Making The Grade is a monthly department here on The Buzz that ran all year long in 2019 -- its first complete season so far. Its a place where newly slabbed cards and a few pick-ups get the spotlight -- a little show-and-tell to get people talking and thinking about cards beyond "What's it worth?"

Sometimes I picked cards for fun, sometimes I chased 10s, but other times I slabbed with some longer-term "investment" thought -- and I don't even do that often. (My go-to is to simply slab stuff that I like.) The card you see up top? You can firmly place it in the red-hot fun file. The card at right? You can put it in the long-term keeper stack along with the guy below him, who had plenty of appearances in the series this year.

As one of a couple of 2019 retrospective posts I have planned -- they're at least on my to-do list at least until other work pops up -- here's a look at the series where I talked about 158 new slabs this past year. You can see them all at the links below.

January -- Making the Grade: Patrick Mahomes, The Mick, Tommy Chong, Whitney Houston, botched cardboard & more

February -- Making the Grade: Patrick Mahomes, Bo Knows, Wendy Peffercorn, Tom Brady, Super Bowl stars & more

March -- Making the Grade: Young MVPs, iconic Hall of Famers, Silent Bob, March Madness, a Future Superstar & more

April -- Making the Grade: Vince McMahon, Steve Austin and WrestleMania icons plus Ronald Acuña Jr. & more MLB stars

May -- Making the Grade: Baker Mayfield, JLo's Rookie Card, Joe Cool, Nuke LaLoosh, Hailie Deegan & more past gems

June -- Making the Grade: The Dream Team, Ronald Acuña Jr., Bart Starr, Mike Trout, Deadpool, Kelly Hu's rookie & more

July -- Making the Grade: Aaron Judge, Jayson Tatum, Ric Flair, Michael Jordan, Ronald Acuña Jr., Billy Ripken's bad bat knob, Chrissy Teigen's Rookie Card, The Big Lebowski's ink & more

August -- Making the Grade: New Vladdy, Acuña, Rally Squirrel, Undertaker, Juggernaut, Michael Jordan, Paige, Kurt Cobain, The Bad News Bears' ace ... and Keith Comstock's beanballs?

September -- Making the Grade: Joe Namath's ink, Dak & Jerry Rookie Cards, Saquon Barkley, Lonzo Ball, 1990s NFL classics, high-grade vintage, The Four Horsewomen of NXT & more

October -- Making the Grade: Ronald Acuña Jr. heaters, Clerks, Ernie Davis, hot ink, Supergirl, Catwoman & real Nuke LaLoosh

November -- Making the Grade: Dak Prescott, Luka Doncic, Magic Johnson & John Cena rookies, Robert Mueller, the first perfect Keith Comstock, Meghan Markle's MLB card & more

December -- Making the Grade: Rare Shohei Ohtani, Star Wars, Pete Alonso, Tim Duncan, vintage, several WWE stars & more

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Need even more? See previous months' Making The Grade posts by clicking here (scroll down)

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

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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: Dak Prescott 2016 Donruss #362 Rookie Card
The Reason Bought: It takes a pretty good deal for one of my buys to lead off here instead of one of my newly submitted grades, but this one was just that. This is one of those cards that is relatively available if you want to chase one down and slab it for some fun or profit. My cost? About $22, which might seem high generally speaking but isn't for its grade -- this was about half the price of the other cards in the same grade where I was looking at the time. They are even higher now.
The Grade: BGS 10

Reality Check: This one is just a half-grade away from a perfect BGS Black slab and the percentage of cards to get this mark is pretty low vs. the overall total. That's what surprised me here more and prompted the pick-up. It's a relatively heavily graded card, too, which you'd think would have resulted in more 10s. (Paper stock can be more pesky than Optic stuff when it comes to grading, though.)

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

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Have you seen the latest cool or interesting items on eBay? If not, you just might see some of those here every week as we're launching a weekly version of our eBay Buzz pieces that pop up from time to time. We’ll spotlight some items that have a story or just wow us with how much interest it might have — and we’re not just talking baseball cards, either.

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A CAREER IN A CARD ...
The Item: Ichiro Suzuki 2017 Topps Triple Threads Jumbo Patch Combo Relic booklet (1/1)
The Price: $29,999 Buy-It-Now (or best offer)
Why it’s Buzz-worthy: First and most importantly I don't think that price is ever going to be hit, but we'll lead off with some powerful window-shopping as the legendary MLB career of Ichiro Suzuki has come to an end. This piece shows him with the only three MLB teams he ever played for and it includes some impressive jumbo patches, too. This is the kind of magic that has been somewhat commonplace -- yet still not easily pulled -- in boxes of Triple Threads since it arrived back in 2006.
Similar Pieces: Ichiro Suzuki cards on eBay
The BlowoutCards.com Hunt: Click here for Triple Threads boxes (all years)

Keep reading for four more interesting items in this week's roundup ...

Continue reading →

Have you seen the latest cool or interesting items on eBay? If not, you just might see some of those here every week as we're launching a weekly version of our eBay Buzz pieces that pop up from time to time. We’ll spotlight some items that have a story or just wow us with how much interest it might have — and we’re not just talking baseball cards, either.

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A NATIONAL BONUS FOR LIVING SET BUYERS
The Item: 2018 Topps National Sports Collectors Convention Francisco Lindor Topps Living Set litho signed by artist Mayumi Seto (90/100)
The Price: $94 after 20 bids with several days remaining
Why it’s Buzz-worthy: This piece was a bonus item to a few lucky collectors at this year's National Sports Collectors Convention in Cleveland as the artist was on hand on the Saturday of the show to greet fans. A ticket good for one of the prints was randomly put into the three-card Living Set packs that were available at the show. The set has become a popular weekly release via Topps.com with thousands of copies of each card sold each week and Seto is the creative force fueling some of the demand with her life-like artwork that's being used as part of this 1953 Topps homage. (That year's set used paintings.) Other lithos have asking prices between $345 and $749 among active auctions, while a number of these have already sold. It will be interesting to watch this one -- asking prices on standard cards she signed at the show also have commanded some strong prices. This one is impressive.
Similar Pieces: Check out 2018 Topps Living Set cards on eBay
The BlowoutCards.com Hunt: Click here for baseball boxes

Keep reading for four more interesting items in this week's roundup ...

Continue reading →