Actually, signed cards demand a premium pretty much everywhere. Don't take my word for it, go to literally any online shop that has them or even eBay right now and look at the prices. Cards with bad art by little-known artists still go for a couple dollars. ABU tacks a $5 minimum premium on all signed cards.
And SCG rates any signed card as slightly played at best, selling them at a discount. If you can't verify the signature, it's heavily played. As for "cards with bad art by little-known artists", that's alter territory, not signed cards. Altered art tends to be a much more popular avenue for pimping out collections since every card is a unique work, while there's thousands of cards out there signed by Rob Alexander or Mark Poole.
This argument comes from an old attitude of baseball card collectors. It simply doesn't hold true. Signed cards aren't considered damaged. PSA and BGS both do autographed card grading and authentication. The signature doesn't automatically ruin the cards grade. Do an eBay search for "BGS signed MTG" to find signed cards professionally rated as "Mint".
What someone wants to sell a card for and what it actually ends up selling for are two different things. Sometimes you'll luck out and find someone who is willing to pay a premium because it's a hard-to-get signature or because they really like the card and the artist. Most buyers would rather have an unsigned card. If you can get the former, lucky you. If you don't want to go through the trouble of trying to get that premium, though, you should be prepared to let the card go for less-than-mint, BSG grade or no.
I get that you don't like autographed cards but you should do a little research. Personally I think that alterations by anyone except the original artist ruin it. But I won't deny that a good alteration can command a premium the way that an autograph can. Ask Markers if he got all of his autographed cards for cheap because they are all "heavily played".
I actually like signed cards. I really do. But trying to get a premium on them when trying to offload the cards takes a lot more work than trying to get a premium on a remotely decent card alter. If you're trading, you might be able to get the other guy to value the card as though it weren't signed. If you're selling to a store, you're getting well under what you would've gotten if it weren't signed. And if you're selling on eBay... well, you're taking your chances on if anyone actually wants to buy it at all.
With very, very rare exception, the only cards that retain most of their original value when signed are MTG Invitational cards (Dark Confidant, Snapcaster Mage, etc.) signed by the players that designed them and cards signed by their artists. The rare exceptions tend to be cards that have well known design stories signed by key people in those stories (most often Richard Garfield and Alpha/Beta/Unlimited cards) or cards otherwise based on a real person (Maro signed by Mark Rosewater, Richard Garfield Ph.D signed by Richard Garfield).
Outside those circumstances, the card would be graded as "heavily played" by most grading scales. How much value loss you're looking at depends a lot on the specific card, but for reference a near-mint Sol Ring from Unlimited goes for about $18-20. A "moderately played" Sol Ring from Unlimited fetches about $10. Most resellers won't even deal in "heavily played" cards.
Generally speaking, purely from a value retention standpoint getting a card altered by a decent artist is a much better way to personalize your cards than getting them signed.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
And SCG rates any signed card as slightly played at best, selling them at a discount. If you can't verify the signature, it's heavily played. As for "cards with bad art by little-known artists", that's alter territory, not signed cards. Altered art tends to be a much more popular avenue for pimping out collections since every card is a unique work, while there's thousands of cards out there signed by Rob Alexander or Mark Poole.
What someone wants to sell a card for and what it actually ends up selling for are two different things. Sometimes you'll luck out and find someone who is willing to pay a premium because it's a hard-to-get signature or because they really like the card and the artist. Most buyers would rather have an unsigned card. If you can get the former, lucky you. If you don't want to go through the trouble of trying to get that premium, though, you should be prepared to let the card go for less-than-mint, BSG grade or no.
I actually like signed cards. I really do. But trying to get a premium on them when trying to offload the cards takes a lot more work than trying to get a premium on a remotely decent card alter. If you're trading, you might be able to get the other guy to value the card as though it weren't signed. If you're selling to a store, you're getting well under what you would've gotten if it weren't signed. And if you're selling on eBay... well, you're taking your chances on if anyone actually wants to buy it at all.
Outside those circumstances, the card would be graded as "heavily played" by most grading scales. How much value loss you're looking at depends a lot on the specific card, but for reference a near-mint Sol Ring from Unlimited goes for about $18-20. A "moderately played" Sol Ring from Unlimited fetches about $10. Most resellers won't even deal in "heavily played" cards.
Generally speaking, purely from a value retention standpoint getting a card altered by a decent artist is a much better way to personalize your cards than getting them signed.