PSA grading

[hunterjwizard]

This is probably going to come across as a stupid question, but here goes:

Could someone explain to me how PSA grading works?

I understand the basics(sort of) that its a world-wide accepted standard for grading the quality of memorabilia and collectibles, and of course that PSA 10 is the highest grade, but... that's about it.

I am curious as to how one goes about getting cards graded - I've also seen on this forum several instances of people saying they "graded a card" themselves, is this some sort of certification one needs to do the grading?

Just, in general, I haven't really been able to find good, clear information, so, ya know, I'm asking.

Thanks in advance.

[dragsamou]

This is probably going to come across as a stupid question, but here goes:

Could someone explain to me how PSA grading works?

I understand the basics(sort of) that its a world-wide accepted standard for grading the quality of memorabilia and collectibles, and of course that PSA 10 is the highest grade, but... that's about it.

I am curious as to how one goes about getting cards graded - I've also seen on this forum several instances of people saying they "graded a card" themselves, is this some sort of certification one needs to do the grading?

Just, in general, I haven't really been able to find good, clear information, so, ya know, I'm asking.

Thanks in advance.

Hi

I'm probably the wrong Member to answer this question, as I just have one, but this is a good start:
http://www.psacard.com/Services/PSAGradingStandards
http://www.psacard.com/Services/PSAGradingProcess/

[hunterjwizard]

Thanks, I'd looked over that site before but I wasn't 100% sure if that's the place to go through.

[mystical_tutor]

Let me give you the view of a collector that doesn't have a real warm fuzzy for grading.

1) The two companies that do almost all of the grading are PSA and BGS (Beckett Grading Service). In addition to the links above BGS is: http://www.beckett.com/grading. These companies were in existence before Magic came along and built their reputations on grading sports cards and sports stuff. They have mainly been "certified" by building a reputation over the years.

2) The value of having something graded by them is that they authenticate it as being a real card and give you their opinion of it's condition. Thus when people buy cards that are graded they have some assurance that it is not fake and have a good idea of it's condition. Both services also provide indexes of the cards they have graded that gives a collector an idea of what else is out there.

3) I have never seen anything that explains what they do to train or "certify" their graders. Graders are people (I have heard talk of automations that do some jobs--I guess like centering--but have no official knowledge of such) thus it is reasonable to deduct that there are "Monday" card grades.

4) Neither company has a clean record. Both have had cards sent back in (after removing them from their cases) and they received different grades.

The only times I consider using them are when I have a card I want to sell that is worth the effort and money. This is more than the price listed for card grading. I don't do this often so I hope someone will flush this out if I have missed something.
Cost:
You pay to ship the cards to them. They are to be sent registered (I assume FedEx and UPS would work too) and insured.
You pay the cost of grading. Scaled by quantity and how fast you want it done.
You pay to have them ship them back to you registered and insured--for the amount of their graded value (again not sure about the carriers).

At times BGS will pick up cards from you at show locations. They publish ahead of time where they will accept them. This can reduce your cost a bit (- your cost to get to and into the show). If you live near Dallas TX you can pick them up at the company if it is cost effective.

5) my perception is that they make DARN good money doing this. They are a business first.

Hope that helped a bit

Gary

PS. If you have signed or autographed card they require that you go through a subsiderary company to "authenticate" the signiture--for more money of course

[hunterjwizard]

Thanks, that's some very helpful background, I really appreciate it. That clears up a lot of my confusion.

I actually do have one card that was worth about $40 before I had the artist sign it. Sadly the signature did not come out that well but its not like I planned to sell it.

[hammr7]

Just a quick update.

PSA was originally a US coin grading service, going back to at least the 1970's. They got into paper money, and subsequently into baseball and other sports cards in the late 1980's or early 1990's. They have since gotten into every kind of collectible they can.

Becket's started out as the premier baseball card magazine and pricing guide. They got into grading in the later 1990's, probably because the sports card market (and their magazine ad revenue) imploded.

Both companies have had problems with the occasional mis-grade. Becketts has a slightly better reputation for consistency, in part because PSA has been alleged, at least in the past, to give a slight grade preference to big users of their service.

[GlobalBoosterHunter]

You can grade your own cards without any certification.

These companies are called 'third party graders' because they do not have a stake in the value of the cards.

A seller (the first party) will want to get the most value for a card and will tend to over state the condition of a card.

A buyer (the second party) will want to get the card as cheaply as possible so will tend to understate the condition of the card.

Grading takes experience, I don't know how good you are at grading so I won't take your word for it, I am also not very good at grading so I don't trust my own abilities to correctly spot all the problems on a card.

So you can grade your own cards and it is a skill you need to practice. But when you buy a card that has been officially graded remember the saying from the coin collecting community, "Buy the coin, not the slab" If the coin looks bad then ignore what is written on the plastic, they make mistakes.

Case in point, there are some boosters on eBay, graded and slabbed as 10s. But in order to cram them into the slabs designed for gum packets, the tabs are folded over. This will crease them so in my mind they are not 10s. But to someone else who doesn't look too carefully at them, maybe they will accept them as being perfect in every way.

[mystical_tutor]

Mark reminded me of another point.

You can have them just "authenticate" a card. That gives your buyer a warm fuzzy that the card is real--even if not graded. Not sure what the cost on such is.

Mark, I think "third party" may not fully apply to Beckett. It seems that they do have a vested interest in card value by publishing a cost index and then offering to sell high end cards. They were hawking a 10 gem mint Black Lotus for enough to buy a house. Not sure what happened with that.

Gary

[GlobalBoosterHunter]

You may well be right regarding their third party status, most of my experience comes from coin grading.

In that field there are several companies described as 'First Tier' Companies, who are completely at arms length from the product and the sales, existing only to provide the service. And then you have the 'second tier' companies who grade their own coins and put them up for sale, mostly these companies are avoided by people who collcet coins as a hobby. Speculators see a graded coin and the price and if they don't do their homework they end up with one of the overgraded and overpriced second tier slabs and end up losing money.

I am still keen to get a decent slab for my boosters that doesn't involved squashing it to fit an slab designed for a smaller pack.

EBay recently brought out a ruling that only first tier companies could sell graded coins.