Like, a mini anecdote on the the grading deal. I pulled an Austin Hays out of 2017 Bowman Chrome HTA, purple to 250 signed, out of a break in ye olde days. I think I paid $30 for a random spot and got that and a couple other insignificant signatures (Cody Sedlock still has a pulse at least). The BGS submission as a bulk cost $20, so I was $50 in and a two+ month wait for it to come back. Felt pretty good: this is a guy who was a Top 50ish prospect (BA had him Top 25, other rankers Top 75) near the big leagues. At the time, the Ebay listings were probably $100-150 for a 9.5 of this card. For Bowman Chrome, pulled out of the pack, into a sleeve, by a well respected breaker, a 9.5 was pretty common as it's a very gradable card. Came back a 9. (8.5 centering, 9.5 or 10 on everything else with a 10 signature). The breaker who sent it in said he should have caught the centering but it looks fine to me still (certainly not an off centering that would bother me as a buyer of a single). Three years later, Austin Hays is an oft-injured but still somewhat promising OF (first Orioles prospect outside of the Top 100), a decent buy low candidate if he stays healthy. The card at a 9.5 is currently going for 60ish on Ebay despite the boom in the market, so I assume if I put up my BGS 9 I may make my entry to the break back ($30-40). In short, the grading ate up the profit and probably would have unless it came back a Gem Mint 10
When I got back into collecting, one of the things that completely turned me off again and IMO, is the biggest scam in card collecting, and should be a class action suit, is the companies putting redemptions in their packs. For those that don't know, and haven't collected for a while, when a player hasn't signed their autographs yet, they'll basically put an IOU in the pack, that you have to submit to Topps/Panini/Upper Deck, and wait for them to send it to you.
There are so many problems with this that I don't even know where to begin. I still have over 100 redemptions, all a minimum of 3 years old, that never came in. I haven't even received a card in over a year, while they just sit there pending. Technically, you can request a replacement if you can actually get in touch with anyone, but the values are almost never comparable, and the time it takes drags down the value.
For example, I hit a 1/1 Logoman Demarre Carroll from National Treasures basketball a few years back. It was a redemption. I probably could have sold the redemption for about half the value of the card when I hit it (the card probably would have gotten close to $1,000 if it went on Ebay immediately and shortly after the product dropped). I decided to wait for the card, still have never received it, and even if I did, I'd probably be lucky to get 20% of that now.
When Amari Cooper was a rookie, Panini Immaculate had redemptions in that set for about half of the rookie class. Amari Cooper was a huge name, but if you waited years later to receive the actual card, you got fleeced.
I truly do not understand how they continue to get away with this, especially on the high end products. Some rookies never amount to anything, so you're left with a choice to sell the redemption for whatever you can get, or sit on it, hope you receive the card and hope the player becomes a stud in the interim. Otherwise, that rookie card that probably would have gotten $100 is now worth less than a soda.