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 ...

TICKET TO HISTORY ...
The Ticket: Woodstock (Aug.15-17, 1969) -- three-day ticket ($24)
The Reason Bought: There are more than a dozen different styles of tickets for this historic event in music and pop culture history and none of them are all that rare -- and that makes for an interesting grading market. High-grade tickets can be priced like they're non-existent yet about 60 percent of the full tickets that are slabbed check in at a PSA 9 or 10 and raw tickets (assuming they are real ... but there's a chance they might not be) can be found on the cheap under $100. I knew quite awhile back that I wanted one in a slab and I was patient with my window shopping until I spotted this one. I wanted a three-day style but there are single-day tickets that are very traditional-looking and I finally spotted this one at a good price (just under $100) vs. the same thing with asking prices for 9s and 10s that are as high as $1,000. Actual sales for higher grades are typically anywhere from $200 to $700 on eBay with a lot of irregularity -- and BINs just under the $200 mark quite often. In short, they're findable.
The Grade: PSA 8

Reality Check: More than 3,750 different full tickets have been slabbed for Woodstock and this version -- one of three types in the PSA pop report for a three-day ticket -- is the easiest and the only one with more than 1,000 copies slabbed. In fact, the number of 10s for this style is higher than all but two of the entire slab totals for other styles. I didn't sweat the grade as the flaws on this one seem minor -- I'm imagining some minor black ink "snow" on there perhaps dropped it a grade but generally everything here is clean to the eye with no obvious flaws. That's good enough for me as beginner or one-time dabbler. Modern tickets for big artists can be quite pricey when slabbed as availability is often an issue, but I'm assuming a bulk "find" of these happened at some point back in the day given the high-profile event and all that went into it.

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

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing Today: Nothing but breaks as we truck into the weekend.

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Do you like Buzz Breaks? We recently launched 12 in 12 -- a series of a dozen breaks of past wax boxes and wax packs in a dozen hours. This is a single-pack break in that style -- but not the launching of a new 12 in 12. (We'll perhaps have one of those next month. Click the logo below to see the previous posts in the series.)

The pack: 1986 Donruss MLB wax pack
The cost now: $1.50
The cost then: Less than $1

What's inside this pack? Keep reading ...

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What: 2016 Donruss Optic baseball cards
Arrives: July 20
Box basics:  Two autographs per 20-pack box (12 boxes per case)

What's buzz-worthy: Panini's promise of bringing Optichrome into its baseball lineup begins here with a Prizmatic take on the Donruss baseball brand that will include 10 parallels to the basic Donruss set you've seen before with some added touches.

Keep reading for more info and a full gallery of images released so far.

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