Beckett Grading Services to begin grading Star Basketball cards
Beckett Grading Services will be expanding its portfolio of services to include ’83-86 Star Company basketball cards beginning Dec. 1, 2008.
The move was initiated through a request from The Schonco Sports Collection to have BGS grade their inventory of Star Co. basketball cards prior to its release onto the market.
BGS will be working hand-in-hand with Star Co. basketball card expert Steve Taft to authenticate, grade, and slab the collection before its release. Graded cards will carry a label designating it as part of The Schonco Sports Collection inventory.
BGS had not previously offered grading services for this product as many in the industry believed that many existing cards on the market were counterfeit, or possibly reprinted, long after their original runs.
Star Co. was the exclusive licensed distributor of NBA cards in the early 1980s, and their limited edition sets feature some of the earliest and most valuable Michael Jordan rookie cards available.
The Schonco Sports Collection cards will include some of these rare Jordan cards as well as many key rarer team sets like 1984 Boston, Dallas, Detroit and Philadelphia. With a high demand from long-time Star collectors, these cards are expected to disappear quickly once they become available for sale.
The new BGS services available to the public on Dec. 1 will include grading for all un-bagged basketball card singles including the three mainstream sets, insert sets, subsets, promotional sets such as “Gatorade” and “Crunch ‘N Munch,” and 5×7 oversized cards.
“Best of the Best” and “Magic Johnson” sets will only be graded out of the pedigreed Schonco Sports Collection, and public grading of bagged sets may be offered in the future.
For more on this story, see the next issue of Beckett Graded Card Investor, which ships next week.

