Hey guys!! Sorry for blowing this place up all the time! I swear I have a life! Lol
I’m wondering what your experience is with trying to review a card. I know it’s a little bit of a taboo subject, and as much as I see the fact that it’s a little shiesty, I still have some cards that I personally feel were graded harshly. Specifically some clean PSA 8.5’s. The idea of cracking them out of there cases makes me cringe so bad I can’t even tell you. BUT! Do cards sent in for a review, really get a fair chance in your opinions?? What are your experiences? And don’t worry Gary. If I crack, I will send in tags! lol
Side question. Is there a specific section on the PSA submission forms that allows you to specify you’re sending cards for review?? And re-casing?
I don’t know the process at PSA for a review (does anyone?) … eg. Do they review the card inside the case? Do they crack it themselves and review then reslab? If they crack it does the grader know the previous grade?
Because I don’t know those answers I’ve always been a believer that if you want a true impartial regrade you crack the card and send it raw. If the grader knows the previous grade I don’t feel they would be impartial, I know it would be hard for me to be. If I saw something was an 8.5 and I was reviewing it I’d always have that in my head and it might skew my judgment.
I crack what i want reviewed so the previous grade on the card plays no part. If a grader sees an 10 but the past grade on the card was an 8 what is he/she more likely to do?
I’ve done both and either can upgrade. The more valuable the more I personally lean towards review. But I rarely re-submit/review, maybe 1-2 orders a year in total.
Also during the review process they do not see the initial grade.
Huh, perhaps that info should be stickied as it is extremely valuable information to know that they do not see the grades. I guess folks are trying to avoid the cost that comes with regrading if they are trying to upgrade the grade riskily… but if its a high value and it was one of the 8.5 wave cards and one is confident it will come back higher, might as well take the safer route.
I’m not sure how reviewing a 9 could work out as the new grader would automatically know that the card didn’t receive a 10 (otherwise why would you send it in for review) and the bias would be that past grader gave it a 9 at most. If you’re reviewing an 8 or 8.5 then the new grader knows that the previous grade was a 9 or below so they could think you’re reviewing a 9 to get a 10 and you could end up with a 9… Or maybe the new grader just gets the card and grades it on it’s own merits
I rarely buy cards from crackers (yes I keep a list and whenever someone new, like one posted above, mentions they use that strategy, I add them to the list) because it’s possible you’ll get a 10 that another grader found enough defects to give it a 9 or 8. Because of the big dollar difference with 10s, many get addicted to cracking and they will keep cracking till another grader misses the problem.
The interesting thing is, those are the same people who cry about “soft” grades within a number and want to return them.
Yeah I agree. These were all the questions I had. Obviously it’s safer (or at least you would hope) just to send it in for review as PSA must have a better way then a fine tooth hack saw to get the cards out of the case, but then in my mind you run the risk of having a human being who sees what the grade was before and most likely leans towards that. Rather then actually having a completely un biased look at a fresh card waiting to receive a 9 lol.
Right. I’m not someone with large volume by any means. Anything I’ve sold has been something that at one point had a place in my personal collection. Except for some little value things I’ve consigned for friends on my eBay. The bigger items have been my own. I just have 1 card in particular I just honestly can’t see what the grader was seeing. It’s a shadowless zard at 8.5 and it’s in a very old case with lots of scratches. I love the card. It needs a re-slab, so I figure why not try it at least. I have to say though if they really don’t see the initial grade then of course cracking makes absolutely no sence, and that IS extremely valuable information and I thank you for it!
I do understand the distaste for the practice overall as I share that same distaste. Anyone cracking card after card to try and slip something by the graders is immoral IMO because as you say all they are doing is trying to capitalize on a mistake or oversight. Especially for people who not only crack loads of cards but they will actually crack the same exact card several times over. That is really the worst and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. I do however feel that on occasion PSA gets some things wrong and I have personally sent back several 8.5 (as I think a majority of those cards are wrongfully graded) as well as a very select few 9’s of the total thousands of cards that I have graded. Of those 9’s I resubmitted I had a very high success rate at moving to 10’s. You could not pick these cracked and regraded 10’s out of a lineup of a dozen other PSA 10’s as they are stronger than many of my cards that get a PSA 10 upon first pass. Hence why I sent them in. It doesn’t happen often but it does happen.
All that said in a general sense though and back to the OP…
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. I have absolutely no problem with anyone cracking an 8.5. That is what OP is talking about in this specific situation. 8.5’s are a joke of a grade especially those handed out in the ~26 million cert range (which OP’s wasn’t though). They are not repeatable. I had 17 8.5 cards that I cracked and regraded and exactly 0/17 came back an 8.5. If the most reputable professional grading company has a 0/17 record on regrading cards back to that specific original grade then I do not think it is ridiculous in the slightest to regrade that grade under any circumstance.
I am interested to hear from @smpratte that in a review the graders do not see the original grade. I was unaware of that and actually just sent an e-mail over to them to confirm that. If that is the case, then I guess there really would be no reason to crack out and I would rethink it going forward. Cracking has been done as more of a convenience thing for me though as in the case of my 17 8.5’s they were cracked and put in a bulk order. Sending for review would require a separate order and cost a bit more money which is a pain especially for less cards.
If you were to send a 8.5 for review, do you mark 9 as minimum grade or would it be smarter to put 8.5 so you’re sure they at least crack it out of the case for a more thorough inspection? It would be a huge waste of time to just have the card come back 8.5 in the same case which I’m sure happens a lot.
PSA is a stubborn company, unless it’s a legit misgrade you probably have very slim chances of a review going in your favour.
Cracking seems like the best/cheapest option, but you’re not covered if something happens to your card and you run the risk of getting a 8.
In 15+ years have sent in 2 smallish groups of cards for review, all of them graded 9 that I thought were 10s.
All were submitted in their holders.
My upgrade rate has been 20-25%.
Cards that didn’t upgrade came back in the same holders I sent them in.
Yeah that’s what I mean. I’m assuming you put in that you expect a 10 grade, but lets say you put 9 will they at least take the card out and grade it properly?
Otherwise it’s just like the people sending PSA 10s to BGS expecting them to hand over a Pristine grade. Even if the card is Pristine, it’s almost impossible to judge a card accurately through the case, especially the surface.
Yeah this the dilemma I am having now. I got a lot of 8.5 in my last submission. Feel like I need to regrade 1/3 of my submission which is a joke. I don’t feel half point grades should even exist, as grades themselves are speculative, assigning 0.5 points seems even more arbitrary.
I would have no issue whatsoever if they actually had the eye/expertise themselves to repeat them. I mean if I have a true 8.5 card so be it. I know I can’t see the difference personally between 8/8.5/9. From my personal experiences with them it doesn’t seem they can repeat the 8.5 grades either which is the source of my frustration.
lol
lol.