PSA labeling mistakes?
tanzanite
Posts: 79
Is it me or is PSA making more and more of these mistakes. I have been collecting PSA graded cards since 1996 and don't remember ever seeing any mistakes like these until the last couple of months. This should be 1974, not 1973. Just curious to see if anyone else is noticing this trend too.
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recognize the exact year of every card submitted. "
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I am finding that they do not care what I write down. They
label the stuff in the manner they think is correct, no matter
what my form says.
I was going to start a new thread, but maybe this will be
more better:
Why do the Fleer World Series comic-cards (Laughlin) say
1968 on the back, but the PSA flips say 1970 or 1971?
Is 1968 just the copyright date? Are the years determined by
the card numbers?
Thanks for any help in this matter.
storm
a little money to ship the slabs back to PSA for correction.
Tom
Jeez, I submit top-notch cards and get completely sodomized.
No lube.
<< <i>Nice 10.
Jeez, I submit top-notch cards and get completely sodomized.
No lube. >>
If she looks good, I'm good.
<< <i>Nice 10.
Jeez, I submit top-notch cards and get completely sodomized.
No lube. >>
It's almost to the point that I don't wanna submit. Not only does the consistancy very within my subs, it appears some people always get the benefit of the doubt. I can confidently say that I have NEVER gotten a "soft" ten, or even a soft 9. I have never been suprised at my grades being overstated, but on nearly every sub (atleast 10) I have undergraded stuff.
My all time favorite mislable:
mike
<< <i>Nice 10.
Jeez, I submit top-notch cards and get completely sodomized.
No lube. >>
The trick is just to change what you submit. Don't jerk around with anything that you could buy at BBCExchange-- i.e., '80's Topps/Fleer/Donruss. It's all been graded to death, and the pops on all the relevant cards are already sky high. When you find yourself submitting a card that 'might' sell for $20 if it comes back a 10 then you know it's probably time to put that card back in the top loader and forget about it IMO.
<< <i>
<< <i>Nice 10.
Jeez, I submit top-notch cards and get completely sodomized.
No lube. >>
It's almost to the point that I don't wanna submit. Not only does the consistancy very within my subs, it appears some people always get the benefit of the doubt. I can confidently say that I have NEVER gotten a "soft" ten, or even a soft 9. I have never been suprised at my grades being overstated, but on nearly every sub (atleast 10) I have undergraded stuff. >>
I don't think PSA was ever really set up for 'part time' submittors. That's the reason they have membership fee, and probably part of the reason why customer service is generally lousy (though always friendly, IMExperience)-- it's just not an operation that was designed to have thousands and thousands of customers.
The inconsistency is maddening, but it doesn't really matter to a bulk submitter because they get into the long run so much quicker and therefore get to a point where the 'bad breaks' and the 'good breaks' even out. But for a guy who submits cards maybe 4 times a year it's just devastating to get wiped out on a sub, and that's when you start seeing complaints about consistency.
Also, PSA wasn't set up to accomodate customers who hope to sell a card for 4x-6x the grading fee if it comes back Gem 10. There are about 4 guys who make these low margin submissions work for them (4SC, obviously, although there are a couple others), but I think it's silly for anyone to expect to get the same kinds of results that these guys get-- and you NEED those kinds of results to make submssions of low end cards worth your time. If we were all submitting nmt-mt '48 Leaf cards then I don't think you'd hear anyone complaining about how they can't catch a break in the grading room. But when you're submitting cards that will lose you money if they don't come back 10's then yes-- the complaints are sure to come.
I think you make valid points but I think its the other way around? I don't think PSA was set up for bulk submissions were someone is sending in 1000's of 86 Topps Baseball or 1000's of 74 Topps Hockey? I think they were set up to stop the altering on the bigger dollar cards not the 10 to 25 dollar cards. I think it got alot bigger than they ever thought it would and now you have tired graders,sealers,shippers,refrence and customer service people who are fielding calls and checking and cross refrencing to death. This is were mistakes are made ie. ME's and over or under graded cards. Could you imagine grading 5000 cards in a 40 hour work week? I would be absoulute nuts by Wednesday!
ON ITS WAY TO NEWPORT BEACH, CA 92658
<< <i>Lee
I think you make valid points but I think its the other way around? I don't think PSA was set up for bulk submissions were someone is sending in 1000's of 86 Topps Baseball or 1000's of 74 Topps Hockey? I think they were set up to stop the altering on the bigger dollar cards not the 10 to 25 dollar cards. I think it got alot bigger than they ever thought it would and now you have tired graders,sealers,shippers,refrence and customer service people who are fielding calls and checking and cross refrencing to death. This is were mistakes are made ie. ME's and over or under graded cards. Could you imagine grading 5000 cards in a 40 hour work week? I would be absoulute nuts by Wednesday! >>
Very possible. Actually, it would be interesting to find out exactly what their expectations were. You're probably right, though. It wasn't until Ebay that grading commons-- even commons from the '50's and earlier-- really started to make any sense, and I really doubt that David Hall expected to have his grading room flooded with '83 Fleer
I think they're probably equipped to handle a couple big bulk submitters, but my suspicion is that they've never really gotten organized to the point where they can efficiently handle 1000's of PSA members each submitting fewer than 300 cards a year. And I also don't think they had any idea how huge the set registry would become, and they're still scrambling to make sense of that. I email them today and requested that they put up somewhere on the website a page that tells you which issues they do NOT grade (Ralson Purinas and so forth), but I doubt it will ever happen-- despite the fact that having such a list would save all of us AND them a ton of time and headaches. Why won't it happen? Because they just weren't set up in such a way that determining whether or not the 1990 CMC Mattingly set was important, and they still don't see it as being something their concerned with.
This is an incredibly rambling and incoherent post, and I'm sorry for that. I don't know what happened-- I'm not drunk or anything. I must just be tired. But the gist of my point is that I agree with you, only I think a couple big bulk submitters would have worked out OK. In any case this will all die down in the next couple years if more people don't start collecting graded cards, because the market is already saturated with very nice cards that barely recoup the grading fee.
With this deluge of submissions, don't you believe that PSA would be wise to stick to card grading rather than tickets, balls, bats, and now, packs?
<< <i>I agree wholeheartedly with you, Boopotts.
With this deluge of submissions, don't you believe that PSA would be wise to stick to card grading rather than tickets, balls, bats, and now, packs? >>
I think they're branching out like this because they see the writing on the wall. This last 6 years or so have been very good to them (I think), but the next six years won't be nearly this lucrative. Just think of all the stuff that YOU ( or I, I don't mean 'you' you) would have submitted 6 years ago that you wouldn't dream of sending in now. nmt-mt 1975 Topps commons? In they go. '70's basketball? In it goes. High pop '60's commons? There were no real high pops then, so you just sent it all in and waited to see what would happen. I would say that the % of cards out there that would sell for 4x the grading fee if they were graded has slipped by at least 30% over where that number was in 2000, and it's just going to keep getting lower and lower. They received a ton of subs in May and June, but that's because it was a special like nobody had ever seen before. With grading fees back at their usual rates there just isn't that much stuff you can readily get a hold of that's worth having slabbed.
I have a new rule when it comes to submitting stuff, and that rule is that every card has to satisfy one of the following requirements.
a) It's currently a pop 'zero' in the grade I expect to get on the card.
b) It will be worth more than 30$ in the holder that I expect it to come back in.
c) The worst case scenerio is that I sell the card once it's slabbed for twice the grading fee.
I have 200 cards at PSA right now that are post-1990 HOFers and superstars, and I can tell you for sure that this is the LAST time I do something like that. And I'm also done submitting '80's stars and such when PSA 10's sell for $20. At that rate I'm better off going back to buying raw modern RC's of Lebron, Wade, Crosby and Ovechkin and flipping those once I get them slabbed.
of where grading may be headed and how it got to
where it is now.
A few things to consider, though:
1. There will be lots of folks, down the road, who will
discover card-grading anew and not be solely motivated
by the value-added concepts when they submit their cards.
Some will just like the looks of the holders and they will
see them as a nice way to protect their cards.
2. Right now, there is a glut of post 1980 graded-cards.
For a long time to come, that will greatly limit the number
of modern-submissions to all grading houses. At some
point, there is likley to be another short-lived resurgence
in collecting cards; that will absorb a lot of the surplus
we now see.
3. Folks who have gotten burned on accumulating 1975
thru 2000 cards will have two options; stop collecting cards,
or switch to 1955 thru 1970 cards. Many will go vintage,
and that will create new submission opportunities for
PSA to address.
4. Arbitrage between graders will increase dramatically
during the next five-years. The crack and resub between
different graders has not come anywhere near where
it is heading. Again, more opportunities for graders to
profit and meet market demands as they change.
5. While I personally find graded packs a ridiculous concept,
most folks like the idea. More work and profit for the graders.
There is little doubt that PSA is "branching out" to increase
revenues, but the market is asking for that diversification.
6. Large submitters are going to be changing their biz models
or be out of biznez during the next few years. They cannot
survive by playing the numbers game on cases of 1980s
product for much longer. They will either have to "go vintage,"
or be forced out. Fewer subs will mean faster turnaround
times at PSA for collector-submitters; it may also mean
"better" grading.
7. When the bulk-submissions contract, we should see
grading fees tank and $5.00 +/- specials may become
the norm. This will not hurt PSA - or some other graders -
because they will be kept busy authenticating high-end
"discoveries" for rich-folks and BIG auction houses.
8. It is not an overstatement to say that "cardgrading
is in its infancy." PSA is reacting to the changes in a
market that really is far from having matured. PSA
can only guess where things are headed, but they
know that changes are underway.
9. PSA has made many folks on these boards a lot of
money. That gravy-train is slowing down now and may
be changing tracks. But, the train is not derailed.
10. PSA does a "good job" grading the stuff we send
in. Their graders will get better as they work in the
business during the next decade. Consistency will
become more apparent as more time passes.
To sum up: I am not worried that card-grading is
in collapse mode. Change is coming, but it will not
be a bad thing for most of us.
storm
<< <i>
Why do the Fleer World Series comic-cards (Laughlin) say
1968 on the back, but the PSA flips say 1970 or 1971?
Is 1968 just the copyright date? Are the years determined by
the card numbers? >>
I came across some of those cards a couple years back and did a little research before selling them. If I remember right, there were two very similar sets issued in 1970 and 1971 (despite the 1968 copyright date on both) with one having blue printing on the reverse and the other red (or was one of them black, maybe?). In any case, I don't remember which was which.