PSA/DNA - My First Submission Report

Knuckles

The following is a progress report of how my very first PSA/DNA submission went. (and also to show off what I have )

I thought this would be helpful for first time submitters.. hopefully answer any questions that they may have regarding the process before or after sending a submission to PSA/DNA themselves.

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Autographed Items:

One custom cut Terry Sawchuk card (card made by myself) $50 to authenticate Terry Sawchuk items

Before the exacto knife






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One custom cut Jacques Plante card (card made by myself) $50 to authenticate Jacques Plante items

Before the exacto knife






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One signed vintage 1950's Jacques Plante postcard before he changed his autograph to the nicer one above. $50 to authenticate



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04/01/2005 at 5:00pm
Shipped items to PSA/DNA's PO BOX in Newport Beach California.

04/09/2005 at 10:43am
Items arrived at their PO BOX

04/11/2005 at 8:41am
Items were picked up

05/02/2005 at 8:10pm
Received e-mail from customersupport@collectors.com stating that they have received my 'grading' submission and it is in process. Submission number: 140898

05/04/2005
Noticed my credit card had been charged but for only $96.78 CAD when it should have been charged $175 USD.
I phoned customer service and they told me I was charged just $20 per item. Sawhuck and Plante items are $50 each according to PSA/DNA's prices online. Bonus



05/18/2005 at 11:00am
Checked my PSA/DNA order status on psacard.com, no change still just shows the date received.

Same day at 8:30pm
Checked my PSA/DNA order status on psacard.com to find:



WooHoo! I assume that they are all authentic since they received certificate #'S

Same day at 8:35pm
Received e-mail from customersupport@collectors.com stating that "The grades on your recent submission have been finalized. You may view them by clicking on

the link below. etc... etc.."


05/19/2005 at 8:00pm
Checked status, now states Date Shipped: 05/19/2005
I checked on the form for 2 day FedEx shipping, lets see what happens (I live in Canada)

05/20/2005 at 9:00am
Phoned to talk to a very sleepy sounding rep. to get the tracking number for my order. It was shipped by USPS tracking # ev005568093us
I didn't bother asking why it wasn't shipped by FedEx I'm just happy that they're on their way.

05/25/2005 at 8:00am
Checked tracking. Found that the item has arrived in Vancouver. I expect to receive everything by Friday, maybe just maybe tomorrow (Thursday)

Same day at 9:15am
Knock on the door.. It's Purolator. Thought it was going to be makeup my wife ordered or something but no it's my stuff! Woo!



So in the end..

It took 37 business days in total from dropping everything off at the post office to receiving everything back today.

It took 15 business days after receiving my submission for them to get to processing it which is my only gripe.
It took just 13 business days from the time they actually opened and processed my submission to the time they shipped my submission back.

Just 9 days of shipping in total from me to PSA/DNA, from PSA/DNA to me. Which is pretty good considering I live in Canada and I didn't have to pay any customs fee's which was great, I expected too.

It ended up being way cheaper than it was supposed to be as mentioned above. It came to just $96.78 CAD when it should have been $175 USD. The shipping ended up being more money than what I calculated but the items were $30 USD cheaper each.

I could be happier.. (if I got my stuff back sooner) but I really can't complain after the awesome break I got on the rate of authenticating these three autographs.



How my items were shipped back to me (the box was in the Purolator bag)



Excellent packing.




Grand finale..











Now to make more!

Mac53

Knuckles: Congrats. Those are very attractive items. Nice work.

pandrews

nice stuff!

BigRedMachine

Knuckles, very cool. Congrats.

EagleEyeKid

Way to go bud! Those are gorgeous.

54topps

Those are very cool!!!!! Thanks for sharing.

Knuckles

Thanks guys Next on my list to create are: Tim Horton, Gordie Howe (to make it tough I'm going to search for his old autograph from the 50's before he changed it to what it is now), Doug Harvey, Maurice Richard, Wayne Gretzky.

wufdude

very cool items...

The whole $20/card special vs. the PSA/DNA costs ($50 like you mentioned) is kinda hazy. If I understand it correctly, any item that can be authenticated and slabbed will only cost you $20 whereas the PSA/DNA costs apply to balls/photos/bats/hats etc. and you received some type of certificate. I've sent alot of items through the $20 special and have been relatively pleased.

schr1st

You only got charged $20 because they processed your cards under the "Great Combo" PSA/DNA deal. They authenticate and slab your autographed card for $20 + Shipping, no matter whose autograph you submit. Great looking "cards". Congrats!

Knuckles

Ah, that explains it.. and also explains why I didn't receive certificates as well. Thanks!

How long is this deal on for?

wufdude

The $20/deal is all the time. It's a great deal when the auto is real but it sucks to pay $20 for them to send the card back with "Unable to Authenticate"!

TomTim

I just received my first submission as well. I don't have pictures yet, but here's the summary of my experience that I posted on the Autograph Board. This thread, however, cleared up some of my confusion. I, too, was confused about the $20 vs normal fee issue. I had a Jackie Robinson cut that I wanted authenticated and encapsulated. I emailed info@collectors.com and was told "look at the fee schedule". From that I assumed that the cut would be $100 but I didn't know if that included encapsulation. So I emailed again for clarification and received an Out of Office Autoreply, so I sent my clarified question back to info. Before I received a response, I called PSA and was told that the authentication fee included encapsulation (Jackie would be $100). Within a few hours I received an email reply from a different person and he told me that it would be $20 extra for encapsulation (Jackie would be $120). Then I received a reply from the "Out of Office" guy and he said encapsulation was included. I decided to go with the majority and sent a $100 payment. I'm still waiting on the encapsulated items, but it looks like I was charged much less than expected. So apparently all three of these people were wrong. Anyway, here's my account from the Autograph Board.
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I'm just wrapping up my first submission, and I found it pretty confusing. The psacard site says they will encapsulate cards, 3x5s, etc. for $20. I couldn't tell if the authentication fee for a 3x5 included encapsulation or if you had to pay the authentication fee +$20. So if I have a Jackie Robinson cut that I want encapsulated, is it $100 for the whole thing? or $120? I emailed info@collectors.com and they didn't understand my question. I replied to clarify and received an Out of Office Autoreply, so I sent my clarified question back to info. Before I received a response, I called PSA and was told that the authentication fee included encapsulation (Jackie would be $100). Within a few hours I received an email reply from a different person and he told me that it would be $20 extra for encapsulation (Jackie would be $120). Then I received a reply from the "Out of Office" guy and he said encapsulation was included. I decided to go with the majority and sent a $100 payment. Here's how the rest went:
1. The post office says the items were delivered to PSA on 4/4/05. I received no communication from them until they informed me that my submission was received on 05/02/2005. 8 of the items were to be encapsulated. 5 of them were not.
2. On 5/14 I received the 5 non-encapsulated items. I wanted to quickly list them on ebay, but when I checked the certification database, they were not listed.
3. On 5/17 I emailed info again and asked why the items were not in the database. The reply: "We are updating the website as fast as we can."
4. On 5/23 my encapsulated items showed up in the psacard submission status database as having completed the authentication process. I checked the psadna certification database and these 8 items were listed, but the 5 items I received a week earlier were still not listed.
5. I replied to info and cc'd Joe Orlando that I was pretty upset that they couldn't type in 5 numbers any quicker for $100 per item.
6. Today, all of the items show up in the certification database.

One more thing I'm not really crazy about. I sent in several multi-signature items. One autograph sheet has about 20 100-win signatures on it. In the certification database it shows up like this:
Athlete/Celebrity: 100 WINS CLUB
Item: TEAM SHEET
Manufacturer: unmarked
Authentication Date: 05/23/2005
Location: PSADNA
Notes: Signatures include Hall of Fame inductees Dizzy Dean, Sandy Koufax and Lefty Gomez
Number of Signatures: 3

If I saw this in the database, I would assume that the item only included 3 signatures. Or I might assume that only three of the signatures were authenticated? Does this imply that the other 17 signatures were added after authentication? Or does it mean that the other 17 are judged non-authentic?

I'm just hoping that these encapsulated autos make it home safely and I can list them quickly and recoup these fees.

Not a pleasant first experience with PSA/DNA.

Hope this helps.
TomTim

Knuckles

That's awesome, I was worried this would cost me a fortune but with that deal I'm relieved.

Yeah, it would suck getting stuff back as fake.. I was sceptical about my Sawchuk autograph because it's such a nice autograph which is unusual to find but I have seen a couple.

His autographs usually look like this:

That ended on eBay a little while ago for $333.01

Whoever got the autograph I bought caught him in a real good mood sitting down I guess.

Knuckles

Welcome to the PSA boards TomTim..

I'm not sure about your autographed sheet with 20 100-win signatures on it. It looks to me like only three autographs were authenticated leaving the rest as questionable. I would be calling PSA/DNA about this after receiving the item back.

Please post pics when you have them. That's a nice lot of stuff you have there!

TomTim

Here's a similar example with a picture. I bought a large collection that included 5 1972 Yankees Old-Timers Programs. Each program was autographed by the same 18 people and one of them was signed by the 18 plus Stan Musial. One of them I sold on Ebay when I first received it:

Link

I sent two of the remaining ones into PSA/DNA to see if they would sell for more with individual cert nos. and LOAs. The cert no for one is C83020. Here's how it's recorded in the database:

Athlete/Celebrity: 1972 NEW YORK YANKEES OLD TIMERS' DAY

Item: PROGRAM

Manufacturer: unmarked

Authentication Date: 05/23/2005

Location: PSADNA

Notes: Signatures include Hall of Fame inductees Pee Wee Reese, Waite Hoyt, Lefty Gomez, Whitey Ford, Buck Leonard, Billy Herman, Stan Musial and Joe Sewell

Number of Signatures: 8

It looks like they only "count" the HOFers; which is irritating because I even included a list of signers on each item to minimize the amount of work they had to do.

TomTim

I'm replying to myself because I just realized that the list of signers in the database doesn't even include Elston Howard (probably the most valuable signature on the item).

Really aggravated.
TomTim

Stone193

Knucks

Awsome!!!



mike

detroitfan2

WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

First things first: If there's ever been anyone who collects for the love of the game, it's Knuckles. Very VERY refreshing. Dude makes his own cards! Now that's a hobby. I'm very impressed. If only I could focus on one main thing.

OK, now for some things I've been wondering about PSA/DNA (maybe the answer lies here already): I see some autographed cards (I'm not talking about insert cards) that have been just authenticated, and others that are both authenticated and graded. Can anyone explain the pricing difference?

Any opinions on what an autographed card does to the SMR of the card? Let's take a PSA 7 1954 Topps Hank Aaron which is autographed and authenticated by PSA/DNA. Would we expect the market price to be higher, lower, the same as a non-autographed version? Does it count in the population report? As a side note, we do know for sure that unautographed Bob Feller cards are rarer than autographed ones. Dude does a LOT of shows.

And finally, how do these guys authenticate these things? How many people do they have authenticating? I can see having experts on baseball hall-of-famer autographs or US presidents, or whatever, but for everything? For example, who in the world knows that this autograph is real:

Sounds like a Bowler

Does PSA/DNA consider your "story" about how the autographs were obtained?

Anyway, once again Knuckles, I love the cards you made. I can only imagine how sweet your collection is.

Knuckles

Thanks Mike

Knuckles

Thanks for the kind words detroitfan.




<< <i>OK, now for some things I've been wondering about PSA/DNA (maybe the answer lies here already): I see some autographed cards (I'm not talking about insert cards) that have been just authenticated, and others that are both authenticated and graded. Can anyone explain the pricing difference? >>



Inserted autographs will be worth more because they're limited and usually numbered and part of a set which makes them more special I guess.




<< <i>Any opinions on what an autographed card does to the SMR of the card? Let's take a PSA 7 1954 Topps Hank Aaron which is autographed and authenticated by PSA/DNA. Would we expect the market price to be higher, lower, the same as a non-autographed version? Does it count in the population report? As a side note, we do know for sure that unautographed Bob Feller cards are rarer than autographed ones. Dude does a LOT of shows. >>



I have no idea if they count them in the population report or not.. Probably.. I would be willing to pay more than SMR list price for a PSA Graded - PSA/DNA authenticated autographed card of certain players like a Jordan rookie card or any 50's Mantle card.. as long as the autograph is nice and doesn't visually make the card less appealing.




<< <i>And finally, how do these guys authenticate these things? How many people do they have authenticating? I can see having experts on baseball hall-of-famer autographs or US presidents, or whatever, but for everything? For example, who in the world knows that this autograph is real: >>



They go by what kind of paper was used.. if say my Sawchuk autograph was signed on paper of today I'm sure they would be able to tell and since he passed away in 1970 that autograph is fake for sure.. same goes with pens.. they detect stops in the autograph (a forger may write out the Saw then stop to look at the real deal before continuing with their fake.) They have a ton of real autographs in their database to compair the autograph they're authenticating to real ones. I'm sure there's a lot more to it than what I've said.. Click here to go to PSA/DNA's Authentication Process page.




<< <i>Does PSA/DNA consider your "story" about how the autographs were obtained? >>



I have no idea.. With my submission I did include pictures of the original items before they were cut to maybe make it easier for them.


I hope I was of help..

Thanks again for the kind words

Kabir75

This post is great....great cards and great to see Hobby has people like you in it....man I will pay you to make cards for me like that WOW

yawie99

Cool thread, Knuckles. (The X-Acto knife pictures really gave it the extra touch.) And cool cards, of course. Can't wait to see more of them. In the unlikely event you're not aware of it, the current Classic Collectibles auction has a decent selection of signatures that might be good for you, including an autograph book that apparently has an early Howe sig.

detroitfan2

Hi again, I think one of my earlier questions was not very clear.

I see cards like this (where the autograph is authenticated only):
Authentic Auto

And I see other cards like this (where the autograph is authenticated, and the card is graded):
Authenticated and Graded Auto

Anyone know how PSA's fees work for each of these?

Knuckles

<< <i>This post is great....great cards and great to see Hobby has people like you in it....man I will pay you to make cards for me like that WOW >>


Show Meeeeee The Money!!!

Seriously though.. thanks for the kind words Kabir

Knuckles

Hi yawie, thanks. I actually did see those autographs on the Buyck Classic Collectibles auction and requested pictures of the Doug Harvey and Gordie Howe autographs which coincidently just received an hour prior to your message.

Here's the pics of the pages with the Howe and Harvey.. I won't be bidding they're not very nice.


I'm kicking myself like crazy for forgetting to bid on this auction gorgeous Howe.. gorgeous Sawchuk.. I wouldn't be able to bring myself to cutting it up though. The winner of that auction got an amazing deal.

Knuckles

detroitfan2: They actually grade the autograph as well now let alone authenticating it and grading the card. Just go to www.psadna.com and browse around to find things out as I am not sure..

wufdude

You can request PSA to simply authenticate the signature and encapsulate the card (alot of people do this if card is in poor condition) or you can request grading and authentication with the encapsulation. Both are the $20 fee. PSA has just recently starting allowing slabbed autographs with the "Authentic" note to be added to autographed registry sets.

yawie99

$116 for that sheet! I don't know much about the autograph market but that seems like an insanely good deal.

Knuckles

Yep, I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it.. I would have paid $300 for that which is still low.

windcarver5

Hey Knuckles, I finally got some time to check out your PSA/DNA submissions....one word.......AWESOME!!

I really love how those cut sigs look surrounded by that top-rate art work of yours. You and Austinchau really should be commended
on how you take this hobby and "Kick it up a notch!"

Last word from Tom Cruise in TAPS...."It's beautiful man"

Knuckles

Hah! Thanks Bob

I've had an ear to ear smile on all day larger than Bobby Hulls since the delivery guy handed me the box. Receiving such positive feedback from everyone on here really made my day.