Thursday, March 25, 2010

Leela's Tips & Tricks - March 2010

Leela’s Tips & Tricks is Leela’s first foray into writing a monthly column – she usually just appears in Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood. As such, she does not have an impressive resume … yet. But give her a break; she’s only five-years-old! We hope you find her vintage collecting tips useful, her butchered attempts at composing sentences in what she calls “Canadien-French” amusing (if not refreshing, albeit confusing), and her unabashed love for her Montreal Canadiens admirable. Enjoy!

La Demi-Grade Ne Peut Faire Une Différence

(Translation: The half-grade can make a difference)

Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me again, Leela, and I’m gonna give ya some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!

For those of you who send your cards into grading companies for “grading, authentication, and encapsulation,” I have some free advice for you. If you do not have a strong preference for a particular grading company and are undecided as to whether to send your cards to PSA or SGC, for example. Take a look at your cards with a critical eye. If your cards are likely to grade 3s and 4s, you’ll probably want to send them to PSA because they now offer half-grades (e.g., 3.5, 4.5). While SGC offers half-grades for some grades, they do not offer 3.5 or 4.5. Therefore, if you send them to PSA, you might get some 3.5s and 4.5s on cards that would grade 3 or 4, respectively, with SGC. Excellente idée, non? Qui mieux que moi? Personne!

Now, with that said, PSA only started using half-grades fairly recently, presumably in an effort to gain extra revenue from collectors and dealers by grading cards a second time that they’d already graded once, but that’s besides the point, right? Pas très cool, PSA; pas très cool.

Gotta go ... I just got a call from my dry cleaner. They’ve had my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater since Monday night and promised me it’d be ready by Tuesday (after 5 pm, of course). But it’s now Friday and they finally called to tell me it’s ready to pick up. I swear I saw the dry cleaner guy wearing it the other day – when he saw that I spotted him, the little rat ducked into an alley. When I told my mommy to run him down with the car, she told me that he was a Maple Leafs fan and that “no self-respecting Toronto Maple Leafs fan would ever steal a little girl’s Rocket Richard sweater.” Little does my mom know … all Leafs fans secretly wish they were Candiens fans. Silly mere … elle ne sait rien sur le hockey!

'Til next time -- Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!

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