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Posted By: Eric Brehm

Competition aside, I'm sure the grading companies are much more conservative with crossovers than they are with raw cards, since a card is considerably more difficult to examine when inside a holder (especially the edges). In other words, if they crack a card out of its holder, thinking based on initial inspection that they can meet your minimum grade, but then on closer inspection decide that they can't meet that grade (or even validate the card's authenticity), the grading company is stuck. They don't want that to happen, so they probably err on the safe side.

Thus, I believe you are more likely to get the grade you want from a grading company if you send a card in raw. Unfortunately, if you crack a card out and send it in, and the grading company decides they think the raw card is trimmed, then you are stuck. You now have a card that is professional deemed to be trimmed, that is not residing in a holder. You could then re-submit it back to the original company of course, but there is a risk that they will reject it this time around -- for example, if they have become better at detecting alterations, or have become more conservative in what they are willing to authenticate, since the time when the card was originally holdered.