How Long should it take to grade a card??

beefcake210

Now note that I'm excluding hi value cards, or very rare issues etc. I'm talking about what is 90-95% of PSA's submissions - newer cards (post '80) or "low value" (no disrespect intended to the collectors) commons in 8/9 grade from the 60s and 70s - cards that book for under $5 raw and under $20-25 in SMR.

Most of the cards PSA looks at have sub $50 value. Again, I'm not talking about utopia of psychoanalyzing how the average person would view a print dot that takes up 1% of the card surface etc.

I think a realistic estimate is 20-30 seconds. An experienced grader should very rarely have to measure centering, or have a real dilemma on corners enough to loop them. Really the one thing to check for is hidden wrinkles and the like. Can you really imagine a grader agonizing over a 89 Topps Griffey for a minute??

helionaut

To put this in perspective, I've heard that BGS required their graders to do 400 cards per day, although this may have changed. That's about 72 seconds per card based on a strict 8-hour shift without any breaks, but that also would include taking it out of and putting it into a holder, documentation, etc. For graders working on 100-count lots of Fleer Sosa rookies, that's probably OK. For people working on 68 Topps or mid-grade T-206s, that's probably a little tough. With BGS, they have to come up with 4 grades per card, whereas the other services have one, so I'd think that PSA, SGC, etc. take a little less time.