Making the Grade (May): A perfect LeBron, Cooperstown's call, a somber Lois Lane, WWE's BOSS and ... an anime All-Star?

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: 2014-15 Panini Prizm Photo Variations Prizms Green Mojo #10 LeBron James (/25)
The Reason Graded: What's better than a super-rare show parallel of a future NBA Hall of Famer? A BGS 10 version of a super-rare show parallel of a future NBA Hall of Famer. What's better than that? An absolutely perfect copy. About the only thing that could top this one would be the one with the 23/25 serial-numbering (this is not that) but I'll take it as this is my first perfect Black label 10 and one of only a few 10s I've had in years of occasional submissions.
The Grade: BGS 10 (perfect Black label)

Reality Check: High-grade copies of this card aren't really rare -- everything is a 9.5 or higher with eight of the 25 slabbed -- but it's a solid start for our rebooting of the grading diary here. What's it worth? I'd love to hear peoples' estimates. This one was from his first wave of cards back in a Cavaliers uniform ... so I'm late grading as he's potentially about to trade this jersey in for something else.

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The Card: 1978 Topps #703 Rookie Pitchers (Larry Andersen/Tim Jones/Mickey Mahler/Jack Morris) RC DP
The Reason Graded: Buzz pulled this one from a pack years ago and its centering prompted me to instantly penny sleeve it and that's where it sat (well, in a top-loader) until this year. I figured it might grade well and since Morris is headed to Cooperstown this year it might be of bigger interest if a high grade.
The Grade: BVG 8.5

Reality Check: I had grander visions for this card, though I don't use a loupe to examine cards -- just an intense spotlight. I could have submitted it to PSA but figured I'd stick with a lower pop report -- or so I thought. The relative availability of 1978 cards has helped nearly 300 cards find their way into slabs and only 35 cards graded better than this one. This one bummed me, but a silver label in vintage isn't easy.

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The Card: 1981 Topps Superman II #4 Newswoman Lois Lane (Margot Kidder)
The Reason Graded: Buzz picked these cards out for grading about a month ago -- this one because of its strong centering compared to others found in a rack pack in a Buzz 12 in 12 break about a year ago -- meanwhile, Kidder died Sunday at age 69. It's not the flashiest card (that photo crop is rough) but main character and/or actor cards from older non-sports sets are the key cards in my mind. The minute I saw this one in that past break, it felt slab-worthy with the centering.
The Grade: BGS 8.5

Reality Check: I had hoped for a BGS 9 or higher here but this card still carries a little bit of weight as it's a 1/1 -- I'm the only one to grade Lois from this set. Maybe I'll track down a loupe later this summer so I can nitpick older cards a little harder when submitting them. The pesky surface grade got me here -- and all I see is that small printing dot on the left border -- maybe there's a wrinkle I didn't notice.

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The Card: 2014 Topps WWE NXT Prospects #17 Sasha Banks
The Reason Graded: As you may have figured out with 18 hours of #BuzzMania last month, Buzz is a fan of collecting wrestling cards because there's just a lot less to go around vs. the standard sports, there are fewer names to collect (makes it easier) and there's still a rabid enough fan base volume-wise that should make some WWE cards safe investment-type cards for the future. (This one not so much on that but try to find some older WWE wax boxes ... there's where your challenge for grading starts.) This is her first WWE card appearance, so I figured I needed to get one slabbed -- and actually thought I had in the past. (I hadn't.)
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: This one surprised me a bit grade-wise as I had pulled a few of this card but none were super-comfy for me grading-wise. This was the best of the bunch and I had figured it might grade lower and serve as a smackdown-style example of "Why'd you grade that?" if it came back an 8.5 or so. Thankfully that didn't happen -- it's the best-graded copy of The Boss so far.

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The Card: 2007 BBM Japan #491 Checklist — Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (Hichori Morimoto)
The Reason Graded: Sometimes you just have to celebrate an oddball card and make it a bigger (fun) show-it-off piece with it being in a slab. What the heck is this? It's a checklist card from basically the Japanese version of Topps cards and it shows a moment when Morimoto, an All-Star outfielder for the Nippon-Ham Fighters a few years before Shohei Ohtani showed up, at one of the 2006 Nippon Professional Baseball All-Star Games dressed as Dragon Ball Z character Piccolo. Why? I'll leave that for you guys to figure out -- all I know is that it's on a baseball card. (And I can't think of anybody else with antennae on a card other than the legend found here.)
The Grade: BGS 10

Reality Check: It's a 1/1 in the pop report and it's a 10 -- works for me. (What else can I say about this one, anyway?)

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Want more? We'll have a new grading diary next month. You can see all past entries here. 

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Follow Buzz on Twitter @BlowoutBuzz or send email to BlowoutBuzz@blowoutcards.com. 

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