PSA discussion

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Posted By: will watson

first off, i don't want this thread to turn into a smack talking or grading company war.

that being said, i was wondering why the majority of collectors on Net 54 dislike PSA.

they are my grader of choice, both for prewar and "modern" cards. do i feel they're perfect? far from it. they have their problems, as does every grading company. i only have a few gripes with PSA: the way they sweep their problems under the table is annoying, as is their inability to properly holder cards in the correct sized slabs (i hate, HATE, cards in anything other than snug fit holders. i display my cards, and quite frankly some PSA slabs- especially with the dreaded "condom" - look like crap).

that being said, i still like PSA. the cards i own are graded and labelled accurately, along with most i see offered on ebay. are there some instances of over/undergrading and mislabelled holders? of course. again, graders are humans, and humans make mistakes occasionally.

i think PSA and SGC are both excellent grading companies (i have no experience with GAI, so i cannot comment). both make mistakes- PSA seems to be better at postwar stuff, whereas SGC seems to be better with prewar stuff- but overall, i believe both companies do their job well.

i was just wondering why SGC seems to be infallible, while PSA seems to be the butt of most grading complaints.

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Posted By: Marc S.

PSA caters to the modern [read: post-war] crowd because they generally charge the lowest prices and have driven the price of grading down over the past 5 years. They have done this by reducing service to the consumer - e.g. no longer do two graders look at a card before it is encapsulated.

In driving down prices for grading, they had to cut costs significantly - and most of the senior graders at PSA flew the coop, so to speak. There are few, if any, truly knowledgeable graders at PSA these days. Certainly not like the list of names I can name from a few years ago.

Also - PSA does not spend as much time researching issues. The pre-war market is a very subtle one. Alterations are rampant for a variety of reasons [many of them dating back to pre-1990s...], and some issues need to be carefully researched. As it specifically relates to pre-war issues, PSA often does not spend the time researching issues as other graders [like SGC] does. There are also enough allegations about some high-grade pre-war PSA cards that there is certainly a bell for concern. I know I have at least a handful of scans of important pre-war vintage PSA-graded cards that appear to be altered.

Just like almost any other market, Will - there are niches for the different players. PSA, more than anything else, caters to the PSA Set Registry crowd, which encompasses primarily post-war collectors and super-duper high grade pre-war collectors. Beckett caters to the modern crowd, finding a miniscule scratch somewhere on a refracting, game-used autographed parallel card and calling it NM. SGC's niche is pre-war. They do it exceptionally well - much better than PSA, GAI and any of the other third-tier players.

The majority of my graded cards tend to be in PSA holders - but I must admit that any of my pre-war submissions are not to PSA...

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Posted By: Wp

SGC is absolutely a superior service in pre war cards. They are also a superior service in post war cards, however more collecotrs want their post war cards in psa holders for registry purposes. In time, the post war SGC market will surpass the PSA market when collectors relize the superiority of the SGC product. The cards are just of a much higher quality especially at the high end.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

"the way they sweep their problems under the table"

"their inability to properly holder cards in the correct sized slabs"

Add to that their propensity for making mistakes on prewar cards, their lousy customer service and their flimsy holders.

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Posted By: Tom

Without question PSA is the worst grading company the past two years. From top to bottom they are just at the bottom of the barrel. They have done injustice to me by swamping a card. The reason all the old timers left either they did not want a part of what was going on inside the company are they were fired because they new to much. The is so much to talk about this company reputation it's almost unbelievable, but true. Look what the Better Business Report says about both companies UNSATAFACTORY RATING. Stay away from these companies they are nothing, but BAD BAD NEWS!

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Posted By: dan mckee

Please reference prior posts of my lost/stolen card.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/thread?forumid=153652&messageid=1054127903&lp=1055948439>

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Posted By: dan mckee

Tom, edit your post - "swamping a crad" should be "swaping a card" "new" should be "knew"

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Posted By: Anonymous

In the pre-war, I only collect Goudey cards. It seems PSA dominates in Goudey cards, the prices for equivalently graded Goudey cards are much higher for PSA than SGC.

These comments regarding SGC being more knowledgable in pre-War cards - does it pertain to Goudey cards also? In the opinion of the board, does PSA do a good job with Goudey cards?

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Posted By: John J. Grillo

I have submitted quite a few times to each of the big 3. With that said, I truly believe it doesn't make a darn difference who you submit to. I like the GAI holders the best and their one-on-one relationship with customers (even the little guys like me) is superb. Everyone mentions Mike Baker, but Danny Fisher is great to deal with as well.

I can say the same for SGC...Sean is absolutely superb in responding to questions and offering insight and advice. I love the in-depth description on the labels (i.e. year, catalog #, manufacturer, etc).

I feel PSA doesn't get their fair due at times on this board. Their customer service with me is excellent, and although I have had one or two problems with service over the last 9 years or so, the talk of "bad customer service" is blown way out of proportion imo. Corsetta and BJ Searls have been excellent to deal with. I like the communication process as well (i.e. instant e-mails when my order is rec'd and when my cards are graded/shipped). I also like the simplicity of the design of their holder. My grades (and I submit vintage, pre-war boxing) have been mostly on par...some grades seem a little higher, some a little lower and some right on in my opinion.

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Posted By: anonymousdave

...and everybody makes mistakes.


Heh.


edited: for Vargha

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

Generally PSA graded cards will sell for more than their SGC and GAI counterparts but don't let price fool you as to who of the 3 does a better job and is more consistent.

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Posted By: Kenny Low

"Generally PSA graded cards will sell for more than their SGC and GAI counterparts but don't let price fool you as to who of the 3 does a better job and is more consistent. "

If that is true, does that mean there is alot of money in buying SGC graded cards, submitting it to PSA, and selling them? That may sound "un-hobby-like", but there's a ton of people looking to make money. Are there a lot of people doing this?

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Posted By: JimB

My personal view is that all three companies are about the same in terms of their consisency in grading. They are all human and make mistakes. You see more examples of mistakes in PSA holders here for two reasons: 1) Some members on this board like to highlight every instance they find and 2) PSA has probably graded 10x as many cards as the other two companies combined so if all other things were equal there would be 10x as many mistakes in PSA holders.

I don't think it is necessarily the case that more people on this board prefer SGC. There are about 600 lurkers on this board if I remember the number Leon posted a few months ago correctly. Just because there are some vocal advocates for one service or another does not mean they represent large numbers of people. I have conversed with a lot of people who lurk on this site who prefer PSA and get sick of all the PSA bashing.

JimB

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Posted By: Marc S.

"If that is true, does that mean there is alot of money in buying SGC graded cards, submitting it to PSA, and selling them? That may sound "un-hobby-like", but there's a ton of people looking to make money. Are there a lot of people doing this?"

Kenny - that is not the case at all. If every grading company graded the same - then absolutely that would make sense. But most buyer of, say, vintage GAI 9.5 or GAI 10 cards know that they generally do not cross to a PSA or SGC counterpart. Also - there are certainly instances where PSA might think a card is not altered - but you would get a disagreeing opinion from GAI or SGC. I know many of us have had that happen.

Your theory only works if a PSA 5 = SGC 60 5.0 = GAI 5.0. Many dealers make good businesses out of inspecting cards in person and making strategic crosses. But for an average collector on Ebay who is looking at scans, beware. Remember - people generally aren't stupid [although there is a fair amount of irrationality in this hobby] - and they generally wouldn't leave money on a table if they knew that they could cross a card and make a few hundred dollars.

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Posted By: Tom

Just hold on to your PSA cards because it's just a matter of time until they sink like the titanic. When this happens alot of people will be scrambling to remove their card (s) from their holder (s). Money is the driving force behind every company. That is why PSA started grading anything and everything just to make a buck. Go back and look at there stock CLCT when it fell below a dollar they had to do a four way split to keep the company floating. There was so much confusion about there grading style and how they handled the consumer cards they PSA put out a video on how they graded there cards from the time they received them until they were shipped. (What a joke). They do not have any policies what so ever or anyone in charge. They are just a bunch of clowns! I repeat STAY AWAY!

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Posted By: will watson

apparently, you cannot read.

"first off, i don't want this thread to turn into a smack talking or grading company war."


thanks to everyone else who responded.

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Posted By: Tom

Yes, I can read, but the truth is the truth and sometimes that hurts.

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Posted By: WP

I am no PSA fan. That being said, There are a lot of great cards in PSA holders. There are also alot of trimmed and overgraded cards in their holders. Unfortunately for PSA their biggest problems lie in their high dollar high grade cards. My advise is educate yourself and learn to look at the cards and make an educated evaluation yourself. Never just look a the flip and take it as gospel especially when buying PSA.

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Posted By: Mark

I thought I read somewhere that PSA and GAI merged..wait, scratch that. I agree with the above comment about Mike Baker and Danny Fisher at GAI, both are very personable and it was PSA's loss when they left. I took 140 cards to them after PSA changed the per card price of my sumission after-the-fact. Supposedly, the price change was mandated by Joe Orlando..the next day Orlando had nothing to do with it..who knows and who cares.

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Posted By: tim Mayer

i don't get it, you bring up a discussion, but then tell people what they can and can't talk about,

obviously you expected fireworks by posting this, and then you want to control the content afterwards?

whatever...

people dislike PSA for there own specific reasons,,,,thats the answer to your question

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Posted By: Anonymous

Tom,
I think psa is great. I sent in a reproduction Thorpe rookie for grading and received a real one back in return. What is your issue with them?

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Posted By: PASJD

and again ad nauseum has this same discussion been repeated on this Board. Isn't it getting a bit stale? We can all make our own judgments and buy what we like, and the result of those collective judgments is the market and the market prices. Is this a weekly ritual? Over under on how long it is till someone starts another virtually identical thread?

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Conflict of interest - CU/PSA

All of the grading companies have there moments but PSAs seem to be magnified because they grade so much material and there is a perception that management for the company could care less about the collectors. I haven't had any "personal" dealings with them. I've only had cards graded by them therefore I don't have much of an opinion about PSAs management. If I were to form an opinion based on what is read on this board I would probably think that they were a bunch of bumbling idiots, but look whose laughing all the way to the bank.

You throw PSA/DNA into the mix and it really paints an ugly portrait of PSA.

I'd take SGC as my top choice but I sure like the way that GAI puts that little item description tab at the top of their holders.

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Posted By: Josh K.

Yes, that item description on the top of GAI holders is nice - now if they could only learn to produce better fitting inserts.

All of my cards either have or are in the process of being crossed over to sgc. Good looking and well fitting slab with consistent grading to boot. Cant ask for much more excpet good service - oh, they got that too.

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Posted By: steve k

<<< i was just wondering why SGC seems to be infallible, while PSA seems to be the butt of most grading complaints. >>>

There have also been negative comments made here about SGC. But you're right, PSA gets the most complaints here.

The bottom line is that some people incorrectly believe that grading is a science. It's not a science, it's an art. Perhaps a better description of grading would be a "guideline" and that's what I use grading for. For the most part with the major grading companies, the cards are authetic and the vast majority are not trimmed. With that in mind, I then proceed to buy the card not the holder. There are a number of cards out there in my view that for example a t206 PSA 2 looks better than a PSA 3 or 4, etc., etc. If seeing a card I like, and it has good visual quality for the grade at the right price, I buy it. If not, then I don't buy it - it's as simple as that.

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Posted By: John

Why do I choose not to use PSA its easy two words…CHILD LABOR!

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Posted By: Josh K.

LOL

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

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Posted By: Wp

The Mayo says it all, utter incompetance.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

so why have the Mayo ad there

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Posted By: barrysloate

Who would even dare send that Mayo in to be graded? You couldn't possibly expect it to get a grade- but you would be wrong. Did Mayo issue a set of minis?

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Posted By: Wp

Its almost as rediculous as the Honus/Henie Wagner PSA 2. Any scans?

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Posted By: Judge Dred

PSA has also graded an N172 Billy Sunday with the ad cut off the bottom. They've placed a T201 in a holder - FOLDED. The list goes on.... lets not forget about the Wrong "Hans" Wagner PSA labeled incorrectly.

Is this a PSA bashing thread? The funny thing is that I haven't seen too much in the way of SGC errors in grading. Does anyone have any examples to share?

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Posted By: leon

I returned a trimmed T213-1 to a bad ebayer and argued for weeks. I think I even posted it on the board. After it showed up in an SGC holder I called SGC. They said they would have to look at in person to confirm it but it did look suspicious to them. They said it was overpriced so what could they do? I thought it was handled wrong. That is one issue out of thousands of cards I have seen graded by them. Being that they are human I would guess there are more....regards

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Posted By: Wp

This week there is a PSA beauty selling. An E93 Ty Cobb PSA 6, it appears to be blatantly trimmed.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

Seriously, you need to come out of hibernation. The first two sentences in your post totally contradict what you HAD to know would happen. I think there are way too many people on this board who start threads EXACTLY like this one, knowing exactly what they are doing. If this is even a semi-democracy, I vote that Leon immediately removes such blather as soon as it appears.

<<first off, i don't want this thread to turn into a smack talking or grading company war.

that being said, i was wondering why the majority of collectors on Net 54 dislike PSA. >>

edited by leon to say I was going to stop it in it's tracks but some good posts came out in the thread and I will always opt to not censor it it's close....it's just the way I do it...right or wrong...

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Posted By: Jim Crandell

Will comes from a board(LTS) where many consider 1980 vintage and where PSA is considered by many to be infallible.

Virtually all my cards are graded by PSA but I consider them to be third in quality of the three major grading companies.

Over a year ago I submitted nearly 500 cards to PSA that I thought had a shot at psa 8(1960s vintage). Roughly half came back less. A dealer then went through these--broke out about 85 cards that he thought were wrongly graded--and about 85% came back with a higher grade--some went up by 2 or 3 grades.

Like a previous poster, I believe that the quality of their service started deteriorating when they reportedly went to the "one-and-out" system where just one grader looks at a card before it is slabbed.

I think Baker is the premeir grader in the industry overall bbut like a previous poster I think that for pre--war I would rank sgc first. Hooray for Dave Forman for emphasizing quality.

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Posted By: Wp

Agreed. A one and out system is crazy for a service like PSA. The potential for altered cards to get in holders and massive overgrading is huge,

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Posted By: dan mckee

They do not care, it is about volume and money.

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Posted By: PASJD

Three anti PSA posts within the space of maybe 15 minutes!!!

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

I think Dan summed it up very concisely - although it's clear from other posts that he doesn't like PSA, his statement was totally factual.

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Posted By: PASJD

Who said anything about attacking Dan? I was just impressed that he managed to find a way to sound a similar theme on three different threads almost simultaneously.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

someone with "PSA" in their handle posting about someone else making anti-PSA posts...gee, sounded sort of like an attack. But I guess I was wrong - sorry about that!

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Posted By: PASJD

As in my initials (Peter A. Spaeth). Tough on the old eyes though.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

sorry Peter! perhaps I am dyslecix.

In any case, I stick with my defence of Dan - perhaps this one time it was an accident, but his criticism of PSA was factual. Does anyone here really think PSA is purposely alienating customers? It is in fact completely about money and volume - well said Dan.

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

It is about business and however lacking they are in customer service, grading and accuracy, it has not hurt them in their popularity and profitability.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

If PSA exhibited better customer service and improved business practices, they would be more popular and make larger profits.

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

I agree Scott but they have never really demonstrated that since day 1. Collectors have never made them accountable. The dealers submissions are what is keeping the company afloat. The results of the submissions are gobbled up by the consumers (collectors).

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

I have never seen any evidence to the contrary. While it might not have been true at day 1, PSA now has competitors who DO consider customer service and quality. Some collectors are no longer gobbling up PSA slabs - the SGC slabs that are being gobbled up instead represent dollars that PSA could be pocketing. Perhaps at some point those dollars will be significant enough for PSA to change their attitude...but maybe not. Mr. Orlando's "I can do whatever I want" attitude certaily indicates that PSA isn't too concerned about competition.

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

CU has demonstrated plenty of arrogance and I am sure it has cost them, though one would not think so when you look at the Set Registry and the prices being paid for cards (I know we have had that discussion many times over).

I would have thought that certain events that took place would have had a profund impact on CU's marketshare but I just see them continue to shake off bad publicity and leave the competition in the dust.