Making the Grade (November): Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Mary Lou, Bo Knows, The Bambino & Chris Jericho's NHL dad

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: 2012 Topps Heritage #207 Mike Trout
The Reason Graded: Trout doesn't have a Heritage Rookie Card but this one is priced like it's just that in the minds of many and among many auctions. A high-grade copy of this card is impressive but that's not easy with the somewhat brittle stock and that colorful bottom edge. Being a Heritage-minded collector, I needed this one in a slab -- especially considering how few I've pulled. This one was from a pair of fresh breaks I did here earlier this year as I never pulled one in the past.
The Grade: BGS 9

Reality Check: I pulled two of these and I knew that neither was a 9.5 or higher contender with their centering but I needed it slabbed to go with my other early Trout cards. (My other one will go to PSA soon.) I figured it would be a BGS 9 and it was. It's not a flashy pick or grade but the card seems like it's on the radar of many so it bats lead-off here. You can find hobby packs from this set in these value boxes -- and I pulled one from them.

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The Card: 2008 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini #72 Clayton Kershaw
The Reason Graded: I bought Ginter heavily the first few years and relatively regularly since then and all of my somewhat notable minis all went into pages. I recently went through all of them and found just one smaller Kershaw Rookie Card and decided it needed to be a slab as he's clearly destined for Cooperstown. One other reason? I got rid of a lot of his RCs years ago but Ginter survived.
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: I didn't own a loupe when I submitted these but this one looked relatively clean. (A loupe would be quite handy with these white cards compared to others.) It turns out that this one has been topped just twice in the pop report, though it's admittedly low volume. If you can find his early stuff on the cheap (not that easy), he's a no-brainer buy -- no matter how he has fared in postseason.

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The Card: 1991 Impel U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame #27 Mary Lou Retton
The Reason Graded: No, I didn't know she was on Dancing With The Stars when I sent this one in -- this was more of a situation where I had some junk wax (a bulk lot with several sets) and this one just looked razor sharp when it emerged from a pack. Is it a pricey card? No -- though the grade may help it now --  but she's an iconic Olympian of the 1980s and I figured it would be interesting if graded a 10 or higher.
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: This is a BGS pop report 1/1 as no others have been graded. Interestingly just 23 cards from this somewhat-iconic set have been slabbed and none have been higher than a 9.5. It's a set that's dirt cheap, still findable in wax form and popular with TTM autograph collectors because of its multi-sport and historical scope.

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The Card: 2008 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Baseball Icons #BI17 Babe Ruth
The Reason Graded: This 17-card set includes some of the biggest names in the history of the game and, despite it looking like a standard card isn't that easy of a pull at one in every two boxes. Since I have a well-established Ginter mini problem (at least if you're a regular Making the Grade reader), I knew that The Bambino needed BGS treatment.
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: Just 38 cards from this set have been slabbed and Ruth has been 18 of them. Just two have graded higher than mine and most have gotten this grade despite their potential for damage bouncing around in packs. Not a lot more to say here -- just a solid card.

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The Card: 2018 Topps Heritage Chrome Refractors #THC216 Clayton Kershaw (/569)
The Reason Graded: My Chrome pulls in this year's Heritage boxes -- and I've ripped many -- were not good for both the player selection and, even moreso, their centering. I found a number of cards with really bad centering but this one emerged from a box at The National with not only near-perfect centering but also a Refractor finish and a star player attached. This is an admitted 10-chaser submission and it came close -- but I apparently missed some spot on the surface when looking things over.
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: This is the only Kershaw graded from this set -- not that surprising -- but there are a number of cards that have been slabbed from this one. Why? Perhaps it's the appeal of the '69 set or people seeing a lot of badly centered cards just like me. Or it's money players -- a total of 15 cards of the 46 slabbed for this set are of Juan Soto and 10 are of Aaron Judge. The rest are three copies or less.

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The Card: 1969-70 O-Pee-Chee #103 Ted Irvine
The Reason Bought: You may not know his name as his 11-year NHL career ended back in 1977, but this one was a fun pick-up for me after I wondered what I could find for hockey to help bolster my monthly lineups here. Why did I pick this one up? First, the condition and its age -- it looks far better than its grade -- but more importantly it was cheaper than it would have been for me to find one raw and get it graded (with no guarantee for getting a 7). Oh, and way more importantly, this ties into my slabbed WWE collection as he's the dad of future Hall of Famer Chris Jericho. (You just made the list!) It's not his Rookie Card (I have that, ungraded.) but rather a second-year card.
The Grade: PSA 7

Reality Check: This had a far lower pop report volume than I had expected as just 33 cards have graded higher. Had this one not had some ink "dust" on the sides and around the team name, this would have been an elite card as it's razor sharp and clean. It felt like a steal.

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The Card: 1990 Score #697 Bo Jackson (Bo Knows)
The Reason Bought: Like the card before this one, I picked it up at a price it would have cost me to submit one to BGS with no guarantees of a top grade (my five I had set aside didn't make my personal cut). BGS copies of this iconic card tied to the "Bo Knows" Nike campaign can command some good money in higher grade while this one was perhaps overlooked. The edges do have a little roughness but it looked solid to me, enough to make a SGC pickup, though I'm not a fan of their 100 scale (that recently been replaced), at a fraction of the price a lower-graded copy from elsewhere would cost.
The Grade: SGC 96

Reality Check: This is the most-common grade for this card via SGC though only nine have graded higher. Over on the BGS side, it's not the easiest grade with just six 10s (none Black) among nearly 450 submissions. There have been 104 BGS 9s and 229 9.5s. Maybe I'll do some hunting and take that challenge with BGS. Until then, I'll appreciate this one.

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