I need to sell which I I don't really want to sell more than I have to but uh but the ones that that might be condition replacements anyway you know I mean I um I do wonder if it if it's really truly worth it if um if that's the case. Part of the other consideration, like I mentioned though, it's it's sometimes if it if the POP report is so tiny, if the card is so rare that they just don't exist in PSA holders. Um, you know, a lot of people like PSA holders for some reason. And so it just makes the card that much more liquid even if it is a a suspiciously lowgrade. Okay. Okay. Now, I I did look at this again very quickly, not under the lights or anything like that, but um this is a a 99 Upper Deck MVP Super Script numbered out of 25. And and this card, I didn't see anything wrong with it the first time I checked. So, real quick here, the centering is just gorgeous, and the corners are great. the edges seem very good and so yeah, I mean it just looks it looks fantastic. Uh we'll we'll check the we'll check the surface on the back here, but yeah, that's uh Wow, that's a stunner. Yeah, I I I see nothing. Let me uh let me look at the front surface real quick. One more time. And let's really go through this. I don't want to miss anything. All right. I see a I see a fingerprint. And you see this? This is a finger. Okay. This is why we have All right. Did I get it? Yeah. All right. We're going to wipe off the fingerprint. That's what we're going to do. I'm not going to have that [clears throat] be the reason this doesn't gem. But this is a this is about as clean a card as I've seen. How exciting would that be to get a flipping 10 for a card of this magnitude, this rarity? And it's so cool because like, you know, I my wheelhouse. I love collecting these gold signatures from the early to mid 90s in uh collector's choice. And you know, the whole idea of the super script was just completely absurd. to me where they you know the golds eventually would become out of 100 and then these superscripts are just silly 25 and again like like a number of these products man like Upper Deck MVP was a low-end product it was like it was like diet upper deck right like a dollar packs which in the late 90s you know Upper Deck was probably 250 or three bucks a pack it was solidly you know mid mid tier of all the products I'm putting this in the 10 pile the possible possible tens because it's it's it's really good. Okay. Um this card is not going to be a 10. In fact, this is one of those that's probably like a six, maybe a seven. Uh unfortunately, it is a Star Quest home run from 98 collector's choice. Incredible card numbered out of a 100. And the issue here is like one of the other ones, we have a we have a dent and it's a pretty significant one. Well, we'll we'll check it out. We'll check it out. Everything else looks okay on it, but you can kind of see in this upper right corner that's right there. Yeah. Going down to the A into the T for Atlanta. So, yep, that's that's a dent. So, that's going to ding it. Little bit of white on the edges, but nothing nothing too nothing too badly. Actually, you know what? I'm looking at this now and I think that dent very faintly continues all the way down through Yep. See, it's still there on his arm. I think it continues down all the way through his arm and all the way to the bottom of the card. It's It's all the way down here. It's like this card got pinched um being put into one of those snap-own cases. That's kind of what it's like. It's like the whole thing just got pinched on the right edge all the way, which that's painful if that's what actually happened. You know, that's that's a little ironic. You know, you you get this case to to protect it and keep it nice and then it uh ends up damaging your card just like those uh those old school screw downs they had that weren't recessed and they flattened all these cards and just just completely crushed them. Yeah. Touch of white on the edge. Touch of white in, you know, just a little touch of white in this corner, too. Just a touch. [sighs] Yeah. [gasps] Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Probably a probably a six. Okay. There's something inside this penny sleeve, I think. Yeah. Let me get that out of here. Just specks of dust, I tell you. Just awful. All right. Yeah, this is Yeah. out of a hundred. It is a It is a tough card to locate. Tough one to track down. They do not show up very often. I think the last one might have sold for three or 400. I I don't really know, but they are they are tough. Well, add it to the six pile, which uh is [laughter] the six pile is growing distressingly large. All right, this is a cool one. This is the 97 score reserve collection. This is a So 97 score has a really nice variety of parallels. And this particular one is tough to find, very tough to locate. And looking at it quickly again, I I saw really great shape. So, we're going to see. I don't know. Let's Let's take a look. I think this could be a this could be a nine. I mean, let's take a look. Really well centered. It's crazy shiny for just being a silver foil card, but good centering. Great corners. I see nothing with the surface at all. That is untored. There's a little tiny on this corner right down here. There's a there's a shadow a shadow of a ding like right there. So you can kind of see, but part of that is just how this card was cut out of the foil. Anyway, yeah, reserve collection. You can you see very very faintly in the back it says reserve collection. Yeah, that's cool. That same little sunburst is very faintly imprinted on the back. That's so cool. Okay. What is that little speck? Is that Okay, that's just a dust. Okay. [laughter] Like, okay. What is that? Is that another pock mark? What's going on here? Yeah. I don't know, man. Uh, probably somewhere between a nine and a 10. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the nine pile just so I don't get disappointed. You see, if we uh if we lower our expectations, you know, then we won't get uh won't get disappointed, you know. I'm not saying not to have, you know, any standards. I'm just saying, you know, temper. It's good to temper our hopes and expectations sometimes. That's a pretty card. Wow. And again, it's it's not even a refractor or anything. It's just it's just a pretty card. And not to mention, it's super rare. Man, that's such a cool card. All right, I will put it in the nine pile. Okay, now now a card like this, I I don't really know what to do with it. I um I already have one. In fact, the one I have is an SGC 9.5 auto 10. And so that that one's the one I'm keeping. This is a duplicate. So I this I this is a no-brainer. I have to sell it. But also this is one of those things where this card is before 1998 and anything 97 or before pack pulled autographs you have to certify the autograph. You have to send it like dual graded basically which I'm really not looking forward to. Um because right now a PSA it's like you know you submit it even at the lowest tier you're submitting at like $27 a card and dual grading is basically like 50 bucks a card now which is absurd. Um and so for that reason I I think I'm going to go ahead and send this to Beckett because Becket only adds a a $5 fee uh you know to add on to autographs that are on cards. So, that's I think what I'm going to do here. And And it does have uh a little bit of edge damage on one of the back edges. So, I know it's not going to be it's not going to be a 10. And probably not a nine either, but let's let's look this thing over. Let's take a look. So, we got a little bit of fuzz. Just a little bit. Just a little bit of fuzz here. And then, yeah, just a little bit. Just a little bit. hairs, fibers coming off of this card. Okay, where are we? 96 leaf signature. Yeah, this is before they had the millennium marks. Now, they did have century marks. They didn't serial number them, but they were 200. Also, the autograph um pretty typical for for Maddox. I will say the opening stroke and the downstroke of the M look a little bit light. That first loop especially looks just a little streaky on the uptake. Uh just trying to decide if it's going to get an auto 10. Probably not. Probably a nine auto. So we're looking at something like a like a Well, we'll see. Conditionwise, so far we're we're okay. The surface is like super clean. We're about to get to that bottom edge where I did see an issue. So, it's it's nothing. Uh anyway, well, here's here's the issue right there. You can kind of see there's a little bit right there. It's not huge, but it's it's an issue. I don't think it's I don't think that's wipe awayable. Although, honestly, I just wiped it. I think I just took a bit of a dog ear and folded it back down again. I didn't even mean to do that. Like on the surf on the edge there. Oh man, I don't even know. You know, I'm just going to put it back in its seat before I do something I regret. Okay, here. Let's just Again, the irony of all of this card protection gear damaging your cards, getting it in there. Yeah. No good. No good. [sighs] So, yeah. I mean, is this going to get a Becket 85 or or maybe if they they give the 85 subgrade to the edges or something? Maybe this could still pull a nine overall if it gets like 95 centering and 95 surface and all that kind of good stuff. So, I feel like I have to I have to send it in probably probably just add it to the to the becket pile over here for that reason. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to do that. Okay. Here's a cool one. Uh this is Stadium Club Triumvirate. Of course, they had this for a couple of years. They had the 98s, 99s, 2000s. Uh, this one's the 98, and they had three tiers. They had the luminous, they had the luminescent, and they had the illuminator. And so, as you add syllables to them, they become tougher and tougher to pull. So, luminous is three syllables and is the easiest. Luminescent looks like a refractor and is tougher. And this one is the illuminator. But as you can see, the whole card is is acetate. It's translucent, and so you can see right through it. It does have a refractor finish on it as well, which is just bonkers. But yeah, this is a plastic card with insane number of die cuts. I mean, this thing I mean, that is Wow. I don't know if this little corner is I mean, this looks so good to me. Boy. Yeah. I mean, this I feel like this has to be a nine. And I think maybe maybe it even has a shot at a 10. I don't know. I don't know. I'll I'll throw it I'll throw it in my nine pile again just to temper expectations. I mean, could it get a 10? If I can get all these die cuts back in, maybe that could see this is where it's going to get hung up. Goodness. There we go. We just have to Okay, that's the that's the trick. And of course, these are the kind of cards that will never sit right in the PSA holder. You know, they'll always be, you know, trapped in there, you know, trapped in there diagonally. I always wonder how much, you know, a company like Tag would flip out, you know, trying to grade a card that's this severely diecut. It's like, oh, I'm in size. Oh, yeah. What does this card measure? Yeah, give me that to the nearest thousandth of an inch. Okay, we've got another duplicate. We have a Dawn Crusade green. Um, I haven't looked at this card too carefully. The the green I already have is a PSA 9. And what's fascinating about that is that the centering is about the same on that card as it is for this one, which is to say pretty bad. It's very, very thick on this right and relatively thin on the left. Uh, another way you can sort of tell is that these griffins in the background, you can see behind this one's tail, whereas that one, the tail is cut off on the green and you can't see behind it. So, so aside from a pretty severe left, right off centering, I mean, relatively speaking, it's not like I mean, I've seen worse, you know, but um, but let's let's look at the other components here. the corners, the edges, the surface. God, this is one of the prettiest cards ever made. Wow. Boy, is that nice. Okay, so I think this is a print spot. Yeah, I don't think that spot. Yeah, that's just in the card. Anyway, all the etching on this card is just so wild. It makes it so hard to tell whether a given random spot is like a print spot or if that etching is supposed to be there. Hard to say. I think that's just between the legs of the lion. The lion is not etched, but the rest of it is. And so I think that's just the lion's leg coming down. See? Yeah, this one comes down over here. And this is just the yellow one coming down also. And so anyway, so yeah, those are those are all legitimate. Yeah, beautiful. Wow, that's that's sharp. Corners are great. Edges are great. Uh the surface is immaculate. Yeah, it really is just the centering. I think um I'm going to have to take that centering tool and uh and take a look at it. Okay. So, I did find one small issue. And this is just a I'm trying to get this. There we go. There we are. I found the sweet spot now. Okay. I s I saw something. The very top center edge on the back. There's something there. Yeah, just right there over the word of in. And that second five of 55. Huh. It's one of those things I notice that happens with these ultra shiny cards. Sometimes they have a little bit of top reverse top edge wear damage or something. I don't know. The top starts to peel off. That happened to one of my uh one of my what was it? Prized collections. Yeah, the leaf when I was doing that. I picked it up at the Philly show a couple uh couple shows ago. Huh. Interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. I'm going to have to um I mean I I believe this could be a nine if the centering is okay because without that that little touch on the edge that's that's effectively nothing. Um I feel like I do have to actually measure it though. I'll get my I'll get my centering app out and we'll we'll give it a shot. All right. Here's a here's a ginormous card. Here's a big Oh boy. [clears throat] big big big card. This is a 99 skybox premium star rubies. I know we looked at one of those already, but that was the spring fling subset. This is the base. And like I said before, this is a huge card. And also like I said before, okay, this is the one I think I saw that had a corner ding in the bottom right corner. So, we are going to see that. We're going to look quite a bit more in depth, very very closely, very carefully. And uh we're going to see what we have here. If this will ever focus. There we go. That's better. All right. We've got maybe just a touch in that upper left corner. We're going to see some surface here too while we're doing that. The corners. Tell you that's that's pretty good. Now, is that again, I can't tell if it's just a sputzy or if it's Yeah. Can't really tell if it's on the card. All right, let's get down to Yeah, you can just bar. There we go. You can see how that corner is almost like just folded up a little bit. Just dogeared up. It's funny. It still comes to a great point. Like the actual the the tip of the corner is sharp. And so you you you push this down in an encapsulation you I mean all of that damage would just disappear. You put this in one of those things where it's like kind of shrink wrapped on the inside. Put in one of those type. But boy, this is a this is a clean card. Wow. Something under the G. Can't really tell if that's on the card. Let's check out the back. dark edges, dark borders. You can kind of see this looks like it's a it's a dent or something in the card. That's just the embossing from the front. [clears throat] So you can see he's actually popped out of the card a little bit. And so this is again one of those things that tag would analyze it being like a card's wrinkled three and a half. It's like no no no no. Okay. So, we have just a general overall. If we look at these uh edges, uh you can clearly see this is just how the card was naturally cut. It does have the whitening all over those edges, but the the corners are are sharp. They are there. And you know, the surface aside from the normal variation of contours expected from the embossing. Ah, there's no scratches on this thing. [sighs and gasps] Okay. So, what do I think? [sighs] I mean, I don't know. I don't know what I think. What I think is that this looks I think to me a PSA 7 would make a lot of sense for a card like this. It's got damage in one corner. It's not awful awful terrible damage, but it's definitely a dinged corner. There's no getting around that. And so with a dinged corner, it's not a 10. It's not a nine. Um and I mean, you know, on a good day, if that's all it were, maybe maybe an eight. But I think with some of this edge and it's not even chipping. That's the thing. It's not even like it's not even damage. It's just how the card was cut. Um [clears throat] yeah, I I don't know. I mean, the reverse of these cards, any any dark bordered insert from the 90s is just [clears throat] And this is where I have to have to wonder again. It's a big card. very big card. I was thinking of sending this into Beckett um again to avoid the upcharges and I was wondering also if there is one grade that's low, could the other grades potentially other subgrades bring it up? And so if it gets something like a seven for edges and something like uh a 75 on corners, but if it gets like a 95 on surface and maybe a 10 on centering or something like that, [sighs] could it bring it up to like a Becket 8, you know? Um something like that, you know. I I don't know. I mean, I think there was a PSA 7 that sold for quite a bit um recently, but again, this is this is one of those cards where I'm almost not sure the grade matters that much. I mean, yes, it would matter if it were like a nine or a 10. Um, obviously higher [clears throat] is better, but even if this came back a five somehow, it would still be a bonkers card. And and yeah, this is one that I am very seriously considering selling to uh to recoup the funds for a very good portion of this um this purchase. I'm going to go ahead and throw it in the becket pile for now. For now. I might I might change my mind. I I don't know. It's It's going there for now. Okay, one more. All right. Now, at least one more in this uh this particular stack to finish up part two. We've got a 99 team finest blue refrator. And I just peeled the coating myself. And so this card is going to have a p absolutely pristine surface. Look at this. Look at this wild shine, man. This card's amazing. I mean, the edges look perfect. The corners look perfect. I mean, this is I hate I hate to say it, like this has got to be a 10, right? It's got to be. I don't know. There's just some fuzz on there. Okay, so we wipe it away. Not sure if that little bit under the sea is going to come off, but what is that? Well, it's minuscule. That's what that is. I love the double-sided refractors. That's so cool. I don't know. I mean, I I think this is this has got to be a shot at a 10, right? I mean, what else what else even makes sense but a 10 for this? [sighs] Yeah. I I mean again, hate to hate to jinx it. Don't want to call it too soon. Don't want to be, you know, overing my expectations here. Uh which is really funny because ordinarily in a in a typical grading order of mine, this might be like the biggest card I send in in my order. Um but when when compared with all the other cards I'm looking at, this is almost one of the smaller ones that I have. >> [laughter] >> All righty. So, part two is done of our pregrading analysis video. We'll take a break and we'll come back for part three.

In this video, I continue analyzing for grading some of the Maddux cards from the incredible collection I recently acquired. Enjoy!