Topic: Advice on Grading and Selling Old Cards

Hello everyone!

I'm new here, and I apologize if I'm asking in the wrong place. I played MTG in the mid-late 90s, and I still have some of my old cards. My brother recently told me they have increased in value, and he was looking into getting his Juzam Djinn graded and then sell it.

So I went back to my mother's house, got my box of cards, and If you check my inventory, you will see I have a few cards that have some value according to Deckbox. One of them, a revised Underground Sea, looks to me to be in NM condition and might grade very well. This is because I bought an old revised pack in the late 90s for about $20, and was lucky enough to get the dual land. At that point, all of my best cards were in Ultra-Pro deck protector sleeves, and the Underground Sea went straight into one.

I also have a couple of Alpha, Beta, and Arabian Nights (no rares), and I believe my Unlimited Forcefield is in lightly played / NM condition, but definitely not a 10.

I am looking ultimately to sell these, but am wondering if it is worth it to get any of the cards graded first. From reading around and playing catchup on the hobby, I believe this is a loaded question, but any thoughts you can sure would be greatly appreciated! Also, for my brother's Juzan Djinn, is it worth grading if it's in lightly played condition?

The only card I want to keep is my foreign black-bordered Shivan Dragon, as it was a birthday present from my brother (he knew it was my favorite card and that I always wanted a black-bordered one, and even in the late '90s, a Beta Shivan was expensive).

I would like to post pictures here of some of my best cards, but only if that's allowed by the site rules. Can I post a google drive link? I haven't paid for Deckbox premium yet, because I'm not sure yet if this is how I will sell it. I also don't have any reputation here, so I don't know if I would be able to.

Thank you!

Re: Advice on Grading and Selling Old Cards

So I’ve taken some rough photos of my best cards, and posted them here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ … QxdWFTkK_y
(If this is a problem, please let me know and I can take it down!)

I only took photos with the original protectors still on so as not to handle them too much. Only the fronts are visible, but when it becomes necessary, I can take them out of the sleeves to get good front and back images.

Re: Advice on Grading and Selling Old Cards

Hello Air,

Welcome to Deckbox!

First off, Nothing wrong with anything in your posts. Keep on keeping on smile

Secondly, Ill give my 2 cents about the grading and selling.

I'm by no means a good grader (more average than anything) but if the USea is a good on the back as the front, it should fetch a good score from grading (8-9 would be my guess ). But then there are a couple of questions you need to ask yourself before you (or your brother) go down the road of getting things graded.

Certain cards like USea are in pretty high demand not just from their collectability but from their playability. Unfortunately, those 2 do not always work well together because the more you play with said cards, the more damage they can incur. How much work are you looking to put into selling a card? How long are you willing to wait to find the right price you want to finally move at? From my experience, graded cards will fetch the most in terms of value in return BUT will take longer to move/sell because there is a smaller subset of people looking for graded cards for collections (especially expensive ones) rather than players who need the cards to actually play.

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Re: Advice on Grading and Selling Old Cards

Hey Helios!

Thanks so much for the helpful response and welcome! Sorry for the late reply, there was a site bug that wouldn't allow me to click on this topic while logged in.

That’s great to know about there being two conflicting markets for the cards, players and collectors. I really like the idea of a player getting use out of the card, but I’m also not I any rush and could wait for the premium I might get from a collector.

I’ve read that a good approach is to sell the best cards individually and the rest as a collection. I have a few hundred other cards not listed in my inventory, mostly revised commons, about 20 legends commons, and some Urza’s Saga/Destiny (the last sets I bought packs of).

For grading, I need to decide what’s worth grading, if I decide to grade anything.

The Underground Sea seems like the best candidate for grading, since it’s both a valuable rare legacy card and it’s in great condition.

But what about cards that are more of a compromise, such as:

1) Rare legacy cards (Juzam Djinn, Forcefield) that are clearly lightly played at best, no shot of a 9-10 grade. Would an 8 add any value to those cards or is that a waste?
2) Less valuable legacy cards (revised Royal Assassin, Sol Ring) that are in mint condition and could possibly get a 9 or 10
My thought was also that since we’re new to selling, at least grading would authenticate the card?

Thanks again for your reply, and  to everyone reading this. It’s really incredible to pull these cards out 20 years later and see all the artwork and feel nostalgic for the game.

Re: Advice on Grading and Selling Old Cards

Hello again!

I’ve been having some fun the last few months getting back into Magic and sports cards, and actually discovered a colleague at work who send cards in for grading all of the time.

My brother and decided to go ahead and get our two best cards graded, his Juzam Djinn and my revised Underground Sea. The Usea came back an 8.5, and unfortunately his Djinn came back a 7.5. When I saw his card I didn’t think it was in great condition but he wanted to grade it anyway. If anything, now the cards are safe and authenticated. One nice thing is that both cards got a 9.5 for centering, which I believe is the most prized subgrade! If I get a chance, I’ll post pictures soon.

Last edited by air453 (2020-01-17 15:50:37)