Crossover Issue

[dancollins]

No Brian never mentioned about minimum grade but he didn't have to I am no stranger to grading. I guess though I felt comfortable submitting with him and maybe that gave me a false sense of security. At this point to be honest anymore I could care less. I might even just leave them raw now?? Except for the Lowdermilk.... As I mentioned before I do not believe either grading company is consistent by any means. Many of the posts in response to mine bails the grading companies out a little bit. SGC did lose my business however I will take some responsibility for the issue, and I don't care what anyone says there is bias and scrutiny when a grading company sees another grading company’s holder. Grading is subjective to a point but a vg-ex is a vg-ex and an ex is an ex. They need to do a better job both SGC and PSA. For the people that say SGC is consistent do you really believe that? If you do taking one look at those beautiful under graded cards that Wonkaticket posted yesterday should make you think twice.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by dancollins

For the people that say SGC is consistent do you really believe that? If you do taking one look at those beautiful under graded cards that Wonkaticket posted yesterday should make you think twice.

It's like you never read my responses. A beautiful sharp cornered card with no imperfections visible on the scan deserves to get a PSA 1/SGC 10 if there is a huge swatch of paper loss on the back. Even beautiful cards get hammered by grading which is exactly the point of the grading in the first place, i.e., to point out that the beautiful card has a hidden defect.

Wonka's cards are awesome for the grade, but if you had each of the SGC graded beauties in your hands and brought them to a show to discuss the grades with the good folk at SGC (who, by the way, have actually come onto Net54 today to address your complaint), you would get a consistent response just about every time. Heck, if Wonka thought the grades were inconsistent, I think he'd spend the $8 to have each of those beauties upgraded, by either SGC or PSA.

[tbob]

Originally Posted by Jacklitsch

"Jeff, you make a good point because I was one of the many who got ticked when C******* got special treatment from PSA."

Are we not allowed to use his name or has Leon programed it in as a curse word that auto defaults to *********?

Steve- ok, rather than type "He Who Must Not Be Named," the missing letters were randall.

[tbob]

Originally Posted by ScottFandango

SGC loves this thread...it perpetuates the stereotype that they are more difficult, when in fact, they seem to miss or not care about paper loss and/or pencil marks as much as PSA cares....

Scott, I normally agree with you but I don't here. I have never had SGC miss a single spot of paper loss, no matter how tiny, or the lightest and smallest of pencil or ink markings. They are like bloodhounds in their pursuit of flaws, at least that has been my experience. I've seen PSA 5s with paper loss before but not SGC cards. At least that's been my experience.
tbob

[sox1903wschamp]

Originally Posted by tbob

Scott, I normally agree with you but I don't here. I have never had SGC miss a single spot of paper loss, no matter how tiny, or the lightest and smallest of pencil or ink markings. They are like bloodhounds in their pursuit of flaws, at least that has been my experience. I've seen PSA 5s with paper loss before but not SGC cards. At least that's been my experience.
tbob

Piling on a bit here but I am with Bob, my experience is they (SGC) NEVER miss paper loss and I am okay with that.

[dancollins]

I just got through reading Brian's post from SGC, Brian has many great points. The one thing that I would suggest is that SGC maybe handle a large crossover like mine differently. He stated that giving a preliminary grade and calling the customer would bottle neck the operation and he is right however on a larger crossover when you are talking about thousands of dollars in cards something different should be in place. Many of you have been down right rude in your responses to me. If anyone crossed a set and received that many downgrades you would have a bad taste in your mouth no matter what grading company it was from. I have also read many comments saying well PSA over graded them to start with and they probably deserved the downgrades, but in the next sentence you here grading is subjective so my point is maybe many peoples opinion is subjective? So my take away is I didn't protect my self by putting a minimum grade on it. The only downside is if you use a registry for your sets like I do that wouldn't work either because then I would have had half and half. So all around just a crappy situation. I do think SGC should put something in place to change how they handle large crossovers because if I would have received a phone call saying hey half your cards will get downgraded I would have said leave them in their holders thanks but no thanks or at that time dug into why and received detailed info and would have not had a bad taste in my mouth.

[William Todd]

I have read the many posts on this thread with significant interest. I have a completely graded set of SGC T207's (sans Lewis no emblem) and have collected and graded them over some time. I have sympathy for what happened to Dan.

Grading is so subjective that it became the reason why I sold my T206 set in lots in REA last spring. Many cards I bought raw over the years and many I bought graded. PSA tends to bring the highest price, yet I dont really know why.

It has to be hard for the graders to detect all there is. So the buyer needs to be careful and buy the card. Baseball card collecting is quite a joy, but the grading process is all about the money.

I think SGC is a fine operation and would send any raw card to them for their expert evaluation. Crossing over is a gamble and should have a minimum grade so one isnt surprised.

[dancollins]

All in all it does show integrity on the part of SGC that they have addressed my concern on the board PSA would never have. I am not gonna run around and be an SGC hater now but I will be cautious of my moves in the future. I am glad I posted about this because I think this crossover issue received some much needed attention. No matter what anyone says I still do think there is bias in crossovers because of the competitor's holder. I have sent at least 30 to 40 SGC graded T206's to PSA for crossover in the past and had at least 80-90% of them rejected for minimum grade and now I had a similiar issue with SGC. All I ask from the grading companies is to clean that issue up so the collectors are not the one paying the price.

[calvindog]

Dan, you were pissed about what happened to you and you had a right to be; I'd have been pissed (probably more) too. You lashed out and it certainly is understandable. And for what it's worth, I also believe that there is bias when third party graders are presented with cards from their competitors. It may not be overt or even a conscious decision, but it does seem to always work out that crossovers at same grade (or higher) are in the minority.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Dan on the other thread Brian said this:

"We will never assume that a customer will accept a lower grade. Any cards that are lowered as part of the crossover service are done so because the customer has consented to it."

So did you consent?

[kcohen]

I last read this thread at about post #35. What did I miss?

[ScottFandango]

Originally Posted by HRBAKER

I guess I'm just unlucky, SGC has never and I mean never missed paper loss or pencil marks on any of my submissions. I disagree with the assessment that they are more lax on both of those than PSA.

i have had many SGC 10 that would only become PSA authentic, due to paper loss...

also since they dont designate pencil mark like PSA (MK qualifier) you will usually get a card to go from SGC 30 to PSA 3 MK.... A BIG DIFFERENCE

[ScottFandango]

just to make it clear, i dont think crossovers work either way

i think PSA would be just as stingy on SGC cards that someone wanted to cross...

also, most of my experience comes in low grade pre war, and there is a big difference when you include a qualifier or not (pencil marks)...

that is why i think the PSA outsells SGC in similar low grades, because you dont know if the SGC card has pencil mark or not!!!!!!

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by ScottFandango

i have had many SGC 10 that would only become PSA authentic, due to paper loss...

also since they dont designate pencil mark like PSA (MK qualifier) you will usually get a card to go from SGC 30 to PSA 3 MK.... A BIG DIFFERENCE

There is a R303 on ebay now that has paper loss on the front (it appears) and is a PSA 4! I have seen many a PSA card with paperloss graded much higher than Authentic. Maybe your unlucky too!

[dancollins]

Unfortunately I did consent because I did not specify a minimum grade. It was actually wrote on the form "any numerical grade" I guess the reason I was so pissed off and lashed out like I did is because we do all know the issues with PSA and I would have never ever ever and never have submitted a crossover to PSA without a minimum grade and I was expecting a non bias opinion from SGC and I do not feel I received one. Again when I looked through the cards that they downgraded I could see there point on several of them but there were quit a few that I did not see the grade as being accurate, and with SGC's customer service blowing PSA's away I guess in my mind I am holding SGC to a higher standard and I don't feel I received that standard. All of the grading companies have different standards in grading and I see that especially now and another thing I think most people do not realize is that each grading company may grade specific sets differently and that is my experience. No matter what by mentioning this experience may help us all and may make the grading companies at least discuss this issue internally to better themselves. Well at least SGC will, PSA probably dont even read this board.

[BCauley]

Ugh. Each day I go to work in the morning I say that when I get home that night I'm going to get stuff ready to mail out to SGC. The past few days I get on and see this thread which then reminds me that I forgot to do it again and am just too tired to be bothered with it right now.

[T206Collector]

Dan,

I give you a lot of credit for how your opinions and statements have evolved in this thread. You're cearly a smart guy that got totally "F'ed" by the system -- you thought you assumed some risk, but not this much. You're totally justified in wanting to kick someone's teeth in. I would, too. But, in the end, I think you understand that it was unfortunately your risk to assume under the circumstances. Certainly lessons to be learned by all here.

[Bridwell]

Dan had mentioned earlier that he likes to collect a registry set and have the whole set in matching holders. I do, too. The cards look great that way and they rate well on the registries. A set of half SGC and half PSA looks bad, in my opinion. I don't blame him for trusting that SGC would grade his cards fairly, and without bias. He was willing to live with some downgrades so he didn't specify minimums. I agree with Dan and others who think there was bias by SGC.

SGC and PSA act like two neighborhood kids, trying to prove one is tougher than the other.

Ron R

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by Bridwell

I agree with Dan and others who think there was bias by SGC.

SGC has no incentive to undergrade PSA cards. It would only hurt their business to do so.

[Al C.risafulli]

My feeling is that if you submit a card in a holder, you're doing it with the knowledge that the grader can't see the edges, and can't examine the card as close up as they could if the card was raw. As such, your grader might go a little more conservative.

I have no concerns that PSA or SGC are biased against one another's holders. They want the cards IN their holders - not out of them.

-Al