When I first heard the idea of including a graded card in a pack of sportscards I wasn't really surprised. Last year Collector's Edge added redemptions for PSA 10 graded cards in packs of Supreme and I was excited when I pulled a Tim Couch PSA 10. They only had 100 of each card available and it made a really nice addition to what was already a decent product. Earlier this year Just Minors offered a USA graded autograph card as a box-topper in their Just the Preview 2K baseball product. I thought the idea was fun and didn't even mind when my $40 box had a USA 8.5 graded autograph card of a minor star. After all, I also had 24 other packs to open with inserts and autographs for just $40. Too bad Edge Graded is not $40 per box.
I was suspicious when my local card shop owner told me he wouldn't be stocking Edge Graded. It's a big shop which has never stayed away from expensive products in the past. I asked him why and he told me he didn't mind selling high priced packs, but he refused to knowingly rip off his customers. He went on to complain about Shop At Home (Edge's parent company) using Graded as "just another way to take advantage of new and unsuspecting sportscards collectors". These were the strongest comments he had ever made to me in the ten years I knew him. I immediately started hunting down some packs.
Two days later I found some packs in a nearby comic book shop. They were $25 each (above Collector's Edge suggested $22). I plunked down fifty bucks and tried my luck. The first pack had a beautiful Dan Marino PSA 10 Uncirculated card. Wow! My favorite player and in perfect condition, how much better can it get? Pack number two was just as exciting. It had a PSA 10 Uncirculated Kurt Warner card! Last year's MVP and Super Bowl MVP on an ultra rare Gem Mint card. I was sold. Another $240 and I was walking out the door with a 12 pack box of Edge Graded. I figured just the Marino and Warner would bring me $200 a piece so I was going to make a HUGE profit (do I sound enough like Shop at Home's Don West?).
My excitement would not last long. It's not that my box was bad, just that given the opportunity to look at what single cards were selling for I would never had considered buying a box. Apparently Collector's Edge has made these cards too perfect. What excitement is there if most of the cards are Gem Mint 10? Fifty different players have cards in the graded part of the set. 5501 of each card exist (5000 Uncirculated, 500 Brilliant, and a 1/1). That makes a total of 275,050 cards. As of this writing PSA shows 94,741 of those cards on their Population Report. The current breakdown is 39,387 10's, 53,959 9's, and 1390 8's. Going further I was able to see that my rare PSA 10 Kurt Warner wasn't very rare at all. 3700 PSA 10 Warner cards exist. I've seen my card selling for between $22 and $32 on Ebay. So much for my Don West dreams.
I decided to break down my box using what information I could find on PSA's Population Report and Ebay's closed auctions. The box had 8 PSA 9's and 4 PSA 10's plus 120 ungraded base cards and inserts which I'll discuss below the chart. Here's a listing of just the graded cards:
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2000 Edge Graded Box Breakdown
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I want my money back and so should anyone who's wasted a single dime on this bomb. Once the PSA website catches up to showing all 275,000 cards I have a feeling it will only get worse. If I sold all 12 of my graded cards I would expect to get between $91 and $116. Maybe the ungraded rookies and inserts will help. I got 22 base set rookie cards in my box, but most of them are selling for just a dollar or two. Most of the inserts are numbered to 2000 so even with Randy Moss and Chad Pennington inserts I'm still losing around $100 on the box. But money isn't everything, this is a fun hobby after all, so let's examine the real problem with Edge Graded.
PSA has been preaching to the hobby that they are the best of the card grading services. They continually remind us of how many cards they grade each month (which they feel gives them an excuse for being the slowest service). If that is the case then why would they want to add an extra 275,000 cards to their workload? Are they greedy? Did they really think it would help their image if they flooded the market with PSA 10's? Did Collector's Edge think that making 3700 PSA 10 Kurt Warner cards was a good idea? Edge Graded is a combined fiasco of two major companies in the collectibles industry, Shop At Home (Collector's Edge) and Collectors Universe (PSA). The product was probably a big success for each company, but I wish for our hobby's sake, that it drives collectors toward other card companies and grading services.
I hope that I've been successful in saving you all some money. If you are a hardcore collector of a single player or team then by all means buy Edge Graded. Buy the single cards, not the packs and boxes. If enough dealers get stuck with this turkey then maybe the manufacturers will learn to start making what the collectors want and not what makes them the most money for the least effort. I look forward to your comments on our forum.
ANDY
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