The long awaited PSA half grade!

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Posted By: Misunderestimated (Brian H.)

I'm in favor of what they are doing...

But I admit that the first image I had was all of those heavy packages insured to the hilt (as required!!) from the Registry Kings trying to beat each other and spending $50+ per card to regrade cards in their sets.

Big time high grade collectors who only buy graded cards and never even use PSA themselves (except the registry) will spend $1000s in grading now!



I do hope that they do away with the qualifiers though.

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Posted By: Mark Holt

I am one of the Registry particpants often ripped on this board. I have to say this pisses me off in a big way. It clearly is caused by:
1. CU's horrible financial results last quarter.
2. Their raw card submissions must be in a significant decline.
3. They decided idiots like me who have been their best customers (Registry participants) will offset the decline in raw submissions by sending in a good portion of the millions of slabs already graded hoping they will get a 'bump.'

If ever there was a time for SGC to upgrade the way their Registry works this would be it. If they made the 'look and feel' of their Registry match PSA's (links to pop reports, ease of viewing scans, HOF sets in all sports etc) and did a crossover special I'm guessing they would have a couple record months.

The next step you'll see from PSA is black slab inserts, probably early next year once they've got enough suckers to pay for half grade bumps. Three or four grading fees per card, yeah that's the ticket.

I won't start another PSA registry set and will have to think about ever doing business with them even on my existing uncompleted sets. What a *(&T^*(^%^.

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Posted By: cmoking

"The $64,000 question to me is what is PSA's position if a card is resubmitted and it is discovered to be altered? They have not addressed that (at least not directly). "

Their quote sounds very direct to me. "Last but not least, remember that cards submitted under this program will never be in jeopardy of going down in grade."


"If their policy will be to return the card in the original graded slab, then will someone please explain to me how that is not fraud. "

I'm not a lawyer, I can't explain it. Sounds like you have a point here.

"Here you would have the largest card authentication service KNOWINGLY RETURNING TO CIRCULATION a card opined by it to be unaltered THAT THEY NOW KNOW IS ALTERED. Where is the FBI when you need them?!"

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I'd imagine it would be next to impossible to prove without a doubt that they knowingly returned an altered card.

"If their policy will be to return such cards in altered slabs, then the first question I would ask anybody offering to sell me a PSA whole-grade card is whether it was resubmitted for the half-grade increase. If the answer is no, then I would think the market value of the card would plummet because that would signify the card owner most likely has serious concerns the card is altered. Why else would he not have resubmitted it if there was no risk of the card being numerically downgraded? "

How about these reasonable answers:

- I didn't want to spend a month waiting for the card to come back before selling it.
- I think its a solid 8 and graded fairly, I don't want to waste $60 + another $20 in shipping.
- I have 5,000 cards in my inventory. I'm not giving PSA $100,000 to regrade the cards I already spent $100,000 on grading.

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Posted By: Bob

I just got some cards back from SGC which were in PSA holders and received some bumps. I felt the cards were sorely undergraded by PSA (Obaks) and SGC agreed, one card went from a PSA 2 to an SGC 70. Their cross-over special helped get some cards in to slabs which had grades which were realistic. (Unfortunately they still continue to hammer E94s but I guess you can't have everything, sigh)

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Posted By: David R

It seems to me this could be a great opportunity for SGC to pick up some of those PSA registry set collectors. Before this, there was little chance of convincing someone to cross-over their PSA registry set because of the substantial cost involved. They were pretty well entrenched with PSA. Now, if the PSA registry set collectors are going to have to bear the substantial cost of resubmitting all their cards (or risk losing their ranking), there is at least an opportunity to convince them to spend that money crossing the cards over to SGC instead. If I had a substantial PSA registry set that I paid thousands of dollars to grade, I would be pretty upset with this half grade system and might just defect.

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Posted By: XanaduNow

If SGC cleans up the navigation and format on their registry and makes it a little more competitive I would do a 100% crossover on my collection. I could think of no reason not to.

Here's hoping.

Arthur

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Posted By: Steve

Psa never said that they would return a card they now found to be altered. They have always stabbed the collector in the back when situations like that arose. What makes anyone think they would just send it back to them now? They said that they would not downgrade a card, not that they would send back cards they also deem to be counterfiet and altered after review.

I'm so glad that yesterday i decided to get out of PSA graded cards, I listed a bunch of nice high end for the grade 8's. No I am not going to send anything for review.


Steve


edited to add: To the poster that spoke about the coin scale. It is the Sheldon scale. It was devised for Large cents and the thinking was what the other poster mentioned. 1 thru 70 with a 70 being worth 70x the value of a 1 or was 70x rarer then a 1.

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Posted By: Jerry Hrechka

I've been leaning toward switching to SGC for some time now. SGC's Non-Sports grading special of $5.00 was very tempting. If I have to resubmit cards I may as well spend less and get them into better looking holders. I happen to own one HOW card in both PSA & SGC holders - thought i would post them just for the fun of it:

You can see the difference. I'm fed up with the sloppy manner in which PSA holders the cards. By tomorrow I'll have the 2nd. HOW set on the SGC Registry, starting with the card shown above. I'll keep my PSA set Registries up and let everyone know how the switchover goes.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Does this mean new label PSA whole number grades will be deemed suspect, as PSA would never lower the grade .5 upon resubmission? If a resubmitted 7 was deemed a 7.5, it will get the .5 bump. If the 7 was deemed a 6.5 it would stay 7. Will the mantra become "Play it safe and assume all new label PSA 7s are 6.5"

Many collectors will prefer the .5 grade as they know how it got that grade. Whether first submission or resubmission, the graders felt it was a .5 grade card. With a .0 grade, these same collectors won't be altogether certain how it got that grade. A PSA 6 could be a "real 6," but it might be "one of those resubmission bastard grandfather clauses."

Down the road collectors may say to each other, "If it looks soft don't take it out of the holder, because then PSA grades it for real."

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Posted By: Jerry Hrechka

Some PSA6's are vastly overgraded. This particular card has a pinhole in the border near the bottom left hand corner. Any idea what SGC grade it would get?


edited scan size

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Posted By: Steve

Jerry

I would think they grade a card with a hole in it a POOR 10. My advice keep that one in the Psa holder.


Steve

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Posted By: Jerry Hrechka

Steve The card is what it is (Nice looking card with a major defect). I could never ethically sell it as a 6. Actually I have very little money in the card. I bought it raw for $1.00 and sent it to PSA under a $5.00 special, expecting a 1 or 2. I was flabergasted when it came back a 6.

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

Actually I think the intent issue is easier to prove IF the policy is to return slabbed altered cards in the original slabs. Such a policy in effect says they don't care whether collectors continue to be defrauded by their re-authentication of altered cards, which to me makes it a much smaller step to establishing the necessary intent that they knew. For example, if someone is trying to persuade law enforcement personnel that he truly forgot to file his taxes this year and it was not an intentional evasion of his obligation to pay taxes, who would you be more likely to believe -- a guy who has published six articles that the tax code violates a person's constitutional rights or a guy who continually trumps the need for the IRS to hire more auditors to catch tax cheats. BTW I should add that in a civil matter such as we are dealing with with PSA, actual intent I do not think is what matters. The necessary intent could be imputed to them under the reasonable person standard --- should a reasonable person have known the card was altered? And I don't think any prospective jury/trier of fact would be too sympathetic to them because their policy so brazenly thumbs their nose to collectors concerned about slabbed altered cards.

If, though, the policy is to take slabbed altered cards out of circulation, at least then they could make a good faith argument that consistent with this policy they were looking to take slabbed altered cards out of circulation and simply missed (again) the alteration.

As to why a collector reasonably would not want to resubmit his cards for reasons other than concern they were altered, sure, I agree, such arguments could be made. The question though is will prospective buyers believe them. It seems to me that for at least the valuable highly-graded cards (e.g. an 8 HOFer), given that the card owner could be enriched by literally thousands of dollars by a half-grade bump up, prospective buyers might be a bit skeptical of explanations citing resubmission cost, waiting time, belief the current grade accurately portrays the card's condition.

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Posted By: barrysloate

The idea that the grade of the card you submit can not be lower makes absolutely no sense at all.

By definition, if you send a graded card back to them they have to reassess it. They don't just give you the half grade by request, you have to earn it. So what if they see that a card is a little weaker than originally thought? Why can't a 7 become a 6.5, or even a 6? The reason is everyone would be too afraid to resubmit if there was a chance their card would lose some points.

So this isn't really a reevaluation of a card at all; what it really is is: "if you resubmit your card and pay the fee again, we will reward you by bumping up a percentage of them." Because there is no way to lose, as all you can do is gain.

Is that a system?

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Posted By: Alan

Since we are dealing with an unregulated industry, we should all say this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyu7nN3kBnw

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Posted By: Paul Moss

"Steve The card is what it is (Nice looking card with a major defect). I could never ethically sell it as a 6. Actually I have very little money in the card. I bought it raw for $1.00 and sent it to PSA under a $5.00 special, expecting a 1 or 2. I was flabergasted when it came back a 6."


Steve, don't worry. I've had what should have been a 6 come back as a 2. Harmony and balance in the universe is maintained.

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Posted By: Matt

MVSNYC - "i'm confused...for years people have been saying that PSA should have half-grades (like SGC), so that grading would be more accurate...now they finally announce it, and everyone is bashing them...i don't get it?"

The issue is not that PSA has implemented half-grades; the issue is the policy of guaranteeing equals or greater than grading on resubmission. If they had implemented half grades and said upon resubmission we will re-evaluate the card; your 7 may end up as a 6.5, stay a 7, a 7.5 or get an 'A' most of us would applaud the change. The policy of "equals or greater than" was driven by greed and is bad for the hobby since it will incorrectly shift the sum of PSA graded cards to being graded on average higher then they are now.

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Posted By: T206Collector

The best part about this is that maybe, finally, those who throw thousands at low pop commons will recognize that the pop numbers are not static and there are any number of reasons unpredictable in the future, to wit, the life of the collection, that will significantly impact the population reporting.

Population reports are decent measures of relative scarcity between cards and also grades of an individual card. To pay serious money for a current representation of population fails to acknowledge the future discovery of cards and, as we see here, future changes in how that information will be calculated and recorded.

I echo the sentiments that this is yet another opportunity for SGC to strengthen its market share, which has always had its foundation in being an alternative to PSA. I, too, hope that SGC can finally create a functioning web-based registry -- one that does not require 5 minutes per card image upload or deletion. I never edit my SGC registry anymore because I don't have an entire weekend to burn.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Visit http://www.t206collector.com for my blog, interviews, articles, card galleries and more!

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Posted By: Joe D.

"The idea that the grade of the card you submit can not be lower makes absolutely no sense at all."

Thats how a cross works. You can tell them a minimum grade you will accept (up to the grade it is in) or 'do not crack'.

Why not the same on a reevaluation?

Do not crack if you feel it is lower.

Its not gambling... its asking for another opinion.

I feel if PSA or any other grader wants to lower the grade in one of my cards... they need to buy it from me first. Chances are I spent the '5' money to get the '5' based on the opinion that it was a '5'.


BTW - I am not sure of their policy... but I believe if you send the card in for reevaluation, you pay a fee whether or not it gets reslabbed. If so, it wouldn't be pay-per-bump.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

matt i do see your point, thank you for clarifying...

MS

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Posted By: Joe D.

SGC does not have these half grades:

2.5
3.5
4.5
6.5
(9.5 - but neither will PSA)


do they add them now?

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Posted By: Dan Kravitz

Barry-
"By definition, if you send a graded card back to them they have to reassess it. They don't just give you the half grade by request, you have to earn it. So what if they see that a card is a little weaker than originally thought? Why can't a 7 become a 6.5, or even a 6? The reason is everyone would be too afraid to resubmit if there was a chance their card would lose some points."

Barry, you can ask to have your card re-graded and not remove the card unless they can put it in a higher holder. I have done that a couple times myself.

I asked PSA to look at a few SGC cards at the last show in Chicago, and they didn't touch the ones that they couldn't upgrade. The ones they could, they popped out and slabed PSA.

PSA has been berry barry good to me. Buy SGC sell PSA! DK

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Posted By: Jimmy

It’s all about keeping interest in the hobby for years to come, and making more money. Personally I like a straight grade, only because it's what I have used for so long and what I have collected. There is nothing wrong with half grades as I do it for ungraded cards when I sell them. It's just what has kept these companies separated for so long. When the other companies such as SGC and GAI started grading, they were able to keep a good collector base between PSA and them. There is a possibility both PSA and SGC might benefit in the long run. I am sure PSA will keep many of there core collectors and dealers that will resubmit some of the cards, and SGC will get more customers from people that may want to make a change. This also gives dealers and collectors more options when buying and selling. I am not sure I like the change, as I always had problems selling SGC half grades for some cards, but this should keep things interesting and something to talk about in the next few years.

Jimmy

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Posted By: barrysloate

Dan and Joe- that makes more sense. I forgot you can ask them not to reholder unless you get a minimum grade. But it still doesn't address Corey's point: what if upon reinspection PSA notices that a card with a grade is in fact altered, and they made a mistake the first time around? What is their legal and ethical obligation?

And Dan- I'm not sure I agree with your buy SGC, sell PSA formula. I think they are now equal in the marketplace, save the set registry cards.

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Posted By: Richard S. Simon

What a crock this PSA half grade is.
But they gave me an idea, now as an autograph authenticator I am going to reexamine all the autograph items I have previously examined (at another fee, of course) and I will change my opinion on my prior negative reports, as long as enough people send me money to do it. (Kidding of course),,,
Sound good to everyone??
No wonder PSA gets a D grade (only one grade higher than the lowest possible grade) from the Better Business Bureau.
--

I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

I never edit my SGC registry anymore because I don't have an entire weekend to burn.

For what it's worth, I added 10 images to one of my sets on SGC's registry just yesterday, and it took less than 10 minutes (not counting the time it took to scan the cards). Plus, editing a registry doesn't require that one uploads images. I see a lot of sets on the registry without images of the cards.

I supposed it could take an entire weekend to edit a set if you're a really slow typer.

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Posted By: Joe D.

" But it still doesn't address Corey's point: what if upon reinspection PSA notices that a card with a grade is in fact altered, and they made a mistake the first time around? What is their legal and ethical obligation?"


I think what they do right now (both companies) is look to buy that card and get it off the market and out of the slab.

I don't see why that policy should change.


If they made a big mistake in grading the first time around... they should look to fix it by purchasing the card at the value of the mistaken grade.

People make purchase decisions and valuation decisions based on those numbers on the flip - based on a grading company opinion. They (grading companies) need to stand behind that number and take it on the chin themselves when they make a mistake. Not make it the expense of the card holder. Like I said... I believe they stand behind their product in that fashion right now.


edited for clarity.

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Posted By: leon

I know half grades are a big deal to some, especially registry folks. Personally I collect cards and not plastic so I don't care....Good move by PSA to get people to send them more money. best regards

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Posted By: barrysloate

If PSA stands behind their product to that degree then fine. Let's see how many of these cards they buy back. I guess we'll never know.

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Posted By: Steve

Jerry

I was just kidding


Paul

I too have a few cards that way.



I think it sucks.



Steve

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

As someone pointed out, CU's financials are horrendous, the stock price is in the toilet. This is just a desperate attempt to pump some life into its bottom line. They will get a short-term infusion and the slow death march will continue.

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Posted By: Jay

Please excuse me if I am repeating what has been already said; I just skimmed the posts.
To me the worst part about this is that it represents grade inflation. All 6's now become either 6's or 6.5's, etc. Thus, the average grades of all prior 6's is now 6.0+.
Corey-Not all people refusing to resubmit their cards fear that some are doctored. I will not resubmit any of my registry cards since I think this is just a money grab on PSA's part. In fact, I am seriously thinking of not having any more cards graded by PSA and switching my registry sets to SGC.

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Posted By: Matt

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15837272

In looking at a 10 year chart on this stock, how is it in the toilet any more than any other stock now? Unless they are investing in real estate and low interest mortgages....

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

If what you say is correct and it is PSA's policy to buy back at current market value altered cards that are detected upon subsequent re-submissions, then they've addressed my concerns (provided they automatically take the cards out of their original slabs and not leave the choice what to do to the card owners). However, I was not aware that that is their policy. If it is, then why the reluctance of some collectors to re-submit their cards to detect for alterations? I know if I owned a lot of high grade PSA-holdered vintage cards from an issue that is believed to have a high rate of alteration (e.g., T206s), I can't tell you how fast I'd be at PSA's offices with the cards asking that they be re-examined. Yes, it will cost me some money. But it would tremendously allay my concerns that what I'm holding is worth a lot less due to alterations, as well as prove to be a prudent financial undertaking if some day PSA either goes out of business or changes its buy-back policy.

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Posted By: Joe D.

"However, I was not aware that that is their policy. If it is, then why the reluctance of some collectors to re-submit their cards to detect for alterations? "


I am guessing the reluctance is to send it to a competing grader? and not a re-submit.


I don't understand the purpose of a general resubmit of all your high grade cards to detect for alterations. If the cards are slabbed.... they should have already been checked for alterations. Are you suggesting that cards are just 'checked again' for the purpose of 'checking again'? Then, why not an annual review, or a quarterly review, or a monthly review?

It doesn't make sense to me to have the same grading company check again for the sake of checking again.

I can understand if you have reason to believe a card is grossly misgraded - bringing it to the attention of PSA or SGC and seeing what remedy they will take to make right on the situation.


I do not know what their official company policy is.

But I have heard (here and elsewhere) that they look to make good on situations where it becomes apparent that the have made a major mistake in the grading. To clarify... I am not talking about a 2 that might be a 3, or a 6 that might be a 7 - that is subjectivity and not inaccuracy. I am talking about the example of a high grade card (8) coming back as altered.

I don't think either grading company wants a grossly misgraded card out there.

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Posted By: Jay

Corey--I would bet that they buy cards back at SMR, not current market value. There is a huge difference between the two in some cases.

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Posted By: Matt

Joe - the presumption made by many in this thread is that PSA has gotten better at detecting alterations over the years.

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

You're not looking to sell. If you were, and you knew that for your hoard of PSA-graded cards that your upside upon re-submission was many (even tens) of thousands of dollars, and your downside was a very small fraction of that (via re-submission costs only), are you saying that, even though you harbored no fears that some of the cards might be altered, you wouldn't resubmit? Perhaps you wouldn't but I think your reasons would be greeted with a great deal of skepticism by prospective purchasers, and those market forces will compel you to rethink your position.

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

Matt hits it. I think that even for those who will always prefer SGC over PSA, there is still a general recognition that over the years as the issue of alterations has gotten more and more press, and the potential losses greater and greater, PSA has improved its act. So I do think the market would have a great deal more confidence in a card PSA holders today than one it holdered many years ago.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Well, Matt, maybe CLCT is doing about as well as Citigroup or Bear Stearns -- except that those companies have the subprime mess to blame, a disaster that comes around once every 50 years. In my opinion CLCT doesn't have the potential to make money that the other companies do.

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Posted By: Matt

oh dear - two Matts - I can be Matt W. - Corey was referring to me and Jeff was referring to the other Matt.

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Posted By: Paul Moss

Please show me where in this announcement that any errors will be corrected. You guys are really off on a tangent and applying some pretty wishful thinking. All it says is that any card failing to qualify for the .5 bump will be returned no lower than the original grade assigned.

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Posted By: peter ullman

if corrections are not made upon 2nd review if errors were previously made...this will be bad...very bad!

pete ullman

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Posted By: larryhaven

They just put the nails in their coffin with this fiasco. Maybe they can merge with GAI and pool their rent money? Or maybe the WIWAG scammers can insert enough bogus cards to seal their doom?

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Posted By: cmoking

"Actually I think the intent issue is easier to prove IF the policy is to return slabbed altered cards in the original slabs. Such a policy in effect says they don't care whether collectors continue to be defrauded by their re-authentication of altered cards, which to me makes it a much smaller step to establishing the necessary intent that they knew."

Corey, thanks for the response. I assume you are a lawyer since you sound like you know what you are talking about. A question for you: how do you find out what their policy is? If questioned in court or by authorities, couldn't PSA simply say: we didn't find any altered cards that were submitted in PSA holders, we did a good job on them in the first place. Since we didn't find any altered cards in our holders, obviously we didn't return any slabbed altered cards back.

In your example of the tax stuff, I'm not sure its such a good analogy. PSA is considered an expert, not just some individual. Given that they are considered an expert or the expert, then who would a reasonable jury consider to be more expert? Guys deep in the hobby (such as people here) would know better, but 12 random people would not. Wouldn't they think the N54 crowd was a bunch of geeky collectors (no offense intended, I'm one of them) as opposed to a corporation like PSA? I think that was the analogy you were making, correct me if I'm wrong. Also please forgive and/or correct me if I've confused some legal concepts.


"If, though, the policy is to take slabbed altered cards out of circulation..." I think you can stop right there. There is no "if" when it comes to this half-point resubmission. The whole policy is to allow collectors to get a half-point on some cards and for PSA to gain some revenue. They aren't looking to protect collectors or lose money.

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Posted By: T206Collector

I just timed it and it took me 3 full minutes to delete 1 card from my Registry. I have 70+ more cards to delete. I do not have 210 minutes to do that. It should be 2 or 3 a minute, at worst. AND THAT IS JUST FOR DELETION.

To upload a decent photo along with a new aditions? Don't even get me started....

I love SGC. Their Registry is unusable for me.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Visit http://www.t206collector.com for my blog, interviews, articles, card galleries and more!

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i just spoke to PSA, i can verify two things for sure:

1. new straight graded cards (i.e. 7, 8, etc), will NOT say 8.0, so it will be tuff to distinguish between an old 8 and a new 8 (for whatever that's worth to people).

2. the only 2 options when resubmitting for a review, is either it gets the bump, or it stays in the same holder, it will NOT be lowered or deemed as altered or labeled authentic, etc...2 options. that's it.

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Posted By: peter ullman

thanks mike...so I still say this is bad...very bad!

pete in mn

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Posted By: steve

Suppose:

If an existing PSA 8 is currently valued $400. - resubmitted and returned with no bump, still an 8 - will the market value still be $400. ? Remember, nobody would know it has been resubmitted.

The seller may unethically claim it has never been tested with a resubmit.

If the $400. PSA 8 comes back an 8.5 - what will the market bear for price premium? Perhaps $500. or even $600. ?

We will get to see our capitalistic economy in full effect - suitable for a supply/demand study by a college kid.

steve

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Posted By: Lance

Some things are better and should be left unsaid. PSA left the door open for the critics. If they planned on offering a "safe haven" for those who wanted to resubmit, it could have been an in house rule. If a card was returned to me in the same holder/same grade as I sent it in, I would have thought nothing about it. The no down grade rule they have advertised just doesn't sit well with me. It is an invitation to upgrade a card without fear of rejection at the same fee you already have paid for. It just seems they are trying to get the re-submissions they would probably never see. In my mind, this is a money fueled project with no reguard for the collectors who have invested in the PSA name. They didn't need to advertise the policy. There are enough people who think there cards are better than the grade given, and I am one of those people, that the resubmits would have come on their own. They could have announced a new grading scale and everybody would have been elated. But this, this is a profit only marketing project and I feel it is wrong. SGC has earned my business and seals the deal for me with PSA.

Good luck to all.

Lance