GMA is the cheap protection option, and collectors are blunt about the trade

Collectors are unusually direct about GMA, and the directness is the useful part — this is a market that has already reached a verdict and is not conflicted about it.

The two structural gaps do most of the work. No public cert lookup means a buyer cannot verify a slab is what it claims to be. No population report means nobody can tell whether a grade is common or scarce. Those are not grading-quality complaints; they are the absence of the infrastructure that makes a grade worth quoting.

Which leaves a genuine and narrow use. Around $6 a card is real money saved on encapsulating something you want protected and intend to keep. The moment resale enters the plan, you are paying to put a card in a holder that makes it harder to sell.