Sending in bad cards for perspective

notowellint

I've been reading through this board and noticed a few mentions of sending in a few bad conditioned cards in a lot of 100 just to give the grader perspective. I'm curious how many people do this or feel that it's beneficial? I'm planning to send in about 100 cards in the near future that are all in beautiful shape. I'd hate to get lower grades than possible just because of a perspective issue.

MorrellMan

I think you'd have better luck avoiding stepping on sidewalk cracks.

Chances are, a few lower grade cards will just pull lower grades. And there's just as much a chance that a suggestible grader might think the rest of your cards are crap. Most of the time a legitimate 8 will draw an 8. There are variables, like anytime when dealing with humans, but if you try to outsmart the system, chances are you'll just wind up outsmarting yourself. Just my 2 cents.

Edited to add: BTW, welcome to the boards - glad to see you're kind of easing your way in....

notowellint

Thanks. See, I was thinking along the same lines as you. If I was a grader I think I'd pick up on someone trying to "add perspective" and maybe that'd annoy me a bit. I'd feel like someone was questioning my ability to do my job consistently...but that just goes to show my lack of patience. I gotta think that's one trait all card graders must have...lots of patience.

jrdolan

I have enough trouble with the graders thinking my cards are crappy without deliberately sending them crappy cards.

softparade

i was talking with Frank Smith (Funky Frank) last week. He does alot of submitting and thinks that it is a good idea to throw in a few cards that are not centered so great.... here and there in the submission just to give the persons eyes who are staring at your cards some "perspective" , especially if all the cards are the same issue. Its not trying to out smart anyone. I can see his point as any human looking through a hundred cards or more may be looking for that low water mark for a 8/9. Just centering guys, no bad corners, surface, etc. But whatever works to ease other minds ......

notowellint

It would seem to me that centering would be the easiest part of the grading process to be objective on since there's a scale to it and it's called out in PSA's grading standards.

CDsNuts

I don't know, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, these guys grade hundreds of cards a day and while they may misgrade a card every now and then, their jobs are literally on the line with regard to giving accurate grades. E.G.- PSA buys back a card that was graded too high and tracks the serial # to a specific grader.

On the other hand, if I were to send in twenty cards that were all PSA 10s according to grading standards, I'd think the grader would be apt to look a little harder for defects due to uncomfortability they may have giving that many GEM MINT grades to one submission. Though I do feel a lot of collectors are misguided in thinking that we may "offend" a grader by sending in certain things. For example, if I were to send in 500 1990 Donruss commons, I don't think the grader would undergrade the cards because they feel I'm wasting their time with junk. Logic would dictate that they are going to be grading cards all day and it doesn't really matter what's put in front of them, unless it's something incredibly rare or interesting. Plus, if I'm willing to be an idiot and pay their employers a ton of money to grade crap, which will be used to pay their salary.

Lee

ldferg

i wonder how long they spend actually grading one card? someone posted something awhile back in regards to gai spending less than a minute grading his card.

speaking of ..."giving that many GEM MINT grades to one submission"... there was another post showing a submission and there were an ungodly amount of 10s in the one submission and they were all consecutive numbers. seems like there were 123 10's out of 125 or very similar to that