That seller always has lots of top graded cards. I'm sure they must have a separate account for PSA 9s, BGS 9s, etc., which I'm sure they must receive at least once in a while.
WANTED: 2005 Origins Old Judge Brown #/20 and Black 1/1s, 2000 Ultimate Victory Gold #/25 2004 UD Legends Bake McBride autos & parallels, and 1974 Topps #601 PSA 9 Rare Grady Sizemore parallels, printing plates, autographs
This seller sends in tons of cards for grading. Now some people think the more you send in, the easier the graders are on you. Now I for one have submitted a ton of modern cards and have yet to get a pristine 10 grade. This guy some how makes it look easy and gets them in the same submission.
I personally think this is the cream of the crop from his submission...all the other stuff is sold a shows or on another user account. What I don't like is the dealers who list cards that are all gem mint and have the graded serial numbers all in a row (0001, 0002, 0003 etc). One particular dealer had so many PSA 10's in a row it wasn't funny. And any card that wasn't a PSA 10 was "Evidence of Trimming".
I believe there is a ton of cheating going on with professional grading as well as favours for certain submitters. I've owned and seen so many questionable PSA 10's and BGS 9.5's that I question why I still submit cards sometimes (hoping for luck instead of consistant grading?!?!)
This seller (as does DSL Sports, Shoeless Joes, etc) sends TONS of cards in for grading to BGS+PSA... so having a few 10s isn't terribly odd... also these are all modern cards! The thinck stock, right from the pack...we all know that a 1999 card is more than likely to get a higher grade than a 1979 card from the start.
Hee hee Bhl..I know the "cardcop" reference from the BGS Boards, but hardly my "cause". I believe his issues were solely relegated to Playoff/Donruss and their inserts; he railed against card manufacturers...my beef is with grading.
No, my particular brand of interest, which is shared by at least five other very reasonable traders who have been watching like me, is with both PSA and BGS.
Whether a matter of appearance only, or something more substantive, there are seller accounts on Ebay whose BGS 9.5's and PSA 10's cannot be explained away in mere excuse, "well they must send a lot in to get that".
Here we are talking about matters that go beyond the ordinary concerns of subjective grading in the first place and different results depending on what grader you get. These concerns go to determining how a huge statistical anomaly can exist which permits a sample of 10 sellers to receive Pristine BGS 10's in abundance and PSA 10's , while you and I get 9's or less.
The simple fact is that card doctoring on raw is out of control and that reason alone and the subsequent holdering and Pristine grades given those cards, could cause everything to tumble down. Credibility is the hallmark to any business viability. Destroy credibility and you kill the business. BTW Wlf, you mention "Shoeless-Joe" which is an alternate Ebay account for "Fatymerch" aka "slurginator" Aka "Unklbnz"...same guy...same guy who took a BGS 9 Prior holdered and miraculously converted it to a PRISTINE BGS 10 !! Thats some gall considering the card was serial numbered and before & after pics showed that the card had been on a diet.....so interesting that you bring up this reference.....
Other factors , such as preferential treatment, long rumored, is yet another issue of concern. For me , there is nothing like personal experience to lend some doubts.....like the PSA 10 Barry Bonds I won from a large Florida dealer that looked like it was in the washing machine.....but then again, they always have 10's and 9.5 Bonds auctions going on.
I received a call from someone I know from an Ebay sale...volunteered to take my cards with HIS submissions to BGS and assured me I would like the results.
Finally, how can someone set themselves up in a business dedicated to the "grading" of cards and miss trimming, however expert??? Does this happen in coins or stamps ?
The problem is that these companies don't place asterisks by their results...they are given like handed down from on high...YOUR card is the grade THEY give it without reserve, though the grades given are riddled with subjective criteria....or more ?
My statement as to this being the tip of the iceberg is based on the resolve of a few, who like Peter Finch in "Network" are saying, " we are sick as hell with this and don't won't to take it anymore". If the grading companies have nothing to fear, we will be just as happy to learn that too.
I honestly just think it's his cream of the crop stuff going out this week. Money issues come up and windows for guys like LeBron come and go. I'm a little guy, and with some prescreening and careful examination of your cards before you submit them, you can start to nail grades. I went 95% on guessing my last submission.
I won't say too much so I don't get in trouble, but it's prefferential treatment. I know a few others that get the same deals. Examine yourself though, if you could get these kinds of grades simply by going up to Beckett and after sending in 1000 cards per month for a while and telling them you weren't too happy with your last submission results and you were considering switching to PSA, how many of you would really do things differently? This is why I have real issues with using BGS, but now that I rely on this business to put food on my table, I've begun to use them a little bit to turn a profit the best I could without sacrificing my own integrity. Kardsharks gets a .5 to 1 point upgrade on most of their cards. I bought a BGS 9.5 Brett Myers from them a long time ago that had noticable scratches on it. That is why they no longer put the cert numbers in their auctions, if you were to check their submission results it would read somewhere along the lines of 9.5, 9.5, 9.5, 9, 9.5, 10, 9.5, 9.5, 9, 10, 9.5...
Just from my experience, PSA has far more integrity than BGS and very rarely gives this type of prefferential treatment. Even DSL's cards look clean to me, even if some of them are short.
Baseball Card Heaven, the closest card shop to the Las Vegas Strip.
Everyone seems anxious to blame the grading companies for giving preferential treatment to bulk submitters, but this shouldn't be the issue. What SHOULD be the issue is a) the grading standards themselves, in which ridiculously minute (or, perhaps, non-existant) differences between two cards can result in different grades, and b) the obscene disparity in prices realized between two like cards separated by only one grade. Don't blame the submitters, and don't blame the grading companies-- instead, blame the idiots that pay 20x more for a nine then a ten (or 9.5), since it's this phenomena which gives rise to these arguments. Or, barring this, blame the grading companies that established these ridiculous grading standards in the first place.
I've never met a person who can consistently distinguish a nine from a ten. Never. And I've met a lot of collectors. So what does that say about the standards? To me, it says they're a farce. And that's never going to change unless the collecting community starts to refuse to pay ludicrous premiums for mint and gem mint slabs. If you want to end the speculation about volume submitters getting a break, then do your part and quit buying cards graded nine or better (I mean you in the general sense). Once an 8 costs 10 bucks, and a ten costs 20, we'll put this dog to rest forever and begin to appreciate the one thing grading can do well; i.e., tell you if a card's been altered.
Having seen multiple submission results of at least one volume submitter (Joe Tuttle, who only lives about a half hour from me), I can say with confidence that at least one major PSA customer does NOT get preferential treatment in the grading room. But let's say he did-- so what? Nobody can tell a nine from a ten, so it's not like anyone's ever going to get a gem mint card in the mail, look it over, and think they got ripped off. And besides, in every other business the biggest customers get the best treatment. There's no reason why the grading racket should be held to a different standard, particularly if the difference in quality between cards given the two highest grades is essentially mythical.
SNOWBALL - the 1st link is mostly new cards, shouldn't they get high grades? Considering they go from pack to slab, and if any is dinged, or miscut they aren't submitted. 90% of all my submissions (to PSA) are vintage and I've rec'd 4 PSA-10's - the other 10% is modern, and I've probably rec'd 100 PSA-10's, no preferential treatment here, just that newer stuff is handled less and higher grades appear. Again that is my submissions w/ PSA. I have never submitted to any of the Beckett brands so I have no idea what to expect w/ them...jay
Jay...trust me...KallMalone and Boopots nailed the issue !
Just because something is modern makes the minute differences that separate two grades even more ridiculous and subjective.
I also agree with Jason that BGS is far more subject to holdering altered and trimmed cards than PSA; the most prolific of modern graders are ample proof of that. Having said that does PSA get an automatic pass if their only fault is preferential treatment ? I think not and hate to say this Jay, your view is biased by your "good outcome". The argument that any good customer deserves a break , though realistic, is UNACCEPTABLE in a trade whose very existence owes itself to a corporate mission of fairness and the same guidelines for all submitters.
PSA , unlike BGS, is a publicly traded corporation with accountability beyond mere customer service rhetoric . If , as seems the case, the majority are cynical about the underlying credibility of the sytem, then that is damning enough.
BTW, I always wondered about the so-called "anonymity" of submissions. Can someone please reconcile this philosophy with the FACT of on-site grading !! Is it probable that the regular submitters , who do big shows at which graders would be present, develop a business "relationship" over time with that grader?? Anyone see a paradox with so-called anonymous grading and on-site grading ??
<< <i>SNOWBALL - the 1st link is mostly new cards, shouldn't they get high grades? Considering they go from pack to slab, and if any is dinged, or miscut they aren't submitted. 90% of all my submissions (to PSA) are vintage and I've rec'd 4 PSA-10's - the other 10% is modern, and I've probably rec'd 100 PSA-10's, no preferential treatment here, just that newer stuff is handled less and higher grades appear. Again that is my submissions w/ PSA. I have never submitted to any of the Beckett brands so I have no idea what to expect w/ them...jay >>
Both sold a prior sp authentic BGS 10 pristine awhile back (2 different cards). one of the seller in the link bought a bgs 9 sp authentic prior, turned/submitted and sold it in BGS 10 printine holder (bought and sold under a different/other ebay ID -- this seller has like 4-6 ebay IDs) and was obviously trimmed.
Beachbum - you obviously enjoy collecting sports cards,
but if you're so worried about someone else getting better grades, or an occasional altered card getting through the system, then maybe you should just avoid graded cards altogether.
Collecting is supposed to be about having fun, not aggravating the heck out of yourself.
<< <i>Once an 8 costs 10 bucks, and a ten costs 20, we'll put this dog to rest forever and begin to appreciate the one thing grading can do well; i.e., tell you if a card's been altered. >>
As in an earlier thread which discussed the minute differences in grades, and how even a seasoned collector is often hard pressed to tell the difference, boopotts hits the nail on the head here. But, we as collectors are partially to blame, because we pay ridiculous premiums for supposed "gem mint 10's" (I am guilty as charged). I do feel that the bigger issue is the grading companies "rewarding" their large submitters like dsl, jtcards, and others, with "loyalty 10's", which are like little instant winner lottery tickets for these dealers. We, as collectors, should refuse to buy into this whole concept, and that would go a long way in making grading more equitable for everyone.
Can someone please reconcile this philosophy with the FACT of on-site grading !! Is it probable that the regular submitters , who do big shows at which graders would be present, develop a business "relationship" over time with that grader??
PSA doesn't even do onsite anymore to my knowledge. BGS and Global do. At Hollywood Park Global had the grader sitting right there in plain view with his loupe. I watched him for awhile and it appeared he spent a minute to a minute and a half per card. BGS always has a curtained off area where the graders are pretty much treated like inmates locked in the dungeon. I don't know if Dr. Beckett allows them to see the light of day the entire weekend. I was there at the very end of the show when the graders were leaving and much to my surprise BGS actually had a "guest grader" that wasn't even an employee of theirs, he just was doing Raw Card Review grading for the weekend. I beleive there were three graders there for BGS, my first submission of 18 cards was awesome (BGS 9.5 Pujols Bowman's Best, BGS 9.5 Edwin Jackson Elite Aspirations, ...) and my second submission of three cards the next day yielded all three BGS 8.5's (I thought at least two were easy 9's). So it was luck of the draw in which grader you got. Jason
Baseball Card Heaven, the closest card shop to the Las Vegas Strip.
Beachbum
Posts: 185
Comments
Joe
Website: http://www.qualitycards.com
I've never seen so many BGS 10s
Why are you more comfortable with the least likely explanation ?
As they say, if it walks like a duck, flies like a duck, its a DUCK !
2005 Origins Old Judge Brown #/20 and Black 1/1s, 2000 Ultimate Victory Gold #/25
2004 UD Legends Bake McBride autos & parallels, and 1974 Topps #601 PSA 9
Rare Grady Sizemore parallels, printing plates, autographs
Nothing on ebay
Well, "that seller" and about 9 others like him, control an abnormally high percentage of top grades statistically....I've been watching.....
This will get real ugly soon......mark my words.....!
Loves me some shiny!
I personally think this is the cream of the crop from his submission...all the other stuff is sold a shows or on another user account. What I don't like is the dealers who list cards that are all gem mint and have the graded serial numbers all in a row (0001, 0002, 0003 etc). One particular dealer had so many PSA 10's in a row it wasn't funny. And any card that wasn't a PSA 10 was "Evidence of Trimming".
I believe there is a ton of cheating going on with professional grading as well as favours for certain submitters. I've owned and seen so many questionable PSA 10's and BGS 9.5's that I question why I still submit cards sometimes (hoping for luck instead of consistant grading?!?!)
No, my particular brand of interest, which is shared by at least five other very reasonable traders who have been watching like me, is with both PSA and BGS.
Whether a matter of appearance only, or something more substantive, there are seller accounts on Ebay whose BGS 9.5's and PSA 10's cannot be explained away in mere excuse, "well they must send a lot in to get that".
Here we are talking about matters that go beyond the ordinary concerns of subjective grading in the first place and different results depending on what grader you get. These concerns go to determining how a huge statistical anomaly can exist which permits a sample of 10 sellers to receive Pristine BGS 10's in abundance and PSA 10's , while you and I get 9's or less.
The simple fact is that card doctoring on raw is out of control and that reason alone and the subsequent holdering and Pristine grades given those cards, could cause everything to tumble down. Credibility is the hallmark to any business viability. Destroy credibility and you kill the business. BTW Wlf, you mention "Shoeless-Joe" which is an alternate Ebay account for "Fatymerch" aka "slurginator" Aka "Unklbnz"...same guy...same guy who took a BGS 9 Prior holdered and miraculously converted it to a PRISTINE BGS 10 !! Thats some gall considering the card was serial numbered and before & after pics showed that the card had been on a diet.....so interesting that you bring up this reference.....
Other factors , such as preferential treatment, long rumored, is yet another issue of concern. For me , there is nothing like personal experience to lend some doubts.....like the PSA 10 Barry Bonds I won from a large Florida dealer that looked like it was in the washing machine.....but then again, they always have 10's and 9.5 Bonds auctions going on.
I received a call from someone I know from an Ebay sale...volunteered to take my cards with HIS submissions to BGS and assured me I would like the results.
Finally, how can someone set themselves up in a business dedicated to the "grading" of cards and miss trimming, however expert??? Does this happen in coins or stamps ?
The problem is that these companies don't place asterisks by their results...they are given like handed down from on high...YOUR card is the grade THEY give it without reserve, though the grades given are riddled with subjective criteria....or more ?
My statement as to this being the tip of the iceberg is based on the resolve of a few, who like Peter Finch in "Network" are saying, " we are sick as hell with this and don't won't to take it anymore". If the grading companies have nothing to fear, we will be just as happy to learn that too.
-Ian
Just from my experience, PSA has far more integrity than BGS and very rarely gives this type of prefferential treatment. Even DSL's cards look clean to me, even if some of them are short.
Our current ebay auctions, and of course BaseBallCardHeaven.com
Does the body rule the mind?
or does the mind rule the body?
I dunno...
I've never met a person who can consistently distinguish a nine from a ten. Never. And I've met a lot of collectors. So what does that say about the standards? To me, it says they're a farce. And that's never going to change unless the collecting community starts to refuse to pay ludicrous premiums for mint and gem mint slabs. If you want to end the speculation about volume submitters getting a break, then do your part and quit buying cards graded nine or better (I mean you in the general sense). Once an 8 costs 10 bucks, and a ten costs 20, we'll put this dog to rest forever and begin to appreciate the one thing grading can do well; i.e., tell you if a card's been altered.
Having seen multiple submission results of at least one volume submitter (Joe Tuttle, who only lives about a half hour from me), I can say with confidence that at least one major PSA customer does NOT get preferential treatment in the grading room. But let's say he did-- so what? Nobody can tell a nine from a ten, so it's not like anyone's ever going to get a gem mint card in the mail, look it over, and think they got ripped off. And besides, in every other business the biggest customers get the best treatment. There's no reason why the grading racket should be held to a different standard, particularly if the difference in quality between cards given the two highest grades is essentially mythical.
another lucky grader?
and here's another lucky grader?
Website: http://www.qualitycards.com
Just because something is modern makes the minute differences that separate two grades even more ridiculous and subjective.
I also agree with Jason that BGS is far more subject to holdering altered and trimmed cards than PSA; the most prolific of modern graders are ample proof of that. Having said that does PSA get an automatic pass if their only fault is preferential treatment ? I think not and hate to say this Jay, your view is biased by your "good outcome". The argument that any good customer deserves a break , though realistic, is UNACCEPTABLE in a trade whose very existence owes itself to a corporate mission of fairness and the same guidelines for all submitters.
PSA , unlike BGS, is a publicly traded corporation with accountability beyond mere customer service rhetoric . If , as seems the case, the majority are cynical about the underlying credibility of the sytem, then that is damning enough.
BTW, I always wondered about the so-called "anonymity" of submissions. Can someone please reconcile this philosophy with the FACT of on-site grading !! Is it probable that the regular submitters , who do big shows at which graders would be present, develop a business "relationship" over time with that grader?? Anyone see a paradox with so-called anonymous grading and on-site grading ??
<< <i>SNOWBALL - the 1st link is mostly new cards, shouldn't they get high grades? Considering they go from pack to slab, and if any is dinged, or miscut they aren't submitted. 90% of all my submissions (to PSA) are vintage and I've rec'd 4 PSA-10's - the other 10% is modern, and I've probably rec'd 100 PSA-10's, no preferential treatment here, just that newer stuff is handled less and higher grades appear. Again that is my submissions w/ PSA. I have never submitted to any of the Beckett brands so I have no idea what to expect w/ them...jay >>
Both sold a prior sp authentic BGS 10 pristine awhile back (2 different cards). one of the seller in the link bought a bgs 9 sp authentic prior, turned/submitted and sold it in BGS 10 printine holder (bought and sold under a different/other ebay ID -- this seller has like 4-6 ebay IDs) and was obviously trimmed.
Beachbum - you obviously enjoy collecting sports cards,
but if you're so worried about someone else getting better grades,
or an occasional altered card getting through the system,
then maybe you should just avoid graded cards altogether.
Collecting is supposed to be about having fun, not aggravating the heck out of yourself.
"How about a little fire Scarecrow ?"
<< <i>Once an 8 costs 10 bucks, and a ten costs 20, we'll put this dog to rest forever and begin to appreciate the one thing grading can do well; i.e., tell you if a card's been altered. >>
As in an earlier thread which discussed the minute differences in grades, and how even a seasoned collector is often hard pressed to tell the difference, boopotts hits the nail on the head here. But, we as collectors are partially to blame, because we pay ridiculous premiums for supposed "gem mint 10's" (I am guilty as charged). I do feel that the bigger issue is the grading companies "rewarding" their large submitters like dsl, jtcards, and others, with "loyalty 10's", which are like little instant winner lottery tickets for these dealers. We, as collectors, should refuse to buy into this whole concept, and that would go a long way in making grading more equitable for everyone.
PSA doesn't even do onsite anymore to my knowledge. BGS and Global do. At Hollywood Park Global had the grader sitting right there in plain view with his loupe. I watched him for awhile and it appeared he spent a minute to a minute and a half per card. BGS always has a curtained off area where the graders are pretty much treated like inmates locked in the dungeon. I don't know if Dr. Beckett allows them to see the light of day the entire weekend. I was there at the very end of the show when the graders were leaving and much to my surprise BGS actually had a "guest grader" that wasn't even an employee of theirs, he just was doing Raw Card Review grading for the weekend. I beleive there were three graders there for BGS, my first submission of 18 cards was awesome (BGS 9.5 Pujols Bowman's Best, BGS 9.5 Edwin Jackson Elite Aspirations, ...) and my second submission of three cards the next day yielded all three BGS 8.5's (I thought at least two were easy 9's). So it was luck of the draw in which grader you got.
Jason
Our current ebay auctions, and of course BaseBallCardHeaven.com
Jason
Doesn't that just say it all ?