Making the Grade (February): Patrick Mahomes, Bo Knows, Wendy Peffercorn, Tom Brady, Super Bowl stars & more

Like many collectors, Buzz is a fan of grading and knows that there are many reasons that collectors choose to slab cards. Sometimes it's to enhance the appeal and protect them when selling. Other times it's to protect an investment for the long-term or to protect for sentimental reasons. Or, it might be just for fun or curiosity about a potential grade.

Here's this month's grading diary here on The Buzz ...

The Card: 2017 Donruss Rookie Gridiron Kings #2 Patrick Mahomes II
The Reason Graded: His break-out campaign started off so strong I had to revisit my past pulls from Donruss last year -- I busted a ton -- and I submitted a trio of his cards. You saw one last month, you see this one here and you'll see another in March. (Call that a spoiler.) This insert isn't the most-striking of cards but it looked very clean in my pre-examining of cards so it made the cut.
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: None have graded higher but this one is not alone on the pop report. That surprises me a bit as grading seems to be all about standard RCs, rare numbered parallels and the ol' big mojo hits, but it seems that a season like the one he had could be prompting anything from his first year on cardboard to get another look. (Ironically you can still grab boxes of this one and others relatively cheap, too. To me that all spells fun ... and wax will dry up over time.)

Keep reading for the rest of this month's new grades and additions.

The Card: 2016 Donruss Optic Holo #62 Tom Brady
The Reason Graded: I pulled two of these on the same day and they both looked very locked-in on the centering -- something that wasn't all that common (at least for me) that year. Since it's a parallel from a popular brand (moreso for the rookies that year) and he's easily the top all-time guy playing right now, I figured I'd submit the best of the two and do a little 10-chasing.
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: This one was a strong card but it looks like these are all grading well. There is a 10 out there, but it wasn't mine. I'm fine with this grade but the one I still have left raw makes me wonder ...

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The Card: 2011 Topps Update Diamond Anniversary #US186 J.D. Martinez RC
The Reason Graded: Confession time: I bought a ton of 2011 Topps Update mostly for the Diamond Dig code cards that year that yielded vintage cardboard and even a 1/1 diamond card for me that fueled my interest that year. A good side effect of that one was I had a bunch of Trouts, Rizzos, Altuves and others -- some I still have, many I got rid of -- but I only have this one lone Martinez parallel. I typically hold RC logo cards and obvious stars before I jettison base cards (typically when I move) but for some reason Martinez didn't make the cut. He would have had I known it was his only RC. I was fortunate enough to find this one bouncing around in a box of inserts and figured I would slab it up after his MVP-caliber year.
The Grade: BGS 9

Reality Check: It turns out this falls right at the most-common grade for this card. I must have missed a mark somewhere on the surface but I probably still would have submitted it given how it's my lone version of any of his RCs. I'm fine with 9s -- and it turns out that there are worse copies out there.

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The Card: 2018 Topps Archives The Sandlot #SLWP Wendy Peffercorn
The Reason Graded: The stars of The Sandlot are a big novelty draw in 2018 Topps Archives and their autographs are a fun and simple chase that ultimately will cost you a few bucks but really shouldn't break the bank since there aren't a lot of A-listers among the cast. Marley Shelton, aka Wendy Peffercorn, might be the biggest of the bunch but since her autograph is awful -- go look here, I'll wait -- I decided to just slab the first Sandlot card I pulled this year ... this one.
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: I've got first graded dibs and it's a solid 9.5 but I'll admit I was a little bummed on that centering grade.  (Now that I see it photographed with lighting like this, I can see it's a little more off-centered than I had thought.) Would I grade others from this set? Maybe a couple but not all of them. I'm picky about my novelty grades.

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The Card: 2014 Topps 1989 Topps Diecut Minis #TM28 Mike Trout
The Reason Graded: I'm a sucker for a graded mini and this is one that always has jumped out at me because of its bright color combo and a simple photo. I submitted this one knowing, yes, it's off-center a tad but it was still otherwise flawless -- and that's not easy considering how these can bounce around in packs and the couple of spots that could ding easily (particularly the bottom left tip of the name tail/ribbon).
The Grade: BGS 9

Reality Check: This one also bummed me on the centering but, hey, it is what it is. No 10s exist and thankfully mine's not the worst copy out there. I still like the card -- and check eBay and you'll see some meaty price tags attached to 9.5s there. (A cool $40 and $86? I don't like the card that much ... but I would have taken it if it was mine.)

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The Card: 1988 Maxx Charlotte #5 Davey Allison RC
The Reason Bought: This is a set stacked with Rookie Cards as it was the first standard-issue type of cardboard for NASCAR. I own the set -- I found one factory sealed about a decade ago -- but the centering on most of my cards is iffy (not bad, just not BGS 10 caliber). This card seemed interesting for its $5 price and it didn't have any obvious serious flaws other than the top-to-bottom centering and a chipped upper edge of the slab. I figured "why not?"
The Grade: PSA 8

Reality Check: This set is heavily graded -- more than 7,500 cards and it's not a big set -- and this is one of the more-graded cards. NASCAR is also back this month, so that's one of the reasons you see it here. It's not one of the better copies, but this was a simple bargain click-and-pick (up) for me.

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The Card: 1987 Classic #15 Bo Jackson
The Reason Bought: Lower BGS slabs of this iconic card are very pricey and high-grade PSA copies are serious cash, but I wanted a copy of this one. It's a card that pre-dates the Bo Knows card by three years and comes from a release where you could open a fresh factory sealed set (not as easily done these days) and find your cards in rougher shape than this one. (My set opened in recent years wasn't great.) This is a textbook example of buy the card not the slab -- it's a clean copy despite some extra fuzz on the left side. I ponied up a bit to land it -- around the uniform number -- but not too much where it felt uncomfortable.
The Grade: SGC 96

Reality Check: I didn't check the pop report before buying, but I feel a little better about it since it's one of just two cards to reach this highest grade. The spots you see on the edges are accentuated a bit more than when it's seen under natural light.Go check eBay for PSA and BGS copies on this one and you'll see they are all over the place on both condition and price.

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The Card: 1992 Pro Line Portraits #316 Emmitt Smith
The Reason Bought: I did a double-take when I found this one for around $8 -- I couldn't grade it that cheap with no guarantee of a 10, though I do have a few I have pulled that would be contenders. I'm a sucker for Pro Line cards from the early years and there was a time where this card was a biggie. Not so much now after all these years but it still seems unique to me compared to a lot of cardboard for this Hall of Famer.
The Grade: PSA 10

Reality Check: It turns out that this is one of those cards that grades well -- no biggie -- so finding it at a bargain price probably shouldn't have beeb that surprising. Either way, it's one I wanted. Simple as that.

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The Card: 1973 Topps #320 Fred Biletnikoff
The Reason Bought: A vintage Hall of Famer for $4 ... other than the vertical centering and some lignt snow this is a sharp card. Vertical centering doesn't bug my eye as much so this one really jumped out at me after I saw the price. You could rip new packs and find cards in rougher shape than this one.
The Grade: PSA 6

Reality Check: It's a lower grade on the pop report and it's not that pricey but I liked how it looked for $4 and I couldn't get it graded for that price. I'd buy PSA 6s all day long if they always looked like this.

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The Card: 1983 Topps #33 Jim McMahon RC
The Reason Bought: I grabbed this one for less than $8 -- that's about half what it would have cost me to grade if I had one -- but I truly jumped after I did a closer look. Everything is rock solid here except that surface grade and I think that's due to the vertical steak of yellow ink to the left of his face. Under natural lighting the streak is not as obvious as it is here under direct light.
The Grade: BGS 8

Reality Check: I was genuinely surprised to see how many copies of this card have been slabbed across the board. Mine feels like a bargain and feels better than an 8 and I'm fine with it. Why did I opt for this pick-up besides price? The first NFL game I remember watching is Super Bowl XX when it was this guy and his "Super Bowl Shuffle" teammates winning it all.

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