I'm reluctant to send a big submission in these days.
RonBurgundy
Posts: 5,491 ✭✭✭
Not because of the economy, but because of the grades people are reportedly getting. I have a massive submission worked up to send in these week, but in all likelihood I will pare it down substantially due to what people are saying about current grading, both on this board and what I heard at the Houston show. These things go in cycles and it looks like the folks in Newport Beach are in a foul grading mood right now.
Ron
Ron
Ron Burgundy
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
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Comments
No doubt that the current grading specials have increased the work load; but do they have enough help?
You're almost between a rock and a hard place trying to decide whether to wait on the future when the specials may not be as nice, or to take a chance now while the prices are great.
Just a thought!
PoppaJ
//////////////////////////
Could be a factor.
Mostly they are under presssure to NOT overgrade in a manner
that can cause warranty claims.
# Item # Cert # Grade Description Type Country
1 1 14100491 NEAR MINT 7 1984 O-PEE-CHEE 67 STEVE YZERMAN PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
2 1 14100492 NEAR MINT 7 1984 O-PEE-CHEE 385 STEVE YZERMAN PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
3 1 14100493 EXCELLENT-MINT 6 1985 O-PEE-CHEE 262 MARIO LEMIEUX PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
4 1 14100494 EXCELLENT-MINT 6 1982 O-PEE-CHEE 123 RON FRANCIS PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
5 1 14100495 EXCELLENT-MINT 6 1982 TOPPS TRADED 98T CAL RIPKEN JR. PSA/DNA CERTIFIED CardUS
6 1 14100496 EXCELLENT 5 1981 TOPPS 216 JOE MONTANA PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
Total Items: 6
Date Received: 1/21/2009
Date Shipped: 1/26/2009
I'm about a 50-card a month submitter, and I am SHOCKED at my January results. I've never sent a card back for a crack- and-re-sub, but this time, I simply must.
Quite a few of them, in fact.
Nick
Jeff
I now limit my submission to 40 max. I am a small time collector and I see myself out of the submission
process in a year or two. I just don't have enough inventory to submit and keep my membership.
I am in the process of putting one (35-40) together for the Jan. special.
Good luck to all.
My Registry Sets
LOL!
RB
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
After all these years I FINALLY join this month and sent in 2 submissions a little over one week ago ... in total about 70 cards. Not many newer cards ... so I was hoping for some real nice grades on some older stuff. OH WELL ... not much has gone my way the past couple of years ... why should these results be any different? LOL
I'll post as soon as they pop. The first group was received by PSA on 1/21/09.
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.
<< <i>Not because of the economy, but because of the grades people are reportedly getting. I have a massive submission worked up to send in these week, but in all likelihood I will pare it down substantially due to what people are saying about current grading, both on this board and what I heard at the Houston show. These things go in cycles and it looks like the folks in Newport Beach are in a foul grading mood right now.
Ron >>
Ron is especially right about this being cyclacle. I have been subbing for 7-9 years now, 6-8 thousand cards, and have been sort of monitoring the last 2-3 years on what everybody that posts here has been getting for results. 3 years ago, for the most part results were pretty good for 3-4 months, then you would get some complaints for a month or two, then back to the good stuff. This was pretty much a rule you could go be and I actually was tailoring my submissions around that. Then the little formula went haywire after the whole 1/2 point system rolled out and now I think it is more of 4-6 months of Hammering and then 1-2 months good, if anything.
I have about 2-4 hundred right now sitting in different categories to sub, but am on hold because of the cost of Bulk going to $7 a card, my personal money situation and plain and simple I believe we are only in the middle of one of the grading down cycles.
So personnally will be waiting till I see numerous really good sub's, then maybe.
Neil
My sub popped on 1 21 and the cards came today.
I sent in what I pregraded as 6's and 7's and that is what i got,
I also received some 8's.
Maybe I licked out, I have not opened them yet.
Steve
<< <i>I agree Ron, I have been collecting for 10+ years and graded these cards myself. I sent these under the 20 day service and they popped in 4 days. I got hammered on them. All of them are 1/1's except the Montana rc. Tb
# Item # Cert # Grade Description Type Country
1 1 14100491 NEAR MINT 7 1984 O-PEE-CHEE 67 STEVE YZERMAN PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
2 1 14100492 NEAR MINT 7 1984 O-PEE-CHEE 385 STEVE YZERMAN PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
3 1 14100493 EXCELLENT-MINT 6 1985 O-PEE-CHEE 262 MARIO LEMIEUX PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
4 1 14100494 EXCELLENT-MINT 6 1982 O-PEE-CHEE 123 RON FRANCIS PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
5 1 14100495 EXCELLENT-MINT 6 1982 TOPPS TRADED 98T CAL RIPKEN JR. PSA/DNA CERTIFIED CardUS
6 1 14100496 EXCELLENT 5 1981 TOPPS 216 JOE MONTANA PSA/DNA CERTIFIED Card US
Total Items: 6
Date Received: 1/21/2009
Date Shipped: 1/26/2009 >>
Did you have the cards graded on these or were the auto's graded??? Only reason I ask is that I recently had two 25 card submissions with auto's authenticated and graded and the grades were just about where I expected them to be.
I really think it's more that the pendulum has just finally swung back to the other side again. They've been way too lenient handing out higher grades for the past year and a half, or so .... and now that they're getting back to their older grading standards people are really noticing it.
I remember about 3 or 4 years ago when I was building straight PSA 8 vintage football sets, you couldn't get a PSA 9 on an early 1950's card unless it was absolutely flawless ... and even then, you were more likely to get an 8 unless you resubmitted it a couple times.
Heck, even in the early and mid 1960's football sets PSA 9's were an extreme rarity. Each set only had maybe a couple dozen PSA 9's even possible for the entire set and there were no PSA 10's to be had.
Then out of nowhere the pop report for high grade vintage cards literally exploded over night. For a few years PSA 8's, 9's and 10's started coming out of the woodwork for vintage sets. There was no great find of minty vintage raw cards to account for all of these, and quite frankly, most of the guys with sets in 9's will tell you that many of them came from resubmitting their old PSA 8's.
PSA just basically loosened up their grading standards for a while. I don't know if it was intentional, or if it was just different graders with different opinions, or what?
All I know is that magically my 9's became 10's, and my 8's became 9's.
I remember cracking out all of my PSA 9's from some old 1976 Crane Disc sets I'd been trying to build in straight 10's. I'd been so frustrated by constantly getting 9's on perfect looking cards that I'd almost given up on finishing the sets. Right about then was when the grading tides seemed to change. As a test I cracked out all of my 9's (about 40 of them) and resubmitted them. Sure enough they all came back straight 10's.
The bad news for me was all this seemed to happen right after I'd sold off my graded 8 1950 Bowman and 1957 Topps sets. I guarantee you many of my old PSA 8's are probably residing in PSA 9 holders today. I can't even begin to imagine how much money I left on the table by not catching that wave.
For the past year and a half I've seen some really weak looking PSA 8's and 9's floating around out there. It seems like every time I click on 4 sharp's auctions, and see all of those tilted, OC, and soft cornered 9's they seem to get ... it makes me wish for the tougher grading days of old.
I collect mostly raw sets now, so I'm kind of happy to see the pendulum finally swing back closer to where it should be. In some people's opinions, it may have swung too far back ... but either way it means they'll be some nice looking, cheaper, under graded cards to crack out and use in my raw sets this year!
Mike
Ron
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
I guess it could have been my eye as the difference between the two but I doubt it.
Mike
Kirby Puckett Master Set
Is card grading still evolving???
what if some one was to start a thread labeled Joe Orlando do something about the crummy grading results ( some thing like that ) and hope he sees it and hopefully make some changes.
JUST A THOUGHT anyways
looking for PELLE LINDBERGH's psa and 1960 fleer baseball psa 8 and up
sets in progress
R.I.P. Barstow 24 April 1999 - May 15 2009
Think about it, if you had a job that relied on cards to grade to keep your job what would you do ?? Well maybe grade half of them right ?? That way i can still have a job !!
Me personally, i'm done for awhile with PSA grading. What's the point in sending in cards only to have to crack half of them when you get them back ? Doesn't make it a special
if you have to pay twice on half of your cards. They should call it the 7.50 and 9.00 dollar special because you will be sending in half of the cards back !!
There are very few people saying Hooray right now. Most of them are sending in higher dollar cards and paying the premium price. I had sent in a 875 card submission. Got the grades and was shocked in disbelief. Majority of these cards are not worth paying the grading fee twice. I obviously complained to Joe. He said i could send in 30 cards to review no charge. Out of the 30 i sent him the bumped 8 cards .5 to 1 full grade. I still think all of them deserved a bump but hey you do the math !! 26.7 percent they determained derserved a higher grade. Now what the heck am i supposed to do with the other 250+ cards i felt that are undergraded ??? Gee, so that would mean at least 67 cards out of the 250 also would get bumped ???? I work hard for my money and i don't like to see it wasted. This was wasted and i'm not going there again.
Chances are i will not be reknewing my membership as i have other people who can send cards in for me. And since i am a collector and not a dealer chances are very good that i will go with SGC for my grading. Not a plug for SGC here. I have only dealt with SGC a couple of times. Both times they have hit the grades right and did not have to crack anything out. The only thing i didn't like with SGC was the turnaround time. I paid for 5 day service last time. It took almost 20 days. If i wanted them done in 20 days i would have paid the lower fee.
Anyways, here's my 2 cents.
DON'T SEND IN ANY CARDS UNTIL PSA GETS THERE ACT TOGETHER !! PERIOD !!
Cheers, Steve
a few not meeting size requirement and 1 trimmed that i pulled from a pack... but at least the sized ones I get vouchers for and will just resub...
I have a vintage sub in on the special.. over 100 cards... some real gems.. I am hopeful they will be graded well..
a couple crack outs on that sub..
<< <i>Majority of these cards are not worth paying the grading fee twice >>
Well that is a problem with that buisness model when grades don't pan out. I personally like them being a little tougher. If you look at the timing of when grades were a little softer it does kinda line up when GAI was still a major player and the buisness was more split up. They have a solid reason to be tough (resubs and less buy backs) but when you can choose someone else altogether maybe that gave them a nudge to soften up to keep some customers.
i just purchased a year's membership, so at least i get my free 6 and the book is quite nice.......i'm still using the same bright lights and the same 8X loupe and i got a itchy trigger finger.......so, will it be MY grading eye that has changed?
Ron
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
Be patient. The grades are all over the place. Specials of some sort will be back. Wait for your results on the sub and go from there. Just put your nice raw cards in a box and wait it out.
I and others agree with the above. When GAI went to the half point system and all the PSA dealers were having cards popped like mad into the GAI holder with a half point bump, PSA had no choice, but to compete and let the high grades fly.
Then, all the big registry players started seeing there sets go down in value, since so many high grade vintage cards were going to market. These big players put the screws to PSA and PSA came up with the high grade systems to give some these big players half grade bumps on some of there cards to bring some of the lost value back.
Since GAI is no longer a force to worry about, PSA does not have to let the high grades fly. and by keeping high grades at a minimum, the registry sets hold there value.
Of course, this is all just rumor, but who knows and it makes sense.
"If I ever decided to do a book, I've already got the title-The Bases Were Loaded and So Was I"-Jim Fregosi
I got were consistent with my pre grades. I think conservative grading is best for the hobby.
Steve
I would love to see some scans of those 53's and 54's.. If you are looking to sell I may be interested in buying your 7's and 8's if they are for sale.
Link To Scanned 1952 Topps Cards Set is now 90% Complete Plus Slideshows of the 52 Set
<< <i>Well that is a problem with that buisness model when grades don't pan out. I personally like them being a little tougher. If you look at the timing of when grades were a little softer it does kinda line up when GAI was still a major player and the buisness was more split up. They have a solid reason to be tough (resubs and less buy backs) but when you can choose someone else altogether maybe that gave them a nudge to soften up to keep some customers.
I and others agree with the above. When GAI went to the half point system and all the PSA dealers were having cards popped like mad into the GAI holder with a half point bump, PSA had no choice, but to compete and let the high grades fly.
Then, all the big registry players started seeing there sets go down in value, since so many high grade vintage cards were going to market. These big players put the screws to PSA and PSA came up with the high grade systems to give some these big players half grade bumps on some of there cards to bring some of the lost value back.
Since GAI is no longer a force to worry about, PSA does not have to let the high grades fly. and by keeping high grades at a minimum, the registry sets hold there value.
Of course, this is all just rumor, but who knows and it makes sense. >>
The problem with theories like this is that it requires a sytematic effort on behalf of PSA to either loosen or tighten grading standards, and this in turn requires that all graders be brought 'on board' with the new program by management. There are a number of complications which could prevent this from working. These include:
1) Veteran graders will likely be be very reluctant to change their grading standards based on a suggestion--or mandate-- from upper management. Thus, even if this is PSA's policy it's very possible that it wouldn't be effectively implemented.
2) Graders will forever have something to hold over PSA's head. This alone should be enough of a disincentive to prevent PSA from adopting this policy. Who wants disgruntled former employees flitting around card shows talking about the mutable grading standards in the PSA grading room? Probably not Joe Orlando, or anyone else who could put such a policy in place.
If we take the Occam's Razor approach, we come up with two other explanations which I think are infinitely more plausible. First, there's a possibility that all of this is hogwash, and the 'evidence', such as it is, is the result of a confirmation bias on the part of submitters. Second, there''s the possibility that a few graders quit, and the ones that have taken their place just have stricter standards.
There is one 'theory' about PSA grading that I am inclined to believe, though, and that is that graders are assigned to either vintage or modern based on either seniority or some other competence test, and that the vintage graders are tougher on cards then their modern card-grading colleagues. Also, since more modern comes through the door than vintage, I think the vintage guys may get to cherry pick which modern subs they're going to grade when they have some downtime, and the subs they choose are usually those that only contain a few different issues (i.e., a sub of all '83 Topps). Because of this, I really try not to send in modern subs that contain primarily only one issue. If I have 300 cards to send in, and four different issues are represented in that lot in equal numbers, I'd rather send in four 75 card subs that each contain 15-20 of each issue as opposed to 4 subs that each contain 75 cards of a single issue. It takes longer for the order to process, but I'll take that deal if it means fewer 8's on what are, for all practical purposes, mint cards.
i know people tend to cry after 1 day goes by with no poppage but after the large subs i have seen lately with "eh" grades...I hope my 100 card order sits there for the full 45 days......maybe they will be out of their funk by then.
My Sandberg topps basic set
My Sandberg Topps Master set
In a normal submission, I bat anywhere from 70 - 85%. If get a sub back that's close to 70%. I just chalk it up and don't worry about it. If it's wildly off, though, I scrutinize every single card and that's what I'm afraid of here, sending in more cards and having them unnecessarily hammered without regard to the grading standards.
I'll keep my fingers crossed and we'll see. You can bet what I am sending in is getting a double look tonight.
RB
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items