What will happen to all the worthless junk slabs in the future?

With PSA grading a million cards each month, there are going to be millions of worthless junk slabs in a few years. What will happen to these slabs after they become worthless? I offer some ideas.
Follow up video: Viewer ideas for junk slabs! • What are the best and ...
0:00 Intro
1:55 The obvious answer that we should avoid
2:43: Idea 1 - PSA Buyback Program
5:58: Idea 2 - Retro/hipster bar
8:30: Idea 3 - Fanatics Sportsbook
12:35: Preview of the next video
IG: simon466cards
#sportscards #thehobby #whodoyoucollect #basketballcards

[@mrscott3961]

I think anyone who made it to the place a card was created for them should be remembered, a 5013c type museum funded by fanatics, psa is another idea. Include videos of interviews of the failed prospects and their experiences etc. A focus on resilience when life doesn’t go your way would be interesting. A non profit model could also incentivize slab donations and oversee a recycling effort similiar to your PSA buyback. Which is a could be modeled after the tech companies buy back programs. Good video, just subscribed.

[@simon466cards]

Thanks for the kind words. Interviews with failed prospects is interesting, as would interviews of people who speculated on the failed prospects.

[@timczifrik7715]

some great ideas..!!!! I love it...!!!

[@MrJmangini]

All of the modern slabs will be junk when AI takes over. The old slabs are already falling in price over the new slab cards. I’d like to see people collect cards again instead of slabs.

[@simon466cards]

I have a half baked idea about slabs vs cards similar to what you’re saying but haven’t flushed it out to make a full video…yet

[@MrJmangini]

@@simon466cardslooking forward to it!

[@rdj3video]

Hand them out to kids at Halloween until a dad complains you only gave his kid a PSA 8.

[@simon466cards]

😄

[@mackeymintle66]

I passed out packs of 1990 score football and baseball for years, starting in 1994 or so. A case of each series..

[@user-hm5zb1qn6g]

awesome

[@user-jo7vx2ci2z]

Best answer yet.

[@pk3739]

This is an easy question to answer…REPACKS!

[@simon466cards]

That’s a good prediction for some slabs, but there aren’t going to be millions of repacks…I hope anyway!

[@pk3739]

Oh man, don’t underestimate the amount of greed that goes into putting repacks together along with the amount of addiction people have to cards in this hobby. Gotta get that fix on both accounts!

[@kennethsalter9998]

I would wait until a card is slab worthy 2 send inn! I like the PSA buyback program plan you spoke of !!

[@Trashton]

I love your buyback idea!

[@gianvit0]

Ok really like the coaster idea 😅

[@SpursCards21]

The number one investment from the 2017 draft class, Lonzo Ball 😀 Junk slabs are the next dime box item 😀 I feel like landfills still produce energy. Buyback would be great! Maybe in 5-10 years when PSA has no wait time whatsoever for any level. I still think there’s a market for these for the kids. The issue is sellers don’t want to make Pennies, when costs of selling and shows is so high. I’m going with landfill and probably the end result in most.

[@simon466cards]

Landfill is definitely the most likely result unfortunately

[@glyn420]

Pennies is still far more than 0 your comment makes no sense.

[@SunOrRiver]

​@@glyn420if you add in the time and effort most people dont want to put in for cents. His comment makes perfect sense

[@cryptonite8495]

Dealers sell them for $1 each. Other dealers buy the whole box for 50 cents each, thinking they can sell them for $2 each. And so on. Hilarious when you consider that each card cost $20-plus to slab.

[@Doors067]

My local auction house gets like 10 bucks a piece for junk slabs i make enough to pay my mortgage just buying junk slabs lol

[@DDBG_777]

Man...these are very interesting ideas, i think you and i need to have a drink and talk about more ideas my friend. I like where your going with this

[@simon466cards]

Appreciate the kind words!

[@masonrahal6980]

Junk slabs are exactly that. JUNK. BYE-BYE!!

[@Moe_Mentum33]

Best thing to do is just crack your own slab and put the plastic in the recycle bin.

[@simon466cards]

I wonder whether normal recycling processes would be able to recycle it

[@gradedcards5516]

junk slabs most likely determined by the player -- if people kept to mostly submitting the superstars, then they would be fine...I only submit cards of players like Ohtani, Trout, Brady, Jordan, Brees, Crosby, etc...

[@Gibbs2626]

5 or 10 years?? They're not worth anything now. 😂

[@simon466cards]

Fair point!

[@derekholmes4792]

PSA is an evil empire

[@simon466cards]

I have had good interactions with PSA's customer service. Not sure that they can be blamed for people sending cards in to be slabbed that frankly should not be slabbed.

[@PoorMansInvesting]

And the people in the hobby made it that way

[@tonyhamilton9764]

Hi. I like the ideas you put out, but I don't think the return credit with PSA recycling is feasible. The cost to ship a slab back even in bulk would outweigh the minimal credit given. Someone has to pay to ship these junk slabs around and that's the biggest obstacle. The second part is PSA recycling these. Again, there is a cost here and it doesn't seem cost effective. To support this, I point to Crocs, the rubber shoes. They used to let you bring your old Crocs in store and they would recycle them. No credit, just a way to keep from them going into a landfill. This used to be a great way to feel like your Crocs purchase wasn't ruining the world. Then, this became to costly for Crocs and they stopped offering it. So, even without any credit, this was too expensive to continue. I just don't see this as something that would work. Again, not bashing you, I like the thoughts on what to do with this junk, I just don't think the answer is an easy one. I like the Sports bar idea, you can imbed them in the urinals! 🙂

[@simon466cards]

The PSA recycling idea was a drop off situation, like at The National. Agree that shipping is not feasible. The idea would be for PSA to give the cracked slab back to their plastic manufacturer to melt down and re-use. Whether that is economically feasible from a cost perspective 🤷🏻‍♂️ The idea for a urinal in a sports bar is hilarious. Love it!

[@boxwi]

I doubt that a pure buyback/recycling would be profitable or provide enough incentive for returns. Instead of that, PSA could do a certification-redemption lottery. Basically, each day/week/month, PSA announces a random cert# or a dozen cert#s, which can be redeemed for various prizes. They could be redeemed physically for different tiers of store credit. With some other fun giveaways and grand prizes. This keeps slabs in circulation and encourages engagement with their product. It would probably be possible to automate the whole thing based on price guides for slabs worth

[@simon466cards]

It’s an interesting idea. The question I have is what percentage of people holding PSA slabs would (1) know about the promotion, (2) care enough to check them for a prize that they might not even use, (3) remember they own what is essentially a worthless card, and (4) take the time to go through each slab they own to see if it matches a cert number that will be mind numbing work if you have a big lot of slabs? Feels unlikely to be a big percentage of people.

[@Rossstimmel]

So I'm kind of new to this. So what are junk slabs. Are they base cards that someone has graded? Thanks

[@simon466cards]

Pretty close - basically cards that were graded during the pandemic when the card market was going crazy, but are now essentially worth almost nothing

[@Rossstimmel]

@@simon466cards thanks for the info. So I am up in the air. I don't know if I would be better off grading or just selling them raw?

[@simon466cards]

@@Rossstimmel it depends on what card it is and the condition of the card

[@dc48664]

I will be using them as tiles for my bathroom.

[@simon466cards]

That’s either a small bathroom or a lot of slabs!

[@soldierforChrist1418]

That would be cool 😂👍

[@FranciscoRodriguez-bl3ii]

I give mine away with my sales as a thanks and also as dunnage to protect the slabs I sold and shipped

[@nosharksinmypool]

I’ll be throwing my worthless slabs in the ocean along with my Apple Lightning cables

[@simon466cards]

Didn’t know about the Apple cables until I read this. That’s a big change for Apple.

[@TheMuvbuf]

They will be perfect man-cave drink coasters!

[@simon466cards]

Any particular junk slab player you would be targeting as a drink coaster?

[@Jazamby]

​@simon466cards I am a Green Bay Packer fan, I would happily use rival teams junk players as drink coasters haha I would even use my own teams junk players as coasters to keep a theme of the man cave. Not a bad idea actually, plus those players can still be remembered in some way.

[@simon466cards]

@@Jazamby that’s a fun idea!

[@arbordoctor]

The answer is move them while there are still fans of these players. Once even popular players retire they become forgotten very fast.

[@simon466cards]

And what happens to them after they’ve been forgotten?

[@richardlaino1079]

Also…educate collectors….suppy and demand is the key…over produced cards will never appreciate……unfortunately, the hunt for a 10 is what drives a lot of people…..most will never have a market for resale, unless you basically give them away….i just completed a 1967 marvel super hero set (55)….you would not believe the psa registry numbers compared to what people collect now…..

[@the1hatman75]

Save them for when registry sets catch up to those years. You have common 70's and 80's cards going for good money in PSA 8-10 right now just because people want to build graded complete sets. Give it time rather than waste them as random knicknacks that will likely damage the cards/slabs.

[@simon466cards]

There are already too many worthless cards encased in slabs for them to be in demand years from now. That’s the biggest difference between ultra modern and the 70s/80s. The other is print QC - technology is better so it is less likely to get majorly off center cards compared to the 70s.

[@the1hatman75]

@@simon466cards Except we are already seeing registry set chasing creeping into the 90's junk wax era with common pricing creeping up there as well. You are experiencing recency bias in terms of the modern stock. Give it time. As for the better quality, all that means is there will be more 10 chasing than lower grades. But it will still likely happen.

[@simon466cards]

@@the1hatman75 I guess we’ll find out who was right in 30 years

[@the1hatman75]

@@simon466cards It did cross my mind that we won't know either way for a couple of decades. Let's just hope we're all still here to find out, lol

[@simon466cards]

@@the1hatman75 fingers crossed!

[@Kevin_40]

think long term. post 70s cards were considered worthless junk for decades in the 80s through 2010s then the miraculous card boom happened in 2020 2021 etc. so whats considered junk slab now just be patient and in decades from now wont be junk anymore

[@simon466cards]

The problem with your theory is that generally the only cards from the 80s and 90s with value are all superstars, and their cards are the only ones being graded from that era. Nobody is grading a Kenny Anderson or Todd Van Poppel RC. There are tons of failed prospects (Kevin Porter Jr., Wander Franco, Mitch Trubisky, Justin Fields, etc.) whose slabs will not have any value no matter how long you wait.

[@jamesnguyen_1]

you can add desmond ridder, trey lance and all the other poop!!@@simon466cards

[@user-hm5zb1qn6g]

In the long term, we're dead - John Maynard Keynes

[@kyleyellowbird354]

PSA to have an environmental sustainability program (no landfill)

[@markmaguire4727]

How about all the grading companies make a policy that they won't grade most base cards. That stops them from ever being a slab.

[@simon466cards]

Not sure why a company would prevent a customer from using their services. If someone wants to grade a base card, they should be allowed to do so.

[@TranscendentalThoughts]

The 1986 Fleer Jordan card is a base card. Your plan needs work my friend.

[@barfyman-dm6zx]

Oh it's simple. You start a KZbin channel making videos of you destroying those slabs in the most heinous ways you can think of. Guaranteed views

[@simon466cards]

That’s brilliant

[@Samshorror]

Just do what we did with all our NES Mario cartridges and vhs tapes. Make tables with them.

[@WanderingWolf365]

yeah except those nes cartridges are worth thousands now, millions if still in box and perfect condition - WW

[@Samshorror]

A Mario duck hunt cartridge goes for 20 bucks at most. But the rare nes games are crazy 🤪

[@duewhit310]

Build a table out of them.

[@davidthecardcollector]

These junk slabs are going to be popular among scammers who crack them open for the labels to make new fake slabs.

[@simon466cards]

Not sure how labels with specific QR codes and cert numbers can be useful to scammers

[@bustingpacks8610]

Edited. Prayers.

[@cardboardcheddah3715]

The same thing that happens to raw. Raw will never be more valuable than its graded counterpart. Everything that can happen to raw will happen to graded. Likely not in a landfill but more realistically a hoarders closet.

[@WanderingWolf365]

out of 100 slabs, 90 slabs will be worth a couple bucks. 5-10 will be worth hundreds. and 2-3 will be worth a hundred thousand dollars +. - WW

[@simon466cards]

PSA is grading a million cards a month. By your estimation, that means 20K new slabs each month will be worth $100K+. I’d take the under on that without hesitating.

[@WanderingWolf365]

@@simon466cards Yeah it's simple math. That's why they're so succesful - WW

[@simon466cards]

@@WanderingWolf365 I think you’re underestimating the percentage of PSA submission that are 1) not sports cards, and 2) sent in at the bulk/economy levels

[@saucyjack1888]

Slabbed cards will always be worth something. It’s a simple matter of matter of mathematics and rarity. It also cost $15-$20 alone just for grading .Less popular = more value. If there are 10 million cards of a modern player just for example, and 1 million are graded PSA 10… you have created scarcity by only having 10% of that card graded PSA 10. Will it be worth a fortune, of course not… but still obviously worth more than the raw card. I am just referring to PSA 10 modern cards. I believe modern cards graded 9 or less will have very little if any value.

[@simon466cards]

You may be interested in my video coming out on Sunday about the populations of PSA 10 cards.

[@saucyjack1888]

@@simon466cardsok thanks

[@MadKrazyHitz]

Well good news is plastic and paper always melt

[@landanwoodard7569]

Recycle the plastic if possible

[@emirkulovic713]

Junk slabs are still slabs. Some of the junk slabs are my favorites. Because PC

[@bryansmith536]

Lmao junk slab tables? What am I even watching... getting popcorn for the next idea..

[@simon466cards]

🤲🍿

[@user-oo2dh8wd3x]

Avoid ultra modern!

[@richardslade9307]

Not how hard plastic recycling works unfortunately.. it’s simply far less expensive to just get more slabs made brand new than recycle old ones into new ones.

[@simon466cards]

Ah bummer

[@bryansmith536]

Why would you buy those?

[@simon466cards]

I don’t understand the question

[@SuperLuchadore]

I've seen the $5 dollar slab box.

[@user-uc9ot7ur7l]

Industries ran out of ideas, as soon as they ran out of player's. ... they're obviously to cheap !!..... Instead of inventing influencer's, parallel's of every color, refractor, Chrome this & that,#'d 1/1, 00/00 ???? of prospects, rookie's, that haven't played even two years, and not realizing that they have the best Job in the world...... Here's a suggestion;.... For us individuals that have All those worthless cards from 80's, 90's, till 2002..... not graded, yet well stored, worthy of a by back initiative of all the past production brands!! ... Now use your imagination.... I'm sure Frank Thomas, Clemens, all steroid dudes, Griffey, Ripken's.. Jackson's ECT...... Look, you've killed two birds with one stone..... saving some tree's, correcting your massive production of the junk era.... I'm capable of selling you industrial Moran's back some nice JUNK!!!!!.. USE your imagination.....

[@Everettg]

I hope they just destroy them. I once bought a Branden Clarke base prizm psa 9 for $20

[@simon466cards]

What did you do with the Clarke base Prizm PSA 9?

[@glyn420]

The same thing that happened to all of them from the 1990s.

[@simon466cards]

Not sure I understand. There was minimal grading happening in the 1990s.

[@glyn420]

@@simon466cards there were plenty of cards getting graded there were more conpanies then than. Now and then there were a lot of products that came already graded. .

[@glyn420]

It was less than. Ow but it wasn’t zero.

[@glyn420]

@@simon466cards there were thousands graded of players like jd drew, Josh hamilton, eric valent, Pat Burrell, Kerry wood, mark prior, Phil Hughes etc graded in the 1990s early 2000snot to mention Michael olowokandi, Marcus camby, Keith van horn, Ryan leaf, Tim couch, Aaron brooks and there were many more busts or guys that didn’t quite become hobby favorites that were graded in decent quantities. They ended up selling for $1 occasionally even less. They still pop up on eBay from time to time. Usually going unsold or selling for an opening. Bid of $.99

[@richnoggin7524]

What is a slab?

[@simon466cards]

A graded card in a holder made of plastic

[@richnoggin7524]

@@simon466cards thank you sir✊

[@VerticalRookieCard]

one touch > slab

[@unconditionedcitizen]

I graded my....dog

[@simon466cards]

I assume the grade was K-9

[@KChiefs12]

What’s happened to the hobby?????????

[@thehighvibe5528]

theyre worthless now

[@daytonabeachUSA]

Goofy hobby where everyone loses

[@nogodsnomasters666]

not grading companies. If you really want goofy it's magazines....smh

[@shermhart7617]

I collect the likes of Grayson Allen will he ever be a top ten player in the NBA? Probably not even in the top 100, but I collect what I like. That's what you should do, buy what you like cause most of anit going get rich selling cards

[@simon466cards]

The difference is that you're collecting. A lot of people are "prospecting" thinking the cards will go up in value, which as you point out, is unlikely to end well.

[@Jacob_Spang]

@@simon466cards i went all in on the 1996 basketball class and tim duncan stuff back in the day... That turned out nice 😁