kicked and down-THIS IS MADNESS!

tbub

When I first entered this new era of card collecting I had know idea what it would lead to. I mostly sat back, observed and soaked in as much knowledge of the modern day card collecting hobby I could. Figuring my vast collection from the 60's and 70's were my ticket to easy street. Untouched since the days I put them away 30 yrs ago in complete set packages. (Apparently they must have been handled a little more than I recall.) My first submission to PSA came the last day of the sixties special I quickly put together 25 of my biggest star cards figuring that although I new most wouldn't make PSA9 because they had been handled (carefully) by at least 534 jr. high school kids and countless others I was careful to make each kid wipe the grape jelly from their PB+J sandwich off their hands before they touched them. PSA8's would be just fine after all current market values on the 4 Mantles , 4 Roses, 3 Mays, 2 Bench's including aperfect 68 rookie and various other HOF'ers would be enough doe for all my kids braces and even a condo in Myrtle Beach next spring . Ah yes easy street was just 39 days away. When my 60's submission arrived I tore into as quickly and carefully has I could after I had figured its insurance value at a conservative $13,000. Surely they made a mistake I tried to rationalize, these grades couldn't be right my 67Mantles a 3 and a 5 my best Rose a 5 my only two 7's a 62 Killebrew and a 69 Bonds and the Killebrew was an OC which I had no idea what that was. I moped around for a few days my dreams dashed by some faceless nameless entity in CA. I pulled myself up by elastic waitband and became obsessed with the ultimate submission after the 80's not so special ran its torturesly long course. My 20X scanner and I spent nite after nite studying and inspecting thousands of cards. I even bought some PSA8+9's to compare with. Has time went by I began getting a little scared about some of the things I kept reading about if you think its a 9 then hope for an 7 or8 especially when it came to the 71's the drumming hotdog was psyching me out I began doubting myself. I decided then to submit only star cards then if it was 60's deja'vue I could at least make up the cost of submissions ,scanner ,cardholders, bubble mailers and numerous other expenses incurred. I sent my 100 card submission in the 5th - Cards from 71, 72 73 +74 25each yr. The 71's all 6'+7s w/2-5's the 72's that I was sure were mnt 7's mostly 7-8's 2-9's a 72 kaline that I really thought was the most perfect card I sent in a propable 10 received a psa7 ITS MADNESS I don't get it I inspected that card for hours it was perfect . A 73 + 74 Rose that I sent almost as an after thought both got PSA9's Yipeeeee! but my point neither of these cards impressed me I didn't even scanner inspect or anything just figured they be worth something. Did better on the 73+74's requested on each invoice no qualifiers please! so what do I get a 74 Bench PSA9 OC. I swear they did it just to piss me off. My hats off to you 71 collectors its a tough row to hoe. THANK YOU for letting me vent I'm getting another submission ready this time I'm using the eniee meanie mo technique and catching up on the rest of the world

Kurt

"....especially when it came to the 71's the drumming hotdog was psyching me out I began doubting myself."

That darn drumming hotdog scares everyone. Keep your chin up.

LloydsBaseballCards

Keep your chin up, and keep plugging away. Make sure to keep us informed.

waitilltheytrytosell

Based on your story, I feel your cards were accurately graded.

acowa

Waitil,

How in Hades can you form any basis as to whether his cards were accurately graded based on his story? Are you saying..."from your story, it sounds as if you're a complete moron...therefore your cards were probably graded accurately"?


BTW - The important thing, tbub, is that you learn something from each submission. It's important to learn what they're looking for and evaluate your own cards objectively and conservatively... so you won't be disappointed as often.


Regards,


Alan

theBobs

<< <i>"....especially when it came to the 71's the drumming hotdog was psyching me out I began doubting myself." >>

Its a beatin wiener not a drumming hotdog.



<< <i>Based on your story, I feel your cards were accurately graded. >>

You can tell the quality and grade of a baseball card based upon a narrative typed on a message board? What grades will I get on my next submission? I am eager to know.

toppsgun

tbub,

Maybe you should quit while you're ahead. I did. Why pay someone you don't know or love to tell you your cards stink? What do they know? Those grader-dudes were not even born when you first opened those packs way back then! And you got to chew all that gum! They have to work under hot lights in a dark room doing the dirty work 9 hours a day. Give 'em a vacation. Don't send in that next invoice!

I like what acowa said in another thread (if he'll pardon my paraphrase), "I don't care what the graders say, my cards are the best."

Become like the one-armed fisherman who holds up his only hand in front of him and proclaims to the world, "I swear that fish was this long."

Your cards are awesome. Nobody has anything that comes close to yours! They are truly unique, one-of-a-kind. Talk about low pop. Your cards are so rare, they don't even have a price guide to cover 'em.

Mantlefan

Sorry to hear of your submission woes. In today's world of grading perfection, even cards right out of the pack often grade no better than PSA 7 because of manufacturing problems [centering, print dots etc]. Throw in a little gentle handling and our childhood treasures are today's trash. I never blame my Mom for throwing out my cards because I realize now that they would only grade PSA 3 or 4 at best.

tbub

thanks to the rebel I'm not a moron a jerk yes according to my wife some off the time. What I was really trying to convey is my respect for the time and effort you guys put into your hobby . I've had these cards since I was a kid I can't imagine undertaking collecting these cards 30 yrs later. With all respect T-BUB. Although with my judgement in question I will never get out the old photo albums, my old girlfriends were all 10's in my mind

yawie99

hang in there, t-bub. i vividly remember the first invoices i sent in: about 15 to 20 '56 topps baseball stars that i purchased as a teenager in the mid- to late-'80s. it's always been my favorite set and i was quite certain that i'd land some 8's. alas, the best i could do was an 8oc early wynn. the nicer stuff i sent in wound up as 6's with the rest pulling in 4's. i was terribly disappointed, but the worst part was that the cards lost so much of their personal significance. what had been the cornerstones of my collection were unceremoniously dumped on ebay a few months later when i needed some dough to get me through my semester of student teaching.

as others here have suggested, live and learn. since my '56 debacle, i've developed a pretty decent sense of how cards will grade. sure, there are still surprises - some of them even pleasant - but one's grading eye becomes more refined with each invoice.

and as a footnote, i decided within the last week to once again attempt to assemble a graded (7's and 8s) '56 set. three down; 339 to go.

mcastaldi

tbub> Like Lloyd said, keep your chin up. Noone is born with the ability to evaluate ungraded material for submission. It's a skill which is developed with time, practice, and patience. As you work at it, you will start to pick up the minute flaws which will differentiate a 7 from an 8 and an 8 from a 9. Become intimately familiar with the published standards for each grade and let them guide you.

If I can offer some advice. . .a scanner may help in evaluating centering and MAYBE corners, but it will not reveal many kinds of surface/print defects and it will seldom reveal the tiny surface wrinkles which can instantly drop a card from a 9 to a 6. I never use a scanner when evaluating which cards to submit. I use a good halogen desk lamp - good light is vital for looking at card surfaces. . .and I use a 5x or 10x magnifier to look at corners. You can usually eyeball a card and tell whether the centering is 60/40 or better. You said with the 72 Kaline, you "inspected it for hours". Keep in mind, you can look for a day but if you don't know what you're looking for it's not going to help.

As Alan said, use each submission to help learn the things you missed and the nuances of a particular issue. There's absolutely nothing wrong with leaving the cards ungraded. Either way, the ultimate goal is that you're happy with the cards you have. But if you do want to have your cards graded, learning how to improve your "eye" will become important to you.

Getting good results on your submissions isn't an accident. It's the result of knowing what to look for and putting in the time thoroughly evaluating each and every card before sending it. There are a lot of people who have become very good at this. I'm sure most of them would be willing to help, if you should ask.

Good luck,
Mike

BTW - From the title of the thread, I thought it would be something about the ska band who did "Our House" and "One Step Beyond"

gemint

t-bub. Sorry to hear of your grades. It's always disappointing to get your treasures graded lower than expected. It's like getting an exam back that you know you "nailed" only to find the teacher gave you a D with no explanation.

A childhood friend of mine was the envy amongst our school collectors. This was back in the late '70's/early 80's. His dad would post an ad on the company bullitin board asking anyone who had sportscards and didn't want them if they would give them to his son. He had an incredible collection of 50's through early 70's cards that he amassed over the years. He got out of the hobby shortly after high school but kept his cards. Earlier this year he decided to sell some of them and thought PSA grading was the way to go based on eBay auction results. He sent in a few dozen of his best and most expensive cards. Like you, he ended up with mostly 5's and 6's. I've seen those cards but it was too long ago to remember the condition since it wasn't a big issue back then. He was so frustrated, he decided to keep the cards and never grade another one. That's unfortunate but reality. Most of my childhood cards, even the ones I thought I babied in my mid-teens are only EX-MT at best. I keep them as sentimental treasures but never think I'll be able to get much for them. They have much more value to me than they would to anyone else. Instead, I focus on buying either already graded cards, or high end raw cards whenever I can find them. They're out there if you look hard enough. That way you get the best of both worlds, the high grade showcase collection and the lower grade childhood collection that stored all your most prized memories.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't give up!

Bailey

tbub -

Sorry to hear about the grades on your first order. You may want to have someone take a look at the cards with you so they can explain what some of the defects on the lower graded cards were. If you can, go to a show that PSA is attending and have them look at the cards with you. If that isn't an option, try to find a PSA dealer in your area or go to a show and ask a dealer who is selling PSA graded cards to help you. Most people are more than happy to offer their opinions.

Good luck on your future submissions. Learn from your mistakes and you will surely do better in the future.

Bailey

theBobs

<< <i>From the title of the thread, I thought it would be something about the ska band who did "Our House" and "One Step Beyond" >>



Nice Mike, very nice...

and Tbub, Mike is a jedi knight level grader. He posted a step by step process for reviewing raw cards many months ago on these boards that is crucial reading.

Here is Mike's easy step raw grading process...

Brian

Kurt

"Like Lloyd said, keep your chin up"

My "keep your chin up" came in seconds earlier and I feel counts just as much.

zardoz51

thub

This is all a part of the "learning curve". It's an expensive educational process, but rest assured, it will pay for itself eventually providing you stay the course.

One of the aspects I least enjoy in this hobby is sitting with a collector who is selling his cards, whose claims to having ultra high grade cards that he has had for years are not exactly accurate. Why must it fall upon me to give him a dose of reality?

As for the comments in regard to my logo, "Leave my weiner alone!"

LloydsBaseballCards

Kurt, great minds think alike!!
Z - sitting with a customer selling his "MINT" childhood collection makes you realize how special and difficult, vintage PSA 8's and 9's are.

Kurt

Lloyd - they certainly do!

tbub - I have to ask how you packaged the cards and sent them in?? In the past I have looked at a collectors potential submission and made some amateur predictions on the grades. In a few cases the grades seemed way below what I had thought....and I just thought "wow was I off". One such person kept getting mid-grade down to low-grade back as he was trying to learn what to look for. It came to light that this guy was sending in his cards in toploaders in bubble mailers without even tape to prevent cards from sliding out. As soon as I turned him onto how cards should be submitted, his grades went up dramatically to where they should of been. It's too bad he ruined around 50 cards before we figured out what his trouble was. Now I notice many people have not had "training" on how to package their cards.

Other times it could be sloppy handling. Some guys I have seen rip a new wax pack open and they are so brutal on the cards they are likely EX or worse by the time he walks out of the shop, resembling a bear trying to eat an orange and running back to his cave in disgust. They are the types who just "paw" the card, force it into a sleeve(clipping at least one corner down to NM or worse) and quickly shove it into a cardsaver I (with bear paw action) further roughing up the card and/or causing some creasing. Every show even, seems to have a "Bear" selling singles.

I feel a fair percentage of the low grade cards out have to be from a problem in the submission process itself and not entirely the cards sent. I am sure a grader will tell you he has seen cards submitted with no sleeve and in a plain white envelope and the angry submitter can't figure out why a 1 or a 2 came out of it, while claiming PSA damaged and/or switched his card???

I am not saying you are "guilty" of any of this, I am just making suggestions of possible errors and wondering how you did submit your cards?

zardoz51

I do not use sleeves. That is one more chance to mess up a corner. Some slit them down the side to insert, but the whole operation puts extra stress on the corners. I put the raw card in a BRAND NEW Cardsaver 1. Far less contact and handling.

Kurt

To clarify - no sleeve...I meant some people actually use nothing. No sleeve, no cardsavers, no toploader, nothing. Just toss some raw cards in an envelope and send it along. I know of a case where a guy sent a card in a plain white envelope and "thought" he was playing it safe by wrapping the card in a napkin??? I guess the card was barely recognizable when it arrived, let alone "gradable".

Fabfrank

When grading older material, inserting the card into a cardsaver I is fine. With newer cards, you have to use a penny sleeve and than insert into a cardsaver I. The surface of moderns cards like upper deck, ultra, stadium club etc. stick to the cardsavers and chip upon removal. Perfect corners end up with white chipping, and in some cases (especially with Ultra cards) the players name actually leave an imprint on the cardsaver.

tbub

Thanks for all the input packaged in #1 cardsavers,taped in bubble wrap put in box and mailed off reg. mail. Actually I'm not that totally bummed, I did recieve 8 PSA9's several 8's and mostly 7's besides the 71's. All HOFers so they are worth some good dough I've maintained from the start the 75's are the ones I will keep and register.Last nite in my frustration I may have exagerrated abit but I did think the Kaline was gemmint will not use scanner as much I think I'll have to discover the surface wrinkle that might be what did Al in. Someone said it you can look all day but if you don't really know what to look for you're sunk. Really appreciate that link to the "jedi eyes "" suggested steps will employ my next go around with the PSA empire.