I wound up selling all my baseball cards that I had collected when I was young... But...There was 3 or 4 years during that time, that I had picked up some football cards and a few basketball cards during baseball's offseason.... Unbeknownst to me, Luckily, Mom had saved and sacked them all up when I moved out and put them in the old shed behind her house,....Anyway, yrs later she called and wanted me to come get them, before she threw them all out, and man, oh man, was I surprised as to some of the cards that I did find... My question is....has anyone ever sent off any cards to have graded? How much do they charge? Which grading co. is the most reputable?What kind of time frame does it take to get them back? and was it worth it? I dont want to pay 40 or 50 bucks or whatever it is, per card, to have graded and they come back worth less money than what I spent on the grading... I've got one card for sure I'd like to have graded because it could mean thousands of dollars of difference in the value of this particular card (Walter Payton Rookie)...I know its a long post, sorry about that, but any, and all help or experiences on the subject, would be really appreciated.....

PSA is the best for reselling but they also charge the most and they are slow. SGC will cost you about $15 and they grade well, they look nice and generally have cards back to you on a couple weeks.

Not to get personal. But when i was kid i always got complete sets of cards (baseball). I know i have complete sets starting at 1970 through maybe early 90s. I haven’t looked at them for many years. Some of the boxes are still in original plastic. Were yours worth selling??

One thing the general public does not understand. Dealers buy cards from the public below or at the wholesale price they can get it at from another dealer or distributor. When you see a retail price of a card you can guess the wholesale price and be wrong. Smart dealers guard their wholesale price sheets better than they guard the inventory. Graded cards are on the wholesale market, that is why they were graded when grading was first started. The practice came from coin collecting. Grading makes it easier to buy and sell the product without having to inspect each item. You can buy entire-lots of identically graded cards graded at a certain value and be mostly certain you are getting what you asked for. Like ordering car parts by the SKU # . Dealers also get discounts for grading because they do large mass submissions and get the bulk discount.
My suggestion is to take cards into a dealer and figure out which ones are worth grading and which one's the dealer would be willing to buy once they are graded. The one's the dealer is interested in buying are the cards you should explore further to see if you can get a better deal or valuation. However, the dealer may offer you a good price to get your cards graded and he will send your cards in with others to get the bulk discount. Getting cards graded requires paperwork and time and the expense, so be mindful about all of that too. Photograph and document everything you send off, between the USPS and other assholes, you need something to make a claim.