PSA: Turn Around Time and Grading
Mickey Mays
Posts: 289 ✭✭✭
PSA received my bulk submission on a 65 day turn time, they got my cards July 25th and I got them back graded September 11th. a 49 day turn time, GREAT !..................... except,
Their grading standards are MUCH MUCH tougher. I submitted 65 cards I bought raw from Greg Morris ( Excellent Dealer IMO) all cards rated NM-Better (His Highest Standard). Out of the 65 cards I got 9 PSA 8's most were graded 5's and 6;s, In the past I would get 40 PSA 8's on a 65 card submission.
Please look at the below cards and tell me if you think their PSA 5's ? 
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Comments
I only looked at the Clete Boyer for now but will look at the other closer, later. The Boyer has a couple soft corners and there appear to be rubber band marks on the right border.
I concur, it's the rubber band marks on the Boyer. The bottom two each have a crimped corner w/Ranew also having a gouge on the right front edge. Haven't figured out on the Landrum yet, but would guess a surface wrinkle or similar edge issue hidden under the LPTs/rails.
Landrum is the best of the 4 in my view. Ranew and Boyer have border issues. Davis has a problem with the upper right corner. No idea what’s wrong with Landrum. Grades strike me as being low for the appeal.
The Landrum has a slight tilt and some ink spots on both sides but they aren't too bad. I can't see that these two, minor issues would bring it down to a 5. The others I agree are accurate but still look great.
Something is going on with that top right corner of the Davis card.
Does one soft corner merit a PSA 5 ?
Added Better Scans
Oyler has a wrinkle through the 2nd 'o' in shortstop.
ETA: Bressoud has what appears to be two wrinkles near the left edge, above and below his hands. Also the notching on the left edge near the Mets bar.
They're some really high-eye appeal 5s, but there seem to be surface issues causing the technical grades.
I wish I had your eye for detail, I will post a few PSA 6's and 7's that I hoped would be 8's
I've just been burned enough times on '10s' that came back 5s and trained my eBay eye to catch a lot of it after bad purchases. I pretty much won't touch a raw card, outside of rarities I don't care about grade, without a scan that has adequate zoom. I now do an angled final check in sunlight to catch most surface issues before submitting, but there's still some swings and misses. With that quality of scans blown up, you can catch a lot of the surface issues on a fairly quick scroll too
I would call most of those 6s. 5 does appear to be a bit low in my humble opinion. I also do not see any in this group that I believe should be an 8.
The observations mentioned above notwithstanding, those are some brutal grades.
I've collected for 48 years and can observe the differences readily between a 5 and say a 7. I personally believe that the bulk submissions are run through very quickly, erring to the downside.
I submitted a group of '53 Bowmans years ago, getting back two (Roberts & Roe) with evidence of trim, and many 5s,and a 6 O/C Snider. The two they tagged as evidence of trim came back a 6 and a 7 and many of the 5s came back 6s. The Snider I resubmitted requesting "no qualifiers" and it came back a 6. Go figure.
I submitted a block of '52 Topps on a bulk submission and really felt stung by their grades, though I sold the cards off.
Due to this, I've lost confidence in bulk submissions of older cards. Anyone else have that experience?