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 ...

MY FIRST WEM-BAM!-YAMA ...
The Card: Victor Wembanyama 2023-24 Panini Prizm Green Prizms -- Rookie Card parallel
The Reason Graded: My first -- and actually only -- batch of Prizm NBA blasters included this gem and I knew instantly that it would be in a slab once I saw its centering and then no issues among the sometimes-pesky edges for Prizm and similar stock of the last few years. (Sometimes clean ... sometimes not.) In this case, I had this one in a box headed for grading even before I had its Buzz Break box broken down and posted here ... and it's a solid keeper for me vs. my Hoops finds that all had things that me scared off of slabbing them.
The Grade: CGC 10 (Pristine)

Reality Check: That's pretty much the perfect scenario isn't it? Top grade for a retail blaster -- at suggested retail price even -- pull ... even if there's a curtain that seemed to lather up some people out there. This won't be the last you see of this generational talent in this series ... but this is it for this month's slabs.

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

Continue reading →

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 ...

WILD THING!
The Card: Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) 2014 Topps Archives Major League 
The Reason Graded: As you can tell by the green label, this one is an older submission of mine ... but since spring training will be upon us soon I figured I'd lead off with an oddball classic and a card that has been pretty pricey in recent years despite being from a set where they showed up one per blaster box (if I remember correctly). The challenge here? Now even finding blasters is not easy ... they got ripped. Why? There weren't just basic inserts for some of the stars of Major League who got carded ... they signed, too. (Roughly one auto per hobby case.)
The Grade: CSG 9.5 (now 10)

Reality Check: This one was clean so I knew I wanted to slab it -- the backs here have black borders that can be an issue -- and as it turns out this is the only 10 of a small bunch graded. That's a win for me.

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

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →