Submission Psychology

PaulMaul

We'd all like to believe that each card in a submission is assessed purely on its own merits, without regard to other cards in the order. But even with the best of intentions, I'd have to believe that surrounding cards could have a subconscious effect.

If you had a marginal card and wanted to ensure it get every possible consideration, would you:

a.) include it in an order with a bunch of really primo stuff...the grader sees all of your 9's and is biased in that direction when he gets to the marginal card.
b.) include it with an order of lesser grade stuff...your marginal card would then seem high grade compared to the rest of the order.

I think I'd go with a.) I know, as a teacher, that when I'm grading an exam, and a student has perfect solutions to the first several problems, I expect equally good results on the other problems, and may be slightly biased toward that result.

Or are PSA's graders all perfect robots, and all this is irrelevant?

itzagoner

there is a purpose to the method behind submitting cards.

many times i have felt that the order and presentation of the cards has as much to do with the rate of success as the cards themselves.

most of my attempts to impose my own methods have led to pleasant results and correct predictions.

whether the psychology applies to the graders or me is anyone's guess.

i will continue to live by the creed of "whatever works".

72skywalker

The same psychology says that if you want to look thinner you hang around people fatter than you.

GR

I once submitted ten signed cards, five were Ravens ones Id gotten in person at training camp, the other five were ttm. Psa just told me whoever sold me those autographs were selling me some bad stuff and no refund...submited the same ten to jsa and the 5 ttm came back questionable and they gave me my cash back on those and the five ravens came back authentic. autograph wise I feel like James Spence realy takes his time on each piece to look for the small details and not just a casual glance.

gemint

I've traditionally tried to park a marginal card after lower grade cards as I think the grader would tend to benchmark their grading based on the preceding cards. In other words, the lower grade cards condition the grader so that when a higher grade card comes up, it looks nicer than it would next to a bunch of gem mint shiny refractors. Whether this works or not is anyone's guess.

grote15

I usually put the best cards up front to try & get the grader in the mindset that the cards are high grade throughout but I'm not sure if any of these tactics actually have any bearing on the grading, as I've had mixed results. I think it's more a result of the grader than anything else, as some are tougher than others, just by human nature.

scmavl

I have someone piggyback on my current PSA/DNA sub. He had a Jeter auto that PSA had previously turned down that he wanted to resubmit. I was also sending in a Jeter auto so we agreed that it would probably be best not to include his as well because if it was an "obvious" fake (like anything is obvious with a Jeter auto!), it may make the grader think both of the autos were bad. Results to come...

When I send in cards for grading, I try and group them together by type/age and always put a nice-but-not-gem-mint card on top in case it gets bent in shipping/opening. In my last sub, I had two 10s in the first four cards. However, very little of the sub after that followed suit...