Making the Grade (March): A Ken Griffey Jr. RC, Bo Bichette, Sandy Koufax, bargain vintage & a new 1982 Topps Blackless?

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 ... it's a bit heavier on MLB and some vintage edition as I'm still awaiting deliveries.

CLASSIC BATTING LEAD-OFF ...
The Card: Ken Griffey Jr. 1989 Topps Traded #41T -- Rookie Card
The Reason Bought: I'm fine with nines and when I saw this one for $17.50 with no obvious substantial flaws despite its grade I grabbed it. Why? Slabbed early cards of all-time greats like him from the 1980s and 1990s are destined to be moving as slab-hungry buyers want more and more as the obvious other bigger cards just keep rising. I, myself, am not all that interested in chasing Griffey's Upper Deck RC at a meaty price in a high-grade slab (I have a couple around/below this mark and a few raw not worth slabbing) but this one always has a little more appeal to me since it's cheap ... and I actually had a few way back then.
The Grade: BGS 9

Reality Check: This card isn't the easiest grade with weird surface roller lines, centering and back edge chipping issues always possible based on what I've seen. While a BGS 9 or 9.5 isn't all that rare, I'm fine with it for the price -- a 9.5 will definitely cost more and the most-common grade is actually lower than this. That population of 10s is surprising but I'm not that surprised there are no truly perfect copies. I don't think its possible here.

Keep reading for more of this month's pick-ups and new slabs for Buzz.

A REGULAR BUY FOR ME
The Card: Bo Bichette 2019 Bowman Chrome Elite Farmhands #BB
The Reason Bought: If you're a regular reader, then you have seen a few Bichette cards in MTG in recent months and this one caught my attention as it was less than $8. Sure it's an insert and not a standard prospect card, but I liked the overall look here (I'm a sucker for that stance captured on cardboard).
The Grade: PSA 9

Reality Check: I didn't check the pop report before grabbing this one. Most cards check in at a nine here and there's nothing lower -- and that seems realistic unlike some cards that are nearly all PSA 10s (see my next one). I don't have much else to say on this as it was just a quality budget grab in my mind.

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STILL A BELIEVER
The Card: Keston Hiura 2017 Bowman's Best Top Prospects Refractors #TP25
The Reason Bought: His second season wasn't quite as strong as his rookie campaign -- especially that batting average drop (yikes) -- but I liked the price on this one for a parallel and the top grade from an overlooked brand in the prospecting landscape. I still paid a little more than my norm (just under a blaster in price) but I didn't mind it back then. (I think this grab was from before last season actually started.)
The Grade: PSA 10

Reality Check: I didn't check the pop report on this one ... but at least I didn't end up with the only PSA 9.

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MORE PROOFING
The Card: Billy Walik 1971 Topps #23 1989 Topps Auction blank-back proof -- Rookie Card
The Reason Bought: Once I get more of my new slabs in hand (COVID delays and weather derailed that happening this month), I'll group the rest of these vintage proof cards that I grabbed on the cheap -- the super cheap, really -- all in one post here. I can tell you I know nothing about Walik but he was a Villanova star who played in the NFL, WFL and CFL so there's that. I got this for less than $3 and I thought that was interesting as this was a card from the landmark Topps auction and because it looks very, very good for its grade.
The Grade: BVG 6

Reality Check: The pop report dumps the proofs in with the regular cards for some reason so it's a pop-one just like the other copy of his RC ... and mine came in higher. I think earlier proof cards like this should be in the $20 range at least just for the novelty of where they came from. I don't buy to sell, really, but I don't mind buying at firesale prices like this one.

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OWNED IT FOR YEARS ...
The Card: Sandy Koufax 1962 Topps #5
The Reason Graded: This submission was all mine as I have had this low-grade card of this Hall of Famer for years -- literally a mid-1990s trade pick-up. I used to take all of my fresh 1990s retail finds from my Walmart packs to a mom-and-pop card shop and trade them for big-name, low-grade vintage stars in bulk. (They did 100-percent match in trade ... and lower grades meant more legendary names in return.) This is a strong card and it was expensive back then, too ... if it was mint. Mine is not but it was still clean enough I figured I'd slab it up. Even rough vintage cards can present better in a slab.
The Grade: PSA 3

Reality Check: I actually figured this would grade lower than this given that centering and the corners but overall it was clean enough to land where it did. Believe it or not, PSA 3s of this card have sold for $65 a pop on eBay in recent weeks ... so I like this more than I thought I did, though I didn't slab it to sell. I probably gave up some suddenly now huge cards to get it with all those 1990s buyers back and spending big on that stuff now.

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CHEAP HALL OF FAMER
The Card: Roy Face & Hoyt Wilhelm "Fork & Knuckler" 1960 Topps #115
The Reason Bought: Old Topps leader and combo cards are where you can find bargains on big names in lesser condition and this one includes a Hall of Famer in Wilhelm. It's not the flashiest thing out there, but I liked the two-team appeal here -- they'd only see each other in the spring, the postseason or one other time. This time? Well, it's from July 7, 1959, at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh for the All-Star Game. Why do I know that? Check out this photo ... it's not the exact same moment -- they have switched sides -- but it's the same thing going down from a different angle once they had moved and you can see the stadium roof that would match the lower angle of the Topps photographer. It's got to be from that time ... and, weirdly, it shows up again in the 1962 Topps set. I didn't know anything about this at all when I grabbed it ... I just liked it as a $5 card.
The Grade: PSA 5

Reality Check: This card generally grades pretty well and that may not that surprising if you have seen a lot of 1960 Topps cards. I remember seeing a lot of them in clean, very strong gradable form long before grading was a thing.

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SLABBING GONE WRONG (FOR ME)
The Card: Bart Giamatti 1990 Donruss #716 -- Rookie Card
The Reason Graded: I visited this one exactly a year ago in this series but here's the quick version. I ripped a few crisp, clean and dirt-cheap cello boxes of 1990 Donruss (back when they truly were cheap, unlike now) in search of a few key cards for grading. After I struck out there with just one copy of this card (but plenty of others ... like plenty) I grabbed a factory set and, well, his card was atop one of those shrink-wrapped decks. Fail.  So ... I sent the one I pulled from a cello pack in anyway with hopes for a PSA 9. That didn't happen and I can see why now when this one is photographed under a stronger light.
The Grade: PSA 8

Reality Check: This posthumous card does routinely check in at this grade so I shouldn't have been as annoyed as I was with this submission, but the centering and a couple corners do look fuzzier here than I remembered. (I thought I louped it but maybe not.) I was so annoyed by this one that I went out and bought a PSA 9 (last year's card) ... and now that I compare them, well, it's a little odd as they look pretty much the same to me. I need to get them side by side and in hand to compare. (The lesson here? Grading older paper-stock cards can be a bigger challenge than you might think.)

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JUST GRABBED IT
The Card: John Johnson 1979 Supersonics Police #14
The Reason Bought: I picked up a couple of these raw in recent months and got his other Police card just recently to put a dent into what I need for this oldschool NBA player with school ties for me. It's nothing expensive, but these cards are no-frills creations with no gloss on somewhat soft stock and they're oversized ... so razor-sharp clean copies aren't a given at all if you find them.
The Grade: PSA 8

Reality Check: Rather than submit one of mine (being unsure about the cost for a larger slab) I just bit on this one for about the price of a blaster box even though I would have preferred a PSA 9. Another reason why I just grabbed it? I did take a look at the pop report ... who knows if the PSA 9 would ever even be available?

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IMPRESSIVE FIVES
The Card: Wally Moon 1960 Topps #5
The Reason Bought: First ... look at this card. How is that a PSA 5? Second ... it cost me just $4. While I photographed this one and put it away awhile back, I didn't see any real issues with it so there must be some oddity on the surface to immediately knock it down to this mark. The centering is just slightly off but not in a PSA 5 way.
The Grade: PSA 5

Reality Check: I don't have some secret Wally Moon collection or anything ... I do know that I'd buy name PSA 5s all day long if they looked like this at this kind of a price.

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A RARE BOTCH ... MAYBE EVEN A NEW ONE?
The Card: Steve Swisher 1982 Topps Blackless variation #764
The Reason Bought: You may be wondering what the deal is here ... but I paid up for this one (about $50) because it's a rarity -- a kind of card I don't remember ever seeing in-person for it to even tempt me. What's the deal? Well, about half of the 1982 Topps cards can be found without their black ink and that's most obviously seen by the cards missing facsimile autographs and the black border around the photo. Some people estimate there are fewer than 100 copies per card here and that seems very, very low for the era. To be honest I've never really worried about them as this is the only one I'd want to chase as it's part of my player-collector stash. (He's Nick Swisher's dad.)
The Grade: PSA 7

Reality Check: This copy looked odd in my mind and my thoughts were reinforced when I saw a scan of the only other graded copy ... a card that actually checked in lower in grade than mine but does look better. That one is owned by a diehard who's serious enough about this set to collect all of them, grade all of them and put them in the PSA Registry where it's the only completed set. That scan reinforced something about my card and this error in general. Look closely at mine ... you can see the border is gone but you can see a hint of his facsimile auto under his elbows. It's partially there and it's not on the PSA registry one. Look again at his card ... mine is not the same card. Something is funky -- could this be a different variation of a Blackless card where there's a glob of an auto showing? (Could there be others with partial black pieces or halos of missing sigs?) The partly showing facsimile with a glob of other ink missing around the elbow reminds me of the 1990 Topps variations (think Frank Thomas RC) where the sheet's black plate had some kind of liquid remove the printing surface (see sheet image here). This Swisher is definitely missing the black border on the photo like a regular Blackless card ... with that sleeve showing some kind of liquid pattern. Maybe some of the 1982 diehards can find other Blackless cards out there with partial black-ink removals? Call my card a starting point. (Or, if this is all known already, somebody let me know and I'll link it here.) By the way, for you sleuths with access to Blackless cards or images I'd start looking at Steve Crawford, Dyar Miller, Jose Morales and Larry Milbourne ... those are the cards around Swisher on the sheet. (Melbourne directly below.) I have to wonder if there are variations for those guys among Blackless versions.

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