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Review submission question
paleocards
Posts: 926 ✭✭✭✭
I don't have an active review order in with PSA on the current special, but I'm considering using my 12 free gradings for reviews when I renew my membership at the Cleveland National. I submitted my one and only review order last year (my 10 best 7s and 10 best 8s) and received two bumps (all the 7s were denied and two 8s bumped to 8.5). Here's my question: has PSA said publicly or privately that they track cert #s of cards that have been submitted for review? If they do, it makes no sense to re-submit a card that has already been reviewed and denied. If they don't they risk appearing less consistent if in fact a previously denied slab with the same cert # gets bumped (although that can help their bottom line if re-reviews are blind and stimulate multiple re-submissions like many do with crack-outs until they get the grade they think the card deserves). Any info/thoughts would be appreciated.
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I think PSA can be likened to a Pro League Umpire/Referee....99.9% of the time they get the call correct, but we all want the perfect world and the .1% to be eliminated all together. Even though we might think the card was under graded .5 - 1.0 then what we feel it 'should' have been, if you were there in the room going through the process you could see the argument of why it got the actual grade it did. You still may not agree if you were able to sit and argue it with the grader at the time, but you would potentially feel better about the process and realize until we have a finely calibrated computer grading system loaded with all the knowledge of thousands of card experts about original manufacturing, condition sensitivity and population data reviewing all cards with laser optics, we will not have a perfect world.
In the end, you have to consider what you are arguing. Are you arguing the PSA 7 1978 Topps Don Sutton should really be a PSA 7.5? or even an 8? No disrespect to the HOFer that Don Sutton is or his fans and collectors of his stuff, but no one will ever care if the card is even a PSA 9 and only slightly more will they care if it ended up being a 10. I see only slight bumps in actual market value to the 99% of cards that get the .5 nod. I think the only real significance to that .5 is for cards where without the .5 they are already valued at greater then $1K currently AND they have relatively low POPs. There are always exceptions to everything, but in my opinion, this is what I am seeing in this economic time. Maybe the economic condition is the key or perhaps it has nothing to do with it and the general perception of the buyer is that if it comes down to buying an 8 for X dollars or an 8.5 for X + 25%, many buyers are going to only spend X instead to be satisfied with an 8. Where only a handful of the buyers will go a little higher but something like X+15% until they see the next plateau of a 9, then the expected dollars jump significantly over an 8 or the 8.5 previously mentioned.
Market value aside, if I am passionate about a certain player AND it is a super low population issue, then I can't blame you or anyone else for trying to submit a second time for another look, but I don't know that I try a 3rd and a 4th, etc. I think I would either have to be happy with the card I have or if not, I upgrade and buy the next higher grade I see on the market and sell the one I currently have that was the grade goal I had in mind. What value would there be in 4 of 5 graders feel that my card is a 7 and the last grader who may make a slightly different judgment give it a 7.5? It still is not the next plateau of an 8 which seems to be the more important factor to 'most' folks even those passionate about the player and not that concerned with the market value.
End of the day, it probably is not worth your time and effort to re-submit a card over and over again UNLESS you have a 1 of less then 10 and there is about zero chance of anymore of them being newly graded/discovered.